Deathbound Duke’s Daughter: Volume 1

by Terasu Senoo

  Along the way, they crossed paths with a vial Anne had tossed through the air: the bottle of obscuring mist. Its glass casing shattered against the monster’s scales, scattering a thick, white mist. The mist spread further and further until it had cloaked the entire inner sanctum of the temple.

  “What took you so long? We almost died back there.”

  “Just be glad I fired the spell at all.”

  “You concentrated too much mana into it. It would have still gone through if it was a little weaker.”

  “For crying out loud, Claus! Less yapping, more running!”

  Only Erika failed to grasp the situation. She silently listened to the Hafan siblings’ exchange while sprinting with all her might.

  “For starters, Claus, you could have at least given me an explanation.”

  “What?!” cried Erika. “He didn’t tell you anything either?”

  “Yeah, my bad. We didn’t really have the time.”

  “I would’ve understood if you’d just told me you were going to save Erika and get out! When you went toe-to-toe with that monster, I was sure you had lost your mind.”

  “Anne, that kinda stings...”

  “I for one just thought it was just Claus doing Claus things.”

  “What exactly do you people think I am?”

  Erika and Anne averted their eyes.

  “Well, Claus, you’re a very brave and audacious person,” said Erika.

  “Yes, you’ve got courage, and... courage... A lot of courage, let’s go with that.”

  “Honestly, you two—”

  Whatever he was going to say was cut off by a thunderous roar from behind. The three of them turned to see that the wall separating the inner sanctum from the rest of the temple had collapsed. The beast burst out from the ocher haze of dust and magical mist.

  Having lost a leg, the Zaratan slammed both its forelimbs against the ground, charging forward with a hobbling gait.

  “It’s already up and running?! Come on, hurry!”

  They breezed through the temple and scampered into a narrow corridor at one end. Not a second later, the passage shook from a massive impact. Dust sprang from every surface to fill the cramped space. It seemed the Zaratan wouldn’t be able to follow them due to its size.

  Something massive reached through the nearly collapsed entryway, and the tip of Erika’s nose was grazed by a claw as sharp and deadly as an executioner’s ax.

  “Whoa!”

  “Erika, keep moving! We need to go deeper!”

  “You have to move, Erika! Get out of its reach!”

  While Erika cowered in fear, Claus and Anne pulled her out of harm’s way. The Zaratan’s claws swung wildly right before their eyes. The monster was groping around for them, scraping again and again at the floors and walls. Once it realized its prey wasn’t within reach, it pulled back its foot and placed its eye against the corridor. An empty eye socket, pitch-black like a bottomless pit.

  “Hate you... hate you, hate you, hate, hate, hate, hate, hatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehatehateHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE... Cowardly Aurelian... Brats who take her side... I won’t forgive any of you. I’ll make you my playthings until you beg me to kill you...”

  With those ominous words, the Zaratan withdrew its face and used its claws to destroy the entryway. The hard stone was punctured as easily as styrofoam by the monster’s strength, which exceeded human understanding.

  “Eep!”

  “Aaah!”

  “Move! Talk later! Just run!” Claus barked, and Erika and Anne ran as fast as they could.

  I was sure I was dead this time.

  With so many shocking situations happening one after another, Erika’s mind had come to a near-complete stop, but she had enough sense to devote her entire being to placing one foot in front of the other.

  3

  The three children ran for some time before they stopped hearing the destructive sounds of the Zaratan behind them. They had traversed numerous crossroads, and by now the temple had to be a considerable distance behind them. Granted, they were completely lost, but this was hardly a problem; they intended to use the Wall-Phase scroll and the Levitate wand to escape. Still, the occasional rumble told them that the Zaratan was still hot on their heels.

  Once they had all calmed down a bit, Claus piped, “If I really must explain, I was buying time. When fighting a large monster, you often can’t outrun it because of the length of its stride. No matter how slow an opponent may look, you can never make light of them. That’s why I stood in front to buy time, since I have the best defense.”

  “Its charge was frighteningly fast. I didn’t think it would close the gap between us that quickly...” Anne conceded.

  “Yeah, exactly. Even if we were at a safe distance, it would be too dangerous to face that thing in a place with few obstacles.”

  “I mean, how is it going that fast while missing a leg?” Anne grumbled.

  Erika recalled the terror she’d just felt. She knew the human body froze when it was possessed by fear. “Why did you permit Anne to attack?” she asked Claus. “You told me not to.”

  “I didn’t have much of a choice.”

  “Erika, concentrating mana is my specialty. As long as I have the time, I can use very powerful magic.” Anne timidly pressed a hand to her chest as she spoke.

  Erika recalled that the capabilities of Hafan magicians were greatly influenced by their personal traits.

  “By charging a spell with extra mana, Anne can fire off stronger magic than the average magician.”

  “But it takes time to do it, and I’m no good with spells that have a wide area of effect.”

  “Point is, she’s good at precision work, so she’s perfect for sniping.”

  In exchange for being bad at spells that worked over too large an area, Anne was good at concentrating her mana. This allowed her to use precise, compact magic, which was how she had been able to penetrate the Zaratan’s body when the wand and even Claus’ spell cards couldn’t.

  “Still, you don’t usually make an attack-magic novice use something as destructive as Scorching Ray, brother.”

  “Better than risking some low-output attack that could fail to pierce him, right?”

  “Wait, are you incapable of casting Scorching Ray, Claus?” Erika asked. She’d assumed Claus was the sort who could wield any type of magic.

  “My hands were full with the protective circle. If I hadn’t deployed my spell cards at max output, I would’ve lost to that monster’s brute force.”

  “Ah, so that’s it.”

  Claus had bought them time with his defenses while Erika had supported him with the Grease wand. Then, Claus had attacked with Fire Bolt, and Anne had sniped the monster with Scorching Ray, giving the three of them the chance to run.

  Erika finally understood Claus’ plan.

  “Claus, let’s hurry and use the Wall-Phase scroll to escape,” Anne suggested.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” he replied. “You both saw that monster’s ability, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Huh? What sort of ability?” Erika asked, feeling left in the dark. She understood that the monster was enigmatic, but she didn’t have a grasp on its abilities.

  Just what could it be? She waited for Claus to explain.

  “Your Glámr-Sight wore off? Come to think of it, the Glámr-Sight in your wands is very short-lived.”

  “Yes, I didn’t have time to recast it in battle.”

  “Well, you saw how my magic didn’t work on it, right?”

  “Yep, that part I got.”

  “When the flames were sucked into its feet, the monster seemed to be using spatial manipulation. That made me suspicious, but it really clicked when it spat out fire. That was Fire Bolt magic. What’s more, the creator was listed as Eduard Aurelia.”

  If Eduard had created that magic, then what sort of trickery was this? Erika had a very bad feeling about it.

  “In other wor
ds, that monster absorbs magic and then shoots it back out?”

  “Yeah. Unfortunately.” Claus nodded.

  What a troublesome ability. The Zaratan’s sturdy defenses were already formidable, but on top of that, magic didn’t work against it. Still, something seemed off to Erika. If it absorbed magic, how had they managed to damage it at all?

  “Then why didn’t it absorb Anne’s Scorching Ray?”

  “I’m assuming it isn’t an automatic ability. It has to react to the attack, manually take it in, and then fire it. That’s why a surprise attack was effective.”

  “So preparation is important... It’s the same for us alchemists. How very fitting for a monster of these ruins.”

  This meant sniping wouldn’t work again. If the monster anticipated another one of these attacks, it could absorb it the next time around and gain a powerful spell to use against them. Their foe was truly terrifying.

  “But why does that mean we can’t use the Wall-Phase scroll?”

  “As long as that thing is still on our tail, we can’t use it willy-nilly. In the one-in-a-million chance we come into contact with it while Wall-Phase is active, we’ll probably burn to death.”

  “Huh?!”

  “That monster still has one of my Fire Bolts left. There’s probably an inferno blazing inside it, waiting to be fired.”

  So it was the same as the acid-hydrogel golem. If they passed through an object storing a flame, they would die.

  “Then what should we do, Claus?”

  “I’ll put up my protective circle to prevent contact. Meanwhile, Anne, you cast Wall-Phase on all of us.”

  Their ears told them that the monster was always lurking close by. Claus would have to protect them to make sure they never passed through its body while the scroll’s spell was in effect. As long as they could do that, they had a good chance of escape.

  “You want me to do it?”

  “Erika can’t use a magician’s scroll, right? My hands will be full with the circle.”

  “I’m so sorry, you two...”

  “O-Oh, no! It’s nothing you have to apologize for.”

  Erika felt overly apologetic. Using a magician’s scroll required a certain level of vocabulary and understanding of mana manipulation, neither of which Erika could help with.

  “For starters, let’s find a medium-sized room or a dead end somewhere. I can’t defend against that thing from all directions.”

  “But Claus, if that monster approaches in liquid form, can’t it attack from anywhere?”

  “No, it needs a large, open space to form its outer shell. If I set my cards to erect an anti-undead circle around the whole room, it won’t be able to get in through the cracks and gaps in the stone.”

  This is all starting to feel like one of those horror movies where a house is haunted by a vengeful ghost. Come to think of it, there really is an evil spirit lurking in these ruins...

  The evil spirit wasn’t a ghost, though; it was a giant monster, which made her think she was in more of a monster movie than a horror film.

  “By the way, why do you know so much about its capabilities, Claus?”

  “She’s right. You shouldn’t be able to tell that much from Glámr-Sight alone.”

  “Yeah. Truth be told, I tried sealing part of it.”

  Claus held up a light-brown glass vial, which contained a dubiously wriggling, black liquid.

  This is a part of it? Erika stared intently at the squirming substance.

  “I collected it when Anne blew off its leg. That monster’s innards have a similar structure to a wraith’s, so I wanted to see if sealing magic that works on wraiths would be effective.”

  “I’m surprised you had the time for that,” said Anne.

  Erika inaudibly lauded Claus’ sheer pluck for handling a bottle containing any part of that abomination. No normal person would ever want to touch something so sinister, vial or not.

  “Its outer shell is made from the corpses that fell from the eighth floor. The seal won’t work from the outside.”

  “So you can only seal it in a bottle when it’s in liquid form.”

  “That’s right. If you want to reseal it, you have to destroy its outer layer first. We need to pass this information on to Duke Aurelia.”

  The monster would surely give chase even if they managed to make it out safe and sound. Then it wouldn’t just be Erika—the other people of Aurelia would be in danger. Naturally, House Aurelia would stand at the vanguard of the battle.

  During that time, this small vial containing a sample of the monster would definitely prove useful.

  All of a sudden, Anne glared harshly at her brother.

  “Claus... What do you think about the monster’s ability to accurately track us no matter how far we go?”

  “No way! It’s... I-I-It’s because of this?!” Claus turned pale as he gawked at the vial.

  Apparently, the Zaratan could detect this detached portion and use it as a marker. Alternatively, this portion might have been calling out to the creature’s main body.

  “Oh, I see. So that’s what it’s chasing.”

  Erika finally understood. No matter how much of a monster the Zaratan was, it was strange for it to keep chasing what it couldn’t see.

  “Claus!” Anne shouted before he could drop the vial. “Keep a good grip on it! Who knows what will happen if that breaks!”

  “What do I do, Erika?”

  In a panic, Claus passed the bottle off to Erika. And Erika, lost in thought, inadvertently accepted it.

  “Why are you giving it to me? Don’t just hand it over because you don’t want to deal with it!”

  With the small vial containing a monster in her hands, Erika was regretting from the depths of her heart that she had ever set foot in the Seafarer’s Ruins.

  ☆

  Erika stood at the crossroads, waving her Mage Hand wand. Five invisible fingers gripped the bottle containing a portion of the Zaratan, floating it down the dark corridor.

  The bottle was laced with Anne’s alarm magic. If the monster broke it, the clapperless bell Anne carried would make a sound to alert them.

  “That should buy us some time.”

  “Pretty clever of you. I guess your mind doesn’t fall short of your looks.”

  “Oh dear, you must mean I have villainous thoughts running behind my villainess face. Villainous indeed.”

  “Err, no, that wasn’t what I meant at all...” Erika’s teasing had Claus terribly flustered.

  “If we don’t get out of here fast, buying time will have been pointless.” Anne delivered a kick to urge Claus forward. “Still, I’ve lost my sense of which direction is which.”

  “Even if my Find the Path cantrip doesn’t cost much mana, this floor drains mana like all the others. I can’t use it that frequently.”

  Fatigue had piled on thick for Claus and Anne, especially when compared to Erika. These ruins were evidently too harsh on magicians.

  “I’m worried we’ll do a full circle and run straight into it,” Erika said. “Do you have a plan for when that happens, Claus?”

  “Don’t worry. The passages are narrow, so we’ll know if we’re approaching it by the sound of it digging through the walls.”

  “The monster should head to the bottle before it comes for us. We’ll be safe until the bell rings.”

  At that moment, they heard the booming of a blusterous bellow as the ground rumbled beneath them. The children reflexively readied themselves, but they quickly realized that this wasn’t the sound of the Zaratan digging.

  It was the grating of grinding gears and the shrill scraping of stone against stone.

  “That’s the sound of the maze shifting... right?” Erika asked cautiously. “For a second, I thought the monster was back.”

  “Yeah,” Claus grunted.

  “Come to think of it, the maze is still operating normally.”

  The labyrinth had continued to move even after they had given the Zaratan the slip. Erika k
new it would eventually lead to something unpleasant. The moving maze had caused them so much trouble along the way; she had a vague sense that nothing good would ever come of it.

  Straight ahead, the path became a dead end, but halfway down the corridor was a heavy metal door.

  “Let’s hope that the next room is a manageable size.”

  “We won’t know until we see it.”

  When Claus opened the door, it revealed a considerably vast room.

  We’ll have to get searching again, Erika thought as she was struck by the weight of their wasted efforts.

  That being the case, the junction behind them was where they’d sent the bottle to buy time. The plan would be ruined if they turned around.

  “Let’s hope there’s another door in here.”

  Erika took a look around the room. She felt there was something terribly familiar about it.

  “Wait! This one’s bad. Erika! Anne! Get out n—”

  Decorative walls and pillars, a floor scattered with rubble, and a wide-open ceiling—this was the temple where the Zaratan had been sealed. They had entered from one of the transepts, so it had taken her a moment to connect the dots.

  Just as they tried to retreat, something fell in front of the door, blocking their way out.

  Solid black scales, eyes as empty as the abyss, claws so sharp they could slice through bedrock like butter. Its wounded leg already healed, the monster Zaratan now stood before them in perfect condition.

  Erika understood that the monster had baited them. Had it climbed up the wall to launch an ambush? It was surprisingly nimble for its large frame.

  “I’ve grown weary of waiting, humans.”

  “What... What did you do?!”

  “It was no coincidence. I ushered you here personally using the mechanisms that alter the maze. We are inside my body. I know this construction better than anyone.”

  The Zaratan gestured to where the wall had been destroyed, exposing the gears within. By directly turning the gears, it had personally altered their course.

  “Brother, do you have another Scorching Ray scroll?”

  “If only. But that monster won’t drop its guard again. No matter what magic we send its way, it’ll absorb it for sure next time.”