The Invaders of the Great Tomb

by Kugane Maruyama

  Hamusuke wasn’t able to wear armor, mainly because she just felt so weird when she put it on that she couldn’t move how she wanted. She didn’t have any trouble running around and changing position under normal conditions, but in battle when she tried to wield her tail, she lost her balance and missed her target. That’s why she was learning by watching her lizardman instructor’s example.

  “Now I can show my master how much stronger I’ve gotten for him, that I can! I wonder when I’ll be able to call myself a proper warrior, that I do! Warrior Hamusuke, that I am!”

  “Hmm… I’d guess in another month or two you’ll be able to call yourself a warrior.”

  “…That’s so far away, that it is.”

  “Seems pretty quick to me, Hamusuke. Usually it takes a year before you can finally use a martial art! When you think of it that way, it’s so soon.” Zenbel, another lizardman standing next to Zaryusu, chimed in.

  “You think so, do you?”

  “Yes, that I do. Real battle training and healing wounds, using support magic to battle someone stronger than you… You’ve been through some hellish training, but you’re still learning really fast.”

  Hamusuke shuddered, as did the lizardmen. The thought of all the training they’d done was chilling.

  “I’d be happy if we could train in ways that didn’t make me think of the word death, that I would…”

  “I think fighting right on the edge of living and dying will make you stronger, but… Well, to each his own. Plus, it’d be tragic for a newlywed to die during a workout.”

  “Oh, that’s right, you got married, that you did!”

  “Yeah. She got pregnant, so…”

  “Just the aim I’d expect from an exceptional warrior like you. You did it like what, two or three times?”

  Zaryusu stuck his fist into Zenbel. “That’s enough. We have to get back to our exercises. What should we do about those elves?”

  “Eh, we can just leave them, that I think.”

  One by one the elves who had been punching and kicking their dead owner this whole time plunked down on the floor like something had finally snapped inside them. Hamusuke didn’t sense any will to fight, so she decided that unless she received word from her master or they tried to run away, she would just leave them alone.

  Intermission

  At the sudden change in airflow just past the tip of his snout, the Platinum Dragonlord, Zeyndelux Vaishion, awoke from his light slumber.

  Surprise was the emotion that occupied his awakened mind, or one could just as easily call it shock.

  A dragon’s keen perception far surpassed that of a human’s. Even if someone was invisible or disguised with an illusion, a dragon could immediately sense their presence from a surprisingly long distance—even while asleep.

  And an ordinary dragon’s faculties could not even compare with his; he was a dragonlord. For someone to approach this near to him meant their abilities had to be unparalleled.

  Even he, in all his long life, had only met a handful of people at that level. The first was a dragonlord like him. The second was no longer of this world: Ijaniya, an assassin and one of the Thirteen Heroes. And then—

  Sensing the presence of the one who came to mind next, Zeyndelux—Zey—frowned as he slowly opened his eyes.

  Dragon eyes could see in the dark as if it were midday.

  Standing grandly in the direction from which he felt the presence was an old woman with an elegant sword at her hip. A smile reserved for someone who’d pulled off the innocent prank of getting this far without being detected by the dragon’s keen senses was spread across her wrinkled face.

  “Long time no see.”

  Zey eyed the old woman without responding.

  Her hair, gone completely white, indicated what a long time she’d been alive. But something about her face was lively, like a mischievous child’s.

  Old age had made her thin and frail, but inside she was still the same.

  As Zey was comparing her to the image of her in his mind, her eyebrows suddenly tilted to a dangerous angle.

  “What? Has my friend forgotten how to say hello? Good grief, do dragons go senile, too?”

  Zey bared his fangs and chuckled kindly. “Sorry. I was overcome with emotion at meeting my old friend. I couldn’t get the words out.” His voice was far gentler than one would imagine, given his size.

  The old woman’s response was sarcastic as he expected. “Friend, hmm? My friend was inside that empty suit of armor… It looks pretty beat up.”

  When Zey had adventured with the old woman and her friends, he’d been manipulating a hollow suit of armor from afar. When he revealed the truth, she was furious that he’d tricked her. She still held a grudge about it and needled him now and then to this day.

  He thought it was about time for her to forgive and forget, but at the same time, he enjoyed their familiar banter.

  Grinning at the same old back-and-forth, he looked at her fingers. “Hmm? Seems like the ring is missing. What happened to it? I don’t think there’s anyone capable of stealing it from you…but that item contains power beyond the realm of human capability. I don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands. I especially wouldn’t want the Slane Theocracy’s Black Scripture to get it…”

  “Are you trying to change the subject? But good eye. I guess that’s a dragon’s perceptiveness when it comes to treasure, hmm? Well, it’s fine… I gave it to a youngster. Rest easy.”

  This wasn’t the kind of item one could give away lightly.

  It had been created with wild magic. These days magic was tainted and warped, so it would be nearly impossible to produce a similar item. As one of the few stewards of wild magic left, he wanted to ask where the ring was.

  But he trusted his friend.

  “I see. Well, if it’s what you decided, then it’s probably all right… By the way, I heard the rumors. You’ve been adventuring? Is that why you’re here?”

  “Certainly not! I just came to visit as a friend. Besides, I retired from adventuring. Don’t make this old lady work anymore. I passed my role on to the crybaby.”

  “The crybaby?” Zey pondered who it could be for a moment, and then it hit him. “You mean…her?”

  The old lady grinned when she realized who he meant from the hint of emotion in his voice. “Yes, the little Imbern girl.”

  “Ahh.” He was astonished. “You’re probably the only one who can get away with calling her that.”

  “You think so? I’m sure you could even more than me. After all, she and I are about the same age. You’re older, right?”

  “Well, yes, but… Still, I can’t believe she agreed to be an adventurer! How did you get her to do it?”

  “Ha. She was whining, so I told her if I beat her she had to do whatever I said. Then I socked it to her!” She cackled as if amused to her very core.

  “…You’re about the only human who can defeat her.” Zey spoke in a voice that in a human would have indicated a cold sweat and shook his head. He was recalling the face of another old comrade, one with whom he’d fought against the evil spirits; she had performed particularly well in the battle against the bug spirits.

  “Well, my friends helped. Plus, knowing undead means knowing how to defeat them. Even if she can’t win with her abilities, she can turn the tables. Still, the crybaby may be strong, but there’s always someone stronger. You, for instance, could probably defeat her pretty easily. If you weren’t restrained, you’d be the most powerful being in the world.”

  The old woman shifted her eyes to the silver suit of armor. She’d probably expected a lighthearted response, but Zey’s was more heavy.

  “Oh, I don’t know. The power that sullies the world might be stirring again.”

  There was a hole in the right shoulder of the armor like a spear had pierced it.

  “So the aftershock from a hundred years ago has come? This time it won’t be someone on the world’s side, like our leader?”

  “It’s po
ssible it was just an unlucky encounter, but the true nature of that vampire has to be right alongside evil. Still, I thought it seemed like the time had come, but I can’t decide if suddenly running into it was bad luck, or if we are lucky for having confirmed its existence.”

  “Two sides of the same coin. You can choose whichever you like. So I asked you once before, but you can’t enlist the other dragonlords to help?”

  “The answer is the same. Probably not. The only ones still alive in this world are ones who didn’t fight in the battle with the Eight Kings of Avarice. I highly doubt guys like the Heavenly Dragonlord, just flying around all the time, or the Deep Darkness Dragonlord, holed up in his huge underground cave doing who knows what, would lend me their strength.”

  “Yeah. But there are ones like the Brightness Dragonlord who had children with humans. If you tried talking to them, something might work out.”

  “Maybe…but I don’t know. Personally I think asking for her cooperation is our best bet—the one he told us about who is sleeping on the deepest level of the city in the sea.”

  “Waiting in her dreams, was it? If our leader had been able to leave behind all his knowledge, we would probably have less trouble. He really died too soon.”

  “There was nothing we could have done. Even he…I think it was a shock to kill the player he’d come this far with. I can understand refusing revival. You were shocked, too, weren’t you, Ligritte?”

  The old woman got a faraway look in her eyes and sadly nodded her head. “Well…yeah. Actually…yeah.”

  “Ligritte, I’m sorry because I know you’ve quit being an adventurer and all, but can I ask a favor of you?”

  “What might that be? I have an idea, but let’s hear it.”

  Zey was looking at a sword. Its shape wasn’t conducive to slashing, but its edge was peerlessly sharp; nothing anywhere close could be made with current magic.

  That sword—one of the Eight Weapons left behind by the Eight Kings of Avarice—was the reason Zey couldn’t leave this place.

  “It’s something I’ve been doing up till now, but I want you to help me. I want you to collect information about that sword, an item on par with a Guild Weapon, as well as other special Yggdrasil items, like the Reinforcing Armor the kingdom adamantite-rank adventurer team Drops of Red possesses…”

  Chapter 4 | A Handful of Hope

  1

  This is what a dam bursting is like. The flood of attacks was enough to make Hekkeran think that.

  Yes, the opponents were low-tier undead. They weren’t so terrible to the members of Foresight. But there were no breaks between the wavelike attacks.

  After finally defeating two ghasts in the tenth battle since the series had started, he wiped the sweat off his face.

  His body wanted a rest, but there was no time for that. He took a sip of water from the leather pouch at his hip and worked to catch his breath as he gave instructions to retreat. As he might have guessed, however, the enemy wasn’t about to allow that.

  A combined party of three skeleton warriors with round shields and two robed skeleton mages with staves made its entrance. They leaped out into the party’s way.

  “Save your magic!”

  “I know!”

  “Yeah, I got it!”

  Since they had no idea what was coming up ahead, they couldn’t use magic willy-nilly—its outstanding effectiveness had to be saved as a last resort. That’s why they’d been conserving as much as possible so far.

  Still, they’d ended up relying on an ability with a limited number of uses per day and almost used it up. That was just how many various traps and diverse types of undead had gotten in their way.

  Skeleton archers had been shooting at them from behind a barred door where their swords wouldn’t reach. The monsters were tough because with their resistance to stabbing damage, Foresight’s arrows couldn’t do lethal damage, but Roberdyck exorcised them.

  Roberdyck also destroyed the undead throwing bottles of poison with exorcism.

  Then there was the joint attack by the floor imitator, which mimicked the floor and used a sticky liquid to trap anyone who stepped on it, and flying undead—also thwarted with Roberdyck’s exorcism.

  Roberdyck also exterminated a mob of mixed undead that inflicted all manner of negative statuses—Sickness, Poison, Curse—with exorcism.

  Now he only had a couple of uses left, but they had managed to conserve their other spells and abilities. The only tough fight they’d had was when flesh golems—which looked just like zombies—were mixed in with a group of zombies.

  “Careful! Multiple sets of footsteps from the rear!”

  “Undead detected! Six of them!”

  Imina’s voice, and then Roberdyck’s a moment later, caused everyone to tense up. The reason the five skeletons in front of them hadn’t begun fighting was probably to wait and annihilate them in one fell swoop with a pincer attack.

  Hekkeran considered what their next move should be.

  A list of several tactics sprang immediately to mind. Make a preemptive strike on the enemies in front, wiping them out all at once. Ignore the enemies dawdling up ahead and turn to bash the ones to the rear. Stop for a moment and determine which group is stronger, then crush the weaker ones first. Use magic to detain one side and use that time to beat up the other.

  They were all effective, but they all lacked a decisive something. But at that moment, the oracle of intuition descended to him.

  “Hekkeran! What should we do?”

  “Go back! I think there was a side path! Go down that!”

  The second he told her, Imina, bringing up the rear, raced away. Arché and Roberdyck followed. A moment later, Hekkeran did, too.

  Imina must have followed the order and run because the distance was feasible. Hekkeran desperately sprinted in order to keep up with the others, who were moving as fast as they could. Naturally, their opponents weren’t about to let them get away, and he could hear the undead footsteps coming after them.

  “Eat this!”

  Hekkeran took out a sticky alchemical solution and tossed it behind him.

  The solution spread slickly across the floor.

  Its effects were immediate, and the sound of footsteps vanished.

  Intelligent undead might have thought to go around, but there was no way low-tier undead had those kinds of smarts. And he figured that once monsters like skeletons, with no muscular strength, were stuck, it would be difficult for them to rip themselves free.

  “Undead detected! Four coming from the right!”

  “That’s a wall!”

  “No, it’s an illusion!”

  Four ghouls descended on them through the wall. The bony, thin undead, lunging with their long, yellow, clawlike fingernails, were terrifying. That said, no one on this team was such a baby as to shake in their boots at this level of horror.

  “Don’t underestimate us!”

  Though taken by surprise, Imina drew her dagger immediately and stuck it into a ghoul’s neck. A foul liquid that must have been blood glugged out, and one ghoul crumpled to the floor. Roberdyck, next to Imina, had bashed in the head of another with a mighty swing of his mace.

  Hekkeran concluded he could leave that up to those two and turned to see what was happening behind them. The undead were definitely giving chase. So maybe it’s safest to spread around some more alchemical solution?

  Just as he was about to throw it, he spotted a horrifying monster.

  “Elder lich!”

  At the same time, he noticed the thunderbolt at the elite caster’s fingertips. Even Hekkeran knew what spell that was.

  Lightning. Its effect was a bolt of electricity that pierced in a straight line. There was only one way to evade it.

  “Shove the ghouls back!”

  Imina and Roberdyck probably had no idea why Hekkeran was ordering them to do that. But they both obeyed without hesitation.

  The white lightning flashed past in the hallway behind them just as they piled i
n past the illusion wall, ghouls and all.

  As the air popped and quivered with electricity, a magic circle appeared beneath Hekkeran and his team’s feet. The next moment, they were enveloped in an inescapable pale-blue light, and the scene before their eyes abruptly changed.

  “Everyone look sharp! On your guard! …Huh?”

  Although the ghouls were gone and their surroundings had changed, their nerves, tensed from repeated battles, hadn’t relaxed. Still, under conditions so strange, he couldn’t be blamed for emitting a dazed murmur.

  Hekkeran shook his head and regained focus. The first thing he needed to do—although getting a handle on their situation was up there—was check the status of his teammates.

  Imina, Arché, Roberdyck.

  The members of Foresight were all in the exact same battle formation as when they’d entered the magic circle—no one was missing.

  After confirming one another’s safety, they remained vigilant and took in their surroundings.

  They were in a dimly lit corridor. It was wide and tall—big enough for a giant to walk down. The torches mounted on the wall, with their flickering flames, created shadows that moved as though they were dancing. At the end of the hall was a huge barred gate. White magic light came through the gaps.

  In the opposite direction, the corridor seemed to stretch on for quite a distance, and they could see by the light of the torches that there were a number of doors along the way.

  Overall, it was quiet; the only sound was the crackling of the torches.

  For the moment, there didn’t seem to be any monsters threatening to attack. Despite that conclusion, they couldn’t relax.

  “I don’t know where we are, but the atmosphere is totally different from what we’ve seen up until now.”

  Certainly the feel of this place was completely different from that of the earlier tomb. It seemed more civilized somehow. As the Foresight crew looked around, trying to figure out where they were, only Arché’s behavior differed.

  “This is…”

  Keenly picking up on the emotion in her words, Hekkeran asked, “Do you know it? Or do you have an idea?”