“These seats are so soft and I can barely feel any motion at all!” Agera repeats his new favorite catchphrase for the hundredth time today. Leaning in, he hugs the neck of his horse and gives it a few head pats. The wooden creature pointedly ignoring him as it is not a sentient being and only follows my commands.
“We get it, you love the fucking horse. I’ll set up a wedding date as soon as we get back to the city.” My quip gets a large laugh out of the rest of the group, all of whom have no right to laugh considering they have praised the horses far too much themselves over the last few days.
With the enormous size of the first ring, even on magical horseback, it has taken us quite a while to reach the border of the second ring. To my right is Sera on her horse, carefully holding one of my spare Class 2 cores, constantly flooding the thing with her mana. Right now she is still working on making her catalyst and likely won’t be done before we make it to the temple. Not that it is a problem, the whole situation being mostly theatrics.
I have not actually had a chance to check out the temple myself since the first time I visited, the place being far too dangerous after the last time I caused a ruckus with The System.
“Stop! We are here.” Shouting out, I have the horses come to a halt just before a small stone pillar surrounded by a warding barrier. These pillars are something the Adventurers Guild uses to mark the openings to the second ring.
Hopping off my horse and out of Alice’s arms I stroll over to the pillar and through the barrier, my guild emblem shining for a moment before the ward lets me through. I reach down for my gold badge and press it against the stone for a second as the ground starts to lightly rumble.
In an overly dramatic display of dirt and stone shifting out of the way and barriers dropping, an obscenely large staircase leading into the earth opens up. Sera, being the only one who has not seen this before, gives an awed reaction at the useful set of stairs. “That is a big hole.”
“That’s what she said.” I quip, only to get a glare from Alice and a nod of approval from Agera. Our resident noble girl either not hearing me, or not understanding the joke. A shame.
Not bothering with wasting any more time, I lead the rest of the group down the stairs and out the other side. As the thin beams of sunlight shine out from the exit of the staircase I breathe in deeply, letting the mana rich air fill my lungs. We spend a while fielding Sera’s questions about the second ring before Agera tries to press me for more information on our current distance from our destination.
“Hmm, it is actually pretty close to here if we consider the speed of the horses.” The last time I was here, I was traveling on foot so if my math is right - and it usually isn’t - but in this instance I can use magic to check. Sending my mind outwards to check on the positions of my golems and demons, I find that I was right, and that we are only about a day’s travel from the site.
After confirming with the group that we are getting close, we all start to move a bit slower. Since the system’s protectors should be there, and we are treading in what is possibly the Demon Lord’s territory, we need to be careful about rushing in. Or, at least, that is the general belief of the rest of the team.
Several hours of slow trudging through the forest I decide to speed things up a bit before I go stir crazy from the snail's pace we are traveling at. Several golems form on the forest floor as I toss out more cores. The small cute, but still visually violent monkey golems spread out and start on towards the temple at high speed. Not that I don’t already have golems around the temple, but I still have to keep up appearances.
One thing I noticed as I was scrolling through my golems vision, is that the whole temple city seems vacant. I know it had seemed that way before, but now knowing better I can tell that even The System’s Protectors are gone. Odd.
I really can’t tell whether that is a good or bad sign. I don’t want to be walking into an ambush, but if they left for something more important then I can’t imagine what must be happening to require all of the protectors to be absent from such an important location.
It only takes an hour for my new golems to get close enough that I can confidently relay that information to my team. “My golems just reached the temple, and as far as I can tell all of the Protectors are gone.” Everyone develops the same concerned look as myself while Agera taps his finger on his chin. “The reason they are gone is likely to do with The System Quest, but I can’t imagine what would be more important than the temple.”
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As we all contemplate the ramifications of the distinct lack of guards, the sun beams ahead of us start to flicker and vanish one after another before reappearing. Randall, being the highest Class of the rest of the team, is the first to notice. “Movement ahead! In the trees!” His shout refocuses the rest of the group before I halt the horses.
Everyone aside from Alice and myself prepare for battle. I can see them looking confused at this before their attention is diverted and a large mass of green vines rockets out from the leafy green sky. Twisting and warping, the vines rapidly take the form of a massive dog with an acidic orange maw dripping oceans of deadly sap.
“Look out!” Randall tries to shield me with an earthen wall before my favorite pet slams through it with no trouble at all and comes to a halt right in front of me. I reach out and, while keeping myself out of the path of the droop, start petting Snappy’s snout. “Who’s a good boy! Who’s a good boy! I am glad you could make it.”
The others all stand and stare, completely dumbfounded by the extremely powerful Class 3 monster begging me for head pats and scritches. I am really glad I didn’t tell them anything, that reaction is gold. Happily leaning into the petting, Snappy lets out a guttural purr as the vines in his body rub together.
The big gluttonous lug has been staying at the demon castle and was sent our way by Quan who had been keeping watch over the base while Prim is out on assignment.
“Um, Lua… Is the giant vine monster the ‘buddy’ you were talking about before?” Sera, with a squeaky tremble in her voice cautiously steps back from the drooling mass of vines, not taking her eyes off it for a second.
“Of course! His name’s Snappy. And he is going to be helping us out.” With a bright smile on my face I continue petting the dog, not caring much for appeasing the others.
Alice, clearly exasperated with me, moves on to explain the situation with Snappy. Mainly about how he saved my life and fought with me when I first woke up in this shitty murder forest. They all listen with rapt attention while Alice extols the virtues of how Snappy got us through some tough situations and is not connected to The System either and is thus of no threat.
My girlfriend, somehow having a masterful skill in storytelling, finishes her story. Her skill proven, as by the end the whole hero squad seems to be looking at Snappy with overwhelming respect. Something the idiot glutton does not deserve. Patting his snout, I get everyone to start moving back towards the temple so we can get back on track.
Finally, after far too much time traveling, we make it to the large hole in the ground that leads to the abandoned city I found during my first trek into these woods. The place that I freed Alice and became a Demon Lord. Images of a certain pain in my ass demon flash through my mind, but I shake them off.
“Woah, this place is real creepy. The buildings seem, I don’t know, different, and more advanced than our own somehow.” Marveling at the decaying structures, Agera places his hand gently against the slightly rough stone walls of a nearby building.
“Well, Agera, you would not be that far off in your assessment. There used to be a civilization of advanced technology long before the world you have come to know and this ruin is one of the last examples of that society left.” As we stroll through the empty streets, Alice decides to lecture the group on some of the information I had learned the last time I was here. Things about the Grand Curse and the war against The System’s creator.
By some miracle, we make it into the safe zone of the temple without encountering a single enemy. I can’t help but feel uneasy as I look over the pile of crushed Protector cores left behind by Lucadon’s attacks. He did call them toys or something… Shivering at the eternally suspicious demon’s power I motion the others, who are all standing agape at the size and construction of structure, into the building.
A tall roman style temple made of what must be a refined version of adamantite, layers of gold runes carved deeply into the bones of the building and even painting beautiful pictures in some places.
So many details I didn’t notice when I was bleeding out and fearing for my life every second of the day.
Once everyone manages to get their fill of shock and awe, I corral them into the entrance, passing through the towering and still open obsidian doors. Silently we make our way through the halls as I use my light magic to record every inch of the runework in the temple. I really am here to learn to recreate the anti-system field so I didn’t lie to anyone when I said that.
Eventually, the hall opens up to reveal the same sight I remember in all its glory.
A humming floating cube of shifting black and gold metal, the sound filling the space and ringing deeply inside of my body. Everything is the same, except for one small detail.
Just in front of the cube is a large throne made of black smoke, radiating a red lighting from deep inside. Sitting atop this throne is someone I instantly recognize. The scowl on my face obvious for all to see, not that the others see it as they are focused entirely on the suspicious figure.
A blurry twisted and lanky form with glowing crimson eyes and rows of razor sharp teeth that stretch into a grin that could devour you whole. Horns of compressed black haze sitting neatly on the monster’s head sparking off more of the same red lightning between them as the demon’s grin deepens.
“Lucadon, what the fuck are you doing here?”