“Ow, ow, ow… My fucking ass… My fucking head… My fucking everything!” I groan while lying on top of a small pile of rubble.
Flipping myself onto the stomach, I take a glance around. Natalie is kneeling a bit to my right and tending to Paul’s injuries. Shino is walking from side to side and checking the place we landed in for possible threats. Her hand lays prepared on the katana’s handle. Besides slightly torn clothes here and there, she looks fine. She must have eased the landing with her movent skill sohow.
After dealing with Paul, Nat cos to check on . My armour mitigated most of the flying debris, but I still feel sore all over my body, from the hits and the last impact. While she takes care of it, I scan our surroundings with my eyes.
We are in another cave. No, that’s wrong. It looks more like a room carved in stone, but old enough for most of the walls and so parts of the ceiling to fall off. You can still tell that it had a rectangular shape and there are so weird torches attached to its walls, with blue, glowing crystals instead of your usual flaming heads.
There’s also a pair of stone doors, each on the opposite end of the room. One of them, let’s say to the south, is completely shattered and covered in debris. No chance we can get through it. But the northern door looks almost intact.
Natalie calls everyone to gather up and we sit in a circle. While she plays a soft and slow lody, we drink water and eat so of the rations. Her chant revitalizes my body even more than any food and I feel my fatigue being slowly washed away. It’s one of her Bard skills - Song of Rest, which boosts regeneration and all healing, also taking care of so strain of the body. It can’t replace sleep, but it’s the best course of action we can take right now.
“Is this place connected to those monsters?” Marcia asks while munching on so jerky.
“I don’t think so. There are so murals on these walls, but I don’t know which race they depict. They are too damaged. This must be so old, unknown structure that happened to be under the mining area,” the Samurai girl shares her findings and thoughts.
I look up into never-ending darkness. “We don’t have any magic to go up the way we fell, right?” I ask moving my hopeful gaze towards Nat.
“I’m still Tier 1 too. My wind magic won’t be able to carry us into the air.” She shakes her head.
I sigh heavily. “Haaaaaaah… Fuck! What shit luck!”
“You always had problems with controlling the strength of your thrusts.” Marcia giggles teasingly.
“Oh, fuck off!” I look at her with my face saying ‘really?’ and she starts giggling even harder.
“It’s not Kamil-san’s fault. That monster must have weakened the floor with the shockwaves too.” Shino surprisingly joins to defend .
“I know, hehehehe, it’s just a little joke to lighten up the mood,” Marcia responds.
Ten minutes later, we finish our short break and explore the chamber with a bit more attention. From all the details, we conclude that this area might have been built by Dwarves or so other similar race. I have no idea how many of them exist in this world, but Shino says that there are plenty. But, wouldn’t they make everything smaller if it was made by Dwarves? The room and doorways seem the usual size.
Nothing else can be learned here, so we move to the stone door. With Paul’s help, I sohow manage to push them open, with a lot of resistance. They make loud scraping noises, scratching all over the pavent from the sa material.
A corridor fashioned akin to the room we are in opens up in front of us. It’s about 4 people wide and sothing around 2 ters high. Its walls have carved, decorative pillars in equal distances, split by the blue torches in between the sculptures. This whole place gives ominous feelings.
We begin moving in the already tested formation. This ti we are walking at a much slower pace because Paul suggested that there might be so traps down here. We have no idea what the purpose of this place is, so better be careful.
Whenever there are crossroads, we take left if it’s still possible. So far, we haven’t encountered any dangers in the hallways, or we are just finally getting a little lucky. After so ti, we arrive in front of a slightly more detailed, stone double-doors. I glance back and everyone nods. We push them open with Paul.
We step into a warm, green glow. There’s a huge crystal sticking out of the ceiling and it is the one emanating the light. Directly under it, sothing akin to a giant chessboard is carved in the ground, but without any colours, just squares. A long and wide panel of glass cuts through its middle, splitting it into two sides. On each, there are 8 statues depicting so small creatures dressed in the fashion of samurai. A few of them hold katanas while making different poses and the rest use other weapons.
“They look like humanoid frogs,” Shino says, examining one from up close.
After the last person enters the chamber, the door closes with a loud boom. A second later, it disappears by lting into the wall, like it wasn’t even there in the first place. We glance at each other battle-ready and turn to the statues, expecting them to start moving at any mont.
A minute passes and nothing happens. We check every wall in the room, but there’s no sign of any other doors. Or they are hidden, like the one we ca through. We gather near the carved board with sculptures.
“What now? We are trapped,” Marcia states the obvious.
“Those things must be the key to getting out,” Natalie responds while pointing at the frogs. “There weren’t any deadly traps up to this point, so this one shouldn’t be too.”
“I agree. At least with the first part,” joins Paul.
So we focus our attention on the little shits. They look like any other stone statues, just amazingly detailed and with a perfectly captured dynamic feeling. They seem to be ready to jump at you with any tiny trigger. I try touching one but nothing happens. They also feel unbelievably heavy for their small size.
“This is so weird…” Shino murmurs to herself sowhere.
I turn around and see her trotting around the edge of the glass, from one side to another, and stopping to watch sothing. I co closer to the huge window and stare at the black-haired girl on the other side, who seems to move her eyes everywhere but not onto . She then runs around the edge again.
“Ah!” She quickly stops before crashing into . “Kamil-san?” She stares at dumbfounded.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask her.
“How did you get here?” she asks in return.
“Huh? I was standing here the whole ti, looking at you.”
She furrows her brows, runs back to the edge and leans over with just her head, looking back at through the glass. But again, it seems like she has trouble focusing on anything. She takes her face back to my side, glances at and furrows her brows even more.
“This is not a normal glass,” she announces. “Kamil-san, co here.”
Confused, I move around the corner to join her.
“Now follow with your eyes.”
Shino positions herself a bit before the beginning of the glass and locks her gaze with mine. I nod at her. She breaks into a run, we stare each other straight into the eyes. She reaches the glass and… I lose her. She disappears. Gone. It’s like watching from the side as a certain wizard boy runs into a wall on the train station. My eyes widen in shock.
“Can you see ?”
I hear her voice. “What the fuck? No, I can’t.”
A waving arm erges from the edge of the glass, but there’s no body in the place I’m looking at. My confusion increases. Others are now standing near , also staring at the floating hand. Shino jumps out from ‘behind’ the glass and walks up to us.
“It’s like a Venetian mirror but see-through.” She points back to the other side. “Look, we can’t even see the statues from here.”
Now that she ntions it, I notice that there truly aren’t any statues on the other side. It’s just an empty board. Shino walks back there and shows us how she disappears again. We all move from side to side and confirm that this weird phenonon is true. From one half, you can see everything clearly, from the other, you see only an empty room, while the statues are actually there.
“Ummph… I’m getting dizzy from all those perspective chang—eeeeeeeeeeees!”
Paul leans over one of the carvings on the visible side and it ends up being pushed away, zooming through the tiles like they are ice. It hits the edge of the board and stops with a thud, without falling over.
“The ones on the other side aren’t budging an inch while these have literally no resistance,” I comnt and lightly kick a different statute, which also slides away a few tiles.
“Wait a mont…”
Natalie says and starts walking around the board while heavily thinking about sothing. A mont later, she cos back to us.
“There is exactly the sa number of identical statues on each side, but they are in different formations. Assuming that this glass is a hint, perhaps we have to set them correctly on the half where we can’t see through?”
“At least worth a try, right?” Marcia claps her hands.
Shino and Natalie stand on each end of the mirror-like structure while I and Paul start pushing around the frogs according to their instructions. Marcia watches over everything from the sides and is tasked with raising an alarm if sothing happens.
We finish the arrangents in a few minutes. As the last of the samurai takes its proper place, the glass starts glowing with a greenish light and becos normally see-through, without any weird effects. On the opposite side to the way we ca from, a door erges in the stone and opens up, scratching the floor.
“We did it!” Marcia jumps into the air. Everyone starts high-fiving each other.
“Haha! Think of better puzzles, stupid frogs!”
I kick one of the nearby statues and send it rushing through the board. It hits the edge and flies off the playing area, shattering into pieces after crashing onto the floor. Suddenly, the whole room begins shaking and the eyes of all other 15 figures start glowing in green. They jump from their pedestals and turn to us. The screech of the closing door reaches our ears.
“RUN!”
Paul shouts and dashes towards the exit. Shino disappears in a puff of black smoke, most likely teleporting to the corridor. Marcia picks up Natalie and sprints while being pushed forward by a green wind. Lacking any movent skills, I start running too.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
I reach the doorway barely seconds before it gets too tight for to slip through. My armour sends off sparks as I squeeze through the gap but I manage to get inside and fall on the floor, panting heavily. Everyone glares at from above.
“That was really stupid, even for you,” Marcia says.
“Yeah.”
“True.”
“Right.”
Natalie, Paul and Shino quickly agree with her. I raise myself up with a heavy sigh.
“Fine. I fucked up. My bad.” I raise my hand in apology.
“In the future, don’t try breaking anything in puzzle rooms. Unless asked to,” Marcia adds.
We walk through more passages. So smaller rooms start appearing on the way, but there doesn’t seem to be anything interesting in them, just a lot of stone furniture, already crumbled almost to dust. There are so books on the shelves here and there, but none of us recognizes the language and most of them are unreadable anyway. Through one of the alleys, we enter another big and eerie chamber.
This ti, it’s illuminated by dium-sized braziers, also filled with blue crystals. There are huge, ornantal, stone double-doors on the other side of the room. In the middle, four pillars half our size with pedestals on top of them, surround a rectangular shape, most likely so kind of an altar.
Everyone starts looking around as the last ti, trying to find so hints on how to open the big gate. We closely examine murals on the walls since they are in better shape this ti and they depict most likely Dwarves in various activities linked to mining and crafting. Nothing helpful.
We gather around the altar and focus our attention on it. Natalie spots so geotrical looking script carved into the surface of the table. We rack our brains over all the information, but nothing cos up after half an hour of brainstorming. Shino leans over the altar and ponders over the writing for like the tenth ti.
“If only sensei was here…” she whispers under her breath.
My brows twitch and I turn to her with a groan. “Oh, fuck ! Why do you have to bring up that useless geezer literally every other second.”
She glares back at . “Sensei is not useless! He is very helpful and kind! And he studied a lot about this world while we were training, so he would definitely know about these runes!”
“Oh, yes. Very kind. The kindest person alive. So kind that he snitches on his beloved students to the authorities. He should get a Nobel Peace Prize for his big heart.” I almost slam my fist into the altar but I stop myself in ti. Better not trigger another trap or sothing.
Natalie walks up to Shino and stands up by her side. “You know very well that it wasn’t him but the security guy,” she says.
“Yeah? They could have kept it for themselves then.”
Nat shakes her head. “And lose their jobs when found out later?”
“Sensei couldn’t go against the rules, he loved his job,” the Samurai girl adds.
“If the two of you are so into him then why haven’t you married him already, hah?!” I raise both my voice and my arms in a questioning way.
Shino drops her gaze down and a barely visible blush appears on her face, while Natalie slowly facepalms and sighs heavily. Marcia enters between us with a spin and sits on the altar.
“Now, now, chill, people, chill. Calm your tits Kamil, a girl can like whoever she wants,” she moves her gaze between and the other won. “And she is not wrong. There’s a high chance Carter would have known sothing about these symbols.”
I snort at her words and silence falls onto the room. She exhales dejectedly before speaking. “Haaaaaah… Too bad he didn’t join… I really wonder how it would feel with him…”
It takes a few seconds to process what she just implied and I lift my head up at her. “What?”
She looks down at . “What what?”
“Even you are after his dick?” I ask, utterly shocked.
Marcia tilts her head. “What do you an by even you? Have you forgotten about his Class? I bet he could make any girl cum like a machinegun.” She places her hands between her legs and starts wiggling a bit with a sensual moan. “Damn… Just imagining that makes my whole body hot…”
I blink a few tis and just stare at her in consternation. She looks back at .
“Oh, don’t give that confused look. Or did you think that I’m yours only? Have you also forgotten how I told you before our first ti that I have lots of sex friends? You were fine with that.”
I drop my gaze to avoid her eyes. I do rember that day.
“No… but… I… After all we did toget—”
She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Did you really think I found your cock so heavenly that I cut ties with others? Oh, co on, don’t be like that.” She jumps down from the altar and walks closer to . “You know how I hate being limited. All this girlfriend or wife stuff is a perfect example. Enjoying everything that life can offer you is the best feeling in the world.”
Marcia spins around, showcasing her freedom, then she stops and puts her hands on her hips.
“When a man has many girls after him, he is a winner, but when a girl has so fun with many n, then she’s a dirty whore. Fucking society.” She crosses her arms over her chest and furrows her brows. “Haven’t you too nailed different girls while we were supposedly ‘together’?”
I look away to avoid her gaze. I certainly did since I knew that she wouldn’t mind.
“Don’t be so hypocritical then. I thought you didn’t care about boring stuff like that. Also, don’t assu that I’m after literally every cock I pass by on the sidewalk.”
Marcia moves her gaze over everyone as if looking for so reaction, but then walks closer to and hugs from the front. She embraces closely. Her bountiful chest in a leather tank-top presses against my armour and her deep, green eyes stare right into mine.
“Or was I badly mistaken about you this whole ti?” she asks.
I get lost in her beautiful irises and ponder over what she said. It’s all true. Marcia is a very open and understanding person. So may view her as loose as she described, but that’s just rude and narrow-minded. She loves to have fun with others and it doesn’t just relate to sexual things. The ti we spent within our little class group was always enjoyable, with her leading us around and directing the flow of most conversations. I’m not sure why I started thinking that she changed her way of being after eting , it even was the main reason why we got along in the first place.
Sohow, I just dislike the idea of her too looking up to that guy. Shino is already all over him. How is he better than ? It always irritates how she acts all cute and shy around him or jumps in to defend that dude in every situation. It’s like she has known him since childhood, but that’s not possible.
A pinch on the cheek brings back to reality. Marcia smiles at , still not dropping her gaze. I lower my own.
“No… I… I would never call you a whore… Sorry… I got a bit too irritated there…”
She lifts my chin up and kisses . A soft, warm peck on the lips quickly evolves into a deep and intense kiss. She breaks off after a few seconds.
“Good. I would be really sad after losing one of my best friends over so stupid misunderstanding. Especially after literally all other ones are now most likely gone for the rest of my life. Ugh… and n in this world are seriously disappointing…”
She sighs and joins our lips in one more kiss. After that, she jumps back with a spin and glances over everyone.
“Now then, can we conclude this pointless argunt? We are all good friends here, differences in opinions happen, but let’s not start just throwing insults at each other.”
Marcia moves her eyes from Shino to in turns. I look at the shortie and she glances at . She sighs and nods. I nod too. Marcia stops her gaze at Paul and waggles her eyebrows at him.
“I’m still waiting, you know?”
He waves his hands with a wry smile. “Thanks, but I still have to decline. I’m hoping to et soone special one day.”
“Too bad. I really hate forcing myself on others. It’s only fun when both people enjoy each other’s company. I’ll be around if you ever change your mind.” She sends a wink with a kiss towards him. “Ah, gosh, my throat is now dry as a desert.”
She leans over one of the pillars, brings out a canteen from her ring and takes a few big gulps of water, spilling a little over her face and chest. A small stream runs down her elbow and drips onto the pedestal. The column starts glowing with blue runes from top to bottom and then slowly descends into the ground, completely catching Marcia off guard and making her fall.
Shino helps her up while Natalie enters her detective mode again. She walks up to the mural which is placed on the wall opposite to the hidden pillar and glances all over it.
“I see…” She strokes her chin and cos back to the altar. “Each side represents one of the elents. Just look at that mural, the characters are picking up water from a river.”
It’s true. We move to other ones and examine them again.
“Here they are using bellows under a forge. It might be air,” Paul says.
“In this one, they seem to be mining sothing out. Perhaps earth?” Marcia ponders.
“There are many fireplaces in mine. Must be fire,” Shino finishes.
Gathering up by the altar, we look at the pillars. Nat summons a small ball of fire and another one descends. Paul picks up so rock and places it in the correct place, making the third one hide too. We all think on how to place air on the last structure while Marcia empties her waterskin and lays it onto the pedestal, which sohow works. We all look at her.
“What? There’s air inside now.” She smiles.
Paths of runes light up in blue on the floor and run towards the gate, which also starts glowing in many sigils and slowly opens towards us. Paul advises us to be ready for anything, a fancy entrance like this could be either good or bad.
We walk into a huge chamber. It looks like so kind of a workshop or assembly line. There are tens of tables, structures, pathways, shelves and so big, rusting machines placed in patterns. Everything seems to be ancient and slowly crumbling to dust. Besides one thing. A wide pillar in the center of the room is shooting up high into the ceiling, towering over the whole place. There’s sothing attached near its end but it’s too far to ascertain the details.
There’s no need to strain our eyes though. Loud and tallic sounds begin to perate through the room, exactly from the position of that thing. Soon after, it slides down along the pillar and presents itself as a big, rotating ring made out of steel or sothing, with four huge ballistae attached to it, facing four different directions. The size of their bolts is enough to easily impale elephants.
“Take cover!”
Paul shouts and everyone ducks behind their closest stone structure. The machine stops spinning and the first of the weapons takes a shot at Shino, which is hiding behind a block of stone. The projectile hits it with unimaginable force, penetrating the 3-ter thick structure and the tip of the bolt erges just a little to the right from her head. We lock our eyes for a second, utterly terrified by its power.
“Don’t stop moving! It can shoot through!” I yell and start running from cover to cover.
The ballistae keep shooting out projectiles every five seconds or so. When one attacks, others reload. Everyone is frantically dodging the deadly projectiles while looking for a way to strike back. Only Paul is able to easily counterattack with his bow. His normal arrows don’t do anything so he uses his Arcane Shot every now and then, but they only stagger the enormous crossbow for a mont. Natalie doesn’t even get a chance to use her guitar and her magic will definitely be too weak to damage this steel structure. The situation looks really bad.
I avoid getting impaled by another spear by a hair’s breadth. Nat passes behind, trying to get so music going on the move, but I watch as her cape catches onto so protruding pipe and her guitar flies off, while she falls back onto her butt. The ballista takes aim. It will easily penetrate this little bit of tal.
「Oh no, you don’t!」
I dash to her side and slide in with an angled shield to completely cover her.
“Impenetrable Fortress!”
The giant bolt tears through the air towards us, breaks the iron structure and hits my guard with force incomparably stronger to the Abyssal gorilla from our previous fight.
*HOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG*
The projectile ricochets and nails the ground. My shield gets blasted off my hand and I’m sent flying backwards at an incredible speed. A mont later, I crash into the wall so hard that I get encased in it.
“Guuuuuah!”
I cough up a lot of blood. Everything hurts like hell. I raise my head while stuck in the wall. The ballista is already aiming at and preparing another shot. Marcia does her best to reach my position, pushing her movent skills to their limits. Paul barrages the machine with Arcane Shots in panic. Natalie stares at with wide eyes while lying in the spot I left her.
「So… this is how it ends, huh? Pathetic...」
Suddenly, everything goes black and a feminine scream reaches my ears. I guess my eyes are done for. I close them and drop my head in wait for the inevitable. But… it does not co. Instead, a strong light hits my supposedly still working eyes through the eyelids. I raise my head again and open them just to see the figure of Shino standing on top of the giant crossbow with her katana shoved into the ballista’s reloading chanism, shining with a pale white glow.
She makes an upwards swing and slices off half of it. Then she jumps over to another, sending a slash of white energy towards it. While it destroys the second weapon, she catches onto its corner and launches herself up into the air, preparing the katana by her side. It starts shining even stronger and a mont later, she rushes diagonally through the air like a falling star, piercing through the whole pillar which is over 10 ters thick, and leaving a white trail behind. She lands crouched on the ground between and the running Marcia, and as she sheathes her katana back to its scabbard, the giant tower slides off at the place she left a cut and plunges into the ground shaking the whole chamber in a small earthquake.
When the vibrations subside, she opens her eyes which are now glowing with a purplish hue. This and her shining katana handle are currently the only sources of light in the room. Shino rises from her knees.
“I’m sorry for being late, Kamil-san. I had to create more shadows to—” she staggers mid-sentence and begins falling down, the glowing on her katana fades out.
Paul catches her before she hits the ground. Natalie quickly arrives at my side, summons another Firefly and starts casting her most powerful healing spells. Marcia and Paul support the completely exhausted Samurai girl. Nat tells how Shino was running around the whole place, leaving small cuts on every torch and brazier in the room, and then when I closed my eyes, she activated so insane skill that made her bounce off the walls like a ray of moonlight, destroying all targets almost at once. The scream I heard was hers, it supposedly strained her small body a lot.
But she did not stop at that. She teleported above and the rest I’ve already seen with my own eyes. This explains how I didn’t catch a glimpse of her around the battlefield and how everything suddenly went dark. There’s no doubt that she pushed herself to the limits to save . If I hadn't gotten hit back there, she most likely would have executed her plan much more carefully.
After Nat gets into a working state we take a well-deserved break. Fortunately, my armour is enchanted with a high-level Self Repair spell, so as long as it’s not completely shattered or ripped off, it will slowly regain its original form. While I and Marcia stay with the unconscious Shino, Paul and Natalie check the doors to rooms adjacent to this chamber. They find lots of different crafting stations and not that many things of value to us. They do manage to find a floor plan carved into one of those rooms' walls, so we take notes of a path that looks like it’s leading to the exit or the entrance.
Two hours of rest later, we decide to move out. Shino already woke up. I thank her for what she did obviously and she says that I would do the sa anyway, so there’s no need to be grateful. She insists on walking on her own, but she’s barely keeping herself up. Paul scoots her off the ground and she gets a piggyback ride, with her face completely red as a tomato. We follow the notes and head straight for the main gate. We’ve been up for almost a day now.
Luckily, we avoid any other dangerous rooms and reach another big gate, which should lead to the outside. There aren’t any puzzles around, just an enormous lever. With so issues, we manage to switch its position and the doors start opening inwards.
“—iot. We can’t even get through so stupid door? Wait… they are opening!”
A feminine voice reaches our ears from the other side as the wings of the gate slowly move to the sides.
“I don’t think I did anything to make them open…” Another girly voice joins.
“Who cares, maybe there was so keyword that triggered them. Let’s not waste any more ti and head inside.” So young boy speaks.
Three people and so creature with blueish skin, pointy ears and of a low posture enter. Two girls, most likely in their late teens and a boy. They look like adventurers we’ve seen plenty around the capital.
“Eh? Who the hell are you people?” The girl in magician robes raises a question after spotting us.
“That’s not important. How the hell are you inside?” The boy butts in.
“We’ve fallen into this place from a mine above and were trying to get out,” Paul explains.
“Ah, shit! That was supposed to be our great find!” The boy kicks a stone.
“Erm… have you explored it already?” the other girl asks timidly.
“There are plenty of chambers we didn’t check,” he answers again.
“Great! Let’s go!” The boy waves at his friends and runs inside, pulling the creature behind him. The magician soon follows.
“Wait! Be careful. There are plenty of puzzles with deadly traps out there.” Marcia grabs the arm of the last, roguish looking girl and warns her.
She smiles and makes a slight bow. “Thank you. We are very lucky to et so many kind and helpful people recently.”
“Sasha! Don’t fall behind!” the boy shouts from a distance.
She bows again and runs off. We finally leave this god-forsaken place and get back to the village.
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