The Invaders of the Great Tomb

by Kugane Maruyama

  Palpatra turned around with a cold glint in his eyes. He was watching the workers who had charged in, though they were no longer visible.

  The slightly disparaging expression didn’t match his usual friendly old man vibe, but his teammates knew him well, so they weren’t surprised.

  Palpatra was an extremely prudent person. He layered precautions on precautions and was the type to look before leaping. That was how he had been able to continue adventuring for so long and how he managed to defeat a dragon. He was so cautious, in fact, that he occasionally missed out on profitable opportunities. Still, he had never lost a man; his ability was worthy of the faith his teammates put in him.

  There was nothing more valuable than life, not to any of them, but they still regretted losing the riches they felt had slipped through their fingers.

  “It might have been a chance to discover some amazing item! It might have been worth betting our lives.”

  “You might be right. But take a look at this well-kept graveyard. If someone is keeping this place tidy, there will definitely be monsters to greet us. It’s better to have the others investigate what types of monsters there are, don’t you think? Personally, I don’t much care for this type of request. Too many uncertainties.”

  One of his teammates replied to these grumbles with a flippant “But in the end, you took it!”

  “Yes. Because I figured if there were other teams, we could escape while they end up victims.”

  The party reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “Is that why you took on the search of the ground level? So if we hear them scream, we can run away?”

  “That’s one reason. I’m making a bet… As you said earlier, we stand to lose a lot. It should be safer once we have more information, but it’s unclear how many benefits there really are. If it doesn’t work out, allow me to apologize.”

  “Don’t worry about it, sir. We trust you no matter what. You tend to make the right choice.”

  “And if we do miss out here, we’ll just gnash our teeth and make a killing on the next job. Aren’t you the one who said that as long as you’re alive, you’ll always have another chance to profit, so you shouldn’t go recklessly rushing into danger?”

  “Ahh, that takes me back. We were young then.”

  “You’re still young!”

  “Well, when you say it, sir…”

  The party was all wry smiles as they set off across the graveyard toward one of the smaller mausoleums.

  “Actually, I’m sorry I made a decision on my own when I should have conferred with the rest of you first.”

  “Well, there wasn’t much you could have done, given the timing. Plus, we chose you as our leader. If our trusted leader decides something, we’re happy to obey.”

  “…You seem disappointed, though. What are those bitter smiles for? Well, anyhow. Let’s get down to business here. If we have time left after the search, maybe we can get Momon to give us some training. It’s a good opportunity, so you fellows should try sparring with him, too.”

  “Yeah, his match with you is burned into our brains. He really is an adamantite rank.”

  “There are all different levels within adamantite rank. Frankly, the empire’s Eight Ripples aren’t really adamantite caliber. Momon is a true adamantite rank on a level above the one I couldn’t even reach.”

  “Sir…”

  “Hya-hya-hya! No worries. In my heyday, I might have been jealous, but now I’m just a wrinkly old man. It’s not a shock to me. And I’ve seen my share of true adamantites, but Momon is outstanding. His presence feels like the true of the true.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. That’s why you really should have him go at you, even just casually. If you’re going to keep adventuring even after I die, it’s an experience you’ll treasure.”

  “There’s no way you’re going to die, sir. I can’t even imagine you retiring.”

  “Yeah! I think you’ll live as long as Paradyne.”

  “Hya-hya-hya! Nah, that’s impossible for me. He’s something else.”

  “What a wonderful team you are.”

  Suddenly, the quiet voice of a woman.

  In this group, there were two women on Hekkeran’s team, Foresight, and three elf slaves on Elya’s team, Tenbu, but the voice was none of those.

  The party raised their weapons and whirled around.

  At the top of the gently sloping stairs they had just descended, at the entrance to the mausoleum, stood women in maid uniforms—five of them.

  They were all unbelievably beautiful, which made them seem very out of place.

  The strange thing was that although they wore maid uniforms, the outfits were unlike any Palpatra had ever seen before and had a metallic gleam, like armor.

  “Who…are you? I’ve never seen you before… Hmm… So there was a secret passage after all?”

  “Girls? They’re as pretty as Raven Black’s Beautiful Princess, but…they must be more than looks, huh?”

  “They don’t seem hostile. Maybe they were hired by someone else…? Nah, that can’t be…”

  “What should we do, sir?”

  Palpatra’s teammates, watching the maids’ every move, looked to him for direction.

  Negotiating would have been best, but there was no way things would resolve amicably.

  “Numberwise, we’re even… Maybe it’ll be okay?”

  Their opponents were as strong or perhaps slightly stronger than they were.

  The fact that they hadn’t attacked while all the workers were together meant they probably didn’t have a trap or the might to take everyone at once. Likewise, since they came straight at Palpatra’s team and talked to them now, they were probably confident they could beat them.

  As Palpatra had gotten older, his body didn’t perspire like it used to, but at this moment, the hands clenching his spear were clammy.

  “Still, maids in a graveyard? This guy’s taste is suspect.”

  The team went from chatty to pale and trembling in the space of a moment, foreheads slick with sweat.

  Palpatra was assailed, for just a split second, by the feeling that the temperature had plunged, but the goose bumps covering his entire body were not his imagination.

  Even by the light of the moon, he could see the cutthroat looks in the eyes of the maids lined up above them.

  “LET’S KILL THEMMM.”

  “…We should.”

  “Normally we wouldn’t kill them, but put them through incredible amounts of pain, no?”

  The maids were awash with killing intent. Their emotional agitation was so intense that it seemed to warp space.

  “Okay, okay.” The one who seemed to have the highest status clapped her hands lightly. “We were ordered not to let anyone out alive, so killing them was already decided, but I’m glad you’re all in the mood.”

  A metallic clack rang out loudly on the marble steps. It was made by the greave-like high heels the maids were wearing.

  Palpatra and his team backed up as if they’d been pushed.

  Judging from the fact that their opponents carried no weapons, they had to be casters. In that case, it was a bad plan to let them have the higher, more advantageous ground and set this open area with a clear line of fire as the battlefield.

  For Palpatra and his team, closing the distance would be effective. The maids would have the advantage in the opposite scenario, so why were they coming down the stairs? Would they float into the sky with Fly in a pinch?

  Bewildered by the stately approach of the maids, whose faces were as expressionless as Noh masks, Palpatra and his team conferred behind their shields about what to do, what strategy to use.

  Clack! The sound was louder now. The maids had stopped midway down the stairs.

  “First, allow me to introduce myself. I…ahem…I am the deputy leader of the Pleïades, Yuri Alpha. We’ll only be with one another a short while, but I hope you’ll remember me. Now then, this would be over much more quickly if we could
clean you up ourselves, but due to certain circumstances, we are unable to lay a hand on you directly. It’s unfortunate, but that’s how it is.”

  Adorable voices laughing, like bells ringing, traveled on the wind until they reached the workers.

  The smiles of these peerless beauties were so charming it wouldn’t have been strange for one of them to fall in love at first sight.

  Palpatra had seen a lot of things in all his years as first an adventurer, then a worker. That included the inhuman beauty of monsters. Even he had never seen such a pretty woman as Yuri—she was so gorgeous he thought he might lose his senses.

  But under one layer of thin skin beneath her regular features lay a crushing pride that made itself known through the contempt in her way of addressing them, the superiority oozing at the edges of her words. For men who had made it through many adventures and were confident in their skill, the arrogance was obnoxious—enough to make them want to hurt her a little.

  As elaborated on earlier, however, there was mounting evidence that suggested the overwhelming strength of these women (as contrary as their appearance made that seem), so the men couldn’t quite commit themselves to a charge. One of them, struck by the maid party’s killing intent, still looked plain scared.

  Perhaps their best course of action was to retreat and involve the adventurers, especially Momon, in the fight.

  “Now allow me to introduce your opponents.” Yuri clapped her hands twice. The sound carried surprisingly far, and the graveyard shook as if in response. “Come on out, Nazarick Old Guarders.”

  “What?!” Palpatra yelped.

  Behind them the ground split open, and multiple skeletons appeared.

  Pincered?! No…

  Looking up at the stairs, he saw that while the maids were hostile, any hint of a will to fight had disappeared. Perhaps one could say they’d gone into spectator mode. The workers couldn’t let down their guard, but at least for now there was no sign of the women attacking, as they had said.

  Concluding that their opponents for the time being were the newcomer skeletons to the rear, Palpatra took a good look at them.

  Skeletons weren’t such tough enemies. Palpatra and his team could be attacked by a hundred and methodically annihilate them without even getting scared. In that case, the eight skeletons that had crawled out of the ground weren’t opponents at all.

  There was just one problem.

  Palpatra and his teammates all swallowed hard and took an unconscious step back.

  These didn’t seem like ordinary skeletons. They had different gear, too.

  They wore quality breastplates, like the type of thing the bodyguards of some country’s leader would wear, carried kite shields emblazoned with a crest, and wielded a diverse array of weapons. They wore composite longbows across their backs. And every bit of their gear had the sparkle of magical energy.

  Skeletons armed with magic items couldn’t be ordinary skeletons.

  “What are those?”

  “You don’t know either, sir? I’m not positive, but I think…they’re a subtype of skeleton warriors.”

  “A subtype? Well, they don’t seem like red skeleton warriors…”

  Facing an enemy they knew nothing about was terrifying, all the more so because that enemy was outfitted with magic items that had special effects.

  “Judging from your numbers, we think this many will be enough. Do your best. Let’s see how far you can run.”

  “To be given such powerful undead as opponents—what an honor! However…”

  Palpatra thought calmly.

  It would be no easy feat to ready an endless supply of fancily equipped undead. They must have come out swinging with their strongest force.

  If they had something stronger, they never would have let the invasion begin.

  “So this is the mightiest these ruins have to offer? Did you think you could stop us with these?”

  When he looked up, he saw Yuri’s eyes darting around—she was mildly shaken.

  Bull’s-eye, huh? I see. So this conversation was supposed to be a trap…?

  The smartest use of their most powerful forces would have been to defeat each enemy as it came inside the tomb. But considering the chance of not encountering them, maybe it was smarter to concentrate their forces on the exit—the place the physically and mentally exhausted raiders would have to pass after their search.

  He could see through their aim. The maid’s taunt to do their best at running away put the idea of fleeing in their heads, surely so she and her companions could attack them from behind with the advantage. They had multiple battles ahead, so of course they would want to minimize their losses.

  So there was only one thing Palpatra and his team had to do.

  “We just have to defeat all the skeletons and break through, right?”

  They had to fight off the Nazarick Old Guarders for the other teams who would return later.

  The workers were rivals but also teammates. Besides, if the intention was for them to flee, it would be harder for the maids to catch them in their trap if they stood and fought instead. Keeping in mind the plan of getting Momon and the others into the battle if their opponents started to seem tough, Palpatra figured they should fight, knowing it was dangerous.

  “Contrary to my plans, we’re the canaries… My head hurts. Do you think that’s all of them?”

  “It’s hard to imagine they could have more undead with that level of gear.”

  “This is a path any raiders would have to take. So putting their strongest force here is an optimal strategy. That means it’s probably all of them, right? I don’t think they’d make any stupid mistakes in how they split up their troops, given that they’re better informed than us.”

  “No, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more inside. But most of the ones that are left are probably less powerful.”

  “Sir…let’s make a run for it. Those things are bad. Really bad.”

  “There’s been nowhere to run from the moment we were flanked. Even if we tried to fly away, they’d shoot us with their bows. We have to hold our ground! Beating them is the only way to survive!”

  As Palpatra shouted, there came a voice from above that sounded somewhere between surprised and derisive. “Well, that’s one way to do it. We’re rooting for you. Now, please begin.”

  With her voice as the trigger, the Nazarick Old Guarders charged.

  Yuri and the others repeated their “encouragements” with troubled expressions.

  The scene playing out before them was so unexpected, they couldn’t conceal their surprise. Are they really this…?

  “Boy, they’re doomed.”

  “…I never guessed they would be so…”

  “Master Cocytus is also surprised.”

  “AT THIS RATE…IT’S GOING TO END BEFORE THEY GET TO THE GOOD PART…”

  A hammer descended as they watched.

  “Ah, this is bad. They’re gonna die.”

  At Lupusregina’s quiet comment, a man took the hit to his chest and crumpled to the ground.

  The sound of metal screeching and something heavy falling—even in the midst of the fierce fight, these sounds echoed out clearly.

  The first one to die was a human warrior. The Nazarick Old Guarder who’d clobbered him with a lightning-imbued hammer unsmilingly shifted its aim to its next prey.

  “Mr. Priest, hurry up and heal or your warrior’s gonna die!” Yuri seemed concerned.

  “…No. He died instantly. And now their line is broken,” Shizu replied, shaking her head.

  The two Nazarick Old Guarders who had been facing the warrior were freed up, so one of them headed toward the priest, and the other moved on to the rear guard. The priest had already had two on him, and now he would have to face another. He didn’t have time to cast anymore. It was all he could do to withstand the attacks coming at him from three directions.

  The only one putting up a decent fight was Palpatra, but he was facing three of them, so he didn’t have
any leeway to go to the rescue.

  “Thieves don’t have enough attack power. Do you have any kind of ace move?” The arcane caster protecting the thief had to fight another monster. That made two. A thief’s light weapons were definitely not powerful enough against armor-clad undead, which couldn’t be killed in one well-aimed strike. He could dodge nimbly, but the difference between exhaustible humans and inexhaustible undead was huge.

  “They’re looking at us like they’re going to start crying.”

  “Should we wave?”

  “SURE, WE CAN DO THAT MUUUCH.”

  “’Kay, ’kay.” Lupusregina grinned and waved at Palpatra.

  “……He got hit.”

  “Because you distracted him, Lupu.”

  “Urgh! You mean it’s my fault?!”

  “……Yes. It’s your fault. But we can root for them… Hang in there…”

  “Yeah, we need them to hang in there.”

  Everyone nodded at Yuri’s remark.

  In their battle with Palpatra’s worker team, the Nazarick Old Guarders kept the pressure on the entire time. The workers’ resistance was so futile, the game so one-sided, that Yuri and the other maids began to pity them.

  They’d laughed at first. Why were they so confident before the battle started? But the fight was not even worth watching. They yawned and even started encouraging the workers.

  “Agh, it’s so one-sided I don’t even know what to say.”

  “……They don’t have any ace moves?”

  “Maybe it was the summoning spell he just cast?”

  “Tier three?”

  “Nah, that’s too weak to be an ace move. But I do think their idea to build a wall with summoned monsters was a good one.”

  “For sure. If the attacks hadn’t reached, they might have been able to regroup.”

  “BUUUT FLYING WAS A BAD MOOOVE. THE WRINKLY ONE EVEN SAID SOOO…”

  “It wasn’t clear if he was trying to run away or cast magic from above…”

  “……Perfect for target practice.”

  The arcane caster had already taken a critical hit and fallen to the ground. If his hands had been free, he could have cast a healing spell or used a potion and returned to the fight, but he didn’t have the energy. In the end, the thief covered him, and he had his hands full trying not to get finished off.