"Demon King, Tell Them My Dying Wish" V7 Chapter 3 - Then Everything Started To Swirl
"— It just occurred to me."
Then — a voice spoke up.
"... What?"
Another voice spoke up.
"Where is everybody?"
"Oh right."
"We've been wandering alone for some time... but where are our new brothers?"
"We got separated when we ran away from that sudden attack."
"Hmm. Come to think of it, that does ring a bell. You really need to grow some balls."
"What? I was on my ass while a certain someone, who shall remain unnamed, dragged me away by the collar."
"I don't remember seeing anyone like that... but anyway, this is a theater, isn't it?"
"Well, yeah."
"I remember theaters being holes of decadent, tasteless entertainment, where people cheer as they watch someone get sawed in half while they're trapped in a box , or enjoy being moved to tears over things like young girls being covered in a cloth and turned into pigeons."
"... I think you misunderstood what was going on there, but that's okay. There's nothing to worry about."
"I don't care as long as it's limited to the stage, but what about when that hole opened in the floor and swallowed us up as we were talking down the aisle?"
"I don't think that was a particularly praised custom, either."
"Hmm. Fortunately, our steeled minds withstood the fear of falling, and with our natural courage, we didn't get hurt."
"... Well, I guess so."
"But, you know, a normal person would've been seriously injured."
"We fell ten meters. Incidentally, I think that's the purpose of this hole."
"Even if they set that up as some sort of clever scheme, I wouldn't have fallen for it, but since you fell first, I couldn't help but go after you."
"... But when we landed, you were under me. You get what that means, right?"
"Hmm. I guess you really are a slacker. So much so that I was able to overtake you on the way down. I'll refrain from commenting about any more of your many blunders, though."
"... Thanks."
"Aaa-nyway, whatever happened, that's how we ended up here..."
Vulcan sat cross-legged with his sword in one hand. However, the area was quite dark, almost pitch black. He continued on.
"I wonder what kind of room this is."
"In my humble opinion, it's just the bottom of the pit."
Dortin replied with a sigh, rubbing his bruised backside.
Vulcan, however, seemed unconvinced.
"But if this is a pit, it seems odd that there should be an exit there..."
He then pointed to a hole that was up above the pit, which was fitted with a grate. At the bottom of the pit there weren't any such holes or clues, just walls, walls, and walls, surrounding the pit on all sides. Of course, it was quite small. There wasn't much space to move around, just enough for the two dwarves.
Looking up at the hole his brother was pointing at, Dortin calmly muttered his reply.
"From what I've seen, I'm guessing water comes out of it, and they probably think something along the lines of 'Hahahaha, you're doomed, you idiot intruders!'"
"Haahaahaa. You're the idiot, Dortin."
Vulcan laughed jovially at the very idea.
"No stupid intruder is going to get killed by a little water splashing down into this hole."
"Well, not if the water stays under two meters deep."
"............"
With a jolt, Vulcan stopped moving.
Structurally, dwarves couldn't float in water. That's just how they were made.
"You know..."
Vulcan mumbled in a sharp tone of voice, sweating profusely.
"I wonder how they would define an intruder...?"
"Well, this is just a typical example, but I guess it'd generally refer to people who are at the bottom of a pit and struggling to get out."
He didn't mean that in a sarcastic way — he just didn't want to admit it to himself.
"............"
Silence, harder than a stone hung over his head.
Soon, a mechanical sound echoed through the hole, then he heard a clunk, and water rushed out of the gate.
It was exactly three seconds later that the water came rushing out of the gaps in the grate.
"...Did you hear rushing water just now?"
Cleao mumbled as she walked along.
"You sure it wasn't just your imagination?"
Majic replied. He looked around anxiously.
"It's not my imagination. I heard a thud from under the floor."
"Then there must be rushing water."
From up ahead of them he could see Cleao get a little annoyed at Majic's half-hearted answer, but the boy didn't seem to notice.
If they went down the stairs from that hall, they'd come out in the auditorium — hard-looking seats lined up in rows. That's where he was walking now. When he looked up — there were also what appeared to be seats for distinguished guests on either side, and a door at the back of the hall that seemed like it'd probably lead up to them.
"Still, it's a big theater."
Orphen thought to himself as he looked around the auditorium. Even considering the size of the building from the outside, it was quite spacious. The seats were sloped so that the back rows were higher, and the seats were oriented slightly inward so that they faced the center of the room. All the seats lead to the stage, which, of course, was just a stage.
It was quite high, three meters above the floor. As expected, there was no seating immediately adjacent to the stage, and the seats in the front rows began a few meters above the lowest point of the floor. He wondered what they placed in the space between the stage and the seats, and supposed an orchestra would also probably fit there.
"It's beautiful for having been neglected for 200 years."
Cleao muttered as if she'd just realized it. Orphen nodded before answering.
"Perhaps that's also one of the effects of the Wyrd Graphs. Of course, I'm not sure its actually been abandoned for 200 years."
"What do you mean?"
Orphen shrugged his shoulders in response to Cleao's question.
"Even though the records say that it was demolished, it's actually still here. This makes sense to me. It's a typical tactic for the Sorcerer's Alliance to hide its ruins from the Aristocratic Federation. In other words, they'll just mark it as destroyed on the record and leave it as is. The surveillance of the royal capital is surprisingly lenient towards the West, which is why sorcerers get away with doing these kinds of things on a fairly regular basis. It's possible that they'd come here and explore the site... but if the ruins were valuable, there's no way we wouldn't know about it."
Rather, there was no way that his Master or his sister, who specialized in celestial magic, wouldn't know about it, but he left that bit out for the time being.
"I think it was hidden, but nothing much was found out about it, so it was left alone."
"What kinds of things do you usually find? At ruins, I mean."
Orphen grinned at his student's quietly-spoken question.
"What? You're stealing again? How could you?"
"That's not what I — Mastterrrrr!"
Majic protested, flailing his arms. Orphen laughed and waved it off.
"Well, maybe that'd be more reasonable if it were a fort or something, but I'd like to think that if it's just a theater, there won't be much danger here. After all, magical items created by the Celestials are just everyday necessities for them. Even so, there are still cases where they're extremely dangerous to humans."
"Like what?"
"Like one time I was sent to help out in the dormitories of the Celestials, and there was an automatic cooking device in the kitchen that had broken down, which turned out to be a disaster. It mistook us for ingredients. No matter how far we ran, it just kept chasing us."
"That seems like a bit much..."
"I wish there was food here, too."
Cleao placed her hands on her belly with a mumble, suddenly becoming aware of how hungry she was.
Then—
BOOOOOOMMM—!
An explosion rang out.
"What the hell!?"
Orphen groaned as he looked from side to side. The explosion seemed pretty close.
"Look, it came from the other side of the stage!"
Cleao quickly whispered and pointed. Orphen looked towards the stage.
"Is that coming from backstage...?"
He rushed out.
He ran through the sloping aisles of seats towards the stage. At either end of the seats were stairs leading up to it, and the three of them were heading that way.
They soon reached the top of the stage and looked to their left and right.
"It looks like we can get backstage from over there."
Cleao had spotted a door over at the corner of the stage. It was already standing half open.
"Shall we, then?"
Orphen muttered, and that's when it happened.
Crash—!
A short explosion erupted once more, and the door he'd just been walking towards was blown open from the other side — No, it was smashed open by something being thrown into it from the other side.
The door was blown back and a person came tumbling out onto the side of the stage. He had burns all over his body and his clothes were blackened. He didn't look like a large man, but he couldn't tell that until he got closer.
He was still alive, but if they left him alone, he'd die.
"What happened?"
Orphen tried to run towards the man while asking the question, but—
Before he could make a move, a figure appeared and stepped over the broken door.
Only, it wasn't a person.
He couldn't determine what its body was made of just by looking at it. Maybe if sticky glass existed, it'd have a similar luster. It was smooth, and swollen only around the joints that connected its thin limbs. Its hairless body wasn't covered by clothes, either. There were some irregularities on the chest, perhaps meant to resemble ribs. Its head was round — impossibly round for a human. There wasn't any hair on its head, and the top of its head was even dented, as if it'd been hollowed out.
He'd seen something similar before.
"A doll...!"
Orphen stopped dead in his tracks, aghast at the word. It was an imitation of a human being, something the Celestials had favored creating in the past.
The doll slowly turned to look at him.
"Another intruder?"
It said, and took a step through the door. With a jerky motion, the doll lifted its arm.
Then, it was shoved from behind.
"YAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
With a shout a woman in her mid-twenties thrust a sword into the doll's back from behind the doorway. The doll was pushed forward by the sword and fell. The woman straddled it and pierced it through, then yanked her sword back out of its body. She rushed towards the man, who was still down.
"Fredin!"
The woman whispered the word — likely the man's name — sharply. His head twitched, and though he was badly burned, he looked up at her.
"Bo... ss..."
"As long as you're conscious, that's a good sign. Don't talk."
She said as she readjusted her sword and turned towards the doll.
Her black hair was short, and she seemed rather serious — if only from the side that he could see. She wore heavy leather armor and held her lightweight sword with perfect posture. There was a cloth wrapped around her head, which was a refreshing sky-blue color.
(She's their... boss?)
Orphen gazed at her figure in wonder, although if he'd called her that, then it must be true. Her serious eyes were fixed on the Killing Doll, which was trying to get up...
Then her face suddenly turned toward him.
"You guys!"
"... Huh?"
Orphen blurted in a hushed voice when she suddenly called out to him. She continued like it was perfectly natural.
"If you compare us to that thing you should know immediately which one of us is the bad guy! So don't just stand there, get in here and help us!"
"Wha—!"
Cleao shouted back when she heard that.
"What's with your attitude? I don't know what's going on, but you guys are obviously thieves trying to rob the place, and we just happened to get caught up in whatever this is!"
"At first, we were in it for the reward ourselves, weren't we?"
Majic muttered from behind, seeking agreement, but Orphen deliberately ignored him.
The woman simply retorted.
"We're not thieves! We're tomb robbers!"
"That's the same thing!"
"No, it's not! We're here to profit from what the sorcerers have monopolized—"
She stopped talking mid-sentence. The doll was now standing completely up.
"Wasn't she dead?"
The doll murmured nonchalantly.
She readjusted her sword and smiled wryly.
"Hmm, you think you could kill me, Mädchen, with something so simple?"
She said, making herself out to be a big deal — but it was immediately ruined by the high-pitched curses that rang out after.
"You're so stuck up!"
Cleao picked up Leki and held him towards the woman, who'd introduced herself as Mädchen.
"Orphen, let's ditch this woman! Even if she wins, I'll make sure to finish her off!"
"I don't think that's going to happen."
Orphen looked back with his eyes narrowed and took a step forward.
"It's not a Killing Doll intended for combat purposes... So, I'm sure it'll work out okay."
"How can you tell just by looking at it?"
Majic asked. He was just standing there absent-mindedly, not even holding a stance.
Orphen shook his head.
"I don't know, man. But if it were a Killing Doll, there's no way that some tomb robber could take it down in a single blow."
In other words, that meant—
The doll looked up with a start when he heard that. He looked at him with narrow, piercing eyes, then spoke aloud.
"A sorcerer..."
As if caught up in the moment, Mädchen and the other guy hurriedly looked in their direction. Apparently, they hadn't noticed the emblem on his chest.
"A sorcerer?"
But, that was their opening.
The doll suddenly ran up and pushed Mädchen out of the way, catching her by surprise and sending her tumbling. It ran right past her, then came right up to the burned man — Fredin, he recalled his name being — who was standing right across from them.
"Shit!"
Mädchen groaned. Orphen crouched down and shouted an incantation.
"I release, the Sword of Ligh—"
But a moment later—
"Wait!"
Orphen choked on his words as a voice stopped him. It was Mädchen.
"You'll hit Fredin, too!"
(Are you kidding me? I won't hit the guy!)
He growled under his breath, but once he'd lost his concentration, it'd take a few seconds to recompose himself. Meanwhile, the doll had lifted Fredin's body.
Then he turned around on the spot, turning back at considerable speed, and ran through the door he'd just opened.
"I release, the Sword of Light!"
Orphen unleashed his spell in pursuit, but it only grazed the doll's back and gouged right through the doorway. The doll disappeared backstage with the subsequent roar.
"Fredin!"
Mädchen shouted as she stood up. She picked up the sword she'd dropped when she fell and dove for the doorway where the doll had disappeared.
"Don't go after it, you idiot!"
Orphen's voice seemed to fall on deaf ears — or were outright ignored — as he watched her go backstage, at which point he clicked his tongue.
"Why do you think he captured the injured guy? Of course he's goading her to follow."
"Goading her? For what?"
Cleao asked. Orphen sighed briefly.
"It's a trap. The celestial doll is trying to kill intruders. The dead body from earlier was probably his doing as well. It means that the Celestials, the creators of this place, have ordered him to protect it. There's something here — something to hide."
"B, but if that's the case — won't she be in danger if we don't go after them!?"
Majic shouted, already in a chasing pose.
"I know."
He groaned and started to run towards the doorway.
"Yeah. If I don't get to see that woman suffer, I'll be sick to my stomach."
Cleao's grumbles were a little off putting, but he decided to let it go, figuring it was better than her pouting and deciding to stay.
The door was gone after the explosion that'd probably been released by the doll, but the wall near it — where Orphen had fired his spell — was only scorched. The difference in their sheer destructive power was now clear.
(Killing Dolls use Silence Magic... so we'll have to be careful about that.)
With caution, he stepped into the backstage area.
The backstage was quite large and deserted. Apart from the entrance they'd just entered, there must've been another passageway to bring stage equipment out from behind the scenes, but he couldn't find it — or if it had been made by a Celestial, it was possible they could've simply used spatial transition.
The doll carrying the man ran out of the larger backstage area. Mädchen was following him.
He wanted to shoot it down from behind, but he couldn't with Mädchen in the way.
He had no choice but to just follow and yell.
"Wait!"
But she didn't even turn around. She chased after the doll, sword in hand. The doll was, of course, a doll, and even with it carrying a person, it ran away at an even greater speed.
Yet there didn't seem to be any way out from the backstage area. If things continued like this, they'd eventually be able to catch up with it.
Perhaps because of this, the doll stopped abruptly and whipped around. Quickly — with a swing of his right hand, his hand formed the shape of a sword. With Fredin on his left shoulder, the doll smiled a challenge. He ran towards Mädchen.
"You!"
He heard Mädchen answer. Without slowing down, he took a swing with his hand-sword. A breath later, her sword and the doll's hand clashed against each other.
Mädchen's sword cleaved sideways into the doll's torso—
The doll's sword aimed to strike at Mädchen's face.
Clang! With a sharp sound, the sword that dug into the doll's body bounced back. The reaction caused Mädchen to spin her body around in the opposite direction from where she'd swung, and Mädchen passed the doll. Its hand-sword grazed her forehead, but missed.
Both lost sight of the other for a moment—
Then they found each other again at the same time, but the distance between them was so close that Mädchen couldn't swing her sword.
This time, the doll tried to pierce her chest with the hand-sword.
(Don't tell me — She's been hit...!?)
Orphen was almost certain of it, and ran even faster. It was unlikely he'd make it in time anyway, but as long as the doll missed any vital points he'd still have a chance to help.
If you were about to be struck in the chest while moving, there was no way to avoid it other than bending down or letting yourself fall. It was already too late to bend over. Orphen saw that it was impossible for her to fall, since she was leaning forward, towards the attack. But she still fell — from that position, she suddenly fell to her knees.
"—!?"
The quickness of the action was unbelievable, but from there she wouldn't be able to move on to another action. It wasn't something someone would normally do, but the real surprise came later.
Her upper body had fled downwards, and the doll's hand-sword lashed out again, but for the doll, it was just a matter of finishing her off with the next attack — in fact, it drew back its outstretched right hand and raised it high, this time aiming right between the eyebrows of the sitting leather-clad woman.
A moment later, Mädchen's sword ripped through the doll's chest, swinging up from below.
"Wha...!"
Stopping dead in his tracks, Orphen groaned. She was sitting on her butt on the floor — cutting through a Killing Doll's chest without using any of her lower body strength — wasn't something that could be done without highly unusual physical strength.
He stopped abruptly, and Majic and Cleao bumped into him with a thud. As the three of them stopped right there on the spot, Orphen couldn't believe his eyes.
Yet Mädchen's sword had, in fact, inflicted a deep wound on the doll — which retreated back two or three steps without so much as a scream.
Mädchen stood up while following it with her eyes. She adjusted her sword and quietly added.
"You underestimated me. I'm used to fighting people like you."
"Oh. However—"
The doll put his hand over the wound with a distressed look on its face.
"Have you ever seen something like this?"
With that said, he began to move his fingers — in a flash, smoothness that belied his other clumsy movements. He freely manipulated all five fingers at the same time, drawing something over the scar. A silver light followed the trajectory drawn by those fingers.
"Wyrd Graphs!"
Orphen groaned, but it was too late.
The Doll's Wyrd Graphs had already been completed. They were magical letters through which ancient Silence Magic was executed, the sorcery used by the Wyrd Dragons — the Nornir — and so called Celestials who'd created the dolls. The power of the letters were incomparable to any sorcery that humans could handle.
The letters glowed brightly, and when the shine disappeared, the wounds on the Doll's body also disappeared. At the same time—
"Guh!?"
Fredin's body, which the Doll was still carrying, twisted in agony. A large sword wound opened on his body, which was totally unrecognizable from his burns — and it appeared in the same place that the Doll's wound had been until just a few seconds ago.
With a look of satisfaction on his face, clearly unconcerned about being stained by the fresh blood gushing out of Fredin's wound, the doll spoke up.
"Normally, these characters would be used to rescue an injured person by transferring their wounds onto yourself — but they can also do the opposite, if you try."
"You—"
Mädchen's voice was raspy with rage.
Orphen, reflexively, ran. He ran past the doll, tackled her as she was about to jump on him, and shoved her back.
"Get out of my way!"
As he managed to restrain her, Orphen shouted in retort
"Calm down!"
He put his hand under her armpit and brought his body close to hers, kicking her in the calf area and causing her to fall to the ground. She still struggled to get up, but he quickly swept her legs and sent her tumbling again.
"You can't win with a sword! You know that!"
"No, I don't.
She shouted in desperation.
"I'm going to kill him."
"You won't kill him. You'll just be destroying a doll—"
As he quietly uttered those words, Orphen turned around to see the doll waiting for him with a grin on its face.
It looked at him and waited.
"You don't think I have personality? Am I not a human being?"
"No. All you do is accept your master's command, isn't that right?"
"There are people like that as well."
The doll immediately retorted, but coolly and without emotion. Hearing that, he noticed Mädchen was startled, but Orphen continued without concern.
"People can control themselves, and then again — sometimes they can't. It's true. There's many different kinds of people."
He took a step forward and faced the doll.
"You guys are simple, though. You're controlled by others."
"... My advice is to not sing such words as a paean of humanity..."
As soon as the doll said this, it began to draw symbols on its own body again. The characters were quite complicated and took a while to draw, but Orphen gazed at them intently, waiting for the doll's characters to be completed. Their shape looked familiar.
Eventually, the letters were completed and the doll's figure dissolved from the scene. It was spatial transitioning.
"He... ran away...?"
He relaxed his shoulders and mumbled. Mädchen, who'd gotten up, didn't answer. She just stared blankly at the space in front of them.
Majic, Cleao, and incidentally Leki, too, were stunned, overwhelmed by the whole thing. Then, from above them all, a voice echoed...
~ ~ By the way... ~ ~
He looked up and saw a single Wyrd Graph floating near the ceiling. The only oddity was that there was no doll in sight, although the voice that echoed from within the symbol was that of the doll.
~ ~ Here's a... souvenir. ~ ~
And then, from under the floor, there was a sound like something had broken away, and the Wyrd Graph burst.
Then, a dead body appeared.
"Fredin!"
It would be somewhat cruel to think that he would respond to Mädchen's call...
The corpse fell straight down. In a split second it fell past their eyes and crashed into the floor. No sooner than it had did the floor open up, and the body fell straight into it.
"A trap door!?"
Orphen stared into the hole as he shouted in shock. The floorboards must've been a hidden trap door — the sound he'd heard earlier was the lock being released. The hole was pretty large, too, four or five meters in diameter, and round. The man's face disappeared down the hole with his corpse.
"The way to the basement—"
He muttered to no one in particular.
The doll left its last words to linger.
~ ~ Precisely, now come... ~ ~
A few minutes later—
He relaxed his body and caught his breath, and while he did, he simply stared down into the open shaft. No one said anything.
Cleao was looking depressed, patting her growling belly. Leki joined in, poking at his belly with his paw. But Orphen, while watching, was actually stealing glances to observe Mädchen. She was sitting on the edge of the hole, slumped over.
She was the first to break the silence.
"There's a rope that we brought with us in the auditorium. I think we can use that to get down."
"Are you serious!?"
Orphen exclaimed in disbelief.
"That Fredin or whatever his name is, he's already dead — I'm sure of it. You're going to go pick up a corpse? Jumping head first into a pit that Celestial Doll is deliberately trying to lure you into!"
"Oh, but—"
Majic counted his fingers as he spoke.
"If I remember correctly, there were other men, or rather, minions of yours. There's still two more of them, isn't there?"
But Mädchen shook her head.
"I had five men with me, but while we were on the other side of the stage, the doll attacked us, and two were whisked away to somewhere by those strange runes. Then I got separated from the other two, and Fredin..."
"The people you say got teleported were in the hall. I burned their corpses."
Orphen waved his hands in the air, as if he were trying to exorcise some bad luck.
"If I had to guess, I'd say those dogs didn't live in this theater normally, and were actually afraid of it — but were teleported here from somewhere else. After you passed through, they came into the hall. Your two friends were also transferred there, and ended up prey for the dogs, which took off through the front door afterwards."
After that, he slurred his wounds. Mädchen sullenly asked.
"Dogs?"
"Dogs, monsters. They killed all your men outside, and now they have this theater surrounded. They're the ones that chased us in here."
"So there's no escape route...?"
Mädchen asked, pale — nervous but not yet despairing. Orphen nodded quietly.
"I was looking for a way out of this theater when we ran into you."
"But I think you've already seen most of the building..."
"I saw a tower or something like that from the outside. I haven't gone there."
"We did, and there wasn't anything there."
Mädchen answered, her hand gripping the hilt of her sword and her voice filled with fatigue.
"There's something strange about this place — there are traps everywhere, at strategic points. In a theater!?"
Her last words were somewhat self-deprecating in their sarcastic tone. Orphen looked at her intently.
"I don't think they were here 200 years ago, so the doll must've added them later. There seems to be a reason why they don't want people in here."
"All these questions—"
Mädchen said firmly as she stood up.
"If we go down there, we'll find the answers. If we don't, we won't ever know, right?"
She pointed to the hole in the floor. Orphen, however, wasn't interested.
"I don't care if we don't know. We're getting out of here."
"But, Orphen..."
Cleao, who'd stayed out of the conversation until now, mumbled from a distance.
"What are we going to do about those dogs?"
"We could snipe them one by one from the rooftops, or something. Anything is better than fighting that doll!"
The second part was directed at Mädchen, who glared back at him, refusing to stand down.
"Then I don't need you to help me!"
"Why you—"
He started to shout, pointing, but it wasn't Mädchen who interrupted him.
"What the hell is wrong with you!?"
Cleao yelled as she jumped up, knocking Leki off of her lap.
"We're trying to help you out of the kindness of our hearts!"
"Actually... we were hoping for a reward..."
Majic whispered so quietly he couldn't be heard. Orphen looked at Cleao, whose shoulders were hunched up, then at Mädchen.
She looked back at him, calm and angry. It'd been that way all along, even when Cleao had raised her voice. She just ignored the girl.
Orphen thought for a moment then asked her.
"Are you saying that because you want to avenge your friends?"
"... So what if I am?"
Mädchen smiled fearlessly. Orphen answered immediately.
"Do you really think that it's an enemy you can beat by yourself, after its already killed like 10 people?"
"............"
He expected her to retort, but she stayed silent — her eyes were fixed on him, a glint of contemplation in them, and then she spoke up.
"I understand. I'll tell you what's really on my mind. There's revenge, yes, but there's also certain circumstances that make me unable to leave empty-handed regardless of the risk."
Orphen raised an eyebrow.
"Circumstances?"
"I can't tell you that."
"What do you mean you can't tell me?"
Cleao stormed over, trying to crowd her. Majic moved forward to intervene, but was easily shoved aside.
"You're not very nice, you know that!? You're always talking about what you want, but you know what that is, don't you? It's called selfishness!"
"That's a bit hypocritical..."
"I can hear you, you know!"
"Aaaaargh!"
Cleao suddenly changed direction and tried to strangle Majic for his unnecessary mumblings. Leaving those two alone for now, Orphen raised his head with a troubled look on his face.
He was still in a brief standoff with Mädchen, whose expression hadn't changed.
Sighing lightly through his nose, Orphen shrugged his shoulders.
"Okay. Let's stick together, then."
"Orphen!?"
Cleao whipped around, throwing Majic aside.
It seemed like it'd only cause more trouble if he answered her, so Orphen ignored the comment and continued.
"I can't abandon you. However, if I sense any danger, we'll be turning back. Okay?"
"Orphen , Orphen, you're just being patronizing, it's so unfair!"
Cleao kept shouting, pressing closer and closer.
Orphen still ignored her, observing Mädchen's expression. She had a blank expression on her face that could be described as neither grateful nor annoyed.
"I used to do some pilfering not unlike what you're doing here under the orders of the Tower. So I don't have any room to criticize whatever it is you're doing here."
"I don't know, I think you go a little too easy on other people, Orphen. You've always said that I'm selfish, but you never say that about her!"
"Just one thing, I don't want to die for this, and it'd be stupid to let someone else die. Maybe we were foolish for getting involved in the first place."
"And you're not just being selfish, Orphen. We don't have to do this, it's just simple dandyism, which is selfish in its own way!"
"So, what I'm trying to say, is—"
"As far as I'm concerned, there's no point to going through all this trouble for woman who acts like this. Besides, what are you going to do if you get hurt? We've got important stuff to do!"
"Well... You know..."
"You said some complicated nonsense about us going to Kimrak! I've never been to the city of the church before, and I'm looking forward to it!—"
"You! Shut up!"
Orphen shouted and shoved Cleao away as she grabbed at him. Then...
"You guys are going to Kimrak?"
Mädchen exclaimed in surprise, caught off guard for the first time.
"A sorcerer?"
She pointed to his chest.
Orphen, looking down at the dragon emblem, confirmed.
"Well, it's not like I'm going to waltz right into the Kimrak Church and hang my pendant on it."
"Hmmm..."
Mädchen put her hand on her chin, looking deep in thought. Suddenly, she smiled, seemingly intrigued by something.
"Then... how about a deal like this? I don't like having to listen to you patronizing your child."
"Who are you calling a child!?"
Orphen shoved his hand behind his back and covered Cleao's mouth, as she'd been screaming at nothing in particular for a while now. He held her back with the other hand while she thrashed about, and asked.
"You said something about a deal."
"That's right. I grew up near Kimrak. I can get you there, and if you want, I can even arrange to get you through the city headquarters' inspections."
"Inspections?"
"You didn't know? You're not very smart, are you? Did you think you could just walk into the head temple?"
"No... I don't know anything about Kimrak."
Orphen admitted that he'd just thought there might be a barrier of some sort, but he had no concrete plan to get out of it. Maybe that was careless, but there wasn't any point in thinking about it before they'd even gotten there.
"I guess those conditions aren't so bad... Fine, whatever, you have a deal."
"That's the thing. There aren't many magic users who've made it past the famous 'Learning Wall'."
"I get it."
Orphen nodded and let go of Cleao. He continued to avoid looking at the girl, who was viciously growling.
"Okay, let's work together then."
"If that's the case... I have a favor to ask you."
Orphen smiled bitterly at the immediate comment. When he thought about it, he didn't think he'd ever been able to refuse a request from a woman her age.
"What? You left the rope in the auditorium, right? Want me to go get it?"
"I wouldn't mind you doing that, but if I do..."
As she spoke, she looked fearfully into the pit.
"You're going to have to carry me down the rope."
"Uh?"
"I'm afraid of heights."
"Guh-buh-guh-buh-gug-wuh!"
His brother was making strange noises — spewing bubbles for no reason.
Dortin knew with sad clarity what Vulcan was trying to say as he wildly flailed his arms and legs in the water.
"Do something, Dortin!"
(I don't know what I'm supposed to do...)
The only time you'd be able to stay particularly calm at the bottom of a water pit filling several meters above your head is when there was someone next to you who was several times more panicked — or if you happened to have a carp somewhere in your family's ancestral genes. In any case, for some reason, Dortin felt very aware.
But, how could he make that work to his advantage—?
(I guess it's obvious that I'll be out of breath in a few seconds...)
To begin with, they weren't good in water.
It wasn't for no reason that dwarves couldn't swim. In Mazmaturia, a land of extreme cold, there was no such thing as water — where all that existed was ice. It was said that in the distant past there were proper rivers and lakes in Mazmaturia (since there were deltas, one had to admit that there'd also been streams at some point), but not anymore. Water was a luxury item.
Needless to say, however, when it closed in around you, well above your brain, it was no longer a luxury item but a tool for execution.
"Grr-garbu-burble-oor-borble!"
He crossed his arms and watched his brother dance.
Dortin was strangely calm and lost in thought.
(This is a pit, right? Apparently it's rigged to pour water in here whenever prey falls in.)
"GBAH-GAHWA-GOOG-BOOWA-BRR-GLOOGA!"
(The water's pouring in from a hole up top. If you were someone who could float in the water, you might be able to float well enough to escape by just waiting for the water level to increase, but the ceiling of the pit seems to have an enclosed lid.)
"GUB-BLUB-WUB-BROG-GLRB!"
(But that's not possible for us, so best to forget it. Even if we could get up to the water spout, so to speak, we wouldn't be able to get out because of the grate. So, we couldn't enter the hole the water's coming from to begin with, especially against the flow of water. But then there's no other way out but up there, right?)
"GRAH-BLUG-GURB-BLUB-GLUG-BRU!"
(That's what I'm worried about... that there's no way out. There are no other holes. Not even a gap in the floor or walls — then where does the water drain from once it's dumped in here?)
Drainage—
Dortin suddenly stopped thinking. Thinking consumed oxygen in the brain. In which case he should've been well past his limit by now — the limit for humans, that is. If he were human, he would've long since expired. Their only hope was...
He couldn't stop thinking about it, even though he was trying not to use his brain too much.
(If... this is a trap it's only designed for human opponents — in which case, maybe if the water is held in the pit long enough it'd risk the equipment being damaged soon, so... maybe the drainage system was designed to activate quickly? Or maybe now.)
"GUH-BLUH-BLOUG-BROO-GLUG!"
In the midst of the scene his brother was making it could've just been his ear popping, but—
Dortin thought he heard a mechanical noise again, ka-chunk, far below his feet. An eerie sound that shook everything around them.
— Then everything began to spiral.
