The Witch's Chamber
"There's nothing here."
Just as Yeon said, the boss room stood utterly empty. The cavern was large enough to hold a soccer field; by all rights it should have been packed with a queen ant the size of a house and the soldier ants sworn to guard her. Instead it yawned vacant, as though those creatures had never existed at all.
"It would seem someone claimed it first."
"Is that even possible?"
Yeon tilted her head at Choco's words, and the doubt was fair enough. The two of them had been hunting for a long while on the floor just above the boss room. They had not been watching the clock, but they had been camped there for an hour at the very least. The idea that someone had slipped past them, killed the boss, and left without their noticing seemed absurd.
When Yeon put that question to her, Choco answered as if it were nothing at all.
"They must have slain it long before we even came down to hunt. Judging by the fact that it still has not respawned, the kill was relatively recent."
The Black Wolf Pack, boss of Lucifen Forest, respawned within two hours of being killed. The Kobold King took three. The Armor Ant Queen they had come to hunt ran on a similar timer, so it was hardly strange that someone else had already taken her down and gone.
Having explained as much to Yeon, Choco folded her arms and muttered,
"Still. I never imagined there would be players hunting bosses out here."
It was not as though the boss belonged to anyone in particular, but if anyone was going to hunt it, Choco had assumed it would be them. The rewards for a successful kill were considerable — yet it ate a great deal of time, and a single mistake could cost you hours you might have spent leveling. That someone had gone through with it suggested they were not only skilled, but a rather daring new crop of players. People with a stable route already in hand rarely went looking for the riskier play.
She was still turning that over when Yeon spoke up, worry creeping into her voice.
"So what do we do? Do we just head back?"
"We shall have to. Even if it was slain some time ago, we can hardly sit here waiting for it to appear."
Even if the other party had never crossed their path, they would likely be waiting at least another hour. They could always kill soldier ants on the floor above in the meantime, but the Armor Ant Queen's rewards were not generous enough to justify that kind of lingering. They had hunted the Kobold King because a handful of circumstances had lined up just so. They had never set out with the intention of killing every boss they came across.
"That's a little disappointing…"
Yeon murmured it under her breath and began to wander the cavern. She had only started to enjoy hunting in earnest after Gezina's Forest, and she had a particular fondness for boss fights. She had only been through two of them, but the way a boss moved — the satisfying bite of a well-placed cut — was something else entirely compared to ordinary monsters. She had been quietly looking forward to this one. Now it had slipped away.
Watching her drift about the cavern with disappointment dripping from every step, Choco spoke up.
"What can one do? Disappointing though it may be, moving on would be the wiser course. Besides, a city awaits us there — one where you may properly learn a class or skills."
"A city?"
"Indeed. A city called Nateera."
Nateera, the City of Mines. True to that name, it was a place riddled with countless shafts and veins of gold, and for that reason it was the wealthiest city in the whole of the Yelloy region. Unlike the backwater of Lucifen Village or the bleak, martial atmosphere of Yelloy Barrier Fortress, Nateera was developed enough that it would not have looked shabby beside a modern city — and as a place where money gathered, it was a hub of logistics and trade as well.
It was a great city, with people coming and going by the hundreds every day, and dozens of carriages rolling in and out with them. Those carriages came from every corner of the continent, and from Nateera they fanned back out across it again. To set foot in the City of Mines was, in a very real sense, proof that one had truly begun Al Fantasia. Unlike Lucifen or the Barrier Fortress, where travel was tightly restricted, from Nateera you could go anywhere on the continent you pleased — even to hunting grounds well above your level.
…Not that we could actually go to a place like that.
Choco herself could hunt perfectly well in grounds above the recommended level. As she had noted more than once, her stats and the raw power of her skills were already on par with a player in the triple digits. But if they went somewhere like that, Yeon would be left sitting on the sidelines, twiddling her thumbs. Yeon was stronger than other players of her level, that much was true — but she was strong within that range, not strong enough to punch into the brackets far above it. Even when they had first started hunting soldier ants, she had not been piercing their shells. She had been aiming for the soft vital points.
No — perhaps she could?
Yeon made it look effortless, but targeting nothing but vital points was no easy thing. They were called vital points for a reason: they sat in awkward, well-protected places, and the moment you went for one the monster reacted with everything it had. With that kind of ability, Yeon might well be able to hunt in higher-level grounds without too much trouble.
Choco turned it over a little longer, then shook her head.
…No. Even so, it would be too much.
Even if it were possible, the fatigue from every single fight would pile up far too fast. Their leveling might accelerate, but the strain it would put on Yeon would be enormous, and that was not a trade Choco was willing to make.
She thought as much, and turned to say something to Yeon, who was still drifting aimlessly about the cavern. Or rather — she started to.
"…Yeon? Why are you doing that?"
"Hm? Doing what?"
"I mean why you have been swaying about this whole time."
"Swaying? What are you talking abou— eek?!"
Yeon looked down at herself as if she genuinely had not noticed, and startled at the sight of her own body rocking gently forward and back.
"Wh-what the—?! Why is my body moving on its own?"
"Disappointed though you may be… swaying about like that is rather difficult to watch with a straight face…"
"Th-that's not— I'm not doing this because I want to, okay?!"
Yeon shouted it with a look of pure injustice, aimed at Choco, who had covered her face with one hand as though the sight were too unsightly to bear. Of course Choco knew Yeon was not doing it on purpose. But it was funny, was it not? Watching someone bob back and forth like a restless bird and keeping a straight face was simply beyond her. She had covered her face to hide the fact that she was laughing — to hide the corners of her mouth, which had already begun to twitch upward. Yeon seemed to catch the shift in the air, because her expression flattened.
"Choco."
"What— pfft—what is it?"
"Take your hand down."
"Ahem. Rather than that, open your inventory, if you would. The cause should be in there."
"No, take your hand down first."
At the sight of Yeon walking steadily toward her, Choco abandoned the one-handed cover and hid her entire face behind both palms. A muffled snickering leaked out between her fingers. Yeon did not hesitate. She brought the edge of her hand down on the top of Choco's head.
"Eep."
"I'm over here freaking out, and you're just snickering by yourself… that's so mean."
But it really was funny — what was she supposed to do about that? Choco grumbled as she cradled the spot she had been struck. She kept it to herself, of course. If she said it out loud, Yeon would well and truly sulk.
Having delivered her justice, Yeon patted at the empty air in front of her and asked,
"Anyway, I just need to check my inventory?"
"Yes. As a rule, that sort of twitching is a sign that an item in your inventory is trying to get out."
If it had been something she was wearing, it would have slipped free at once instead of making her jerk about like that. The fact that it had only kept twitching meant it was still inside the inventory.
And just as she had predicted, the instant Yeon opened it, something burst out.
"Whoa—!"
It came rushing straight at her face. Yeon yelped and toppled backward — and would have gone all the way down if a slab of hardened air had not caught her, leaving her reclining in midair as though she had simply lain back on an invisible couch. The one responsible inquired,
"Are you all right?"
"Y-yeah. Thanks. More importantly, what just flew out?"
"It was long, and rather like a stick."
"A stick?"
Yeon rummaged through her memory. The only sticks she could think of were the antennae they had been collecting off the Armor Ants. But that did not seem right. If it had been those, dozens of them should have come boiling out at once, not a single one.
She was still wondering what else it could be when Choco pointed and said,
"The Witch's Staff."
"The Witch's Staff?"
Now that she mentioned it, they had put something like that away. It was the piece of equipment Choco had received as a reward for killing the Kobold King. It had worked perfectly well when the Kobold mage was using it, then gone completely dead the moment it came into their hands. They had tossed it into a corner of the inventory and forgotten it entirely. Since Choco, its original owner, could not use an inventory, it had naturally ended up in Yeon's — and there it had stayed, thoroughly out of mind.
Yeon turned her head, and sure enough, not far away, a single staff lay trapped inside a chunk of ice.
"Why is it frozen, though?"
"It was rolling off somewhere, so I stopped it."
"Ahh…"
Yeon made a small sound of understanding, righted herself, and walked over to the frozen staff. Even locked in ice and unable to do a thing, it kept giving little twitches.
"Why did this thing suddenly come out?"
"Who can say? We shall know soon enough once we release it."
With that, Choco melted the ice she had used to cage it. It vanished as quickly as it had formed. The staff, as if it had been waiting for exactly that, began to roll. Thanks to the magic stone jutting from its head, it clunked with every turn. The two of them followed it at an unhurried pace.
"You said it was the Witch's Staff, so… maybe it has something to do with the witch?"
"Perhaps so."
It was, after all, the staff the now-sealed witch had once used. It might well lead them to her. If it were not going to do something like that, there was no reason for it to have burst out and started behaving this way.
I never thought we would find her this quickly, of all places.
They had obtained the staff in the Kobold colony, so it had been reasonable to assume the witch was somewhere nearby. Even so, Choco had not imagined they would run into her this soon — and least of all in an empty boss room.
That said, that could have gone badly.
Yeon's body jerking about like a dance had been a funny little mishap only because they had not been in combat. If it had happened in the middle of a boss fight, it might have been dangerous. Picture it: you dodge by a hair's breadth and go to land a counter, and in that exact instant your body lurches on its own. A blow you could have avoided slams into you clean. Once, you might weather it. But if that hit landed true — if it caught a vital point — you would be looking at a six-hour kick from the game.
All in all, they had been lucky, and there was no other way to put it.
"It stopped."
At Yeon's words, Choco pulled herself out of her thoughts and looked over. The staff was clunking against the wall, over and over, as if trying to knock its way through.
"A seal, you say?"
Tara's voice arrived so suddenly that Choco answered without thinking.
"Can it be broken?"
"A catalyst?"
Strike with this? Choco picked up the staff, which was still knocking itself against the wall. The pull toward the stone nearly dragged her arm with it, but she put some strength into her grip and it settled down soon enough.
Would it even work? She had poured spiritual energy into it before and gotten no response at all. She was still turning that over when Yeon tilted her head and asked,
"Were you just talking to Tara?"
"Ah. You noticed?"
"When you suddenly start talking to yourself, it's pretty much always that…"
Was it? Choco scratched her head, feeling oddly self-conscious.
"So what did Tara say?"
"She said to pour power into this and strike with it."
"And that's supposed to do it?"
"So she claims… We have little choice but to try, do we not?"
So saying, Choco breathed spiritual energy into the staff and added,
"It may be rather loud, so come behind me."
"Ah — okay."
The moment she saw Yeon scramble around behind her, she swung.
It was not nearly as loud as Choco had expected. Plip — with the sound of a falling droplet, what they had taken for a wall melted away. A faint light spilled out with it.
An ice pillar, resembling crystal at a glance, occupied the greater part of the chamber beyond. It was so clear one could see straight through it — and within, a figure that appeared to be a woman lay with her eyes closed, as if merely asleep.
"A person…?"
The word had barely left Yeon's lips when the magic stone in the staff Choco was holding shot forward. The instant it touched the ice pillar, the woman's closed eyes opened.