The next morning, the 5 of us gathered in front of Kenjian.
“Ah, that……”
I notice something different from yesterday.
Yufilia brought the Divine Sword Ridiru.
“When I told them about yesterday, father and mother agreed to let me bring it.”
Brimming with confidence, Yufilia makes a V-sign.
A golden member of the royal family who dazzles your eyes. I wondered whether or not this country was alright.
Of course, with the level of treasure we had found yesterday, the country’s financial situation won’t improve.
The ending seems to be far away.
There are suspicious dead spaces in two places.
I’ve quickly examined them before, and the way I opened the last time won’t help as reference.
“Let’s just break the wall.”
It’d be a pain to be worry about everything like I did yesterday.
It seems not only I, but Yufilia also thought the same.
“Is that alright? What should we do on the off chance the Divine Sword breaks?”
Remembering yesterday’s incident, Jamie becomes timid.
As expected, hearing that, Yufilia hesitates.
“The Divine Sword and the God Spear are not things made by humans, but are weapons made my ancient gods or something. They can’t be repaired, so on the off chance it breaks, it’d be a huge loss for humanity.”
“You won’t be able to make up for it with an equal level of treasure as yesterday.”
Tiraiza speaks indifferently, and Iris communicates anxiously.
“It’s the opposite. If it couldn’t even break this wall, it wouldn’t be called a Divine Sword. Even if it doesn’t break the wall because the user isn’t strong enough, it won’t break.”
“I guess that’s true. If I can’t even break a wall with it, I’d be uneasy using it to fight the Maou.”
Yufilia seemed to be convinced to my words, but in reality I wasn’t sure whether or not the Maou would be harder than this wall.
“Haaaaaaaa!”
Yufilia fills her body with ki. It’s the hero’s ninkijinki. There are even some people who call it yuuki.
When Yufilia swings down Ridiru, the contact creates intense sparks.
Giiiiiiiiiiiiii
The sound of cutting metal echoes.
When the sound faded, the wall was broken into two.
After that, the wall disappeared like mist.
“Amazing.”
Jamie honestly praises.
Iris and Tiraiza silently applauded.
“Haa! Haa!”
Yufilia is breathing roughly, and sweating.
“It seems the consumption is worse than we thought.”
Tiraiza voices her doubts.
“Haa, haa…...it just means I still haven’t mastered using Ridiru yet.”
Yufilia admonishes herself.
“Also, there’s that. It took all you had, so of course you’re going to be tired.”
I look at the other side of the wall.
There was a hole in the floor, and a ladder dangled from it.
“This seems to be the right path, but can you check the other passage first?”
If we enter through here, those living in this dungeon will probably come attack us.
In accordance to Yufilia’s proposal, I decided to examine the last dead space.
Unfortunately, there was nothing there.
Waiting for Yufilia to recover, we got off at the third underground floor.
“From here on, we might get attacked by enemies, so please be careful.”
Yufilia urged us to be on guard, and we all nodded in agreement.
Up until now, the dungeon had been camouflaged as abandoned, so we weren’t attacked.
However, as long as the hidden depths aren’t exposed, there’s no need for them to hide.
While being being aware of our surroundings, we went deeper into the dungeon.
However, enemies never showed up. What we saw instead was……
“Uaaaaaa!”
*zakuzakuzakuzaku*
Pitfall traps. Of course, since I was in front, I fell.
Below me are needles.
Well, my omnipotent barrierSanctuary is repelling them, so I’m not sustaining any damage though.
“You can’t sense traps?”
Tiraiza suddenly looks down on me from above.
“There isn’t a skill for that. Thieves find traps due to their knowledge, experience, and intuition.”
Of course, I don’t have anything for this. I don’t even know if the floor opens up in the middle.
If I investigated all the walls and floors for anything strange, I’d notice.
However, that requires lots of concentration, and takes a lot of time, so I didn’t do it.
“More importantly, are you okay?”
Iris calls out to me worriedly. Healing is the job of the priest, or her.
I silently nod.
“FloatingLevitation.”
Tiraiza casts a magic that lets you float on everyone.
At a place even farther along, I stopped everyone.
“What’s wrong?”
Yufilia keeps her hand on her sword and watches the surroundings.
“No matter what, don’t touch me. Do you see something?”
I pointed to a single thread. No, to something that’s something like an infrared sensor.
It’s using a magical technology however.
“Nn～”
Jamie narrows her eyes, and gets closer and closer while staring at it.
“H-h-hei, itz hibbing yyui! (Translation: Hey, it’s hitting you!)”
I rushed, and fumbled my words.
“Ah, sorry, sorry, I got really interested in it.”
“I can’t see anything, is something there?”
Yufilia bends over and changes angles, but it seems she can’t see anything.
To me who’s using my evil eyes, the line that activates the trap is clearly visible.
The line is horizontal with my feet, and located around my chest. There was also one vertically, and one diagonally.
I explain them in detail, and lead the way across the trap.
“Hey, where are you bumping into!?”
“Sorry, but it couldn’t be helped, there’s almost no way not to bump into you.”
Yufilia gets angry and her face turns red, but it can’t be helped as it was to avoid the trap.
With that in mind, I went to the back, but no enemies showed up.
We’re going to the fourth underground floor now.
“Nothing showed up in the end.”
Iris sighs while talking.
Being tense all the time will take it’s toll on you.
“This has been happening recently…….when there are rumors about an amazing dungeon, yet when we enter it there’s nothing here.”
Tiraiza must be talking about the Dark Temple. I don’t say anything.
“We went anyways, and it seemed amazing, but I really don’t know.”
Remembering, Yufilia talks.
“Only their presence was amazing. It was like that in the legends……”
Iris voice gets smaller and smaller.
“Did you say something?”
When Tiraiza asks her, she’s not even talking anymore.
Not only my presence is amazing!
I cheered Iris in my heart.
“Let’s stop the conversation here.”
When Yufilia said that, the conversation stops.
In front of me, there was a huge gate.
“Is this the deepest part?”
There’s something here. My intuition tells me.
We prepare for a battle, and open the gate.
However, there was nothing behind it.
It was just pitch black. Light won’t even pass it.
“Mu, is this a transfer gate?”
I try putting my hand into the black space
My hands were absorbed as they were into the darkness.
Even with my evil eyes, I can’t see through the darkness.
“What’s a transfer gate?”
Tiraiza interestedly sticks her hands into the darkness.
“The inside of the gate is jet black darkness. Light won’t pass through it. Everything that goes inside it turns black, but for some reason you can stand in it, and there’s a person’s figure inside.”
It’s a path through space. Without traveling a great distance, when you enter through the gate, you emerge in a completely different location.
“We don’t know where this gate leads to. Typically, they lead to a subspace though.”
A subspace is a small world, different from this one.
“Past here, there might be peaceful grasslands, or they might be a castle. Common sense doesn’t work with these things.”
Hearing me speak, they came up with an idea.
“Ah, there might even be a Dark Temple.”
The three nod when Yufilia says that.
“The entrance to the cave was pitch black, and you couldn’t see anything. When you go straight from there, and there’s suddenly a ridiculously large temple. It made me think it couldn’t possibly be in the cave.”
It’s just as Tiraiza says.
There is a cave that leads to the Dark Temple, but it’s located there.
It’s in a subspace.
“It’s called a transfer gate, but they’re sometimes found in caves and at the ends of stairs. They warp boundaries, and move you to a different place.”
“You can come back from those, right……?”
To relieve Iris’ uneasiness, I nod.
“Of course. It’s impossible to make them unusable for a period of time, or prevent certain people from using them. However, I don’t think you’ll be able to use any magic from the transition system.”
These are also relics from the age of myths. They’re made from the power of gods.
Thus, they’re impossible to tamper with.
Although it may be possible to break them, as they’re not protected by magic as strong as the ones on the walls.
With the commentary over, we enter the transfer gate.
“Somehow, this is a strange feeling.”
A pitch black space. Yet, our feet are still touching the ground.
All we can see are the entrance and the exit.
It’s just a space like this.
Iris expresses her thoughts.
“Things like my sense of direction and my spatial recognition are messed up because of this space.”
My sense of space is also messed up. Are we near the dungeon? I have no idea.
We’re transitioning, so I guess it’s a matter of course.
And then, we leave the jet black space.
The place we transferred to isn’t that wide. I saw a castle in front of me.
As proof that we’re no longer underground, the blue sky spread above us.
The castle’s gate is unmanned, so we walk right through.
As we proceed and open the door in front of us, we found a space that looked like it was for an audience.
Ahead of that, there was a throne with something sitting in it.
“Just as we thought, demons……”
Yufilia strains her ki.
----Demons
The natural enemies of humanity. No matter how many times they’re beaten, they reappear, and attack.
They can range from the size a single human to several times larger than humans, they have skin colors of red, blue, green, or other colors.
They may have large horns, fangs, claws, tails, etc.
“Well done reaching here, humans.”
A demon with blue skin speaks while sitting on the throne.
“Are you the master of this dungeon?”
Yufilia asks while keeping aware of her surroundings.
“Affirmative.”
“Well then, we just have to defeat you here.”
“Defeat me? Me, defeated by a human woman like you!?”
The demon makes a hearty smile.
“Is that strange? We’re the hero party that defeated the Maou!”
Jamie readies her ax. The missing blade still hasn’t been restored.
Hearing that, the demon has a change in his facial expression.
“Fufufufufufu.”
“What’s so funny?”
Yufilia questions.
“I’m delighted to hear that the hero finally reached here. I’m finally relieved of being forced to live in obscurity.”
The demon stands up. And releases the maki he hid until now.
“What’s with this presence……?”
Yufilia makes a face of amazement.
“This maki……it’s much stronger than the Maou Marcok we fought, by far!”
Tiraiza raises her staff with a grim look.
“More than the Maou!? Is that even possible?”
Iris is trembling in fear.
“Because the Maou needs more than strength, if he’s relatively weak then it’s normal that his retainers will be stronger than him.”
I answered Iris.
“My name is Fumeless. Demon General Fumeless.”
Fumeless states his name.
Humans and demons have struggled for 1000 years. I’ve seen all of their battles, but as expected, I don’t remember the face of every demon.
But of course, I remember the name Fumeless.
There were many crises in the history of humanity.
There are various opinions on which one was the most dangerous.
However, when asked “Who was the strongest Maou?”, everyone will reply like this.
Maou Gerumork.
The Maou who caused the fourth demonic calamity 500 years ago.
That was the only Maou who easily conquered humanity and held control for 100 years.
Demon General Fumeless was his number 2.