Biggest thanks for Ace-Triad helping me with SPAG edit. Also thanks to Angel Wraith for reading my rough draft and provide important feedbacks.
More author note at the end for people who are interested to see me blabber some more.
The count's men quickly mobilize now that they have an immediate course of action. Two full squads of twelve guards are assembled at Balafon's northern gate. They will serve as the escort of both heroes' party and the Balafon guide. Another two full squads will ride out with Irileth as the reserve, after the heroes clear out the dungeon, call for backup, or need to make a hasty retreat. The rest of the guards quickly take over the village patrol duty from the tired and hungry local militia.
The entrance to the abandoned laboratory is right by the foot of the northern mountain: in other words, right in the beak thing's territory. Either those hulking, stinking beasts expanded their hunting ground over the decades, or the current village elder was tremendously lucky when he snuck there as a young man.
Both her Naofumi and the spear wielding fool have filorial carriages, but it's deemed too noisy and therefore too likely to attract the attention of any gutter beaks nearby. Anyone who can't fit on the back of their filorial will ride with Balgruuf's men before the soldiers retreat to safer distance on the plains, with Raptors and filorials being fast enough to outrun the lumbering beasts when spotting them over the distance.
As for their guide, he is a young, raccoon demi-human around the same age as her Naofumi, with a similar boyish face. He has a build that's too lanky for the farming community, with a body that looks more like a small bundle of twigs and gangly arms and legs.
Then again, raccoon demi-humans typically aren't built like living boulders. They naturally lean towards high agility, making them great short distance runners, or thieves.
The young man straps a small quiver of arrows to his waist, a short bow and a shepherd's cudgel to his back and walks in front of Naofumi. "I'm Minato, and I used to take care of the livestock. I'll be your guide to the abandoned laboratory, Master Shield Hero."
"No last name?" Naofumi raises his eyebrow, he gives a quick look to Yatsuhashi. No doubt confused why one person has a family name and the other doesn't.
"No, no family name." The raccoon boy shakes his head as his eyes sways to the side. "Just Minato."
Chapter 41: Mad World
The princess finds the raccoon boy's reaction to be a bit odd. Granted, Q'ten Lo is much like Melromarc where commoners have no family name, but the way he emphasizes just Minato feels more like he's hiding something. Maybe he's actually a descendant from one of the great houses, and is hiding the fact either out of fear, or shame?
"He's likely a descendant of Q'ten Lo refugees, Master Naofumi. Not a part of Miyamoto Clan, descendant of Sword Hero." Mein whispers into the Shield Hero's ears. "Only their nobility, or their warrior castes have family names."
"Like the Warring States Period then..." Naofumi nods to himself, likely referencing something from his own world the princess has no knowledge of. He raises his head suddenly and asks Minato. "You don't happen to know someone named Yukari, do you?"
"Yukari? That's my younger sister. She's not in Balafon right now, went to apprentice under a mage- no, herbalist." The raccoon boy's quick pause and correction makes Mein rises her eyebrow in turn. She realizes the boy is likely referring to the two hermit necromancers Count Balgruuf told her the night before.
Huh, what a coincidence. The adopted daughter of Gaelion went up north to meet with her friend and got taken by manhunters, but her friend in turn went south to study under two mages. The princess privately wonders if the raccoon girl had better luck than Wyndia.
"Change out your ugly crotch protector, will you? How do you expect to move and fight in it?" Zylden points his little finger at the grotesque bandaging on the Spear Hero's loin. He takes out a small parcel of something from his pouch and hands it to the wounded hero. "A secret recipe I learned from my travels - a useful remedy for cracked nuts both from bedroom activities, or damage to your family name. Much better than the usual salve on the market, or ice on the balls. It even has actual ice fruit extract."
The Spear Hero gives a side look at Iris, and her bespectacled personal maid, the servant and bodyguard in question gives a short courtesy back to the enchanter, despite his boorish manner. "Thank you, Sir. We shall give it a try."
"Is there any advice you have for us, Zylden? For the dungeon we are going into." Naofumi walks up to the unconventional arcane researcher while the Spear Hero disappears with his attendant to change his bandages.
"You are going into a dungeon empowered by outside artifacts. There's a good chance the monsters will attack you mentally and physically. Use your shield to protect yourself... and your allies, take the monsters out quickly before you are overwhelmed. Something made of crystal or similar materials are good." Zylden reaches into his pouch again and tosses a small handful of rings into Naofumi's waiting hands. Mein gives a quick look, realizing they are curved out of bones with an amber sitting on top. "These rings will boost your natural mental fortitude. Don't expect them to give you immunity, but you'll last longer with them."
"Ah, Lovecraftian games and their sanity mechanics... How marvelous." Naofumi drops one of the rings into his shield and hand the rest to Mein, presumably expecting her to pass the trinket to everyone else going into the dungeon with them. The Shield Hero meanwhile plays around with his new buckler that is made of bones with an amber stone in the center. "Why doesn't this shield boost my mind resistance?"
"Okay, you are being misled by the status menu here." The half man rolls his badly proportioned eyes on his face and turns his body to face the Shield Hero. "Look, boy. The status menu is handy for giving you information about yourself and your companions, but there are more to oneself than what can fit into some neatly arranged spreadsheet. All your resistance status are the ability for you to defend against passive damage type. Like for example, if the Spear Hero hit you with a spear that have mind damage. It can damage your mind, but it happens without the attacker's direct control and input."
"I'm following you so far... I think." The Shield Hero looks down at his shield as he scratches his head. "I guess that means there's some kind of active mind damage by that logic."
"You catch on quickly." The imp gives a light knock to Naofumi's chest.
One orange balloons pokes its head out of Naofumi's cloak to hiss at the gnome.
"NO! Don't bite Zylden, Yuzuichi. " Naofumi gently runs his hand over the abomination's top, making it purrs in delight. "He's a friend."
The imp continues his explanation without even acknowledging the orange sphere of pain. "An active mind attack is the kind that the user actively tries to circumvent any mental defenses you have in place, be it a spell, or enchantment effect, and use your memory, or mind against yourself. You need active mental defenses to constantly change and modify against incoming mind attack, like playing mental chess with the assailant. A Paladin's [Mental Fortress], or a Wizard's [Occlumency] are both effective abilities against active mental attacks."
"A paladin, you say?" Naofumi turns around to look at Éclair. "Can you teach it to us?"
"I'm a Knight, not a Templar, Master Shield Hero. There is a difference." The princess can hear the annoyance in Eclair's response. The dishonored knight explains further for their otherworldly hero. "A Knight focuses on Paladin's martial skills, while a Templar focuses on miracles and mind magic against casters and the undead. There is also Cavalier focus on bonding with their ride for mounted combat."
"Well, at any rate she can't help you even if she's been practicing [Mental Fortress]. It's an active ability that takes months, if not years of heavy training regiments to use effectively. Like I said, mental chess. Your defense is only as good as how you use it yourself." Zylden slaps Naofumi on his butt this time. "Stop thinking over what you don't have. Focus on what tools you do have to carry you through this dungeon and get a move on. I'll ride with the second backup and look over the dungeon after you clear it to make sure nothing bad will happen to the village."
"Right, protect my allies with my shield. Hit the monsters fast and hard. Maybe you should sit this one out and practice with your sling, Raph..." The Shield Hero hasn't even finished turning to look at the child in question before she goes tear eyed between her sniffing. "Nevermind! You can come along. Just... stay behind us and stay safe."
"Okay." The child furious nods her head as the Spear Hero comes back with his party. The bandaging underneath his armor was much less noticeable this time.
Mein narrows her eyes underneath her hood at Iris. The princess can't help but wonder the reason that the Amelia heiress didn't press the issue about the assault her hero suffered from. It is a sure way to hurt the standing of one of her biggest competitors.
If she's naive like her younger sister, she might assume Iris is willing to look past the assault for the sake of their long time friendship, current tentative alliance, or maybe for the greater unity of the heroes against the Wave.
The elder princess on the other hand, has a better grasp at how the Game is played. Yes, the devil bird's attack on the spear fool puts her Naofumi in an unenviable position, but it also wouldn't be a critical hit to his standing. In fact, even if Iris was to go public with the charge, most of the nobility and even the common people will simply assume it's the usual minor spat between heroes.
Drawing the ire of one of the Legendary Heroes in exchange for some minor damage to his reputation easily fixed by his next heroic exploit, or possibly taking away a highly subpar beast in his party that he can simply raise another to replace? It's a bad trade, a pitfall that the merchant minded Amelia heiress will know to steer away from. No, she will simply hold onto this offense, until she may add it to some greater mess up her Naofumi (or more likely, his uncontrollable devil bird) might make in the future to cut the air from the Shield Hero's throat in one action.
Something Mein has to help her Naofumi navigate from, if she still wants to stay in the Game.
"Master Naofumi, we have to do something about Firo's behavior. Kicking me into a market stall is one thing, assaulting one of your fellow heroes in broad daylight with countless witnesses is another."
"It's Kitamura's fault for provoking Firo in the first place. He wouldn't have gotten a kick to his... crotch..." Naofumi's scoff quickly turns into another twisted grunt of pain again. "Okay, I admit a crotch kick is too much. But the point is he wouldn't have gotten it, if he wasn't shit talking about Firo right to her face."
"Yes, I understand that. But it wouldn't stand as a defense in a court, especially when the one who got hurt is a hero." Mein places her hand on Naofumi's shoulder to hold him in place before he mount Firo. "There are actions that'll get a hero's status revoked, as you yourself almost went through. Being rude isn't one of them, especially when the Spear Hero didn't say anything wrong. I mean, people usually raise filorials as mounts and beasts of burden and hunt the wild ones for their meat, but Firo really is a 'garden breed'."
The bird turns her neck back to glare and hiss at Mein. The princess ignores the mounting fear of her life in danger for the moment to convince Naofumi for the need to put a tighter leash around the devil bird.
"Remember what that one guard in Trumpet told you? We are lucky the noble ladies in the Spear Hero's party didn't try to take it to court, or else we'll be forced to put Firo down." Naofumi's eyes slowly widened at the mention. "Discipline her better to not have her attack whoever she's angry at is for her own good."
"Okay, you have a point." Naofumi lets out a sigh as he scratches Firo on her neck. "But I don't know what to do here. I already grounded her, put her on a diet and stopped giving her dessert. It's not like I can spank a bird bigger than myself, especially with my non-existent ATK rating."
"You don't have to physically do anything yourself, Master Naofumi. Remember what that skin merchant showed us in our first meeting with Farkas?" The Shield Hero's breath suddenly stops at that distant feeling memory. "A monster seal works the same as a slave seal. They all spawn from the Founder's familiar seal, after all."
"NO! I'm not going to use something like the slave seal to discipline Firo!" Naofumi's loud exclamation draws the attention from almost everyone around them. He waves away at everyone before turning back to Mein and asks in a quieter tone. "Look, Mein. I know Firo is technically a monster, but she's obviously as intelligent as a child, and it just feels wrong to punish her like a slave. Isn't there something else we can do?"
The princess lets out an internal sigh. There's no point to further argue for this avenue of actions when he linked it to slavery. She doesn't want to make herself look bad in the eyes of her Naofumi, for something he already decided.
"If you don't want to punish her, I'm afraid we'll have to give her away to a proper trainer. Someone like filorial Bill... but normal trainers won't be able to train Firo properly with her already at level 20. Maybe someone even stronger than her." The princess gives a look to the spear wielding idiot, and his party members. Normally, she wouldn't want to give more assets to her obvious competitors. But the gluttonous devil bird is more of a liability to them. "Maybe we can give her to the Spear Hero? His birds are stronger than Firo, and are obviously much more well behaving. Maybe they can control her better."
"Yeah... that doesn't sound too bad." The bird's eyes grow wide as a dinner plate at Naofumi's agreement, she nibbles at Naofumi's hair while making some pathetic squeaking sound to get his attention. The Shield Hero scratches her neck and head for some comfort. "Look, Firo. I don't want to give you away. But if you don't behave yourself from now on, I'll be forced to. It's better than having to kill you, if you hurt somebody."
The bird furiously nods her head. The princess is willing to bet the dumb bird didn't take the warning to heart.
"If there are no more issues, I suggest you heroes get a move on." Irileth lets out an impatient grumble. It's hard to imagine how an usually mild mannered rabbit demi-human can be as irritating as the count's sworn shield. "My men won't be able to see you in the distance after sun down, and you'll have to spend the night in the dungeon."
"How are we fitting the big wolf man onto a raptor's back, Housecarl?" One of the guards points to Farkas. "He's too big and heavy to ride with us, and he can't ride by himself with his injured arms."
"I don't need a mount, you hairless primate." The werewolf bars his teeth at the offending guard. "Don't take me for a weak half-breed like your Housecarl. I can follow your raptors on foot just fine."
"Suit yourself." Irileth gives an intense glare back to the Greyback before she nods at the assembled scout party. "Men, move out before the sun sets!"
Mein quickly hops onto the devil bird behind her Naofumi. She wraps her arms tightly around his shoulder, hoping the damn bird won't toss her off in the middle of the wasteland. Getting trembled to death is one of the last few ways she wants to leave this world.
Thankfully, the ride itself was uneventful. The gluttonous devil bird didn't try to throw her onto the ground, and they didn't encounter any beak things on their way to the foot of the mountain.
There is a large boulder blocking the entrance to the underground laboratory turned dungeon, something the Spear Hero easily moved aside using his spear for leverage. The princess can feel something wrong almost as soon as the boulder rolls to the side and gives way to the entrance.
For one thing, cold wind actually blow towards them from inside the dungeon. Instead of musky air like she expected, the wind itself feels strangely refreshing.
"Tunnels ... why does it have to be another tunnel?" The princess mumbles under her breath while chewing her finger. A cave near a village, going into another mountain brings back unpleasant memories. She hopes there won't be another two headed wave hound inside.
"Wasn't this laboratory supposed to be sealed?" Naofumi gives a puzzled look at their guide Minato.
"It is, Master Shield Hero." The raccoon boy's reply makes Naofumi go silent for a moment. "I don't know why it has fresh air like this."
"Doesn't matter. We'll just kill everything inside." The Spear Hero waves his weapon at everyone.
"Don't forget to either destroy, or take the dungeon heart, Master Motoyasu. If you don't, new monsters will spawn out of the core." Iris' word makes the Spear Hero freeze in his movement.
"Right, what Iris said." The fool nods his head as he strides his way into the dark and cold dungeon. His cohort quickly follows after.
"We should go too, Master Naofumi." Mein gives a quick tuck at Naofumi's wrist, she leans closer and whispers into his ear. "No idea what kind of tomfoolery that idiot would get into by himself."
"Okay, let's go. All of you wait for us where it's safe." Naofumi waves his arm back to the guards as his party quickly follows him into the unknown. Both Mein and Raphtalia light up their [Mage Light] to illuminate the abandoned laboratory, although they quickly find out it's not strictly needed.
The 'laboratory' itself is a glorified tunnel dug out of the foot of a cliff from the northern mountain. There are occasional side tunnels on either side, connecting to chambers that either have some decayed furniture, or long rotten storage barrels and crates. Many large, blue colored crystal-like structures jab out of the ground, walls, and even ceilings as if punched out from some sort of powerful impact. They cast the tunnel with an eerie blue glow.
Her Naofumi would no doubt try to break some part of those crystals off and absorb them into his shield, if he isn't doing his best to follow after the Spear Hero. His fellow hero may not be the smartest man in the room, but he does a good job at being their metaphorical (and literal) spearhead in their push towards the dungeon's core.
The monsters, as the elder of Balafon recounted, all look like some kind of twisted body with too many fleshy tentacles and squishy eyeballs growing all over their bodies.
There are garden of eyes, with shriveled and blackened body with a bark, or chitin like hardened skin. And few dozens of red glowing eyes growing all over their head, giving them an almost insect look.
There are the brainsuckers, with unnatural looking gangly, pale, and almost translucent body. A head full of whiskers like tendrils and a big one on the back of its head like a scorpion's stinger.
The most dangerous monster is hands down, the winter lanterns. They are best described as a bulbous, tumor like growth with many glowing eyes and mouth with sharp, snapping fangs set on top of an upright body of dried, tattered rag like skin and many tendrils. Their sight along deplete everyone's health, much like the fabled underground beholder.
In the end, all of them fare about as well as one can expect against ranged ability from the Spear Hero's [Meteor Lance], or Katarina's [Tomahawk]. The old equation of flesh plus metal/blunt force trauma equalling death still works even against eldritch abominations.
The princess is glad for the Spear Hero's party alongside her Naofumi's more melee focused party. She would have depleted her magic reserve too quickly, if she's the only reliable ranged attacker. It's also a good thing that the dungeon itself is fortified by the core's magic, or the Spear Hero would have brought the entire mountain on their head by now.
Naofumi knocks back an upright, almost insect looking garden of eyes with his [Shield Charge], and Mein quickly blows it apart with a [Greater Fireball]. She doesn't want to be anywhere near the grotesque monster. She's also belatedly realized how ineffective their current melee focused party composition is in a tight corridor. Kyubey's small crossbow doesn't deal enough damage to kill those abominations in one hit, and Raphtalia doesn't have enough Alchemist's Fire to keep tossing at the income monsters. Only her magic is enough to put them down before the eldritch things close in on melee distance.
At least no one has been brought down by the mental damage yet.
Kyubey stabs his rapier down into something on the ground. The princess looks down, and sees what can only be described as a lump of bubbling black and blue ooze with six tentacles underneath. The wandering nightmare slowly dissolves in the strangely refreshing air, leaving only some blood red chunks twisted in a double helix shape on the floor.
Raphtalia walks over to the small chunk of stone, and turns it round and around in her hand.
The Spear Hero's party is already a good twenty paces ahead of them by this point. Naofumi seems to realize something as he raises his hand and yells to them. "Stop!"
"What, you aren't getting tired already, are you?" The blonde idiot spins around to face them, his ponytail flipping behind him.
"Don't you think it's strange? We been walking for almost an hour now and the tunnel is still stretching forever. How large can this dungeon be?" Naofumi knocks his hand on the wall to emphasize his point.
"What's so strange? All dungeons stretch on and on. That's how games pad out their length." The Spear Hero simply shrugs his shoulder at the question.
"Yeah, in games where it has to pad out play time for the price tag. Isn't this dungeon originally some secret lab? How can some secret, heretic occultists build a giant tunnel halfway to China for their research facility!?" Naofumi throws his arm up in frustration.
"I don't know what a 'China' is, but the Shield Hero has a point. We should have at least reached some research chamber by now." Iris runs her finger along her chin. "Something isn't natural with this dungeon. It has to be outsider god interference."
"Use your terrain scan ability, Master Shield Hero. It'll give us a map." Kyubey's suggestion makes the Shield Hero slap his head. Naofumi quickly sends out the pulse from his shield... and nothing happens, aside from the Spear Hero, Katarina, Bertia and their birdies jumping up in surprise.
"Well, that's not normal." Naofumi blinks his eyes in front of the empty air in front of him.
"What!? What's not normal? You almost gave us a heart attack?" The Spear Hero shouts out with annoyance.
"The skill I just used is a scan ability from my Geo Shield." Naofumi points his finger in front of him. "I should have a floating map in front of me for everyone, but all I got is an error message in my eyes. Something interfered with my skill."
Well... that's not good.
"Damn. We fell victim to a Maze without realizing it." Iris claps her paper fan close in front of her face. She gives a sideway glance to the Spear Hero, the Shield Hero, and Mein herself before continuing her explanation. "A 'Maze' is a type of geomancy magic that either create illusion around the intruders to have them walk in circles, or send them into alternate pocket dimensions to keep them away from a dungeon's core. We'll wander around till' our death, if we don't find a way to escape."
"Escape, how?" Naofumi looks up at the Amelia heiress. The princess knows how one theoretically escapes from a Maze, even if that's the first time she fell into one. Sadly it's not the kind of knowledge a village girl would know, so she'll have to leave the explanation to Iris.
"It depends on if we are in an illusion, or an alternate plane. If it's the former, we'll need to give us some kind of strong shock like pain to wake from the illusion. If it's the lateral, there is some kind of anchor that binds the alternate plane with ours, we'll have to destroy it."
"GUH!" Firo narrows her eyes at the Spear Hero's groin again when she hears the word 'pain'. Naofumi quickly pulls her back before she assaults his fellow hero again.
"Raphtalia, the stone you were looking at." Mein spins around to look at the raccoon girl, and the piece of crystal like stone in her hand. "Give it to Master Naofumi, see if he can unlock a new shield from it. Illusion shouldn't unlock new shield for him, right?"
"Right!" The demi-human quickly fishes the stone out of her cloth and hands it to Naofumi. The Shield Hero turns the strange material in his hand over a couple of times just like Raphtalia, shrugs his shoulder and drops it into the emerald in the center of his shield. Sure enough, his shield changes into a chunk of many scarlet crystals lining up together.
"Damn, it's not an illusion." The heiress frowns at the new shield on Naofumi's arm. "That means there's something anchoring this pocket dimension to our world, something out of ordinary..."
"The crystals!" Both Naofumi and Iris cry out at the same time, they pause for a second to look at each other.
"Which crystal? We must have walked past a hundred of them." Bertia looks around at the different crystals around the ceiling, walls and floor.
"We smash them all! One of them has to be the anchor thing." Katarina slings her axe over her head and smashes it towards a crystal on the wall before anyone can stop her. It explodes in her face and knocks her on her back. "Wow... pretty colors..."
"KATARINA! NO!" Bertia quickly throws herself down and drags the downed Claes heiress back.
"DON'T MOVE HER-" Iris' warning is interrupted by some kind of inhuman screech echoes from both sides of the tunnel, and soon twisted monsters with eyes and limbs start to emerge out of the shadow and swarm at them from both sides. Naofumi quickly turns around to stop the monsters from reaching their more vulnerable members, trusting his back to the Spear Hero's party.
The princess looks at the opposite side. The Spear Hero may be an idiot, but he's certainly quick to leap into action as he stands over Katarina's fallen form together with Iris' personal maid. Both of their spears wave around a dance of death as they mow down incoming monsters by the dozens while Iris fires spells behind them. Their small flock of birds quickly joins them, kicking the abominations flying right back into the shadow they crawl out from.
"Mein! I need your spells here!" Naofumi's harsh command reminds the princess they are in the middle of a battle... and how fast all her party members' health is depleting by the seconds! She quickly stops observing the Spear Hero's party, turns around and throws a fireball over Naofumi's shoulder to burn down the gathered winter lanterns, while Kyubey, Éclair and Yatsuhashi stabbing out their weapons from behind Naofumi to cut down those right in front of him.
The frantic, nearly mindless fight feels like it lasted through an hour till they finally cut down the last monster. Both sides of the maze now resemble more of a tunnel of flesh than a tunnel of earth by the sheer number of monsters they cut down.
"Don't do something so impulsive and irresponsible next time." Iris is giving Katarina a death glare. She doesn't even raise her voice above the usual, but the lateral positively shrinks underneath the fury of Amelia heiress. "The anchor points of a Maze are charged with powerful magic, and destroying them disrupts the magical flow. You are lucky you only got a mild concussion and didn't have your entire head blown off."
"At least we know destroying the crystal did something." Naofumi kneels down to pick up a chunk of the crystal fragments. He throws one chunk over to the Spear Hero after dropping one piece into his shield. "All these monsters sent after us, it has to mean something, right? Which direction should we go? There are crystals both behind and ahead of us."
"Of course, the dungeon boss." Iris slaps her folded fan into her hand. "They must know we are trying to escape the dimensional maze when Katarina destroys a crystal. And it doesn't matter which direction we walk, since this pocket dimension should simply loop back into itself like an Ouroboros."
"So, we walk one direction and destroy them from a distance?" The Spear Hero switches into his new crystal spear and gives it a test twirl in his hand.
"Yes, destroying them at range seems to be our best bet. Although I don't recommend magic. Who knows what reaction it'll have." Iris nods her head while giving Mein an intentional look. Well, she didn't plan to volunteer at the task anyway.
Raphtalia loads a pellet into her new sling and starts swirling it around. Remembering what she said back in Queen's Blade, Mein quickly kneels down on the ground and covers her head. She sees Kyubey doing something similar between her fingers. "You might want to get down, Master Shield Hero."
"What, why?" Naofumi's question is answered when the raccoon girl releases her payload... and the Spear Hero immediately drops on the ground. Everyone else throws themselves down at the belated realization.
Both of their parties continue onward, destroying crystals as they see them. Whenever they see a crystal in the distance, her Naofumi stands in front and activates his [Stone Cold Stronghold]. Motoyasu, or Katarina would stand right behind him, and hit the crystal with either an [Air Strike Javelin], or a [Tomahawk] to shatter it in the distance.
Thankfully, they don't encounter another large scale monster resistance like the first time. The dungeon probably exhausted most of its monster reserve in an effort to kill them the first time. So they only need to trudge through a tunnel of flesh, blood and bile for the first time.
As they destroy more and more crystals, the frequency they appear drops dramatically, to the end where they are walking in complete darkness aside from whatever magical light their parties produced. The air becomes stale and rancid. The tunnel also went from the original straight line with occasional offshoot to the side, to something more distorted. The main tunnel starts to pivot and sway to the sides, drops down like a cliff or rises in elevation.
Naofumi ties a lasso with his rope shield, and fastens it around Motoyasu's spear. The Spear Hero tosses his weapon up onto the side of the wall. Katarina straps her axe onto her back and starts climbing up the cliff with the safety rope like a monkey. The birds flutter their wings and legs as they leap up the ledge after her.
Katarina disappears on top for a brief moment before coming back, waving at everyone with excitement. "Guys! Come up and see this!"
Everyone else slowly makes their way up on the ledge, some needs more help than others. When Mein climbs up onto the elevated platform with some effort, she realizes the original tight tunnel widens into a massive open space. In the distance about fifty paces away, a chunk of crystal formations blocks the entire tunnel and glows with a brilliant shade of ethereal blue.
Iris is slowly pulled up on the rope by Naofumi, much like Kyubey and Farkas who have injured arms. She brushes away a few strands of hair away from her immaculate face. "This must be the anchor. If we destroy it, we should go back to the abandoned laboratory."
"Alright, one destroyed crystal wall coming right up." Motoyasu tosses his spear up from his hand and catches it in a reverse grip. He's about to throw his spear forward like a javelin when Iris places a hand on his shoulder.
"Wait a second, Master Motoyasu. Something doesn't feel right."
"It's too easy. This maze threw a hundred monsters at us when we shattered the first crystal, and now there's nothing in front of this anchor? This doesn't feel right." Naofumi nods his head at Iris' observation. He holds an open balm up at everyone, while he himself slowly walks towards the crystal wall behind his shield. "Let me check if there's any ambush first."
Mein holds her sword in a guard with a fireball in her left hand. She gives a side glance at everyone, and notices they are all in their respective battle ready stance as well.
To her, and possibly everyone's surprise, nothing happens even when Naofumi stands right in front of the crystal wall and touches it with his hand. The young man's word speaks for everyone. "Well... that's anti-climax. I expected a boss fight, or something with this setup."
The Shield Hero looks up over his head, he looks down at his feet. He even turns around to look at the cliff drop behind them as if expecting some indescribable fleshy abomination to suddenly spawn into existence. When nothing happens, he slowly retraces his steps and walks back to their group.
"Guess the Maze ran out of things it can throw at us." Katarina looks towards Iris. "That's a good thing, right?"
"Well, the players will complain up the dev's ass if this happened in Emerald Online." Motoyasu chuckles at their situation. It's hard to tell if he's trying to intentionally lighten up the mood, or having one of his idiotic moments again. Especially when the fool speaks nonsense Mein doesn't understand. "Can I destroy it now?"
"We should still be careful. I never fell into a Dimensional Maze before, and I don't know what destroying the anchor would cause." The Amelia heiress sets her eyes on Naofumi and... Bertia for some reason.
"Right, being careful is never a bad thing." Naofumi kneels down and touches his layered stone shield on the ground. His skill castes a similar ethereal glow on everyone around him, similar to the crystal wall blocking everyone's path. "[Stone Cold Stronghold]."
Bertia holds up a crystal orb in front of her, the black smog slowly begins to fill up the clear sphere... did the ear of the fox scarf on her neck poke up? "[Protective Shade]."
A screen with flashing black ripples appears in front of everyone, adding whatever its protection onto Naofumi's ability. Iris gives a nod to Motoyasu, indicating it's safe to take a crack at the wall now.
"[Air Strike Javelin]." The Spear Hero tosses his air strike at the crystal chunk at the end of the tunnel. Not even a crack appeared on it. "Well, it's certainly harder than the other crystals."
"How about I hit the center with my [Tomahawk], and you follow up with a [Meteor Lance]?" Katarina walks forward to stand by the Spear Hero and readies her axe.
"Yeah, let's try that." Motoyasu nods at his companion as they both ready their weapons with their legs firmly planted onto the floor.
Katarina takes a deep breath and she holds her axe in front of her face. Her axe starts to glow with a white light as what sounds like a cacophony of trumpets and drums seems to echo around her. "[War Song]!"
"[Death Spin]..." The Claes brings her weapon horizontal as she spins on the ground like a top, she lets her weapon fly at the wall of crystal after a dozen circles. "...[Tomahawk]!"
Her weapon hits the crystal wall with the impact of a shooting star. It doesn't instantly shatter, but cracks start to form around the surface. The Spear Hero immediately follows up Katarina's attack with his [Meteor Lance]. The crystal shatters into countless chunks with what sounds like the death wail of a thousand indescribable monsters. The world around them seems to also shatter into million pieces together with the crystal.
For a moment, the princess can't see, hear or feel anything or anyone around her. Only a sense of sudden weightlessness makes her feel like she's falling, just like that time when she was in another tunnel near another village.
Will I get another scar for this?
...
There is nothing around her but a white mist as far as eyes can see, stretching towards every direction. She tries to call out towards the others around her. "Master Naofumi, Raphtalia, Éclair?"
She tries to cast a [Clairvoyance] to show her the correct path forward. The spell simply explodes and dissolves in her hand before it forms. Or maybe it's simply not visible with the same white mist all around her. She swings her sword in front of her a couple of times, not expecting to drive away the smoke but to simply do something before she goes crazy.
Is this the mental attack the imp warned them about? If so, the princess has to admit it's working since it's starting to drive her crazy. She expected something like the horrible twisted abominations she's been facing till this point, or a pack of rapid wavehounds descending upon her. But this, this nothingness is even worse because she doesn't know what to expect.
She slowly drops her arm and walks forward, because doing something, even if entirely pointless feels better than doing nothing at all. She loses all sense of time as she aimlessly wanders in the white mist, until a voice seems to come from everywhere at once, or maybe it simply rings inside her head.
You will never become a queen, I will make sure of that.
Mother?
And sure enough, the smoke part ways in front of her, and her ever regal mother doesn't so much as walk as she floats forward in her extravagant dress. "Have I not given you a life envied by all? An easy, pampered life away from starvation, illness, and starvation. With the latest innovations brought by the noble Faubley, freshest produce from fair Shiltfreeden, exotic luxuries from venerable Siltvelt, and the best education from glorious Melromarc. Yet, you take all you have and make nothing of yourself as you indulge yourself in your pointless fantasies and inane imitation of political plays. How can someone like you become a queen after I'm gone?"
"Raptor dung!" The princess spats at the illusion of her mother. "All those things you talked about are given to me by my birthright as a member of House Melromarc. As for you, you gave me NOTHING! I still remember when I was sick, it was an old nan and Father feeding me potion by my bed that made me better. Because you were too busy holding sessions with your advisors! Because the countless, faceless commoners running around your nation are always more important than your very own family!"
She knows this is not her real mother. After the stunt Father pulled, Mother and her younger sister are lucky if house arrest is all they are currently going through at Cal Mira Island. Still, she feels the need to justify herself against a fake apparition, something likely cooked up by the dungeon boss.
Or rather, she only has the courage to stand up to a hallucination inside her head to find some sense of catharsis. It pains her to admit it, but after twenty summers on this earth she can do nothing but keep her head low and grits her teeth under one of Mother's tirades.
"The same old nan you burned to death yourself." 'Mother' turns her nose. "Because you didn't want to finish your lesson of killing a restrained monster, you threw a tantrum and killed the nanny who has been taking care of you since your birth. The rabbit pill was not the monster on that day, you were."
"Oh, don't you pin the death of an old nan on me!" The princess takes a step forward and points her finger at 'Mother'. "What did you expect when you forced me to kill something right after my pet died, when I was younger than Melty is now! Of course, I would lose control of my magic! If I could go back... I would have done what I needed to ensure the old nan was still alive!"
"Is that what you tell yourself?" 'Mother' sneers at her, the regal form of the Red Queen of Melromarc is slowly devoured by the mist again. "I expected nothing more..."
You have no friends, or even allies. All you ever have are servants, and tools to play your Game.
Now, the mirage the dungeon boss send her takes the voice of her 'friend' Iris.
She pivots on her heels and sees the flawless Amelia heiress fanning herself, the ever perfect image of a splendid heir mother no doubt craves for. "Haven't I fulfilled my role as your childhood playmate till this point, never betrays or harms you? Yet, you treat me like an enemy, always keeping me at an arm's length. Tell me, what will you do to the Shield Hero once you are done with him? Will you be ready to plunge a dagger into his heart when he realizes what kind of person you really are?"
The princess grinds her teeth at the fabricated image of Iris, even more irritating than her real self for an illusion has no need to keep to the decorum when facing a royal princess. She doesn't even remember how long she hated her 'friend', for being the perfectly patient, intelligent, and charismatic noble lady she herself can never become.
Something she too, will never admit to her 'friend' Iris face to face. Because she has to be ever vigilant against one of, if not the heiress of the most powerful noble houses. But she can never afford to burn the bridge against her, especially with House Amelia holding most of the food production of the nation.
"Don't you dare to even compare yourself to my Naofumi! He is kind and compassionate because that's who he really is. As for you, you act kind and compassionate to buy loyalty from other people, like all your strays who see you as their world." The princess spits at the image of the Amelia heiress, who simply smirks back at her. "You act the role of my childhood playmate, the heir to House Amelia only to further the power of your family. If my family ever tries to cull the influence of yours, you will be the first to raise arms against me."
"What about Katarina, or Bertia? Neither of them are Players in the Game. All they ever wanted was to be your friend, yet you treat them as your enemy simply by association." The mouth of Iris seems to split apart into a wide grin unbefitting of her. "I ask you again. What will you do when your kind, compassionate hero turns against you when he finds out who you truly are? Will you destroy him, or do you honestly believe you can change for him?"
The illusion of Iris is slowly overtaken by mist, only one last voice remains in her head.
You can not change.
"...Guah." The labored croak of a filorial brings her head around. Within a small island to the side, a red filorial with her neck bent at an unnatural angle stares back at her with cloudy, unseen eyes.
"No... Mein, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..." The princess slowly falls onto her knees and claws her fingers at her own head. "If I didn't sneak out with you..."
She doesn't want to go over the memory again, but she still remember it clear in the distant memory. Mother was busy holding sessions with her advisors every day, discussing how to deal with the plague of wailing death. Father went to Faubley in an effort to bring back the fabled cure invented by the young noble genius Cecil Glo Alphasta.
But to her young self, she neither knows nor care about that. All she knows is she's bored out of her mind inside her palace home away from all the ill and death outside. So she snuck out together with her bird friend to play on the plain and King's Forest. She didn't realize she went too deep until they are set upon by a pack of bone dogs.
That's when her friend tossed her into a bush and led the predators away, and they all fell down a cliff.
"Guah..." The illusion of her filorial slowly crumbles into ash. She lies on the ground, pulling her legs tight against her chest like she did over a decade again in her bed.
Everyone who cared about her, who she ever had a semblance of care towards. She hurts them all in the end. She caused the death of Mein, killed her nanny, and drove a feud between Father and her Naofumi. How long till she hurt the Shield Hero too?
"...Me... Mein?" Someone is calling out for her friend. Stop, she's already dead. "Mein! Wake up! Whatever you saw or heard, it's not real!"
It takes her a few more beats till she realizes the voice belongs to her Naofumi, and he's calling her, not her dead friend because that's the name she chose for her fake identity. She sits up slowly from his embrace, realizing she's in some chamber formed out of some kind of natural cave. Around them, unrecognizable corpses litter all over. Hacked to pieces, blown apart with strong blunt force, or trampled into ground paste.
"Guah!" She turns around at the annoyed tweet to the side, and sees Yuki snorting at them.
Took you all long enough!
The princess looks around, the other three birds of the Spear Hero also stand around them in vigilance. Black Lightning rubs his cheek on her Naofumi's head, Kou taps his feet, and Sakura ... is she snoring while standing?
As for the people... Kyubey, Yatsuhashi and Tanya all have their weapons out while facing outwards. Raphtalia, Farkas, Éclair... and Iris are all sprawled on the floor like her Naofumi and herself. The balloons are out of Naofumi's cloak again, and are furiously licking Raphtalia's face while the girl rocks back and force between her sobs. Poor girl, she must lived through the death of her parents, and friend all over again.
Well, the embarrassing display of herself aside, at least the ever immaculate Amelia heiress is in the same boat. That makes the princess feel so much better.
"What happened while we were out, Yatsuhashi?" Naofumi slowly releases his hold of Mein to get on his feet. He sways on for a moment, and has to hold onto Black Lightning for support. "Where's Firo?"
"Right, we got spat out onto this room after the crystal wall broke apart. The monsters swarmed at us again. Master Spear Hero left his birds and Tanya to help Kyubey and myself to protect the six of you when you failed to wake up, while he himself went after the boss monster with Lady Katarina and Lady Bertia, and Firo followed him." The tan skinned bodyguards point his arm towards the tunnel in front of him. "They probably killed the boss monster."
"Okay, let's go after him to make sure." Naofumi helps both Mein and Raphtalia onto their feet while Tanya does her best to clean up all the dirt on Iris' dress. They slowly make their way through the tunnel into a slightly smaller chamber that's obviously the laboratory.
At least it used to be the forbidden laboratory. Now, it resembles a garbage dump with shattered apparatuses, splintered wooden furniture, and torn apart books and scrolls. In the middle of the room standing atop a pile of blue ooze, the spear idiot is holding a palm sized seed in his hand over his head.
"Behold! It is I, the Spear Hero Motoyasu Kitamura who cleared this dungeon! That makes us even now, my rival!"
Naofumi slams his palm onto his face. "He's not going to let me live this down, is he?"
Omake: Charge of the Devil Bird
"The Shield Hero's bird is following us, Master Motoyasu." The fat fox lady is whispering to the spear guy. She probably doesn't realize Firo can hear her just fine.
Firo doesn't want to kick her, or the axe lady. They fed Firo some meat when Master Naofumi wasn't looking.
"Let her." The spear guy looks back at Firo, he turns to walk towards the back room where the boss of this dungeon is. "Let her see how much better I am compared to the Shield Hero."
Firo wants to kick the spear guy again for looking down at Master Naofumi, but Master Naofumi told Firo not to. Master Naofumi punished Firo when Firo doesn't listen to him, but he's good to Firo and when Firo is being good and feeds Firo yummy food. Firo doesn't want to be given to the spear guy.
That's why Firo will fight for all of Master Naofumi's team: Master Naofumi, sister Raphtalia, rabbit guy, wolf guy, bucket lady, the new guy... even the red pig too. Master Naofumi will be happy with Firo again, maybe let her eat something sweet.
The boss in the back room is a nearly transparent, blue thing with glowing blue eyes, a mushroom-like head and huge stomach. He swipes at Firo and the spear guy with his gangly arms and stomps at them with his gangly legs. But Firo is much faster than him, so she runs circles around him. There's a lot of things in Firo's way, so Firo kicks them apart to make it easier running.
"Foolish, foolish puny hero. You believe the women in your party put up with you because they love you? All they love, is your hero title. You are nothing without your weapon." Countless glowing worms like whiskers sprout out from the boss monster's head, as they rain blue magic pellets down at Firo and spear guy and both the fat fox lady and axe lady.
Firo quickly runs back and hides behind the spear guy. Firo doesn't like getting hurt because getting hurt feels painful. Spear guy can get hurt for Firo.
"[Cartwheel]. You think I don't know that!?" Spear guy spins his spear in front of him, knocking all the magic pellets away while he shouts right back at the boss monster. "All my life, I have been helped by others and fail them in return. But Iris, Katarina and Bertia still believe in me. That's why I won't give up on being a hero. I'll become someone worthy of my companions!"
"[Phoenix Charge]!" The spear guy's body glows with red flame resembling a fire bird.
Firo can do it too!
"GUAH/[Akashic Buster]!" Firo calls help to the spirit following her to coat her in flame just like the spear guy. The two of them charge at the boss monster at the same time, wherein the boss monster doesn't survive the impact as he explodes into a pile of blue ooze.
End Note:
Yes, Naofumi and Motoyasu's party did just fought through a Bloodbourne nightmare sequence here (because I'm a souls-like game lore fan). Although they (mostly Motoyasu, since he's still a scrub) are playing it on easy mode, since they don't play the game with Souls-like game rules and can basically ability spam the monsters to death.
:P
While I did give my own twist, the idea of Malty (and others) having a complete mental breakdown from a mind attack in bio-plant seed dungeon actually comes from a Chinese Reprisal of the Spear Hero fanfiction that can roughly be translated to 'Slandering on the Four Legendary Heroes'. In fact, I borrowed a lot of ideas from that story, like Naofumi going around constantly doing pop culture reference.
Guest reviews time.
To Guest:
I haven't gotten into To Aru fandom, since I admit, I have a probably unhealthy bias against what I personally call 'post Naruto period' (and by 'post', I mean post the publication of that garbage, not post its conclusion) shounen animes, mangas and novels.
Not to say there's no good stuff, since I still consider Fullmetal Alchemist to be the peak of Japanese shounen manga writing that probably won't ever be surpassed by another work. Moonlight Act is just all out awesome, as expected of Kazuhiro Fujita sensei even if his work tend to be cult classics for his art style and slow pace. Kingdom is also great and surprisingly mature (both for its theme and the gore) for an ultra long shounen manga, even if it has its share of shounen manga retardation. Helck is just all out underrated, especially considering it actually has English translation unlike Moonlight Act.
But overall, post Naruto period shounen animes, mangas and novels tend to be trashy shovel wares (that's the most diplomatic way for me to summarize them) that's only written for short term popularity and gratification because of the system used by the big Japanese publishers.
Although from your description and your discussion with HeshGerlan, I get a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure vibe. Maybe I'll check it out, since I really like JoJo's more cerebral fighting style than the usual Shounen manga affair.
To Halo:
Well... I'm not sure if you'll enjoy your time revisiting some of my old chapters. Since I definitely feel like covering my face when I think back on certain things I wrote. The only reason I haven't been caught in rewriting hell is because of my snail paced update rate.
:P
To HeshGerlan:
I would suggest you start writing some one-shots with your ideas. I mean, this current story of mine started its life as that one-shot where Naofumi and Malty simply talk after a day of monster farming. I'm honestly surprised at how well this story is received, considering the topic.
:)
But yeah, I can understand your respect on writers who are actually creative. Since I'm a complete hack without a single creative idea in my braincells, and all my story basically steal plot element left and right (if you wonder how I developed my easter egg fetish, here you go) from other people's work and basically Frankenstein them together. I just hope they are at least fun science monsters.