The burning agony of my insides was starting to turn into an empty numbness. My life would fall to zero very soon. In that instant, my mind would be kicked out of this world, and I would wake up inside The Soul Translator. There, the Rath staffers would inform me that the current form of the Underworld— including all the fluctlights, like Alice and Eugeo—had just been wiped clean, deleted.
If only my life held the exact same meaning as Eugeo’s and Alice’s.
If only I could experience true death with them in this moment.
How else could I possibly apologize for what I’d put them through?
My vision was dimming now—the only things I could see were the legs of the advancing Sword Golem and the shining gold of Alice’s hair on the ground. And even that light was waning.
That was when I heard a quiet but firm voice, right in my ear.
“Use the dagger, Eugeo!”
It was a smooth, silky tone that I was certain I’d heard before. But my mind was already too fuzzy to do anything with that information. The mezzo-soprano continued talking to my friend.
After it had delivered a few instructions, it said it would buy some time and moved away from my ear. For a moment, I thought I felt something warm touch my cheek.
That tiny little brush of warmth brought back some bodily feeling. I struggled to lift my half-closed lids.
Right before my eyes, a tiny, shining black spider landed on the bloodied carpet.
That was it. Charlotte. The very agent of Cardinal that had been hiding on my person for two whole years to gather information on me.
But why here? Why now? The spider had finished her duty when we reached the Great Library, and she had vanished into the cracks between the bookshelves.
I was so surprised by this that I forgot all the pain and terror. Before my eyes, the tiny creature sped toward the gigantic golem as it approached. Eight fragile legs buzzed along the carpet at dizzying speed. But each step for the spider was nothing compared to a step for the golem. How was she going to buy time for Eugeo to escape from the creature that was bearing down on him?
But in the next moment, I gasped weakly as a new shock came over me.
The spider’s body got bigger.
With each contact of pointed leg against carpet, her body mass seemed to grow. First she was the size of a mouse, then a cat, then a dog, and still growing. Soon my ear, pressed against the carpet, could actually hear the vibration of each leg against the ground.
“Greeeh!” roared the Sword Golem—it had noticed Charlotte at last. The two gemstones on its “face” flickered, seemingly assessing this new enemy.
“Shaaaa!” hissed the spider, now over seven feet long, four eyes flashing menacingly.
She wasn’t half as tall as the golem, but while the enemy was constructed entirely of long, narrow swords, the enlarged Charlotte’s body was covered in thick, tough carapace. Wherever the light hit the black surface, it reflected in lustrous gold, and the claws on the ends of the eight legs were like obsidian.
The two front legs were especially large, their claws nearly as long as swords themselves. Charlotte raised the right one and smashed it against the golem’s left leg.
A tremendous clanging filled the room, as though two greatswords had just collided. A shower of orange sparks lit up the darkened room.
And in that light, I was stunned to see the figure of Eugeo running. Not at the golem. Not for either me or Alice.
He was racing for the circular pattern in the carpet along the south wall, to carry out Charlotte’s order to stab his dagger into the levitating platform.
Behind Eugeo, the Sword Golem lost its balance the tiniest bit after Charlotte’s attack, but it promptly held firm, then raised its right arm high in the air to strike. The golem had identified the newly appeared spider as an enemy. Pale eyes glinting, it swung down its massive arm.
Charlotte lifted her front left leg to block it. The clash of golden sword and obsidian claw again resulted in a powerful vibration that made my body rattle at the edge of the room.
With the help of her six rear legs for resistance, the giant spider had succeeded at stopping one of the blows that had so easily knocked me and Alice off our feet.
The two giants held their limbs forth, each trying to push over the other. The hard carapace of Charlotte’s legs warped under tremendous weight, and the joints of the three swords that made up the golem’s right arm creaked.
The standoff lasted all of three seconds.
With a wet crunch, Charlotte’s front left leg snapped off. Milky white liquid shot forth from the break over her black surface.
But the spider didn’t stop. She swung her front right leg this time, right at the gap between the three greatswords that made up the Sword Golem’s spine—toward the glowing purple Piety Module within.
Just when it seemed like the black lightning that was her claw would pierce the prism representing the golem’s ultimate weak point, the many swords that formed the creature’s ribs moved at once.
Like a paper cutter, the four blades on the left and the four blades on the right met in the middle.
Sha-shunk!! They easily sliced through Charlotte’s leg, causing a fresh gush of her bodily fluid to spill forth.
The golem’s ribs slowly parted, allowing the severed half of the leg to fall. Its gemstone eyes twinkled steadily, almost seeming to mock Charlotte over its impending victory.
But losing another one of her legs did nothing to diminish the spider’s bravery. She hissed again and leaped toward her foe, thick mandibles churning for a bite.
Her attack did not land. The golem kicked upward with blinding speed, slicing off two more of Charlotte’s left legs. The giant spider lost her balance and toppled to the floor.
Forget about it—run! I wanted to scream.
I’d never actually had a direct conversation with the spider named Charlotte. But she had always been with me, protecting me. When Raios and Humbert had torn up the zephilia flowers I’d been growing at the dorm, she’d even told me there was still a way to save them—when the only job Cardinal had asked her to do was simply keep tabs on me.
It wasn’t right for her to die for this hopeless fight, just to buy us a little bit of time. I tried to yell for her to run, over and over, but nothing came out.
Somehow, Charlotte managed to stand with her four remaining legs, and she tensed for another mad charge at the golem. But its left arm was quicker, swinging down from overhead to stab deep into the black spider’s curved abdomen.
“…Uhk…”
It was just the smallest gasp that finally escaped from my throat, far too weak to be the scream it was meant to be.
And just then, I saw nothing but purple light.
It was a shine I’d seen just once before. The band of light that shot around the room was one conglomeration of tiny script. It was the same light that had erupted when I’d used Cardinal’s dagger to save the life of Vice Commander Fanatio.
Eugeo must have reached the platform and stabbed it with his own dagger. I wasn’t sure what kind of result that would have, but at least I knew that he hadn’t let the time Charlotte had bought with her suicidal charge go to waste.
When the light began to dim, the black spider was scrabbling at the floor with her remaining legs, trying to stand despite being impaled. Then the golem removed its sword with a wet shlurk, and her massive bulk fell limply into the white puddle below her.
Her four eyes had been as bright and brilliant as rubies before, but now they were losing their luster. They did catch sight of the levitating platform, and with blood dripping from her fangs, Charlotte whispered, “Oh, good…He made it.”
Her right legs trembled, rotating her body. Four eyes looked at me with tenderness.
“I’m happy…that I got to fight with you…one…last…”
Her words melted away into space. The round eyes flickered red and then went dark.
I felt my vision blur. Despite the fact that I myself was dy
ing, my eyes brimmed with tears. The huge black spider began to shrink without a sound. The puddle of white liquid evaporated, too, leaving behind only a corpse about the size of my fingernail, rolled onto its back with four legs curled up above it.
The Sword Golem instantly lost all interest in the target once it had squashed the life from her, and it rotated until its gleaming eyes caught sight of Eugeo. The massive creature then turned its body ninety degrees, and its pointed legs thudded into the floor. It was heading for the waving ribbon of purple light.
With all the strength I had left, I raised my head a few inches and looked to the source of the light. On the southern end of the circular room, not that far from the window, there was a pulsating, glowing ring: the levitating platform that had brought Alice and me to the hundredth floor.
Something that looked like a tiny cross was stuck in the middle of the ring. That was the little bronze dagger, one of two that Cardinal had given me and Eugeo. She’d fashioned it from the magical resources in the braids that she’d been growing for two hundred years, and whatever the dagger pierced would open a channel through space directly to her.
It was meant to be the final weapon against Administrator, but on Charlotte’s orders, Eugeo had stuck it into the platform on the floor. Now the entire thing was glowing purple. It rang and whined like a thousand tuning forks coming into harmony, until the very physical makeup of the dagger came undone, turning into a long pillar of light that ran between the circular platform and the ceiling.
Standing right next to it, Eugeo covered his face against the light with his arm. Even the Sword Golem came to a clanking stop, uncertain of how to respond to this unexpected phenomenon.
The pillar of light steadily expanded. At its center, a smooth dark-brown surface appeared—a board. But not any regular board. It was surrounded by a rectangular frame and had a silver knob on one side—it was a door.
As I had that moment of realization, the light flashed and disappeared. The high-pitched wavelength faded, and quiet returned to the chamber.
Something about the design and coloring of the thick door was familiar to me. Eugeo and I watched without a sound while the Sword Golem took a step forward, its programming active again.
Just then, there was a small, hard click, accompanied by an almost imperceptible shift in the air. The silver doorknob began to rotate. There was another click, and the door quietly began to open.
It was just a door standing in empty air, so once open, it should have just been the same room on the other side. But there was no moonlight shining through the space inside the open frame. It was completely dark.
The door continued its slow progress until it came to a stop when it was about a foot and a half open. The other side was still out of sight. The Sword Golem continued its forward advance, ignoring the door. In just three steps, it would have Eugeo within swinging range of its massive arms…Two steps…
Then the darkness beyond the door was full of light.
A pure-white lightning bolt shot horizontally out of the frame.
Grrrakow!! My ears were buffeted by a tremendous shock—one greater than any sacred art I’d ever witnessed. The bolt hit the Sword Golem head-on and wriggled like a living thing, turning the massive creature into a black silhouette.
It took several seconds for the thrashing lightning to finally die down. The Sword Golem, which seemed so hardy that it was unstoppable, slumped over and stopped moving. Its dozens of swords hissed and smoked, and the gemstone eyes blinked sporadically.
The monster stubbornly tried to move again, but another bolt from the doorway caught it. A sacred art of this power should require dozens of lines of sacred words, so this kind of rapid fire was astonishing. Scorched all over, the golem let out a high-pitched moan and tried to step back.
Just half a second later, the third and largest lightning bolt ripped past. This bolt, burlier and meaner than the prior two, tossed up the nearly twenty-foot battle creation as if it were made of paper. It spun through the air, passing to the right of the floating Administrator, and crashed to the floor on the other end of the room. The tremor of its fall seemed to shake the very foundation of Central Cathedral.
The upturned golem was immobile at last but not entirely dead. The tips of the swords that made up its limbs trembled and twitched. At the very least, it wouldn’t be popping back up again anytime soon.
I looked back at the darkness through the doorway. I was already certain of the name of the person who would soon appear through it. Administrator was one of the two people in this world who could execute such rapid and transcendently powerful magic—and here was the other.
A thin staff and the small hand that held it were the first things to appear from the darkness. Next were a fragile wrist and a wide sleeve. A black velvet robe large enough to form several draping folds. A pointed hat with an ornament on it. A flat-soled shoe extended from the bottom of the robe to step silently onto the carpet.
The moonlight caught soft brown curls and small, silver-rimmed glasses. Large eyes that were young and yet filled with infinite wisdom glinted behind the lenses of the glasses.
Cardinal the sage, who was another incarnation of Administrator with equal powers, and who had spent an eternity isolated within her massive, hidden library, took several smooth steps forward in the moonlight before coming to a stop. The door closed on its own behind her.
How had Cardinal left the library, which existed in a space that was everywhere and nowhere, and come into this room? The key was the dagger that Eugeo had carried around, of course. On Charlotte’s orders, he’d stabbed it into the levitating platform, causing it to be connected to Cardinal. That would have made it child’s play for her to change the connecting point of the platform to the library.
The wise little sage wore the expression of a strict teacher as she stared at the top floor of the cathedral for the first time. Then she turned to Eugeo, who was standing right next to her, and gave him a quick nod. Next was Alice, still lying on the floor a short distance away. When her eyes met mine, she gave me a reassuring little smile and nodded once more.
Lastly, Cardinal arched her small back and stared up at Administrator, who was still silently floating on the far side of the room. Whatever emotion she was feeling about this showdown with her ultimate foe, their first meeting in two hundred years, I couldn’t read from her profile.
Once she had taken stock of the situation, Cardinal raised the staff in her right hand. Her body rose off the ground, and she slid through the air to where Alice and I lay helpless on the ground.
She landed and brushed Alice’s back with the head of the staff. Little glittering motes of light sprinkled down and sank into the knight’s body.
Next, she tapped my shoulder with the narrow staff. Another warm shower of light appeared and engulfed my body, which was completely devoid of sensation by now.
The first thing that happened was that the cold, hollow sensation that filled me vanished, and the searing pain from the golem’s attack to my abdomen rushed back to fill its place. I fought to keep from screaming, and the pain steadily melted into waves of warmth. As the agony subsided, my bodily sensations returned. I opened and closed my stiffened fist until I felt able to touch the wound on my torso.
The injury tingled sharply when I touched it, but to my shock, the gash that had nearly bisected my entire body was completely gone. In order to re-create that effect with healing arts, I’d have to sit in a sunny forest lush with resources, chanting for hours on end.
It was such a miracle that I had to fight the momentary urge to celebrate that I’d been saved—but I knew that such a miracle required an equal compensation. And not from me but from Cardinal. After all, this situation had to be exactly what Administrator wanted…
But Cardinal paid no heed to that horrifying possibility. She floated into the air again. When she landed this time, she was before the tiny black body that lay atop the carpet. With a little thump, she set the end of the staff against the
ground. She took her hand off it, but the staff remained perfectly vertical on its own.
Cardinal crouched down and gently scooped the tiny body up off the carpet. She clutched Charlotte the spider to her chest, lowering her head, and in a voice too quiet to be fully audible, whispered, “You stubborn fool…I released you from duty, hailed your service, and told you to live the life you wanted in whatever bookshelf you desired.”
Behind the round glasses, her long eyelashes blinked twice, then three times.
My right arm was finally able to move properly, so I reached out to grab my sword and used it as a crutch to get to my feet. I made my way unsteadily over to Cardinal and, ignoring all the things I should’ve said first, asked, “Cardinal…was that…Charlotte’s true form…?”
The sage looked up, chestnut-brown curls bouncing and eyes misty. In her oddly old way of speaking, which almost seemed as nostalgic as if I hadn’t heard it in ages myself, she said, “In this world…since ancient times, there have been many magical beasts and beings that made their homes in the forests and wilderness. I believe these creatures are familiar to you.”
“…Named Monsters…But…Charlotte spoke human language and had emotions of her own…Did she have a fluctlight, too…?”
“No…To use the language of your world, she was the same as an NPC. She was not stored in a lightcube but was a tiny part of the Main Visualizer function, given a small simulated thought engine—in other words, a part of the system. In the past, there were many large animals, ancient trees, boulders, and so on who had the ability to hold simple conversations in the common tongue. But…they are all gone now. Most were vanquished by the Integrity Knights, while others were harvested by Administrator for their object resources.”
“I see…like the guardian dragon whose bones sleep in the cave beneath the northern mountains…”
“Indeed. I took pity on them and, whenever possible, took newly generated AIs under my wing. The familiars I use as my agents are mostly miniature units without a thought engine, but some are the AIs that I put to my own uses, like Charlotte. Because they are so statistically powerful, there is little fear of them being damaged, even when shrunken down. That is how she was safe hiding in your clothes, even with all of your wild thrashing in combat.”
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