The Water Flea's Resolve
A water flea's sonic boom echoed once. No, several times. "Damn it! Damn it all!" Apis hurled her empty quiver to the ground in frustration and suddenly exploded in rage. Broken arrows lay scattered everywhere like spent matchsticks. Even without her grief-stricken expression, it was obvious they were all marks of failure.
"I hit it with Spirit Arrows and even the Explosive Bow, and it didn't budge an inch! What the hell is that thing? This beggar-rag of a wall!"
Her tone was rough, but her point was valid. Spirit magic was the exclusive domain of elves. Combined with Apis's strength honed to its absolute limit, the power of her Spirit Arrows rivaled a cannon. Moreover, the Explosive Bow was her trump card, strong enough to pierce dragon scales in a single strike. If the situation hadn't been so dire, I wouldn't have been surprised to hear a harsh rebuke fly from my own mouth about firing something like that in the middle of the city.
"How could you shoot something so dangerous in the city! What if someone gets hurt?" The nun, clutching her ears as though a bomb had gone off nearby, scolded Apis in a tearful voice.
"Ah, shut up! Then what? My comrade is trapped in there! You want me to just stand around and watch?"
Though Apis snapped back harshly, her face was just as tear-streaked. There was no doubt that the black pillar swallowing an entire building whole was some kind of dungeon. Dungeons were subspaces born when mana, normally scattered through the air like ordinary atmosphere, gathered excessively in one location for unknown reasons. Since mana itself was the foundation of every supernatural power in this world, the forms and characteristics of dungeons were so varied and diverse that even in this ancient capital, no complete definition had ever been established.
Dungeons teeming with vicious monsters like cockroaches were actually the tame ones. Lava could surge like waves, gravity could twist, space-time could distort, and poisons or curses could spew endlessly. They were open jars crammed full of every wicked thing imaginable. That was the impression dungeons gave me.
Among them were special types said to exist: endless towers, inescapable labyrinths, ships crewed by corpses. And among those anomalous dungeons, those that appeared in cycles of hundreds of years and shook the very foundations of the world were revered and feared by humanity as "Demon Kings."
"If we could just get inside somehow!" Apis suddenly offered a suggestion, and I silently nodded in agreement. The only way to destroy a dungeon once it appeared was to break the dungeon core inside it. That was an immutable law our party had proven through countless trials. A dungeon that lost its core would enter dormancy until the core regenerated, the duration depending on the dungeon's size and danger level—anywhere from a week to several hundred years. Humanity had survived this long precisely because, whenever a Demon King appeared every few centuries, the Hero blessed with the Saintess's Grace would shatter its core.
But that was only possible if one could actually enter the dungeon. We'd seen plenty of dungeons that made leaving difficult once you were inside, but a dungeon that so stubbornly rejected outside intrusion was something none of us—who prided ourselves on having seen more varieties than anyone else alive—had ever encountered. So it was only natural that Apis grew impatient in the face of this hopeless situation. While we hesitated outside, no one knew what dangers the Hero might be facing within.
Yet strangely, the graver the situation became, the calmer my mind grew. While Apis had been firing arrows nonstop at the black pillar, I had been staring blankly at her relentless efforts for a reason. I felt like I could do something. An inexplicable surge of confidence welled up from deep within my thoughts like a rising tide, and I couldn't explain it any other way.
Step by step.
"Huh?"
"Priest?"
My silent approach toward the black pillar must have looked suspicious. Both the nun and Apis turned their gazes sharply toward me. Those stares twisted into shock the instant I placed my hand on the black wall before me.
"Hey—!!!"
"Priest—!!"
Plop. Like tossing a pebble into a wide lake, faint ripples spread across the entire black wall centered on where my hand touched. Then the mysterious patterns the Saintess had engraved on my right arm began to glow brilliantly. In that moment, I gained certainty about the vague intuition I'd felt.
As expected, they were resonating. The faint white energy dwelling within my body was resonating with the power of the black wall before me. Their waveforms and branches might differ, but I could declare with certainty that they had grown from the same root. I couldn't explain why. All of this was simply the result of blindly entrusting my body to an intuition that, even upon reflection, was full of holes—because it just felt that way. Not instinct, not even intuition. "A sixth sense rising from the soul" was probably the closest description.
While I was having such trivial thoughts, my hand began to be sucked layer by layer into the darkness.
"Hey! You! What are you doing right now!"
"P-Priest!"
It felt as though someone beyond the darkness was roughly pulling my hand. A sense of powerlessness, as if my body and mind were slowly sinking into a bottomless abyss, threatened to swallow me whole.
"Ghh!" Apis grabbed my arm in a panic, but it was already too late. My body, which had shown not even a hint of resistance, had long since been more than halfway consumed by the black pillar.
"Hey! Are you crazy!? How do you even know what's in there, going in alone like that!"
"Yeah... I'm already starting to regret it..."
"No, more importantly, how! How did you get in!? I fired dozens of arrows and that wall didn't even twitch...!"
"When pushing doesn't work, try pulling—that's the wisdom of our ancestors..."
"You lunatic! I'm not in the mood for jokes! Shut your mouth and get out of there right now!"
Apis raised her voice, clearly displeased with my flippant attitude as I continued to be sucked into the wall while cracking pointless jokes.
"N-No! Don't! Priest!"
The nun, who had joined late, also tried to help pull me out, but if Apis's strength couldn't do it, one more person wasn't going to change anything. It was like placing an ant on top of an elephant in a tug-of-war—nothing would be different.
"Do you even know where that is, going in alone!? You're weak as it is! Get out right now! You saw what happened to Victim and Dawna! In an ordinary dungeon you were already struggling just to breathe, so what exactly do you think you can do!? You've already used up today's miracle too!"
"P-Priest! Regis Priest! Th-That's right! I'll go call for help right now, so just wait a little! Just a little!"
Every single one of Apis's rebukes was correct. Even if the Hero desperately needed help right now, the gap between her and me was greater than that between an elephant and an ant—more like a dinosaur and a water flea. I was fully aware that even if I went to help her after already using up today's miracle, I might only get in the way. But...
"Apis."
What could I do? My body had already moved. And besides, who knew? Maybe even a water flea could do something only a water flea could do.
"Looks like I lost the bet. There's no post office around here, so I'll deliver the letter to the Hero myself."
"You...!"
My awkward smile, forcing the corners of my trembling lips downward, was clearly reflected in Apis's golden eyes. I was a grown man, after all. If this might be the end, I wanted to at least look cool doing it—but forcing something I wasn't used to doing made my body creak awkwardly.
After staring into my eyes for a long while, Apis seemed to sense something. She slowly released my hand.
"If you die, I'll kill you..."
"A-Apis!? Why are you letting go!?"
I tried to tell the shocked nun to calm down, but the darkness had already swallowed my lips, so I gave up on mediating. Thus, conveying my gratitude to Apis with only my eyes for understanding my intentions, I soon surrendered myself without regret to whatever lay beyond the darkness that desired my body.
"Priest—!!!"
The nun's muffled voice, as though heard underwater, faintly brushed my ears. If I'd known it would come to this, I should've touched those breasts to my heart's content.
"Puhaha."
Right after laughing self-deprecatingly at myself for having such trivial thoughts even in what might be my final moment, the world went dark.