Slayers

The Flowers of Battle Bloom in the Night of Solaria

Continued from here:  Please refrain from copying QP/Diana"s translation here without her consent.)

The night in Solaria was unusually busy. Given the disturbances which had been going on for almost two days, the noisy town seemed natural.

Many onlookers gathered at the place where we had fought. The guards were busy keeping them at bay while they conducted their investigation of the scene.

We saw them while flying through the night sky.

Our destination was the same shrine that Gourry and I had previously sneaked into. The situation was not entirely the same though, since it wasn’t just the two of us - and most importantly, this time we came looking for a fight, not for clues.

There was a chance that there would be some important facilities in the bas.e.m.e.nt of this castle, like equipment for creating mazoku-human chimeras like Zord and Zain.

Our purpose: Destroy them completely.

Of course, we had thought earlier about just invading the castle, tying up Laavas, making him confess everything and bringing down the bad guy for good.

To tell the truth, I was the one who suggested that plan, but Millina protested against it. As far as we knew, Laavas certainly was the most suspicious one, but we didn"t have hard evidence against him, either. Millina said that we could not go through with this as long as there was a chance that Laavas was not the real mastermind.

Millina also blew me off coldly when I mentioned that if Laavas turned out to be innocent, we could just say “Oh, sorry, my mistake! ♡ Hohoho!”

So that was why we chose to target the facilities of this castle instead. Regardless of whether Laavas was harboring any dark secrets, it was clear that the place was an important base for the masked men in black.

We could kill two birds with one stone by weakening the enemy"s power while also getting some clues about the revolt. What was more, the place could be empty right now because the men in black - Zain included - could have left the premises to report to their ‘boss’. Because our fight took place right before, they wouldn’t expect us to attack right now, so the timing was great to catch them with their guard down. All in all, it was a really good chance for us.

"There it is," I murmured quietly from inside the wind barrier.

There was the shrine building, which had a dome-shaped roof. Directing my spell, I steered us towards it.

Though the darkness of the night and the swirling wind from the barrier surrounding us made it hard to count the number of guards, I could make out that there were fewer of them than last time.

The four of us touched down on the roof.

"Millina. Cast another barrier of wind to surround us."

"What for?"

"Noise."

It seemed like she caught my drift from that one word. Chanting, she created a wind barrier around us.

And then..

"Dam Bra.s.s!”

Kwaaang!

The destructive force of my magic made the roof collapse inwards. The thundering sound was all but erased by the barrier of wind surrounding us. We headed inside the building through the hole using Levitation. Just like before, we could only see darkness; but this time, it wasn’t a problem if we went about the whole thing a bit more violently.

When I was about to chant a spell to create light in front of us, however--

--suddenly we heard a big commotion.

"What happened?"

"You! Don"t move!"

The door which led out of the room swung open, and a bunch of guards began rushing through it, shouting.

"H... How did they find us?! Even though we muted all the noise?"

"They heard a pile of rocks falling down in here, maybe?" Luke answered sarcastically to my embarra.s.sed yell of a question.

d.a.m.n… So that was it...

The barrier could only erase the sounds directed outside, beyond the roof, but it might not have been able to m.u.f.fle the noise of the roof collapsing into the building.

It might’ve been a really loud crash...

Hmph-hmph! It’s useless to regret past events now!

I chanted a spell quickly and fired it at the soldiers who were advancing on us with long steps, turning the the arranged chairs to the side.

"Sleeping!"

Thump-thump! The soldiers fell down on the floor one after another, like a row of dominoes."

I figured there were no human magicians like Zain and Zord among them, because they succ.u.mbed to deep sleep easily. Even more soldiers dashed into the room, but the spells Millina and I cast put them to sleep too, and the few who escaped our spells were knocked down by attacks from Gourry and Luke.

In the end, only the unconscious bodies of the soldiers remained around us, lined up in a neat row.

Last time, there had also been two of the masked men in black around, but they weren’t here this time. I could only guess it might have had something to do with the timing of our invasion, but there might have been some other reason we didn’t know about. Like, for instance, that they had made preparations for our attack just now, somewhere down in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Anyhow, I chanted my spell again.

"Lighting!"

The light flared to life. I threw it toward the ceiling, where it remained floating in the air and illuminated the interior of the building.

There were chairs lined up in rows with an aisle running through the center of them, and there was a huge altar set up in front of a statue of a G.o.d.

It looked pretty good to be used as a real chapel. Even looking at it up close, I would never have guessed it was a fake one if there hadn’t been for those guards.

Maybe there was a secret door somewhere, but I didn"t want to waste energy uselessly by trying to find it.

"Dam Bra.s.s!"

--Booom!"

I struck with my amplified spell into the aisle floor!

But it revealed nothing but empty ground, surrounded with ripped-up pieces of the floor.

"d.a.m.n. Not here."

I just hoped that my spell could open a way towards the hidden facilities below. I chanted another one right away.

"Hey... you"re not planning to blow up everything here with magic until you find the right place, are you?" Gourry asked with a pale face.

Of course I wouldn"t do such a silly thing.

I slammed my hand down on the ripped-up floor.

"Bephis Bring!"

With my tunnel-digging magic, I created a long, narrow pa.s.sage into the ground.

I figured that we could find exactly where the hidden facilities were by using that spell a few more times, if I aimed carefully.

But there was no need to cast Bephis Bring twice like that, it turned out.

"Gotcha."

At the end of the tunnel I had just dug right in front of us, a thin ray of light was shining through. As I suspected, those facilities were hidden much deeper in the place.

So after widening the tunnel with the spell again --

W-Wait a second.

Just before I rushed into the hole as quickly as possible using Levitation, I changed my mind and cast another spell instead...

...into the tunnel.

"Fireball!"

Boooom!

Paying attention to the withdrawing flame, Luke and Millina descended into the hole using the Levitation spell. Gourry and I followed them using Levitation, too.

There was nothing there except for a straight corridor. Parts of the wall were blackened by my fireball.

I casted that spell because of the sudden feeling that we might be walking into an ambush, but no one was here. On the other hand, I could have just invited more enemies with the sound of the explosion...

Anyway, in this narrow place, it could give us a hard time if enemies started pouring in with swords drawn. So it was better to move somewhere else as quickly as possible.

I chanted a spell again.

"Dam Bra.s.s!"

-- Boooom!

By guess, I blew out one side of the wall.

I have surprisingly good guessing skills!

There was a pretty huge place beyond the hole in the wall.

As we dashed in there, not checking what was inside beforehand..

"Ah.... Ah...?"

Inside the huge room, there were five men wearing the clothes of a sorcerer. Their faces were full of fear, and they were staring us with wide eyes. They did not look like the type of magicians who blow up stuff here and there. They seemed more like simple researchers.

But it was not only the sorcerers that were there.

In the room, there were a number of crystal tubes used in the creation of chimeras. And in the tubes filled with life-sustaining liquid--

This might have been among the “fruits” of the mazoku-chimera research. A man with a half-human, half-lesser demon body was floating in a tube. There was also a woman whose neck was transformed into an abnormal form, and a child possessing a distorted body.

It was beyond doubt that they - these people, who were human once - did not become materials for this experiment by their own free will.

"YOU b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" With a sudden cry, Luke seized one of nearest mages by the scruff of his neck.

"Uh...uhhhhhh!"

A sorcerer, who was close to the door opposite to us, hastily stretched his arm towards the k.n.o.b.

A metallic sound pierced the room. A knife could be seen embedded into his back, thrown by Luke.

“Aagh!” The sorcerer"s body collapsed weakly to the floor.

"Don"t move, if you don"t want to end up like him." The magicians were frozen as they felt the seriousness in Luke"s voice. "Tell everything you know. If you don’t, I will break all of your fingers one by one. If you still refuse, I will kill you and ask another person."

His eyes were smouldering with anger. If we let him do what he wants, he would carry out his threats - but none of us could think of volunteering to stop Luke, after seeing what were in those crystal tubes.

"I...I"ll tell! I"ll tell you everything I know!" Recognizing that silence was useless, or just losing his nerve, the mage in Luke’s grasp shouted suddenly. "We... We were forced to conduct experiments here! They were about melding a summoned mazoku with a human!"

What!??

I could feel a kind of a weight descend upon me, hearing the magician"s words.

"The experiments involved seeing what would happen to a child if he, with his unestablished ego, would be subjected to the spirit; or what effects would it have on a mature man or woman, how their talents, apt.i.tude, appearance would change..."

"I don"t care about the details of this blasted experiment," Luke silenced the mage; his words were quiet, but full of fury. "Who ordered you to do this?!"

The magician hesitated a little on the question before answering,

"L...Lord Laavas ordered us.."

So, it’s just as we thought...

"Of course... So, you sons of b.i.t.c.hes did these d.a.m.n human experiments only to obey Lord Laavas, right?"

"Tha...That was an order! It... It was not my fault!"

Hugh...

Luke"s expression turned positively dangerous as he listened to the unapologetic mage’s confession.

"So, the girl floating there volunteered by herself? It’s not your fault if it was an order from someone? Then I guess if someone ordered me to kill you, that wouldn’t be my fault either."

"Ah...!"

Following the dull sound of impact, the magician shivered quietly.

Me and Gourry gasped at the same time. Where the heck did he hide that?

In a blink, Luke violently stabbed the mage’s chest with a dagger he seized with his other hand. When he loosened his grip on the magician’s collar, his body flopped down to the ground weakly.

"That was too much, Luke."

"What are you talking about, Millina? You already saw what they did!" Luke repelled her quiet attempt at persuasion in an aggressive tone, very unlike the way he usually spoke to her. "They simply thought they were not at fault at all, just because they were ordered to! I can’t just let these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds--!"

"We have another one to take care of first, don"t we?"

Listening to Millina, Luke clenched his teeth with a jarring sound.

"When I witness a scene like this, I just feel sick of humans..."

"I"m a human. And so are you."

His tense shoulders relaxed a little after hearing Millina"s words.

"S...So... then... what about these..." As Luke glanced towards the sorcerers, they hunched together, full of fear.

But then...

"Sleeping!"

They fell asleep thanks to the spell I chanted quickly.

"How about leaving them here like this?" I suggested.

"Hmmh..." Luke answered with an embittered laugh. Although his anger had not died down yet, he would not try to kill people who were sleeping.

“So, now that we decided who’s the bad guy we need to defeat, let’s sneak into the castle and get rid of Laavas immediately! After that, there would be enough time to think of what to do with these guys.”

“Well... There’s one more thing we have to deal with before walking out of this place,” Gourry told us while watching the hole I had made into the wall.

“Enemies?”

“Yep. They’re already here.” Eyeing the side of the pa.s.sage, he drew his sword. “It looks like they were hiding both in the literal sense and also tried to mask their presence; the room is already surrounded.”

“How could you know about that?” Luke cast a doubtful look towards Gourry.

I guess it would have been strange to tell him to trust someone’s intuition, but Gourry’s wild instincts had never failed since I’ve met him.

So, as the room was surrounded already, the strategy we have to take is... Oh, I got it!

I chanted my spell immediately.

“Alright. Let’s do this quickly! I’m fed up with all of this anyway!” Luke shouted, cheering himself up as he went to the side of door and pulled out his dagger which was stuck in the mage’s back.

At that moment--

--Bang!

With a great explosion, the door was blown off its hinges and flew inside the room. Maybe someone from the outside cast a spell like ‘Dam Bra.s.s’ at it.

Just as I thought!

In the same moment, I created a shield of wind around the door frame. We could hear the roar of the wind as the shield pulsed, its outer layer becoming tinted with burning crimson from the Fireball sent by our enemies.

They probably tried to get rid of us all at once by breaking down the door and throwing a ball of fire inside in quick succession. Of course that also meant that they wanted to kill the mages who were supposedly on their side as well.

If we tried to escape by running out to the corridor through the hole in the wall, the men who were waiting for us there would strike at us with their swords. The reason why they didn’t attack us immediately was likely that they were trying to set up a blockade.

But what they did not count on was Gourry’s sharp intuition!

At that moment, the flame withdrew from the door frame, I dispelled the shield of wind from around us - and with quick steps, Gourry dashed towards the door!

Nodding to each other, Luke and Millina started running after him. I was going to follow them too, but at that moment, I was struck by an idea and added a few little tricks to the room first.

Following the others, I came to a chamber much wider than the last one. Like before, this place was filled with suspicious devices, the function of which I couldn’t tell, and also some crystal tubes we had seen earlier, arranged irregularly.

There were around ten masked men in black in the room.

Either because they thought they had managed to deal with us and got caught by surprise, or just because they were that incompetent, two of the masked men were already down for the count on the floor.

Just as another one of them got pushed back after clashing swords with Gourry... all of a sudden, yet another masked man dashed forward from behind an empty crystal tube, attacking Gourry with his weapon from the side!

That won’t be as easy as you think!

After pushing the opponent he was engaging with his sword away, Gourry took a step back and spun around his left foot; using this momentum, the circular strike of his sword penetrated the man’s defences and struck his stomach. As his opponent staggered back, Gourry kicked him towards his fellow, the one who tried to ambush him. Surprised, the other masked man was pushed off balance by his stumbling comrade - and in that moment, Gourry sliced both of them at once!

While he was fighting, and a combination attack from Luke and Millina just managed to knock down another masked man, I managed to complete my spell.

“Gaaah---!!”

The sound of collapsing rock came from behind, accompanied by cries of shock.

Heh, heh. They took my bait.

“Fireball!”

I launched my spell towards the masked men in black who were caught in the collapsing floor-trap I set up at the hole in the wall in the previous room.

---Boom!!

Naturally, they had no way of evading it. Directly hit by my spell, the masked men in black were blasted away in all directions.

That was the trap I had set a moment ago. I thought that the men who were waiting in the corridor would try to get here through the hole, so I dug a tunnel with Bephis Bring right under it. Only a very thin layer of rock remained under the floor, which collapsed immediately once someone stepped on it.

The masked men in black waiting in corridor might have ran in because they were confused that the fight was already underway, even though the Fireball thrown by their fellows failed to detonate in here.

Still, I only managed to catch a few; more enemies were bound to appear through the hole soon.

Okay, then I’ll handle this room, and leave the men in black in the second room to the others! It was a relief that there were no half-mazoku chimeras around this time, but they could still suddenly run us down from that direction.

Therefore, we needed to decrease the number of enemies right now.

“Blast Ash!”

Following a grayish flash, my spell turned five masked men into dust at once.

Wouldn’t this be a great opportunity for the enemy to throw a Fireball into the room?

In that case...

I started chanting a spell.

Before I finished, one of the masked men in black showed up at the hole in the wall - and in his hand, there was an orange-colored ball of light.

As I suspected... Man, good thing I’m already prepared for it!

“Fireball!”

“Diem Wind!”

We shot the two spells almost at the same time.

Once it collided with my spell, the Fireball exploded immediately with a burst of flame, but it did not have enough power to overwhelm the air currents of the Diem Wind. The man in black probably did not expect this, but the flames began to turn upon him. He seemed to notice what was happening, but could not move away, because the Diem Wind kept him at bay as well.

In the end...

Boooooom!!

…the masked man in black was burnt to crisp by his own Fireball.

Alright! After this attack, the men standing in the corridor will think twice before rushing in like that!

So to take advantage of the delay...

I tried to chant my next spell, but at that moment, a dangerous presence appeared not far from me!

Suddenly, a shadow took form at the center of the room!

To warp s.p.a.ce like that, that means...

“Zain?”

“Sorry to keep you waiting for so long.”

Human and mazoku.

The black form of the man who possessed the skills of both species was towering right in front of me.