Chapter 173
Chapter 173
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 173
Chapter Title: The Two Dens
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Another secret location situated on the outskirts of Ballista.
At the entrance to this secret hideout, a bizarre scene was unfolding.
Den, the mage who had been doing laundry outside only to suffer Misha's injustice by being reduced to a pile of ash.
Two men with Den's exact face were bickering affectionately.
"No, I mean, we need to hurry! There's no time to be cautious."
Den spoke in a somewhat feminine tone, snapping at the other Den(?).
"Misha, we're wearing the same face right now. At the very least, we need to take out one more and change our faces to be different."
The other Den was doing his utmost to soothe the feminine one.
These two Dens were none other than Misha and Saladin.
Saladin had used Mimicry, another skill he'd honed while training his Puppets, to transform Mimi and Nene's appearances to match Den's exactly, then draped them over Misha and himself.
Everything had gone smoothly up until the point where the two Dens appeared.
'Ah, damn it. This is driving me insane...'
But Saladin couldn't laugh in this situation.
It was all because Misha was charging ahead recklessly, without a care for what lay before or behind her.
Thanks to the stroke of luck with the pushover who'd been returning from laundry(?), they'd perfectly infiltrated the hidden spot on the fortress outskirts that Misha had mentioned.
At that point, they should have stealthily tracked the enemy, scouted the guard patterns, and proceeded with caution. Instead, this mad, reckless girl had outright set the guy ablaze, turning him into a lump of charcoal.
Wasn't infiltration supposed to be about proceeding secretly, step by step, savoring each discovery?
Yet this pretty girl was tougher than she looked.
As he headed deeper into the tunnel alongside Misha, Saladin couldn't hide his growing anxiety.
"Sigh, fine. Then I'll go ahead and burn one more(?). You hurry up behind me and swap to that guy's face. That work for you?"
Misha strode forward without even waiting for Saladin's reply.
"Damn it, what if there's detection magic or alert spells up ahead...!"
Unlike Saladin, who grumbled with every cautious step, Misha was far ahead, waving her hand impatiently as if urging him on.
"Ah, old man! Are you coming or not?! There's nothing up to here!"
Misha had already finished scouting via her spirits. She sighed as she watched Saladin poke at the surrounding walls.
"Well, you should've said that first..."
Misha furrowed her pretty brow at the grumbling Saladin trailing behind.
'Sigh, seriously. If it weren't for Young Master Jerome's orders, I never would've teamed up with this guy.'
In Misha's eyes, Young Master Saladin was a timid man lacking any bold flair, despite being around the same age as the revered Young Master Jerome.
She already disliked how he hid behind puppets as his main weapon—not very manly—and his excessive caution (which she read as cowardice) only made it worse.
'Ugh, we just don't mesh. Why did Young Master Jerome pair me with him of all people...?'
Two days ago, at the meeting, the Jerome she admired had told her this.
Her spirit arts and Saladin's puppet arts would synergize greatly for stealth operations.
She didn't doubt Saladin's skills, given what she'd heard and seen so far.
Still, his timidity was frustrating just to watch.
'Sigh, whatever. If he's coming, he'll follow.'
Whoosh!
"......"
Saladin sighed and chased after Misha.
Damn it, whatever. It'll work out somehow.
Clack, clack.
The hidden passageway sloped downward generously—far too wide to have been made just for human travel.
Footsteps echoed off the walls, reverberating through the space. This path was clearly intended for another purpose.
'Probably for transporting monsters.'
To gather dozens—no, potentially hundreds—of monsters for research, a facility of substantial size was necessary.
Moreover, considering the strategic value of the ogre soldiers the Empire had deployed during Millia's rescue, they weren't skimping on this research.
'Damn it, can Misha and I really pull this off alone?'
Suddenly, worry crept over Saladin.
Misha might be a spirit mage now, but she was still a child. Based on her reactions so far, there was ample risk she'd get overexcited on her first mission and slip up.
Besides, his power, Puppets, suited one-on-one combat more than chaotic melees.
It wasn't ideal for demolishing a massive facility like this. So why had Jerome specifically sent him and Misha here?
As he pondered Jerome's true intentions, Saladin noticed Misha, who had been striding far ahead, had stopped dead.
"What, why'd you stop...?!"
Mid-sentence, Saladin urgently clamped his mouth shut.
Not because of Misha pressing a finger to her lips, but because he'd sensed it too.
Thud, thud.
The slow, approaching footsteps heading their way.
The monotonous rhythm suggested a single person.
Misha frantically scanned the surroundings.
A straight, massive corridor stretched on with no obvious hiding spots.
'Ugh, no choice...!'
As Misha steeled herself to summon a salamander again, Saladin grabbed her wrist in horror.
'What?! Let go! We need to take him out before he spots us...!'
'Are you insane?! You planning to burn everyone we see? We're here to infiltrate!'
'Then what do you suggest?'
'Shut up and watch what I do.'
After barely calming the rampaging Misha, Saladin steadied his breath.
He grimaced dramatically and casually rounded the corner.
'Wha...!'
Misha was stunned by Saladin's move but didn't do anything stupid like shout.
She kept her ears open, ready to jump in if needed, as she eavesdropped on Saladin's conversation from around the bend.
"Sniff sniff, damn it. This smell still won't come out?"
The man approaching from the opposite direction chuckled at Saladin, who was sniffing various spots on his robes and grumbling nonstop.
"Heh heh, Den. You went up to the surface defying the Chief's orders, and you couldn't even do the laundry right?"
"Fuck, who is it?!"
"Hey, hey, calm down. It's me, me."
The man raised his hands to soothe Saladin's aggressive reaction, but Saladin only ramped up his response.
The guy hadn't said what Saladin wanted to hear yet.
"Can't you see I'm smelling my robe?! Give me your name before I kill you."
Conveniently mid-sniff on the robe's side, Saladin wasn't even facing forward.
He perfectly mimicked a finicky mage more focused on his clothes than the person in front of him.
The man felt no suspicion from Saladin's demeanor and shrugged.
"Sheesh, one more joke and you're ready to kill. It's Owen, Owen. Hurry inside. You're late for the shift change."
Thump!
The man named Owen patted Saladin's shoulder and tried to brush past. Or so he thought.
"I see. Owen, huh."
"Huh? Wait, why's your voice..."
Fwoosh!
Owen instinctively turned at the unfamiliar voice, only to catch sight of a green mist.
That was the end.
Thud!
As Owen collapsed, dissolving under Nene's poison, Saladin applied Mimicry to the corpse. The Nene guise draped over Saladin slowly shifted from Den to Owen.
"You can come out now, Misha."
"Wh-what? Just now?"
Misha stammered, still processing.
"What?"
"No, earlier. The robe... smell... anyway! D-did you know him?!"
Her flustered words tumbled out incoherently.
Pfft.
'Still just a kid.'
Saladin savored a slight edge(?) over the formerly anxious Misha.
"Nah, nothing special. Remember that guy we found at the outskirts earlier? He had two sets of the same clothes, like you and I saw. Plus, while he was looking around, he kept sniffing his robes. Figured he was obsessed with the smell."
"Just from that...?"
"Not just that. Rough face, sickly build. People like that tend to be prickly. I acted based on my guess of his personality, and it paid off."
Misha couldn't hide her astonishment at Saladin's casual explanation.
"What if he'd caught on?"
"Low chance. It's the day Jerome's group officially moves out—they wouldn't be on edge after hiding so long. Especially not mages who aren't even knights."
It seemed haphazard at first, but his reasoning layered possibilities into a sound judgment.
"Oh, and you're Den right now. I'm Owen. Looks like I was coming to relieve you. Keep some distance as you follow."
"......"
Misha's inner image of Saladin shifted dramatically at how swiftly he'd extracted all that intel.
'...No wonder Young Master Jerome paired us up.'
Maybe he was worth trusting, just a little.
* * *
How much farther did they descend the passageway after encountering the man called Owen?
Faint light leaked from the distant end of the path.
No natural light could reach this deep underground.
That had to be the monster research lab Jerome had mentioned.
Misha didn't rush ahead and instead summoned Sylph.
'Sylph, scout inside quietly. Be as stealthy as possible.'
Whooo!
The wind swirling around Misha flowed toward the light.
Sharing Sylph's vision, Misha saw a truly grotesque sight—far more intimate than the overhead view from the earth spirit Gnome days ago.
Bubble bubble!
Rectangular stone coffins bubbled with the same reagents as before.
But the contents inside were the issue.
Ogrees, gnolls, orcs, trolls...
Nude monsters of all kinds floated with eyes closed, pickling in the reagents.
Mages in robes identical to Misha's and Saladin's roamed around, scribbling notes.
'Th-this scale...'
If every coffin she'd seen from above held monsters like these, and if they were all militarized for war as Jerome said—what then?
A chill ran down her spine; she didn't even want to imagine it.
Kwaaaagh!
'?!'
At that moment, a troll in the coffin to Sylph's left began shrieking.
The cause was obvious.
An elderly mage atop the coffin was adding reagents.
The troll inside slowly melted as the mage's mixture entered.
Grk... grrrk...
Soon, only thin liquid remained, as if nothing had been there.
"Tch. Can't even withstand Arachne's poison? This was the best for control."
"It's the toxicity, Chief. When something that potent enters directly, control isn't the issue—monsters just melt like that."
"Hmm, tricky. Tia endured Arachne's poison just fine..."
"Ogres have top-tier poison resistance among monsters. Can't apply the same standard to the others."
"Then mass-producing with Arachne's poison for ogres?"
"Unfortunately, no. Tia's resistance was off the charts."
"Damn, thought emptying those thick skulls would be easy, but control's giving us hell."
The chief mage scratched his head vigorously.
Misha couldn't grasp every detail of their talk, but she wasn't a fool.
She understood the gist from context.
'Their monster research has progressed a lot.'
Not only stripping wills, but they'd secured control agents tailored to various monsters' traits.
'Come back, Sylph.'
Misha ordered Sylph's return and pondered with Saladin how to destroy the facility.
But at that exact moment—
As she recalled Sylph and severed the vision link, a chilling sensation hit.
The old mage experimenting on the monster had stared right at Sylph's position and unleashed a barrage of Magic Missiles.
His gaze, like peering into the abyss, sent involuntary shivers down Misha's spine.
Pew pew pew pew!
Sylph vanished just as the missiles rained down—nearly simultaneous.
"What is it, Chief?"
Chief Mage Gildre, who had abruptly blasted where Misha's Sylph had been, eyed the spot oddly before turning to his assistant at the question.
"...Nothing. Nothing at all."