Descent into the Darkness
Opening the door to the adjacent classroom that the girls had holed themselves up in, I quietly peered inside.
“Ah, Hide.” Upon noticing my arrival, a slightly drowsy voice seeped out from Hina, who looked up at the newly opened entrance. “Welcome back. Are you done yet?”
She was sitting on the floor, besides the opposite wall of the room, with her knees brought close together, and her arms wrapped around her. The bo staff that I had given her leaned besides the wall while Hina focused in on my appearance. Her eyes were slightly drooped low and a little hazy, as if she had just recently woken up from a nap.
“Yeah… I did my very best and crafted a few useful tools.” I commented while rubbing a bit of sawdust away from my own slightly droopy eyes. “I see everyone got tired of waiting, huh?”
Besides her, were the other two, who were currently lying down on the floor, their eyes closed and their minds effectively shut down. A soft mumbling could be faintly heard from the sleeping Cielle, while Cher in contrast, was in a pseudo-fetal position as she silently slept. For some odd reason, Cher’s face was a bit flustered while her cheeks curved into a rather pitiful smile.
“Uun..” Hina affirmed. “Everyone got tired of waiting, so they decided to sleep in order to restore some stamina. Ah, but it's not like everyone just went to bed all at once. We properly took turns keeping guard- I just woke up about 5 minutes ago, so it was my turn to be on lookout so...”
She drowsily explained with a slightly faint smile while looking up at me from her current position. “Anyways- is that it? The things you made?” She focused her gaze on the stuff I brought back from the Wood shop.
I nodded. “Wake the others up. I made a few things for everyone.”
Hina complied and without so much as a hint of hesitation, she used her water magic in order to splash a spray of newly formed liquid all over the two sleeping beauty’s faces. They awoke with a startle. Their eyes widened in shock, while their faces frowned in both confusion and irritation.
“Ugh…” Cher groaned, while earnestly looking up around the room. “To be woken up like this… you know I just started sleeping a few minutes ago right?”
Cielle in comparison looked a lot more refresh to the panda eyed Cher, who expressed her innate frustration in a series of self indulgent mumbling. While Cielle’s hair was more tussled that usual, her cheeks had a soft shade of pink which conveyed the effects of her nap.
After looking around the room, she landed her stare over at me.
“Good morning.” I answered nonchalantly while I took a seat across from the girls. I set the crafted items in my hand, gently onto the floor. Like a fat bearded man in a red suit, I presented my newly created items to the girls.
By this point, everyone focused their gazes over to the things I displayed. Their eyes were slightly peeled open, conveying their awe, as the sleepy atmosphere dissipated.
“So these are the items that Hide went to make…” Cher spoke, her irritation slowly disappearing with time.
“It really is convenient, that crafting skill of yours.” A one sided compliment from Hina came out as she too looked over the various objects at hand. Of to her side, Cielle was nodding to herself, inwardly agreeing with Hina’s offhanded words.
I distributed the various items I crafted to the girls, all while making side commentary about their design, and what materials I used. “The gauntlets go to Cher, while Hina and Cielle can use the armor plates I made… in truth, I wanted to make three for each of you, but I didn’t have enough material.”
The original plan was to equip Cher with the plate armor and gloves, but at her current level, the plate armor would have been wasted on her. In the future, I planned on taking back one of the armor pieces that I gave to the girls so that Cher can use them, but for now, this sort of distribution was more ideal.
The girls all received the equipment with open arms. They eagerly tried them on while making off handed comments as they stared at each other.
“Isn’t the chest area a little too tight?” Hina uttered as she tried re-adjusting the torso piece. It was true, for Hina’s body type, the armor may have been too constricting. After all, I based it off my own chest, which was obviously noticeably flatter than Hina’s.
“It fits fine…” A rather dejected voice replied back from besides Hina, who was still wriggling uncomfortably in her armour. The voice in response, was Cielle. The armour was rather loose fitting on the petite bodied Cielle, but held tightly enough to not inhibit movement. Despite that though, she had a dissatisfied expression as she mumbled incoherently while gazing over at her younger sister.
I ignored the grumbling duo, and turned to face Cher. “How are the gauntlets?”
She laughed shyly at my inquiry, while flexing her hands from inside the welder’s gloves. “It’s a bit rough, moving my fingers and all, but if I’m only using the shield, then I think I can manage.” She lightly smiled, and took hold of the nearby shield with one of her hands. She waved the shield around, almost as if reassuring me that their was no problem when it came to mobility.
“I see… that’s good. I was a bit concerned about the gripping problem, but from what you showed me, it seems to work fine so that’s reassuring.” I lightly commented, while reaching back and grabbing something in particular from the collection of assorted items on the floor. “Here- this is another shield I made.”
I handed her a small oblong shaped shield. This was the last item I crafted, a weapon dubbed “Edge Shield” by the system.
What set this shield apart from the others, was the fact that, unlike ordinary shields, the Edge shield had a damage stat to it, making it effectively, a shield that could retaliate- an attack shield.
The new shield was noticeably smaller than Cher’s other shield.With its odd oblong shape, the shield effectively covered up to Hina’s elbow and extended past her outstretched hand. Rather than a shield, it more resembled an attachment to the Welder’s gauntlet she wore.
Although despite, its relatively small size, it was almost as heavy as Cher’s other shield. This was mainly due to the unique material it used.
The foundation of the shield was a cut out piece of plywood, but what gave it its true defense, was the wood that reinforced it. The shield itself relied on flat strips of wood from the clubs in order to make it more sturdy, but it also incorporated the foreign element of metal. Along the sides of the weapon, the shield was reinforced with various pieces of scrap metal, which all uniformly aligned along its borders.
The tip of the shield which jutted out in front of Cher’s hand was shaped into a tip, sort of like a wider version of the tip of a long sword. Along with the tip, and running all the way down to the shield’s edges, the metal which decorated it had all been sharpened to a tee, using some of the equipment from the wood shop.
The sharp edge of the shield was what most likely gained the shield its name- Edge shield.
Due to the weapon’s unique design, piercing attacks became possible.
With a feeling of eager anticipation, Cher complied, and tried the new shield on. She strapped the reinforced belt straps (made with real belts) onto her forearm. This new design would keep the shield in place, no matter how erratically she defended (or attacked) with the shield. At the base of the shield, near the hand, was a grip that fitted rather comfortably in Cher’s own palm. The grip made lunging and piercing attacks much easier to perform.
She swung it around a couple of times, making both defensive positions while testedly slashing and lunging. “I-it’s a bit difficult at first…” She spoke up after a few minutes of silent practice, “but, I think I can get used to it with a little bit of practice and time.”
Seeing her satisfied smile, the edges of my own mouth slightly curved upwards as I gave a content smile.
The second shield was something I created when I pondered over how to make a weapon that would both increase our tank’s defense, as well as give her the ability to fight back.
What was birthed from that idea was the Edge Shield. The Edge Shield not only boosted Cher’s own defense stat, but also opened up the path for retaliation. This weapon gave a boost in defense that was almost comparable to the desk shield’s, while also giving a slight boost in the strength stat. With the combination of the rectangular “defense shield” and the oblong “attack shield”, Cher resembled a boxer with mismatched gloves.
After the girls had all been outfitted with their own respective weapons, we quickly packed up the remainder of our stuff and proceeded outside. In the murky darkness, illuminated faintly by the flicker of a flashlight, Cielle posed a question as she walked alongside me.
“Are we going home now?” She emphasized the word “home” rather naturally as she gazed pass over the walls and into the direction of our base.
In response to her question I shook my head. “No, not yet. It’s a good thing you all took a nap, because we have a bit more exploring to do?”
Hina blinked in slight confusion. From the corner of my eye, I could see her tilt her head slightly while her face cramped in consternation. “Didn’t we already explore all of the east building? There should be no more monsters, aside from the boars on the 3rd floor.”
I once again shook my head in response. “Nope, you’re forgetting one other place.” While pointing directly towards the ground, I answered, “The basement.”
Hearing my response, a nervous stuttering erupted from the side. Cher ran up towards me while worriedly asking, “I-isn’t it night out right now? A-a-are you really sure we should be exploring?”
“What are you saying?” I replied, taking on a mock tone of disbelief. “There’s no better time to go explore the basement than right now.”
“Eh?”
“In the first place, the basement is underground, so even if it was light outside, that won’t change the fact that it’ll be dark once we descend down. Rather than wasting time waiting for morning to come, we should just make do with what we have, and explore the basement.”
Finding no words to refute my argument, Cher backed down with a regretful “Uuu….” as she wordlessly followed me, all the while donning on an expression of extreme worry. Besides her, the girls all shared similarly worried faces, as we continued forward, with the full intent of further exploration.
*****
The entrance to the basement was located in an inconspicuous corner of the building. It was sort of near the Observatory, but one would be hard pressed to find it if they weren’t actively looking for it. From prior knowledge, the basement was the only incomplete section of the school.
It was a location that was supposed to be furnished during the coming summer break, but with the untimely interruption of an apocalypse, that sort of thing was left unfinished.
I tried opening the door, but that only caused a useless jiggling of the door knob. In a fit of frustration, I bashed down onto the knob using the boken I was carrying. The handle broke pathetically with a low thud as it dropped to the floor and rolled a couple ways back.
In the process, the door slightly opened, releasing with it, a faint squeaking sound. I gave it a push, widening the gap of darkness that seemingly leaked out. We started heedlessly at the expanse of black.. At the spot where the moon’s faint rays of light could not touch, the endless darkness seemingly went on forever.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Hina shined one of the reinforced flashlights over into the space, revealing a single set of stairs that traveled all the way downwards, as if a direct shortcut to hell. Considering the fact that the door had been firmly locked prior to our arrival, in all likelihood, we would be the first ones to step into the basement floor.
I took a careful step into the platform on the stairs, and grabbed around the wall for a lightswitch. Although I did find one, sad to say, it didn’t work. The redirected electricity did not reach the east building, so as expected the basement would remain dark and unlit.
I led the way, going down deeper into the darkness. My only source of light was the flashlight’s luminescent beam from behind me. Cielle and Hina, our long ranged fighters shined the light ever so often around their surroundings as we descended. Finishing up the formation, Cher stood on guard behind them, as a precaution for anything that might attempt a sneak attack from the back.
As we finally landed onto the basement floor, I took out the schematic blue print of the incomplete library. I motioned for Cielle to step towards me. She complied as she predicted my intentions, and shined the flashlight over onto the piece of paper.
Although incomplete, the basement’s individual rooms were already established. What was now needed, was only the installation of various doors, paint, and air conditioning. The basement infrastructure was designed rather simply.
There was a collection of small rooms alongside the east wall of the basement, while the rest of the subterranean floor was designed with the original purpose of a shelter. From various forces of nature to unexpected bombing, a giant room that encompassed about half of the basement acted as a precaution to disasters both manmade and natural. As for bathrooms, there was a sort of showering room within the shelter.
Considering the fact that this basement was designed to be a shelter, food provisions meant to accommodate the majority of the student population should be located nearby. At the very least, that filled me with some measure of expectation.
Confirming our current location, we proceeded forward. Since our goal was exploration (and training), then our first destination would be the assortment of small rooms alongside the east wall, before we would then proceed towards the shelter.
We walked further down the corridor. The impending darkness made the space much wider than it seemed, only fueling our agitation and nerves to an even greater extent. I was fine, due to the innate fear resistance given by my [Psychopath] title, but the others didn’t fare so well, especially Cielle. She- she was unexpectedly weak to this sort of thing. While Cielle tried to keep her light fixed onto the front, whether intentional or not, she was currently grasping onto the hem of my shirt while she stuck increasingly closer and closer to me. Normally I would complain, but through that single connection, I could feel her body trembling, with what I could only presume to be fear and agitation.
A little bit behind her, Hina was constantly shifting the ray of light she produced. She was moving it around irregularly, with the intention of lighting up the walls and corridor. Like her sister, the darkness was getting to her. An expression of agitation and fear morphed her face.
Normally, the dark wouldn’t be all that daunting. Even for someone with the innate fear of the dark, the confirmation that nothing will pop out and eat you was a great relief. Unfortunately, we didn’t have that luxury. In this world- in this school teeming with otherworldly monsters- monsters lurking in the dark were very much a possibility.
In the still darkness, where the only sound that resonated throughout the corridor was the shuffling of our footsteps, it didn’t take even 5 minutes to confirm we were not alone.
A shadow- no, it would be more accurate to describe it as a pitch black entity ran past the section of the corridor that Cielle’s light exposed. Its sudden, almost silent appearance caused the ray of light to jitter uncontrollably, as its wielder jumped in quick fright. Cielle tried hard to maintain her composure, but going by how ever so slightly the light continued to shake, it was clear that Cielle was far from composed.
“D-d-did you see that…” She whispered frantically besides me. By this point, her faces was almost half buried into the sleeve of my jacket.
I tensely nodded, staying silent as I brought my boken up in front of me. In my other hand, Efhermet was raised to the side. My inexperience for double weidling was pushed to the side, as I greedily monopolized the stats these two weapons gave me.
From behind us, Hina had noticed the commotion, and wordlessly turned the light over next to the spot where Cielle’s light was. She looked around the corridor with her light, but in the end, it was a fruitless effort that only revealed an empty hall. Cher at this point, was guarding our back. Surprisingly enough, she was unexpectedly good at dealing with things like the dark and such. Out of the four of us, she was the most calm and composed.
Although that calm was instantly shattered by her own ear piercing screech.
I frantically turned, just as Hina shined her flashlight behind us. Cher was on the ground, and shook slightly with a hint of agitation. From her current position, she looked as if she was just pushed back. Her words later confirmed that assumption.
“S-something pushed me…” She spoke, her voice a clearly shaken while her eyes darted through the darkness.
“Did you see what it looked like? Did you catch its level?” Hina asked while she frantically shined her light behind us. Cher unhesitatingly shook her head, just as she got back up onto her feet. I also tried searching, upping my sense of hearing to the max, although that too was a fruitless effort. My hearing only revealed the frantic heaving and shaking of the others besides me.
We stayed in that one spot. I formed a pseudo outer circle with Cher and I, while Cielle and Hina stayed in between us. They had long since prepared their magic, and were currently shining their lights around us, trying to spot just what exactly lurked in the darkness.
In a heavy, almost grave voice, I whispered to Hina, “Shoot out a small fireball into the corridor. That’ll give us a better range than these flashlights.”
Complying with a nod, Hina unhesitantly shot a fireball in the direction we came. It flew through the air in a perfect line. It kept going, by passing the light’s range, and slightly illuminating the space around it. After it traveled a considerable, distance, a distance where the flashlight’s own light could not reach, the fireball began sputtering out, but not before it revealed a vague ominous shape of a jetblack figure.
The sputtering fireball, quickly disappeared, just as that ominous figure jumped back into the silent darkness.
“...” We stood there in the darkness, half doubting what we had just seen. The figure was a bit too difficult to make out, having only seen its rough features with the light of a dying flame, but one thing was certain, it was pitch black. A monster completely adept at hiding in the darkness.
Cielle struggled not to scream out as she continually pushed the sleeve of my jacket to her face. In response, I began leading the others further down the corridor. With our initial entrance sealed off, the only thing we could do was move further down. Although in retrospect, that might have been just as equally dangerous as turning back around.
“Let’s go,” I spoke simply while I turned around and continued walking, the girls complied, and we delved deeper and deeper into the corridor, our minds constantly reminding ourselves of the pitch black monster that roamed the dark.
With no break, or sighting of anything else, we arrived at a turn. The eastward straight path came to an abrupt end, as it turned to the left. The light quickly revealed that off into the distance of this new corridor, a few small, unoccupied rooms lurked.
Cielle shined the light a couple of times into this new corridor, before we proceeded forward. Our backs were unimaginably tense as we continued further. Every now and then, Hina would shoot out a fireball, only to reveal an empty hallway. In the end, I cautioned her not to overdo it, since it would be troublesome if she ran out of mana before we even confronted what was in here.
Unfortunately though, as we walked further and further down, a series of low growls became audible. It came from all around us. We were unsure as to where the sound originated. The noise came from several directions, and to top it off, the echoes in this corridor made it exceedingly difficult to track its origin.
The noise continued growing louder and louder, even though the lights revealed nothing. This type of mental attack worked effectively on the others. They began losing their nerves as the noise prevailed. Every now and then, a random magic attack would disappear into the darkness, only to leave an unsatisfying lack of response. I cautioned Cielle (the main perpetrator), not to be so reckless, but my warning was of little use.
In truth her careless attacks were unintentional. Even if she did not try to, the bundled up nerves caused her to fire off sporadically, as if she had an uncontrollable sneeze.
The noise was unbearably loud by the time we were 10 feet from the first room. A low growl that resonated irritatingly close, yet there was nothing in our current vicinity. The low growl had long since reached its highest octave. Now it just drilled into our ears, causing a bit of nausea as it continued its repetitive growling. In the end, I had to return my hearing back to normal thanks to the frequency of the growl.
As the noise persisted, I pondered. It had to be somewhere close by. That was practically a given, considering the volume of the noise it produced. A monster that was close by but still managed to avoid detection. A place that was close by, but was overlooked, a place we haven’t checked yet… somewhere like that… there could only be one… location-
“Shine the light up!” I frantically yelled, upon coming to the sudden conclusion.
Not a moment later, Cielle’s light redirected itself upwards, towards the Ceiling. There, clinging onto the overhanging vents and rafters, was a pitch black monster. Just as Cielle’s light shined up at that singular monster, the resonating sounds that had filled the room quickly dyed out, drowning the corridor in an eerie silence. The monster itself was something vaguely resembling a Xenomorph. A monster with an overall reptilian appearance, it had a night black carapace made with a collection of interlocking plates that covered its whole body, down to its flicking tail. An elongated tongue flickered freely between its slightly parted lipless mouth.
It was unresponsive to the light that gleamed off of its eyeless head. After a quiet silence persisted, it once again slowly flicked its tongue around the air, before it widened its pincers like mouth, and made a slight hissing sound- a sound different from the usual low growling from before.
A tense silence filled the room. We didn’t dare move, as that thing directed its flicking tongue in our direction. We stayed quiet, unmoving for a period of time before-
With absolutely no preamble, the alien-like monster fell from the ceiling with a vicious hiss and descended below, where chaos was soon to start.
***
Author's Note:Thank you for reading. If you liked this chapter, or like the story in general, please rate and review. Always appreciate the feedback.