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「Kuaaaaaaaaaaa!!」
「Nuuuu!!」
「G!?」
A wolf-shaped thorn monster roared as it stroke Nemea with its sharp claws.
But Nemea, instead of avoiding it, he blocked it, grabbed its attacking paw, and stopped the monster"s movement completely.
「UOOOOOO!!!」
「GiYAaAA!!?」
He swung the monster against the wall vigorously. The sound of the monster"s bone cracking resonated all the way across the hallway.
After that, he threw it towards the monsters at the end of the pa.s.sageway. It rolled like some sort of a makeshift bowling ball.
「Gaaaaa!?」
「GiYaaaaAAu!!」
The humanoid plant monsters were crushed by the wolf monster and couldn"t move. Then, they were simply wiped by a single blast from Akiha"s RPG (Rocket-propelled Grenade). Smoke rises as the wall around the stuck monsters crumbled from the loud explosion. Behind the smoke, Nemea stood majestically and protected Akiha from any potential debris.
「Akiha, reporting in.
All Clear.
Hayato-san, Adelle-san,
how"s it going on your side?」
「Yeah, we"re just finishing things up」
「Fuu… It"s really easy to wipe them if they came out like that. No matter how many of them, they can"t all fit into this pa.s.sageway」
Hayato and Adelle appeared from the Akiha and Nemea"s opposite direction. Both of them suffered minor injuries. Coincidentally, the sun had already set, so Adelle"s self-recovery ability was already kicked in. Meanwhile, Hayato"s 『Fresh Blood Tokkouf.u.ku』 provided him with self-recovery which recovers his wounds.
「The next stairs leads to the lowest floor. Akihkun, I shall rely on you to contact Masaki-kun」
「Yes. I"ll do it right away」
Akiha nodded even though she was in the middle of resting her eyes with a wet towel. Her eyes felt considerably heavier than ever before. Even a short moment of relief like this was enough for her to feel grateful for the chance to rest her eyes. Also, she could still do that while sending a whisper message to Masaki at the same time.
《Masaki-san, this is Akiha, reporting in. We have cleared the enemies. We"re currently right in front of the stairs to lowest floor》
《Loud and clear. We"re also right in front of the pa.s.sage to the royal residence. According to my 『Map』, your path will be blocked by some sort of a wall. I"m sorry I can"t help you deal with this wall, you have to deal with that wall yourself》
《I understand. Thank you very much. Please be careful, Masaki-san》
She finished the whisper before grabbing the water canteen on her waist to quench her throat. Haruka provided each and everyone of them with these water canteen before they split up. The contents were just a simple honey+lemon water, but it was really useful to replenish strength in the battle. Nemea loved it so much that he asked a large bottle for himself.
Akiha led the others to where the spiral staircase supposed to be and they were greeted with a dead end.
「Muu, did we take the wrong turn……?」
「No, we"re in the right place. According to Masaki"s map, the spiral staircase should be around here」
Hayato spread the map so everyone could see, and there was certainly a picture of a spiral staircase right in front of their location.
However, there was a plain undecorated wall instead.
「So that means… it must be hidden here somewhere…… fumuu………」
Nemea tapped his huge hands against the wall and sure enough, only one part of the wall had a different sound when being tapped.
After finding the correct place, Nemea simply hit that part of the wall with his fist, revealing a fist-sized hole in the wall.
「There was some sort of a device, but I think I broke it. Akihkun, is it possible to use that exploding thingy that you used before?」
「Okay. Everyone, please stand back a bit」
Akiha loaded the RPG with another rocket and lobbed it right around the hole the Nemea previously made before. The wall exploded, revealing enough gap to fit an adult human.
「It sure nice to have firearms. It"s correct decision to have Akiha here with us」
「Nー P-please don"t mess with my hairー Gah! at least don"t pat my head that hard……! Geez……」
Hayato smiled and disheveled Akiha"s hair. Akiha finally looked and acted her age when she desperately combed her hair with her fingers.
Behind the cloud of dusts, behind the dark opening, there was a spiral staircase.
「It"s quite dark, so I will be going in first. Everyone please follow me」
Adelle took out a lantern and lead the way into the spiral staircase. Vampires were actually darkness dwellers in the first place. Even though the human blood ran in her vein through her father, the darkness didn"t mean much to her as it didn"t differ much from seeing in the daylight.
And so, Hayato, Akiha, and lastly Nemea, followed suit from her back.
Since the entrance was blocked by a wall, the 4 of them didn"t encounter any monsters and reached the lowest floor without any difficulty. Of course, the erosion from the thorns reached this place as well, as proved by the amount of roots covering the wall. There was only one gigantic iron door in this place. The door lacked any decorations whatsoever, but a heavy presence could be felt from the door gaps.
Nemea"s nose was twitching as he sniffed the air, which made him frown. The scent of death was strong, enough for humans to notice it, so it must be worse for Nemea who had more sensitive nose.
「I smell death…… Everyone, brace yourself. This isn"t like the monsters that we fought outside」
Nemea said while grabbing a string of white cloth on his waist and wrapped it around his fists. The fabric was covered in a complex pattern and emitted a faint orange glow in the darkness. He hadn"t felt the need to use it before now, but right now, he probably needed every resource he could gather.
While Nemea prepared his weapon, Adelle prepared her mana spear and Akiha reloaded her magnum. Hayato had nothing to prepare besides trusty bokutou and waited the others in silence.
Adelle twisted the doork.n.o.b.
The door opened and filled the surrounding with a heavy creak.
The room was strangely bright despite being underground. The brightness came from the light was coming from 4 directions, instead of just 1 light source. Furthermore, the stench was even stronger after entering the room.
There was only one single thing behind the door, a Mud Golem.
It was a variation of golem with a mud body that greatly reduce physical attacks. It also utilized its herculean strength to defeat big monsters easily. It"s usually only found deep inside a dungeon.
The empire might have looked at its strength and spent ridiculous amount of resources and sacrifices to capture one of them. They arranged it to be strengthened even further using various magic and tasked to protect this place.
However, regular mud golem shouldn"t spread this much stench, but everyone present could guess the main reason behind the smell of death in this room.
Numerous human body part were jutting out from the golem"s flesh, all of them were corpses of the soldiers and servants who worked in this castle. They must be the survivors who were trying to escape from the thorns and monsters by hiding here. They probably were top-ranking n.o.bles and their servants as normal people wouldn"t be able to access this place in the first place.
However by escaping the thorns and ivy, they were swallowed by the mud golem who recognized them as intruders.
As the guardian of the castle and the magic seal, the mud golem that stood in front of Adelle looked like nothing more than a ruthless ent.i.ty that destroyed everything, soldiers and intruders alike.
「UOOOOOOOO……!!」
The mud golem noticed their presence. It groaned with a loud voice, probably loud enough to be heard from the surface. It moved forward and slowly extended its muddy arm. But the golem launches with speed that seemed impossible considering the golem"s size.
Everyone managed to dodge it by jumping to the sides, but by doing so, the golem dashed right into the iron door and blew it away.
「Tch! I thought it was slow like a dumb sloth but it"s certainly fast!」
「As expected of something that is guarding this place. But……!」
Nemea wielded his fist against its elongated arm. The mud did its job at reducing the damage and got scattered but it didn"t stop there. An unexpected strong resilience force reduced the impact and rebounded Nemea"s fist.
「Umu? I think there"s something inside」
Nemea yanked the thing inside the golem"s arm, exposing what"s inside the layer of mud and corpses. A large amount of vines intertwined with each other and formed a skeleton that reinforces the golem.
The vines then pulled back quickly like a thick rubber-band.
「Seems like the gigantic tree also affects this mud golem. The mud reduces impact and the core is protected by resilient plant… such a troublesome opponent indeed」
「But we still have to defeat it. We can"t use magic if we can"t kill this thing. It will be hard to kill the gigantic tree without magic helping us」
「Masaki-san is relying on us for this task. Let"s do it」
「Resilient or not makes no difference to me. I"ll just… hack! And slash! It! Until it dies!!!」
Hayato roared and charges towards the golem, followed by the others as well.
The mud golem hardened its mud and vines like a fist and accepted their challenge.
***
「Akiha just contacted me. Her team was almost at the lowest floor. There"s a wall blocking their path, but they should be able to do something about it」
The content of Akiha"s whisper message surely helped to ease the tension surrounding us.
Their team consists of excellent members with high-endurance and healing capabilities. They could adapt in uncertain situations where we didn"t know what could happen.
「I"m so glaad~ Akihchan seemed to be safe. Let"s do our best too~♪」
Haruka ignored the dangerous territory they"re in and distributed fresh yellow fruits. This fruit was called PowerPine. It looked similar to regular pineapples. She grew it using the soil from the nearby decorative plant and forced its growth with her Light of Bountiful Harvest.
The sweet and slightly sour taste really helped alleviating tiredness. As a fruit with high fatigue recovery effect, this fruit was very expensive. Back in the game, even the seeds were traded at high price. Since the effect also applies in this world, when we finished eating it, our fatigue were completely gone.
With this, we can even fight for the whole 24 hours!
Err…
No…
Let"s not do that!
Both prince Leon and Tatsuma hesitated when they first saw the fruit, but after the first bite, their hands didn"t stop shoving the fruits into their mouths. Now that we"ve recovered our energy and strength, we continue our mission to the royal residence.
However, the gate that lead to the royal residence was protected by a thorn monster, a humanoid carrying a luxurious-looking sword.
I"ve seen that outfit before.
Those attire…
That crown…
He was…
「Emperor Aldebaran……」
Tatsuma clenched his spear.
To me, he was nothing but an enemy that I despised, but to Tatsuma, the emperor was one of the most important people in his life. Looking such a man turned into such a miserable figure must"ve left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Even if prince Leon also held hostility against him, looking at the enemy"s emperor reduced to such figure was really… disheartening.
Prince Leon drew his sword to face the emperor, but Tatsuma"s spear stopped him.
「I"ll do it myself」
Prince Leon acknowledge his will and stepped down. Looking at that kind of determination, I took Haruka and went with Prince Leon to the back.
Tatsuma directed his spear towards the emperor. The emperor also aimed his sword towards Tatsuma.
That was not the face of a crippling old man trotting and waiting for my fist to bash his skull in. That was the face of a man with enough intimidating aura to prove that he had climbed all the way to the seat of the emperor just by relying on his sword.
He was too good to be reduced into this state.
Tension filled the air.
No one could interrupt the two of them.
A hundredth of a second pa.s.sed. Both of them moved at the same time. Sounds of explosions from their footsteps were thundering throughout the area.
And the fight ended in an instant.
Tatsuma split the Emperor"s body from shoulder to waist with a slash, which then fell to the red carpet.
We couldn"t see Tatsuma"s expression from here, but he certainly wasn"t happy.
I took a step forward and picked up the Emperor"s last words from the distance.
「………Tatsuma… pro………… ved loya………ty…
Fuiri………a…… plea………………」
His voiced bordered between a human and a monster. Along with that final wish, the fire of his life went out and he vanished from this world.
The only thing remained was his once-extravagant clothes and his sword.
Tatsuma picked up the sword.
He grasped it strongly before hanging it on his waist.
「Tatsuma. About Fuiria, there"s still a chance that she"s still alive. I will definitely help you」
「Yeah……」
Tatsuma glared at the gate leading the throne room.