COI C232
Back when Tabitha is being recruited as a Raker Mawn guildmember, she was in the presence of the guild master and surrounded by who are present at that time. Juela was with her taking her oath. Tabitha feels troubled as the mana of the guild is circling around on the guild’s emblem. The dodecagon sigil glows and tries to pry into her mana. The guild master starts the oath
“This oath is temporary. Remember your intention, this is not why you joined us . . .”
The speech went on and give a clear understanding for this guild that she is a drafted member.
Tabitha receives the membership and she starts to go the Enders library after the ceremony. Because of her hasty pursuit to find her way home, they found something that never suspected to be. Slither in her mana, strong enough to find this hidden power of the citizens. No one dared to approach it after such discovery, but two demons recognized the power. Both Spokesman and Sanquin saw it clearly but chose not to intervene. However, Daygen didn’t kept it low.
“She possessed that is not belong to her. It might bring misfortune”
A ‘trojan horse’ from what surviving tales Daygen found. A gift with ill motives. This danger, to this day, is not yet revealed. Until today, the UI has the same power that Miyusuki holds. Identical to Tabitha, and Sanquin dared to fully bless her disciple. This UI is the hindrance of hers. It tells him clearly. If daemos have difficulty to collect their prize, it is a sign of other daemos already have it. What’s worse when Sanquin is genuinely happy about it. This means they are getting closer to her reason to remain in this world. Her vengeance is calling out.
In Isekai City, after school. Joanne notices at the school gate. Miyusuki didn’t attend school today. She finds Holly with Ootadakimasu having a chat while they walk. Holly is smiling and Ootadakimasu is embarrassed. Joanne jumps on them from the back as Holly shrilled
“EEP! Joanne?! Stop sneaking us up like that”
“Laugh* Sorry, sorry. Would you like a piece of candy?”
“No, I said why num* the sudden creeping . . .”
Ootadakimasu looks away in disappointment when Holly just takes the candy while she refused. Then he sees Usweet- waves at him.
“Hey, are you guys forming a party again? It’s been long we have an adventurer since that incident”
“Have you ever got the idea during that same incident when Miyusuki with his guild? We weren’t supposed to face the bandits from Enders Bridge”
“It’s all good, the bad moon is gone and we are free to use our magic again”
“Not so fast, there are still huge mess outside. Besides, I didn’t see Miyusuki today”
“Yeah, he is sure is lucky that the teachers are allowing him to skip school because he is training with teacher Haw”
Joanne leans closer to them with Holly dragged along “Hey, hey! Why are you . . .?”
“I heard you guys said he skipped school”
Usweet- nods with a smile on his face “He sure did. It was kind of surprising that the letter is not from teacher Haw though. The teachers are talking lately to allow Miyusuki to be absent at the certain date. Do you think there is something special about . . .!?”
Their UIs start beeping in front of them. They look around as everyone already left. The bright red warning light suddenly makes them rushing outside of the school.
Where the city barrier is starts expanding only to the surviving structures, the police see a group of people running to the entrance.
They raised their hand “Halt, why the rush?”
Silfa introduces herself “I am Silfa Ventus from the city guild. I received notification from my connections outside of the city are in need of help”
The police see her UI as they immediately open the gate “Hurry, do you want reinforcement as you go?”
“Call my guild, any available adventurers are a huge help”
“Alright. Hey! You kids get back here”
They tried to get them, but they elusively dodge their reach.
Silfa casts her spell and teleport away along with the students. The police reach out to her
“Ma’am. Damn it, the kids are with them”
“Do we have to report them too?”
“No, prioritize the rescue. The UI detects a high-level threat near the edge of the forest”
“I thought this is the end the of those monsters out there”
“Yeah, but that sorry of an adventurer out there have found something dangerous”
“Either he is unlucky or a hero who warned us”
They look at the distance where the sun clears the light blue fog. They found them, already in far distance.
The police use their UI and found something is wrong with it. “Ah, well. Partner, there is a bug happening in my UI”
“A bug? Shit! It’s buffering out of nowhere when I click the icon”
Hidden away where the aura spread. The mana carefully spread out to disrupt the UI’s utility. The city soon drawn in the disturbance. The ground shakes a bit in sudden moments, giving a tilt in every motion. Those who stood there had their UI bugged out.
Joanne says to Usweet- “Why is Miyusuki over there?”
“I heard he was training with his guild. How should I know they are in a dangerous place?”
Ootadakimasu felt unsure “Miyusuki is with his guild, and this is the first time his UI starts functioning. His features were cut off, quite a lot exactly”
“I don’t care about that. If Miyusuki dies over there, I couldn’t convince myself to accept it”
Joanne is right, both Silfa and Joanne were caught from the strange rat men abduction. This time, Miyusuki is in trouble. Even if he is with the Enders, Silfa understood how difficult it had been to gone through a powerful enemy.
As they step closer to the forest, their fast mobility spells and skills were nulled completely. Ootadakimasu falls to the pile of dusts.
Holly pulls him out “Are you ok, Healer?”
“Ptooey* Cough* I can’t believe I tasted that”
Ootadakimasu brings out a bottle to clean off his throat from the dust “I’m fine, Arsenal. Hey, Usweet-. Are you going bers or tank?”
“Going tank, I think we have enough dps around here”
Holly asks “What about the others will come in our aid?”
Silfa checks her UI. It went full static “No good, my UI is busted here”
The sounds of crystals shattering where Miyusuki was. They didn’t hesitate as they began to rush in. Joanne says to her sister
“Get your dolls, we need the help we can get”
“Sure . . . Oh no, my inventory is in the UI. I can’t pull them out. Hey, Outaki . . . I mean Healer! Did you use your UI to bring out that bottle?”
“Nope, my own bag”
Another crystal shatters as the shards burst in their direction. Silfa raises her shield with her team at the back, as the shards hits them. Unstable mana release and bounce off all around shattering the other fragile crystals. When it clears, they see the remains of the rat men.
Joanne fears the worse “Sis!”
“I know! Everyone stays behind me, and tank”
“Yeah”
“Jump at the front when the fight starts”
“Alright! Now this is a rescue team”
Healer grins and shakes his head. He sees Holly is genuinely worried with her eyes piercing through him as her shoulder leans to him.
“Arsenal, keep it steady. I can buff you if you like”
Holly blushes to hear him says her role “Ok, but I’m using energy weapons. My ammunition is locked away inside my inventory”
“It’s fine, I got my healing kit in my bags”
“Bags?”
He shows to her his bag inside another bag, a tight fit with the same small space for it to cramp inside in an endless loop. She laughs.
They took a march, where the crystals continue to shatter from left and right. The dusts on the ground revealed the horrendous corpses of the rat men. The students look down and sees the rat men’s body parts are in a mix of dead monsters and goblins. Usweet- swallows his throat from vomiting. Others tried to hold it in. They barely hold themselves off from the rat men’s dead body. It’s usual rat head skull but a body of an abomination. It creeps in as the dusts stop it from regenerating. They continue to move forward as Usweet- hears a racket to the other side.
“There!” He points out.
Silfa uses her forcefield to capture her target. It shows another rat man dripping its body with strange fluid as its body starts melting. No dusts trying to absorb it as the fluid is wiping it clean leaving no mana to take in. It moves it last breath as its body crumbles. Silfa drops it and continue to keep going. The more they get closer the less of the rat men were. The sizzling vapor all around and the magic it used were doused by strange fluid. As they almost reach their destination, they saw one big large rat man already fell to the trap. It turned into crystal falling apart gazed by sunlight. Shattering bit by bit as it no longer moves, a crumbling statue. When it clears, two people appeared.
Silfa shouts at the two “Who are you? Where are you from?”
The two stood still as they pull out some crystals on their hands. Unstable and ready to explode, one of them spoke
“gibberish*”
Silfa forgets they can’t understand them. The language on their UI had stop and only left that could translate is their device. Joanne notices her sister’s eyes as she pulls out her device.
“gibberish*”
She replies to her “It can’t translate it”
Time is running out and Miyusuki is still not being found. Those two must know where he is. This makes them raising the tension of their doubts.
The two is able to take down the rat men, even one big rat with their own abilities. A high-level threat and nothing else to find but them. Their suspicion grows as they didn’t find anyone but those two. Usweet- starts to raised his weapons. Healer knows what’s up, but there is no need to fight whether they are allies or not. If Miyusuki was with his guild, the possibility what he learned from them surely understand in another way. He taps them at the back
“Let me talk to them, they must be Enders”
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“Are you sure? They must be those bandits that tried to kill us” Usweet- is not buying it
“Watch me” Healer walks out
“Be careful” Holly says to him with care.
Without giving a single moment of delay, Healer gives a sign language pointing up in the air. One of them reacts and turned to the other. His gestures are showing concerns, and he is lowering the gems back to his pockets. Healer sighs in relief, but he wasn’t done worrying. The other one is shaking his head not approving the signal. The two gets distracted.
Silfa says to Healer “Why are they doing?”
“I’m not sure, but one of them understood me”
“Go on, signal them”
Healer keeps up as he shows them the rune stone. A prototype to match the quality of the Enders’. The two reaches out to him in a stern voice
“gibberish*”
This distraction gives time for the rat men to react. This opportunity rose them from the piles of dusts and crystallized shards. Arsenal shoots at the rat men with her laser weapon. The laser beam hits on their mouth as it zooms closer with its gaping mouth consumes it. The rat man absorbs it and was able to restore its body. Usweet- goes at them and pushes away the rat man to the crystallized pikes, killing it quickly as it being absorbed. Joanne and Silfa fought the other rat men and easily take them down. One of them survived and chases after the Healer. Healer uses his spells to pushes it away.
The rat man burst like an air balloon leaving a trail of itself. Its head pushes forward as the rest of its strength and magic on it. The rat man’s skull flies at him in full speed. Healer couldn’t dodge it. He tries to block it with his other spell. It pierces through like glass. His eyes shook as its desperate eyes are ready to gnaw his head. A blast of light appears between them, the skull immediately fell helplessly as it hits his head. Bounces off onto one of the two’s hands. In both hands, then raises the head up like a performer.
“Gibberish*”
One of them finally shows himself by removing his protective mask. They see Haw and keeps speaking gibberish. They all gathered around as the misunderstanding still remains.
Silfa said to Haw “Damn it, you guys should’ve shown your faces”
“Yeah, where’s Miyusuki?”
Joanne says it in front of him as he holds arm. More of them keeps asking as Haw keeps speaking gibberish. The circle of confusion goes around as Haw pesters his partner about this predicament.
Myrrkei says to Haw “This is bad, Sanquin told us to guard it. But she didn’t even mention about them”
“How so? They have special abilities to connect each other. They have getting stronger”
“Think, Haw. If they could, they should’ve easily stop those to legged beasts”
“I’m trying to talk to them from what I learn. They can’t understand me in broken tongue”
Myrrkei takes his helmet and places back on his head. The adventurers are troubled from the sudden gesture. Myrrkei is expecting will happen to them. Sanquin’s words are not to be played likely.
The warnings are all gathering in both sides. The UI is restoring itself. The surprise look of Myrrkei’s face as he drunk a special potion to see a demonic activity. At this moment, Myrrkei is witnessing what Sanquin is trying to told them guard from. Then it happens, a powerful force coming from the city pushing back the dusts away into their direction. The force is releasing reactive dusts changing colors. Myrrkei takes his magic stone and hits it on Haw as the dust storm reaches them. They shifted their bodies into smoke and pulls deeper back.
“Guard the gate, this is what we are waiting for”
A strong wind goes through the adventurers, and their UIs return giving the warning notification in high alert.
Silfa shouts at her team “Is anyone ok?”
“Yeah, I think so” Joanne wipes off the dust
“The dusts are getting less effective, thank goodness” Holly wipes the dust off
“Hell yeah! No more hell dust in the wind” Usweet- starts kicking around the crystals and accidentally kicking it at Ootadakimasu
“Hey! Watch it! Where’s Haw and his partner?”
They were gone, and only they left behind is a trail where the UI is guiding where the threat is.
Silfa points it out “There’s no time. The notification is high alert. We need to find him, let’s go”
They move on except for Healer, he stands by for a bit holding a rune stone on his hand. Holly notices it
“Hey, Healer. Why are you staring at the rune for?”
“Huh? Oh Arsenal, I was preparing”
“Preparing? I thought you’re always ready”
Healer looks around and everything looks okay to him. This sensation though, he feels why he is secured at this moment. Without giving an effort to be worried, he holds his rune tightly and goes with them.
Holly reaches out to him as he leaves her behind “Hey!? Healer, don’t leave me when I’m talking to you! Ootadakimasu!!!”
Healer made it with his team, where they see an archway right in front of them. Auras everywhere spreading its illusion and around it filled the dead bodies of rat men and broken equipment. There they stood by one being, blurred into a form of silhouette. It drops two bodies side of it. Haw and his partner lie drop on the ground. Buried into the crystallized dust. The being turns around as it stretches into two in both flanks. A large gap between them, side to side, whereas the team split up and face the two.
Silfa faces to the right, while tank is facing at the left. Joanne orders the two at the back
“Healer, can you take care both at the front separately?”
“I can, my UI is starting to instruct me new abilities”
“Really? No, let’s focus here. Holly, get into position and shoot any opportunity you can find”
“Got it”
The back is ready and positioned away from the front. The two looks at each other and then swiftly at the back. They raised their weapons as the entity is split into two. An entity into two readies for combat.
Usweet- initiates first, he strikes with his weapon. The first entity side steps, kicks him on the shin with crystal shards releasing concentrated dust. The exposure pierced through his armor where there are hidden needles inserted into his runes. Usweet- tumbles forward from the pain. The first entity stops and looks at the back. Healer almost casts his spell, and waits. The first entity shakes his head then throws an aura at him. Joanne tries to reflect it with her spear, but Healer pushes her away as they dodge the aura.
“Healer! What gives?”
“Not yet, let Usweet- distracts it before we attack. This is just the first attack”
Usweet- stands up removing the pierced on his shin. The runes vandalized and ruins the writings on it. Faded to impossible to read, the effects it had struggle to maintain its durabiliity. He checks his UI and he picks out his inventory. An axe on his hand and he starts swinging up to the air then lands at the entity. He splits it into two, but the entity phase through it as the darkness moves a side in a delayed reaction. Where the ground shatters the crystals scattered beaming its light all over the area. The first entity moves erratically as the light tries to touch it. It moves all over the place until one small dark space made it gathered all of its being.
Joanne finds the opportunity as she lunges forward with her lightning spear strike. A large sound boom where the first entity appears. The moment her spear reaches it, a solid object flies over and it hits first on her spear. The object shatters causing a loud noise as everyone knocks back where it explodes. Healer catches Joanne from the explosion and Arsenal quickly takes aim as the first entity is wide open. With her laser weapon, she shoots. The first entity didn’t move as the light beamed to it and disappears where it touches it. It appears again further away.
“No way! It didn’t even move” Holly starts to worry.
Meanwhile, Silfa didn’t catch the throwing object on time. The second entity is swift. Able to distract her with every moment of opportunity reaches her target. It slowly stands up after a few strikes. Silfa’s magic defenses are invincible combining with her runes. Her defenses are blocking the entity’s attacks. Another object throws at her. It bounces off then a few more causing ripple effects from the previous objects to react one another causing no change at all. Silfa couldn’t understand what it is doing.
It reacts again, she quickly responds in kind but she was too late. It absorbs through the crystals and dusts then turned into mud. Thick and hardly moves, it sticks on her legs as her runes able to resist it. Silfa stays on her feet and escape the muddy ground. She dashes forward and rams on it with her shield. The entity knocks back and a forcefield hits it from behind bounces back to her continuing her attacks. Something glows inside of it and jumps over before her sword reaches on its silhouette. A few objects drop on the ground as her spell lies wait fell into ruin.
Their fight is really hard to comprehend. The others rejoined with her as her younger sister comes in attacking the second entity with her spear. She hits the silhouette and feels a slight movement as her spear deflected. A strong twist on her hand to form a drill, even with that, the entity’s silhouette rolls over to the pile of dust and crystals to get away from her immense power. Again, she twists her spear once more to shove the dusts away. The second entity is exposed. Healer and Arsenal have a clear shot and attack.
Healer casts a prism focusing on his enemy. Arsenal points at the prism with multiple laser weapons. The beam hits it combining them all into one laser. Healer boosted it further with his runes to harness it all. The light, the heat, and the lethality in one hit. The laser fires at the second entity. With nowhere else to escape, the laser reaches closer and bounces itself into a ball. Silfa eyes are in shock, the laser keeps bouncing inside as it continuously hitting in a form of a sphere. The second entity shows its hands holding two objects. She dives in with her ritual weapon. The elemental fire engulfed her weapon squeezing through the entity’s paranormal defenses.
The laser breaks free and hits her weapon. She uses her forcefield but it breaks the moment the laser touches it. The forcefield shatters like a frail glass fallen into dust. The magic she casts was easily decimated and slides closer to the laser. The laser moves a bit almost hitting her as she stunned from the shatter. The laser keeps moving aside as it hits the archway. The second entity lets it go and drop the two objects. The one fell made it to its foot and bounces up back to his hand, while the other sparks up as it touches its foot. Missing its catch as it rolled away.
Joanne sees this opportunity and hits it with her spear. With her lightning-fast speed, she dodges the objects as it tries to stop her. One more step to reach her target, the broken objects start reacting and cause everything around them fuming up into the air. The dusts rise up and hits their view. The exposure hurts them, but not as strong as before. Joanne persists but she misses as the dusts cloud clears. Her UI opens up in quick succession as she sees a bonus ability pops up from her RAPs system. Switching it immediately as she quickly hits the second entity.
Pierced into the chest, her spear can’t go through as the runes appeared on the second entity’s body. A body is shown as one object sprayed on her face. The UI starts to blur out and weakening all of her stats from it. After it clears, her eyes both stinged and in shock.
“Haw!?”
Haw appears barely in a form of a human and pulls out her spear. The UI restored itself the moment she is away from the entity. Healer pulls her out as the second entity throws more object at her
“What are you doing? That’s not Haw”
“But I see him”
“It must be an illusion. Don’t forget we are in a big mess when we decide to find Miyusuki”
“Right!”
A shadowy fog passes through, the first entity comes in and shroud their view. Later, Usweet- sees his UI is acting up. A bonus level up in the middle of battle,
“No way, a level up? Right here. Alright!”
Next is Arsenal “What’s this? A time like this”
She reads her new ability “Fighting them this long, is this a reward?”
Then its Silfa, yet she whispers “Strange, everyone gets one but why on my screen is blocked by . . . by . . . why is my pet doll is hogging the screen?”
Lastly, Healer. They look at everyone as they are excited to use this reward. He hesitated for a bit as he remembered how the fight is progressing.
They are the one who are attacking them. All around he sees the gruesome reality of the rat men getting slaughtered. But at this moment, the two seems not able to fight back like they did to the rat men. The entity didn’t try to kill them. Then he started thinking that they are in an illusion. The shroud spots his face realizing what’s going on. The shadow moves away and tries to take the second entity away. Its body return to normal as the rest of the shadow goes down on the ground.
Silfa and Healer are distracted from the rewards. While Joanne, Usweet- and Arsenal have already picked their rewards and go after the two. The chemicals hidden away around the dusts as they are getting closer to the archway. Damaged from the laser leaving a mark staring down on the entity. The first and second entities returned as one. Arsenal fires at it. The laser beam disappears
“What!?”
Usweet- charges forward and reequips his axe into dual axes. He duals forward as the weight of his axe grow greatly leaving his hands drop on the ground. The entity comes in the right time and kicks him off the way.
Joanne steps aside as Usweet- rolls over. A menacing aura appears around her as the UI is struggling to keep hold of her. The entity uses the object again and unleash all the strange paranormal activities all around them. Joanne feels the exposure and the effects of these strange fumes and other random reacting environment. It creates a powerful explosion out of nowhere. Then she sees a glimpse of the entity’s silhouette. Dripping in pain as Haw burnt and hit by multiple attacks from them.
Joanne stops at just the right moment. Where her spear is tipping on the same place on Haw’s wound. A weak deep breath coming from him, no words but never shows relief. The UI on her starts reacting forcing her to do it. The spear reaches to his chest. His runes are able to block it, but the magic surrounding it spread on his exposed body. Internally wounding him with magic indirectly. Myrrkei moves away as he bangs at the archway. The archway heard it and begins to rush and opens it. The same tone by the sound of the gauntlet.
Joanne’s UI corrupts her again as she hears her friends at the back “What are you waiting for? You hear that gauntlet smashing there. It’s Miyusuki”
Usweet- shouts at his own pain as he stands back up and keeps attacking the two. Arsenal takes aim and ready for the next coordinate attack. Joanne tries to resist but her mouth couldn’t say anything. Her mind is slowly diminishing with emotional dilemmas. It clouds her reasons as desperation came out of nowhere. Forcing her mind to remember the siege and the deaths of many citizens. As one memory glimpses to the past of the lost. She follows her instinct and continues the fight.
Healer is being pounded down from the UI. Without accepting the reward sooner, he feels the urge of panic within him. This absurd mental trauma that he didn’t even experience it. With nightmares showing his lost in the future, but he didn’t seem to care about it. This UI is trying to control him, but why? It’s been this long since the UI is trying help them to know about this world. Why is it trying to get the hold of them right now? He starts to get suspicious as he tries to call out to them
“Hey! Something is wrong with the UIs, guys?!”
He shouts as they didn’t respond. They keep fighting at the two. He tries to go after them then trip something on the ground. A gem on the ground, colored red, as it speaks out. Nothing less any demonic voice in mind, but an echoing language voicing high mighty. Healer remembers the entity drops it. He picks it up and quickly hears a voice.
Haw’s voice “Use it on Silfa before she is overwhelmed”
Healer almost twitches to do it, then soon he realizes the UI stops interrupting him.
The red gem on his hand somehow stops him from something worse will happen. There is nothing else to understand this bizarre moment. Yet, it was Haw’s voice. This gem on hand he had to put his gut on this. His team is acting strange and Silfa remained idle during this fight. If this keeps going, what else is coming into the forest. The gem shines uncontrollably as he tries to go to Silfa. An aura appeared blocking him from her. It wasn’t the gem, but what lies inside of her. The UI tries to bring itself back up. He tries to get it into his control, but no avail.
Silfa sees the screen filled nothing but her pet doll hogging the view. The controls, the icons, and the info are blocked by its large size. She tries to control her UI but it seems it ignored her. Trying to understand what’s going on as her surrounding is losing her perceptions. Suddenly, a red glow appears on to her face. A hand lies on it and someone said to her
“Silfa, get a hold of yourself. Everyone is gone mad”
The gem brightens and Silfa recognizes it “That crystal. Where did you get it?”
“I found it from the entity. It speaks and sounded alike like Haw”
Silfa senses the gem as the UI loses its grip on her. The quick cleanse made her react fast as she uses her forcefield on the three from attacking the two. As the fumes revealed and the fight almost reaching on its end. There they are in shock what happened. Haw and Myrrkei fell in deep wounds fighting against their team. They dared to fight them giving no chance for them survive their abnormal strength, but didn’t they hurt them enough to put them down though. She remembers they can suppress them if they have to.
Myrrkei reaches his hand high leaving one more magic runes on hand. A spell written as flashback in the citizen’s language. It sends a message to her
“It’s your turn to guard this place”
They passed out as the wounds overwhelmed them by their brutal assaults. Silfa and Healer check on the three but only Joanne and Usweet- are trapped inside. They look around and try to find Arsenal. They found her, and she immediately fires at Haw, beaming into his head, disintegrated from her laser weapon. The healer brings out an Enders scroll and casts his spell on Haw into a near death state. Silfa catches Arsenal as they all watch in horror as Haw reveals his accursed carved skull.