"Now, let"s hurry. The chief elder might stand in our way before we can face off the esteemed highest minister."
"H... hey, is it okay leaving the knight commander like that?"
I asked after getting beside her in a half-run and Integrity Knight Alice casually spoke with a keen light in her left eye.
"That would be settled if we string up the chief elder, Chudelkin, and get him to release the art... or perhaps if we cut him down."
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The thought that I definitely didn"t want this knight back as my enemy crossed my mind as I walked on, enduring the weight of the two swords.
Alice and I stopped upon returning to the ninety-fifth floor, "Morning Star Lookout", after running through another five floors worth of stairs, though against gravity this time round.
Unlike me, breathing hard due to the Blue Rose Sword hanging off the right of my waist, the great integrity knight had that unchanging tranquil expression on despite how there shouldn"t be much difference between the weight of our equipment. I could practically feel a chil from her snow white skin and blue eyes, fil ed with resolute determination, as she looked up towards the stairs continuing to the next floor.
"...Listen to me while you catch your breath. The elders shouldn"t be much different from the common folk in terms of close-range combat with weapons, but their sacred arts usage authority exceeds even ours, the integrity knights". Even if the air barely has any sacred power like now, they would likely use catalyst crystals gathered from the rose garden and launch an unending barrage of long-range arts at us."
"For opponents like that... bringing it into close-range, with a sneak attack, would be the norm... huh.
Alice curtly nodded at me when I cut into the conversation while puffing and panting.
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"This is no time to worry about how we fight. It wil be best if we managed to approach without their notice, but there is no guarantee we could. If we were to fail in our surprise attack, I"ll have you charge in while I guard against their sacred arts with my sword"s full control art."
"...So I"m the one attacking, huh..."
With me showing a depressed look at the prospect of fighting against the magic-type enemies that I disliked, Alice"s left eyebrow jerked up and she let loose with that usual sarcasm she had a gift for.
"I won"t mind reversing the roles. But in that case, I"ll have to ask you to defend against those sacred arts."
"Yeah, got it, I"ll do it."
Certainly, my black sword was currently recovering its Life and I wasn"t sure if it could even use its full control art. If possible, I would honestly like to preserve it until the battle against the highest minister. In the first place, my special skill, summoning that huge, umbra-elemental spear that originated from the Gigas Cedar, was lacking in type of functionality the "flower storm" from Alice"s sword had, even if it might have the destructive might to turn a situation around.
Alice solemnly spoke as I nodded away.
"I might cast a healing art from the back if I get in the mood.
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alive. If he is as I recall, he should be a small man dressed in a jester costume in shades of vivid blue and red."
"...That"s one... outfit that throws all sense of dignity to the wind."
"That may be so, but don"t make light of him. Aside from that terrible " Deep Freeze" art, he should have many quick and powerful arts under his control... he does have the most capability in the arts in the church, behind the highest minister, after all."
"Yeah, I know. Those who look like runts at first glance always turn out to be the most troublesome in quests."
Alice spared only a brief moment to make a wary expression at my words before she turned her pointed gaze towards the ascending stairs and spoke out a "well, then" with strength.
"-Let"s get going."
What awaited us, upon running up a floor on the grand staircase, silencing our footsteps as much as we could in our hurry, was a particularly narrow, dimly-lit pa.s.sage and a black door that shut off the rest of it.
The breadth of the pa.s.sage il uminated by an eerie green lamp was a meter and a half at most. Narrow enough that two would have to take care when pa.s.sing by each other. The single door further in, too, was small. Alice and I were barely able to pa.s.s through without hitting our heads against it, but well-built 253.
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men the likes of Knight Commander Bercouli would have to bend over quite a bit, wouldn"t they?
This sight simply didn"t feel right. Normally, the stronghold of the strongest enemy-the "last dungeon" in short, would get increasingly extravagant and gaudy in layout and furnishing the further one explored, wouldn"t it? The floors really had been generous with their decorations and floor area usage up until the "Morning Star Lookout" just a floor below.
So what was with this cramp s.p.a.ce after we had gotten a hair"s breadth away from the highest floor?
"...This is the "Chamber of Elders" that you mentioned earlier... right?"
"I do believe so, but... -We wil know after entering."
She stepped into the pa.s.sage, her golden hair aflutter, as though to shrug away her doubts.
Having begun to think that there might be traps set in this narrow s.p.a.ce, I instinctively tried to pull her back, but immediately reconsidered and ran after her. They couldn"t possibly have set traps in antic.i.p.ation of intruders in an area this far inside the Axiom Church. Even if there were any, they would probably be proudly displayed like the minions lining the outer wall.
The narrow path of roughly twenty meters let its intruders pa.s.s without incident and we reached the smal door.
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Exchanging glances, we both nodded before I, in the offensive role, reached out and held the doork.n.o.b, which was small as well, with my right hand. The door was unlocked; the k.n.o.b turned far too easily with a click and it smoothly opened when pulled.
I could distinctly feel a sort of presence in the chilly air blew out from the dim interior-to use an a.n.a.logy, it was like that desolation I felt whenever I opened the boss rooms" doors in Aincrad"s labyrinths, inducing goose b.u.mps over my back.
That said, I couldn"t very well tell Alice to swap in as the vanguard now. Firmly pulling open the door, I stooped slightly as I looked in.
The narrow path continued a little more and expanded into a barely il uminated, dark s.p.a.ce. A faint violet light seemed to be flickering away, but I couldn"t see where it came from.
It was in that moment I timidly pa.s.sed through the door that what sounded like grouchy curses reached my eyes. Stopping in my steps, I p.r.i.c.ked up my ears. It wasn"t a single person"s voice.
There were several-perhaps even several tens of people muttering over each other. Alice whispered, "Those are sacred arts", from behind and I replied in agreement, holding my breath.
I braced myself, expecting multiple attacks aimed at us, but that was apparently not the case. The word, " generate", crucial 255
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for offensive arts line, was absent from the fragments of commands I could hear.
I inclined my head, pondering what sort of art it could be, and Alice urged me on with whispers.
"Let us rush in. If the elders are casting some great art unrelated to us, that would actual y be in our favor. We might even be able to get within sword fighting range if we slip among their voices in this darkness."
"...Yeah, that"s right. Like we planned, I"l be the first to go. My back"s yours."
Whispering back, I slowly drew my black sword from the left of my waist. I did think that the Blue Rose Sword at the right of my waist might become a burden in combat, but that wasn"t enough to make me leave it in a place like this. Confirming that Alice had drawn her Fragrant Olive Sword, I stepped forth once more.
Upon closing in to the shadowy s.p.a.ce, I noticed a sort of unpleasant stench mixed into the cold air. It was unlike the stench of beasts or blood, similar to rotting food. Shrugging my thoughts off that, I pressed my back against the pa.s.sage"s wall while peeking into the dim area known as the "Chamber of Elders".
It was s.p.a.cious-or rather, it was tall.
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The floor was circular with a diameter of roughly twenty meters. The winding wall stretched up high, probably three floors worth of the cathedral, the ceiling sinking into the darkness. In terms of its structure, it bore a slight resemblance to the Great Library Room Cardinal lived in.
There weren"t any sort of lamps; the only sources of light were several blinking, faint, violet lights around the wal s. Aside from that, there were round objects arranged uniformly with the same short gaps, but I couldn"t recognize them.
A new light then came to life rather close to us. A rectangular plane shimmering pale purple-a "Stacia Window". And those spheres further in were......
The heads of humans.
So that meant every one of those round things lined up in this cylindrical hall- "...De-Decapitated heads...?"
A hoa.r.s.e voice escaped me and Alice, behind me, let out a whisper at the lowest possible volume from my left.
"No, they seem to be attached to bodies, but... they appear to be growing from the wall..."
I desperately focused my eyes at her words. Certainly, a neck and shoulders were below those round heads, but those were 257.
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all I could see. After all, their bodies were cleanly withdrawn in the rectangular boxes mounted on the wall.
Judging from the modest sizes of the boxes, their limbs must have been folded as far as they could be bent inside. I could hardly think that environment was pleasant, but the boxed humans seemed entirely unconscious of the situation they were in. After all, their faces thrust out from the boxes completely lacked any sort of emotion.
They grew no hair, not on their hair, their face, lacking even eyebrows; the two gla.s.sy eyebal s sunk in their pal id faces gazed upon the Stacia Window floating right before them in a daze. The windows displayed flowing lines of text in a minute font and at each pause, the boxed humans voiced out monotonously from their colorless lips.
"System call... display rebelling index..."
My whole body stiffened the moment I heard that voice unfitting for one among the living.
"They... they are... from back then...!?"
"Do you know of them!?"