A loud grinding sound is produced as Azanthys and I opened the huge stone gate together, revealing a spacious but dark room inside. After the two of us stepped further inside the gate slowly closed again by itself producing the loud sound once again. At the same time, countless torches lined up on the wall lit up with purplish flame starting from the ones near the gate circling towards the far end of this room.
“It is saying ‘welcome’ to us, eh?”
One would normally expect some crumbled fragments from an ancient looking building made of stone but let alone dust things in here looked to be so clean, even cleaner from my room back on earth which got some renowned oily black insect roaming around albeit rarely. Even the Orum Arx on the surface looked to be kind of worn out at most places.
As most of the torches are lit I could see two huge figures being cast upon by the dim purplish light near the other end of this room.
“The welcoming party members have all gathered here it seems.”
I dropped my backpack as Azanthys and I readied ourselves while the huge figures, a pair of **ti*us *r*me sized dragons started approaching us.
“Just when I felt someone just entered this realm after so long, aren’t they just puny humans? I was hoping stronger creature at least like those imitation demon race.”
To my surprise the dragon on the left just talked after it looked at us. The dragon on the right then moved its head closer to us, to Azanthys before it spoke in a very amused tone.
“Wait, aren’t you Azanthys? Hahaha! Now this is a good one!”
“Huh?”
I looked at Azanthys who glared at the dragons with anger behind her pupils.
“Traitors… don’t say Azanthys’… name …casually…”
“Where is Mareritter? Did he finally bite the dust? If so unfortunately that will only make me laugh too hard my stomach will hurt.”
“Mareritter… not dead…!”
Earth to Azanthys, what’s going on here?
“Azanthys, do you know these dra… since they are talking, elder dragons?”
The one who answered was not Azanthys but the dragons.
“Don’t put us on the same level as those animals, mind you. Artificially created as we may we are still Ar Draughum, wait we’re Ar Daenocens right now.”
Another unknown phrase just came out. Somebody enlighten me please.
“Same… as… Azanthys…”
Huh? As in same species? Same kind of being?
“Well, enough wasting time but allow me just one more question. Is this human your master?”
Said the dragon to the left as it pointed at me with its finger, err claw.
“Yes.”
“This is why… you know that an artificial Draughum’s power is dependent on the master’s capacity so making a contract with a weak human is counterproductive if you still have the wish to free mother isn’t it? Not that I mind though, your loss.”
“Don’t… look down… on master!”
Azanthys is full of expression during this short time, too bad it’s anger though.
“Then we shall test you here.”
The two dragons roared and made a stance to start a battle. I decided to put all my pending questions for later and grabbed my wyvern fang daggers in a battle stance myself. Azanthys seemed to understand my intention to make this a two-on-two fight by not transforming her to her weapon form and she produced an ice greatsword.
“Hm? You’re not going to use your true form?”
One of the dragon asked Azanthys such but Azanthys kept her silent glare.
“Oh yeah, with a human as your master he won’t have enough mana for you to use that form. Too bad, if it is that form you alone might even stand a chance to defeat us both.”
“SHUT UP!”
Azanthys made the first attack. She dashed with a speed where untrained eyes will be unable to perceive her form at all. With a big swing she slashed at the dragon who just talked. But it parried her sword with its claw and counterattacked with another. When a big attack was parried normally one will lose his/her stability but Azanthys managed to quickly step back away from the claw’s attack range.
“Hmm, that was heavier than I thought. Perhaps your human master is not so incompetent.”
Azanthys resumed her attack, this time she took the dragon’s left flank.
“Human, I thought you will face me so why are you looking away? I’m getting bored here, just make some kind of attack will you?”
I immediately shifted my gaze to the other dragon who casually spoke at me hinting that it won’t attack first.
“That’s very nice of you to wait. I’ll gladly take the chance then.”
Attacking from the front is no good so I dashed forward as a feint but then I side-stepped to the left and flanked the dragon just like Azanthys. As I was about to strike the dragon used the tip of its tail which is covered in some sort of metal to stab me so I canceled my attack and ducked. Avoiding the tail I decided to push forward and resume my attack but the stretched tail which I don’t know since when has been completely covered in metal was dropped heavily onto my back.
“Ggahhh!”
Losing the air in my lung I barely managed to pull back by shifting my center of gravity and quickly rolled away avoiding the full brunt of the attack that gouged the floor.
“Hoo, so you managed to survive that, not bad, human. I thought you would become a lump of meat with just that, pardon my rudeness.”
Catching back my breath, now that I’m at a distance I saw that the dragon’s tail has elongated abnormally while being completely covered in metallic scales. I’m pretty sure the tail wasn’t that long and metallic. The tail kept making strange unnatural movements so I accepted the fact that it was able to make a whipping attack right after it made a stab.
Fortunately the tail didn’t hit me directly but I touched my back just to confirm that the back part of my armor has cracked. And here I though the tail just grazed me. A normal human wouldn’t just simply become a lump of meat from receiving the full brunt of that attack, that person will become numerous grotesque object X scattered on the floor!
The dragon then made a move so fast it was already right next to me before I could even blink. How did such a huge thing move so fast without causing any aftermath like a shockwave? This time it tried to outright chomp on me from above so I dodged while attacking its chin with a dagger but the part where I attacked had turned metallic like the tail. I used the recoil from my attack to assist my dodging and get away from there.
“Good reaction, I’m starting to wonder if I might be able to have a good fight but it is still too early to judge isn’t it?”
At that timing Azanthys landed next to me with ragged breathing. Her greatsword is in tattered condition. She didn’t jump here but rather was blown away by the other dragon’s attack.
“Weak, it is hard to believe that you used to be the strongest among all the prototypes. Well, are you both ready to perish here now?”
“Wait.”
I was prepared to resume the fight but the dragon who fought with me stopped the other one.
“I just received an order from lord Slibinas to let them go to the next floor and for us to return to our post. The lord said it will be a waste to kill our only chance to rid of boredom after so long.”
“Eeeh? Can’t be helped then.”
The two dragons looked at us and jeered.
“We will be waiting so try not to die and spoil our fun too early.”
Both the dragons then flew beyond the spiral staircase to the void not illuminated by the torch above.
I looked at Azanthys and she looked back at me, knitting her brows.
“Master… Azanthys… sorry… useless.”
She looked down after saying that so I patted her head.
“No worries, this might sound pathetic but we aren’t at our best and we had to fight the uhh, since they say something about a lord, the mid-bosses right from the first floor.”
That is not a lie but it does sound like a pathetic excuse. Frankly speaking fighting the collosal dragon felt like it was easier since it was 3 on 1 and it is not as agile as the dragon I just fought. Smaller size also means less place to attack for me and less place for the opponent to worry about defending. Azanthys also didn’t use any ranged attack in her earlier fight, maybe because she was too agitated to think clearly.
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“Besides, as they said having me as a master means you are weaker than you were before.”
“NO! …Not master’s… fault… Azanthys… asleep… long time… must be… that…”
What are you doing consoling me when you look like the one in need to be cheered up.
I continued patting her head until she relaxed her expression.
“Anyway, I’d like some explanations about you and those dragons…”
“Azanthys… apologize… cannot tell… yet… cannot break… rule.”
“Mareritter said something similar… well I guess I’ll find out with time. For now let’s catch a short break before taking that long flight of stairs.”
I wanted to retort that the Orum Arx on the surface is more convenient with its teleportation circle but I refrained since there is no one to retort to anyway.
***
“Haaaaa.”
A girl letting out an unladylike long sigh made surrounding people look at her. With eyes looking at the distance even beyond the gigantic tower, Orum Arx, at the direction she is facing the girl made another sigh.
“Haaaaa.”
Unaware that she is making most people around her restless she continued gazing out of the window at somewhere beyond the horizon.
“Isn’t this bad? I mean she has been like that for several hour bells already!”
“Yeah, she didn’t even touch the mountain of cakes in front of her.”
The magic user Yusa and a certain shopkeeper’s daughter, Eldys is making an emergency meeting right next to the sighing girl, Liz.
“Just leave her be and watch her. She’ll return to her usual self with time.”
Sipping a cup of tea in front of Yusa was Kaldor who just made a foolish move.
“Huh? Are you seriously saying that?”
“This is why men are…”
Kaldor almost spat his tea out from Yusa and Eldys’ cold penetrating gaze.
“N, no… I mean Erik won’t be away for long, right? Just about a month, right? She’ll learn to at least accept that and wait in eagerness uhh, I mean she’ll at least be able to put up a front that she is okay right?”
This time Kaldor dropped his cup, Lloyd managed to catch it in time before the tea could be spilled but Kaldor cannot be bothered even if the cup broke since the girls are looking at him with killing intent.
“Aaaargh this is why you’re still single at the age of 25! This is also why Ruri from our village rejected you over and over again to the point that she married someone else!”
“Clearly you don’t understand women, OLD MAN!”
“O,o,o,oooooo old man!? 25 is not that old!!! I still have a long future ahead!!!”
By the way, legal age for marriage in this world is 15 while the average marriage age is 18 to 21 years old so Yusa’s words caused a critical damage to Kaldor’s heart. Being the oldest in his party after Randall who actually has a wife and a daughter back at their village, Kaldor the party leader has lost the respect he might never even had from one of his party member plus an almost unrelated local.
Frozen to his core, Kaldor who almost cried man’s tears looked at Lloyd for salvation but Lloyd averted his gaze away.
“Argh, Lloyd! Say something will you? I got the ‘she’ll return to her usual self with time’ from you!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”
Lloyd responded with an almost inaudible voice in his earnest to not get the seething wrath of two girls.
“Haaaaa.”
The battle seemed like it will continue indefinitely until another long sigh was heard.
“Randall who has a daughter and might know a way to soothe lil’ Lissa is having a checkup with the doctor and Miss Martlea got an urgent call from the guild. Really, what to do…?”
“Trying to avert our focus somewhere else won’t work, OLD MAN!”
Realizing that whatever he says might bring himself to his doom Kaldor shrank and swore in his heart to not say anything else during the day.
***
It is almost midnight, leaving only after the considerate cafe owner asked them to leave Yusa who felt glad that she at least managed to convince Liz to eat some of the cakes is holding Liz’s hand, walking side by side. It has been decided that Liz will be staying at Martlea’s place for a while so she is taking Liz there. Behind there is Kaldor, holding his stomach with pale face being supported by Lloyd who does not look to be in good shape albeit better than Kaldor whose face looked as if he was saying “I’ll never ever eat cakes again for the rest of my life”. The two were walking real slowly since they were forced to eat the remaining mountain of cakes that was intended for Liz as punishment, especially Kaldor who also had to pay for everything. Eldys went home but she promised to go see Liz the very first thing tomorrow.
Yusa who would usually “play” with Liz does not even have the slightest bit of urge to tease her right now especially with Liz’s face showing nothing, yes, completely nothing. She quickly erased the short rude thought that it is simply not fun to tease someone who wouldn’t resist.
Just where the hell is Erik right now? Yusa thought.
Erik did tell her and her companions that he will be away and to take care of Liz but he did not say anything about where he will go. Martlea might know something but it seemed like she also would not tell. This is the first time that Yusa honestly thought that he would rather Erik to be here since she considers Erik as a hindrance in teasing Liz most of the time but now that Liz is like this she even hoped for Erik to quickly come back.
Since Martlea’s house is not so far from the guild they had to pass the strangely crowded guild so their pace is slower from avoiding the congestion here and there. At first Yusa did not bother to find out why such commotion was there especially this late at night but she stopped walking when she heard a certain sentence. Kaldor and Lloyd also turned their heads towards the people saying it.
“Oooh so they are the summoned heroes!”
The commotion quickly grows perhaps since the object of their talk is approaching or walking past them beyond the cluster of people that Yusa could see.
“You’re blocking my view. I want to see them too!”
“Whoa, isn’t one of them a girl? Is she cute? Damn big hat is hiding her face!”
“Kyaaa that blonde hero is so cool!”
And so on.
Heroes are said to be the hope for humanity since ancient times, different with your typical war hero that can be trained from the rare talented people who always exists at almost every generations, a summoned hero can grow to be even stronger than those rare people in relatively short period. No wonder Martlea was busy. Heroes were coming to this town. Yusa and co. are of course interested but the most important matter to Yusa especially was Liz so she decided to continue walking.
Yusa however was rather surprised when she noticed Liz whom although still has her empty eyes was glaring towards the commotion.
So even Liz is interested in heroes… Thinking so Yusa made a faint smile. Forgetting for a second the fact that Liz is of the demon race from the days they passed together Yusa did not think that what actually flashed through Liz’s mind was that there is new dangerous threat for the demon race. As she was glaring to the clamoring people Liz held her head when suddenly it ached for a second.
“Lizzy, are you okay?”
Liz just nodded to Yusa’s worried question and returned her gaze forward with the same eyes as before as if she was never interested in the commotion. To the current Liz Erik matters more than a race of which most have abandoned her. Thus Liz stopped caring about the heroes. She does hope that some people whom she knows and might still care for her to be safe, but that is all.
“Ah there you are.”
Yusa and the others quickly noticed Martlea standing alone behind the crowds in front of them. She must have waited for us, Yusa thought to herself.
“So how is Liz…?”
Martlea who approached them looked at Liz and found the answer to her own question so she did not continue.
This is not important but the pale and powerless Kaldor suddenly perked up and stood looking all dignified or at least that was how he intended it to be. The fact that he could not hide his bulging stomach and almost lifeless eyes was known to everyone around but himself.
“M, Miss Martlea… I thought you were busy tending to the heroes…”
“That was how I planned and I was the one receiving them in place of the guild master who is not present but I was worried about Liz and one of the heroes insisted to walk to the guild instead of riding a carriage resulting in this unnecessary commotion so I judged that it is fine to leave it to someone else.”
‘I bet she was stressed too… Even a workaholic needs some rest, yea.’
Was what Yusa thought but chose not to voice it out for the sake of her own well being.
Suddenly a streaking flash of light came down from the night sky without warning. The commotion turned to be silence for a few seconds before screams and murmur of fear can be heard when the light hit a small mountain east of Arx Norr and before everyone could blink the mountain was deeply gouged, leaving bright orange molten rocks not unlike lava both in the crater and flown as flaming debris.
“W, what was that?!”
Yusa held Liz’s hand even tighter and put another hand on her mouth.
Just like everybody else around Kaldor, Lloyd, and even Martlea stared at the aftermath with mouth agape before they leaked out voice of fear at the unknown which could cause such calamity.
Liz was the only one who looked at it with interest without anybody noticing.
Then as if the fear has not been implanted enough in their souls several more of those calamities rained down from the sky with some interval between them which started to shorten more and more with time. The reason why people had not started to run in panic, no, everyone in Arx Norr is in extreme panic, the only reason they had not fled Arx Norr was that all the lights hit almost everywhere in the vicinity of the town but not the town itself, as if the source was located at the center which is Orum Arx.
With the plains, the forest, and the hills becoming the depiction of hell their wildest imagination could ever fathom, nobody could move their legs. All kind of body fluids started to leak from people especially those with weaker mental fortitude. Even the so called heroes could only gaze at the night sky with terror.
After what was felt like an eternity to everyone present the rain of calamity then stopped abruptly. However what comes next just hammered down the stake of fear that has been lodged in their hearts even deeper. With a rumble, the tower soon followed by the earth itself shook greatly.
‘What in the bloodiest hell just happened?’
‘Will the tower crumble and bury us all?’
‘The goddess, Praesia has forsaken humanity, we’re doomed.’
Such thoughts were the only things in everyone’s mind right now, except for Liz…
Martlea might also be able to deduce it the same way as Liz if she was calm but losing your mind in this situation is more normal than not. Even Martlea was deeply shaken with fear.
With the tower intact and silence returned, people finally regained their minds and this time the thundering noise came from their voices and footsteps. Unable to think of anything but to make sure of their own safety people have started moving again.
“F, for now let’s go to my place before we get swallowed by the chaos caused by this many people in panic.”
Yusa and the rest followed Martlea’s suggestion and started running.
“I… just what the hell was that.”
Kaldor who is even paler than before muttered so while moving as if his earlier condition was a lie. Lloyd kept his usual silence but he is completely drenched in cold sweat with his pupils dilated.
“Erik…”
Liz was looking up at the sky with a worried look while being pulled by Yusa towards Martlea’s house. However different with everyone else what she was worried about was Erik’s safety. She knows that the earlier event must be connected with Erik. He must be fighting with something that could cause such calamity and that fight must have ended. But who prevailed?
With her free hand gripping her chest tightly Liz kept her gaze upwards causing her to stumble many times but Yusa who thought that Liz was scared pulled her hands up each time and they continued to run.
“H, hey… what do you think that is?”
Triggered by some people saying something similar while pointing upwards, everyone else also noticed something that started as an almost unnoticeable black speck standing out form the less darker night sky which gradually grows in size.
When the figure of that something can be seen clearly the terror quickly returned and people could only freeze in place. No one knows for sure how many has collapsed or whether they are simply unconscious or died of heart attack since the start of this calamity and the number might increase with this.
A gigantic and bizarre dragon’s head which size might equal to or more than that of a more known dragon species’ whole body is falling in high velocity. Unable to process and think where that lump of imminent destruction might fall to, this time people who can still move are scattering in all direction.
Fortunately for Yusa and those in the area, as the head is getting closer it seemed that it will fall somewhere near the town’s outskirts to the north. It is clear that the people over there would not be so fortunate and some might even die as a result of the definite destruction that head will cause.
As the head landed further away from there a loud earth shattering sound can then be heard followed by a shockwave and tremors. To some people whose mind has refused to process the event the world might actually had become completely still and silent for a moment.
Right now those who are safe and sound are collapsing to their knees while being both in fear and relief. It is not that they do not feel anything to people who might have become victims but right now everybody just wanted to savor the feeling of being alive.
If there is someone who is being relieved for an entirely different reason, it would be a smiling girl.
Nobody there would be able to notice that a trembling little girl is actually trembling in happiness, smiling, now that she is convinced of Erik’s victory and safety.