by Aneko Yusagi
What was the problem? We couldn’t even find the entrance. What if we were in the wrong cave? The map we had wasn’t accurate anymore, but the tunnels didn’t seem to lead deeper underground at all. The map indicated that we should be at the lowest levels.
“Shield Hero.” A shadow appeared and updated the map. From the way it looked, the entire cave was nearly mapped. Why hadn’t we seen Glass or the others yet? I followed the sprawling lines on the map and was shocked by what I saw.
Every path was a dead end.
“What is going on here? Are the legends wrong?”
“I do not know. We were zure to zearch for hidden passages.”
“Hey, master!” Filo shouted. She was kicking at the ground. Watching her, Ost seemed to remember something. I decided to sit back and see what happened. It looked like Filo might have found a path that would take us further underground.
“Should we make another pass? Or do we need to start digging?” If we had to dig, we were going to need tools—but hey, I had access to digging skills.
“Hey.”
“We will check with the army to zee what tools they have.”
“Hey!!”
“What is it?” Filo was shouting to get my attention, so I looked over at her.
“Dontcha think the floor here is kind of . . . weird?” Filo asked as she kicked at the ground.
I had checked the area to make sure there wasn’t a trap door, but nothing had sounded hollow.
Ost’s eyes grew wide and she came running over to me, shouting, “Shield Hero! Shield Hero!”
I guess there really was a trap door. But Filo still hadn’t said anything else, and she wasn’t answering us. I couldn’t figure it out.
“It’s alive.”
“Yeah, well, we are in a cave on the back of a giant monster. Of course it’s alive.”
Ost looked at me and nodded.
. . . ?
“That’s not what I mean!” Filo shouted and kicked the floor hard—and the whole thing wobbled and flexed.
“Huh?”
There was a very strange sound echoing through the tunnel.
“This is one of the mimicked familiars.”
“What? You mean the same kind of monster that pretended to look like Glass is right here, pretending to be the floor?”
“Yes.”
“Really? I guess we’ll just have to kill it then,” I said. I wasn’t sure how we were supposed to attack a monster that was hiding in the ground. We had to find a way. Judging from what we’d seen of the cave system, we were going to have to find a way to get deeper underground if we wanted to find the heart.
We could hack our way through—but there was no telling how long that might take. If only there was an efficient way to punch a hole through it. I scratched my chin, and then I remembered that I had once seen a recipe in a book for acid water. I’d used the shield to try out the recipe, so I had a bottle. With any luck it would work like the weed killer we used on the bioplants. I decided to try it.
If only Ren or Motoyasu were there. Their offensive skills would have come in handy.
“Filo, Ost—stand back.”
“Okay!”
I pulled a bottle of the acid water from my shield and gave it to Raphtalia.
“Pour this on the monster. If I do it, it might trigger a counter-attack.”
“Alright,” she said, taking the bottle and pouring its contents out on the ground.
“. . . !”
The floor started to wiggle, writhe, and melt.
And there, just beneath the ground, was a monster—and it wasn’t just the Spirit Tortoise’s back. It was puffy and sticky, like a rice cake. It looked at us through enormous eyes, and its back was covered with a giant shell.
“I zee. It really iz one of the mimicking familiarz. We never would have found thiz.”
“How could you have? It was hibernating. I never would have spotted it.”
We never would have found it without Filo. If the shadows couldn’t find the monster, that proved how good at hiding it was. But was it really the same kind of beast that had mimicked the appearance of Glass and the others?
“Let’s kill it!”
“Okay!”
“Yes!”
“I will azzist you!”
Everyone jumped forward and killed the beast. When it died, it shrunk up like a slug sprinkled with salt before vanishing in a puff of smoke.
“Zo the path forward waz hidden here.”
When the monster vanished, it was clear that it had been blocking the entrance to a tunnel that led further underground.
If the path had been hidden so thoroughly, then how many of the other dead-end paths we’d found had actually contained mimic monsters? There was no point in worrying about it—we had to continue down this path.
“Let’s go.”
Everyone nodded and followed me down the new tunnel.
It wasn’t long before the air and the texture of the walls began to change. It seemed to be getting warmer too. Eventually, the rock walls vanished and were replaced with pulsing walls of flesh.
“This is pretty creepy.”
“I agree. It’s disgusting.”
“It feels like being inside my mouth!” Filo shouted. She really had a way with words.
“It looks like we’re finally inside the tortoise’s body.”
“It certainly does seem that way.”
The ceiling was still made of rock. Things were going to start getting serious. The floor beneath my feet was soft, and I could feel it pulsing with a heartbeat.
First things first—we had to find the heart. I tried to think of a plan, when a white bulbous monster came flying at us. It looked like a blood platelet I’d seen under a microscope once.
I blocked it with Shooting Star Shield, and then Raphtalia and Filo jumped forward to kill it. From what I could tell, the tortoise’s immune system was deploying familiars at us.
“If there are more of these, it’s going to be hard to get all the troops down here.”
From time to time we passed puffy maggot-like monsters that wriggled on the ground. We sprinkled them with acid when we passed by. There were a lot of familiars in the tunnel. I hoped that meant we were getting closer to the heart and that they were there to protect it. The only thing that would complete the picture would be Glass and L’Arc. If we found them standing in front of the heart, arms crossed, wouldn’t that just be great?
If that happened, what were we supposed to do? The army troops wouldn’t stand a chance against enemies like that. We’d have to deal with the enemy first and then swing back to get the troops.
Ost suddenly raised her head. She looked worried.
“What is it?”
“I . . .”
She was acting strange. I stared at her to see what the problem was, and I saw the cursed burns on her hand disappearing before my eyes.
“What the . . .”
“I am a Spirit Tortoise familiar, too. As we approach the heart, my regenerative abilities are improving.”
“How nice for you.”
“My magic power is returning as well.”
I hoped that Ost’s improving fortunes would help us in the battles to come.
“Zhould I return to inform the troops of our dizcovery?”
“Not yet. We haven’t found the heart yet. Let’s hold off on telling them until we can be sure we’re going the right way.”
“Underztood.”
A little further down the path, we came to a curtain of red sinews blocking the way forward. I’d seen this sort of gimmick in games before. You normally had to cut the right one to move on. I looked over at Ost for a hint, but she shook her head. I guess I couldn’t expect her to know everything about the inside of her true body. I didn’t really know what happened inside of my own body, after all.
You can cook food in a microwave without knowing how the microwave works—if you know what I mean. So of course, she didn’t know. I shouldn’t have expec
ted her to.
“Raphtalia, cut that one.”
“Oh, alright.” She swung her sword and sliced through one of the sinews.
The fleshy wall split and opened, leading to another path.
“What a lucky choize you’ve made!”
“I just had a feeling. I’ve seen this sort of thing before.”
“Very imprezzive.”
We continued down the tunnel, only to arrive at a similar setup, only this time the sinews were blue. If we cut them, we’d probably get a new path forward, just like last time.
“Raphtalia.”
“Yes!”
She sliced through the sinew just like before. The path ahead of us opened up, but the path we’d come from closed again, and the red sinews grew back. What a pain. To make matters worse, when we cut the sinews it seemed to activate the immune system. Hordes of the immune system monsters flooded the tunnel.
If they didn’t let up soon, we’d have a tough time making any progress.
I could hear a loud pulsing heartbeat coming from the other side of a door, and a cord of blue sinews grew nearby. Raphtalia cut them.
But this time, the door ahead of us seemed to block itself further, and the door behind us reopened. I was starting to get irritated. If we didn’t find the right sinew to cut, we would never find the heart.
“Shield Hero,” Ost said, stepping forward and raising her hand.
“What?”
“Leave this to me.”
“You can do something about this?”
“Yes. Just a minute.”
She held her hand out to the closed door of flesh, and it suddenly started to twitch in spasms. Finally, it opened.
“Wow . . .”
A part of me wished she had done that sooner, but I decided to assume that she had just figured out how to do it.
“. . . ?!”
The room was filled with a loud pulsing. The path must have led to the heart chamber! But Ost’s power over the door began to wane, and the door of flesh strained to release itself.
“Let’s go!”
“Yes!”
We dashed through the door and moved on.
Soon we came to a knot of white sinews, and when we cut them, the path behind us opened. The sinews were capable of regeneration. It took about 30 seconds for them to grow back. Ha! I guess we just had to hack our way through.
“Shadow. We might need you to focus on keeping the paths open.”
“Underztood. Should I ztart now?”
“Not yet. In a little while, if we run into Glass, you separate from us and keep your distance.”
“Underztood.”
Finally, we came upon a strange artificial object that seemed remarkably out of place. It was a dragon hourglass, and it was filled with blue sand. It was also smaller than the giant hourglass back in Melromarc. It was very strange to see the elaborately designed hourglass sitting there inside of the Spirit Tortoise’s body.
“A dragon hourglass?”
“It’s blue.”
“That iz how it appearz.”
“Where’s all the sand?” Filo asked. She was right; it looked nearly empty, like it was only 20% filled.
“This is . . .” Ost muttered to herself while she approached the hourglass.
“This is filled with the soul energy of those who became sacrifices to the Spirit Tortoise. When this hourglass is filled, the Spirit Tortoise can create the barrier that protects the world.”
“. . .”
So we were looking at the source of the Spirit Tortoise’s energy?
“So? Where’s the person that is supposed to have control of the tortoise?”
“I believe we may find them in the core. This is only a projection of the true hourglass, which is held elsewhere.”
“What? Do you know where it is?”
“Yes. Destroying the head and heart will only stop the movement of the beast. After that . . .”
The story was getting more and more complicated.
What was all this about a core? Is that were we’d find Glass and the others?
There was a familiar symbol, not from this world, written on the hourglass: 7.
Ost had explained that before. She said that it meant the power level was equal to the seventh wave. I reached out to touch it, but my hand slipped right through the glass, unable to make contact with anything. It was definitely different from the dragon hourglasses back in Melromarc.
“I guess there’s nothing for us to do here. Time to move on.”
“Alright!”
“We can return to inveztigate thiz later.”
“Great. I guess we need to find this ‘core’ thing now.”
“Yes. If we cannot free the tortoise from whoever is controlling it, these people will have died in vain,” Ost said, hard and determined.
We walked past the hourglass and found the heart a bit further down the tunnel.
It stood more than six meters tall and was divided into two colors. Each side had an eyeball.
“So this is the heart.”
Glass was nowhere to be seen. I guess we would be likely to find them at this ‘core’ that Ost was talking about.
“It zeems to be the heart. It is very ominous indeed.”
This was what we had to imprison.
The eyes looked at me when I spoke, and they didn’t look very welcoming. Sure enough, a second later and they were shooting heat beams at us. I blocked them with Shooting Star Shield.
“. . . !”
The eyes opened even wider and started to shake. Suddenly, the room was flooded with familiars. I had no idea where they came from. I got the unsettling feeling that the heart was capable of summoning an infinite amount of them.
It wasn’t going to be an easy fight. We’d left all the troops back in the chamber, and we were supposed to be just investigating now. So we didn’t need to fight it yet.
“Let’s try to weaken it a bit. Shadows, you stay back. Ost, back us up.”
“Yes!”
“Okay!”
“Underztood.”
“I’ll do all I can to weaken it.”
Filo and Raphtalia jumped out from behind my force field and sprinted straight at the heart.
“Zweite Aura!” I shouted, casting the spell on both of them. It dramatically improved all of their stats.
“Ying-Yang Sword!”
“Puchikuikku!”
They each attacked one of the eyes.
“. . . !”
The heart freaked out. The whole chamber shook violently.
Suddenly, a huge mandala-like magic pattern appeared on the floor around the heart. It was preparing to do something drastic.
“Raphtalia! Filo! Get back!”
Ost was behind us, fending off the familiars. I couldn’t ask her for anything.
“Understood.”
“Okay!”
Both of them ducked back into the force field and rushed to get behind my shield so they could prepare their next attacks.
The heart formed a black ball of magic and shot it straight at us. When I blocked it, the force field shattered with a loud crack!
The black ball slammed into my shield, and the light around me bent and warped.
My body suddenly felt very heavy! It must have been that gravity type of magic that Ost was fond of. I felt heavier and more tired than I ever had, but my defense ability was unaffected, and I could still bear it.
“Hyaaaaa!” I shouted, shoving the shield to the right and sending the ball careening through the tunnel.
The heart wasn’t using any of the super powerful attacks that the tortoise used outside. Of course it wouldn’t be able to—not without hurting itself. That was good news. I could use the Whale Core Shield to mediate the effects of the heat beams.
I was mulling over my strategy when I noticed a bunch of the clumpy white monsters crawling over the heart. The whole surface was nearly covered with them when, bam, the clumps exploded out from the heart to cover the who
le room.
“Shooting Star Shield!”
“Raphtalia, Filo! Can you kill the heart?!”
“I can try!”
“Yup!”
Both of them started to charge up their most powerful attacks. While we waited, I protected them and Ost used her powers to hold off all the familiar monsters. Whenever there was a space, she sent an attack spell flying to buy us more time.
Raphtalia’s tail puffed up. Filo looked ready, too. Then Raphtalia’s sword burst into light while Filo crossed her arms in front of her.
“Filo! Can you talk to Fitoria?”
I had an idea. It was time to act on my theory. If we prioritized the attack, we might be able to put an end to all this. Fitoria could crush the head at the same time that we killed the heart.
“Huh? Um . . . yeah, I can talk to her.”
“Then let’s attack at the same time.”
“Okay! Fitoria says she understands!”
“Then let’s do it! Maybe it will work!”
I turned to face the heart and focus.
“Herculean Strength!” Ost cast support magic on both Raphtalia and Filo. Hopefully, they would be powerful enough. If it didn’t work, I’d have no choice but to use the Shield of Wrath.
“Directional . . .” Raphtalia crouched down low and ran for the heart.
Filo followed her. “Spiral Kick!”
She turned into a ray of light and shot herself straight into the heart.
The heart tried to defend itself. A force field appeared and stretched from the ceiling to the floor, and Filo’s attack ricocheted off of it. But Raphtalia was right behind her, swinging her sword. The force field exploded with the sound of shattering glass.
“Sword of Heaven!”
Her sword flashed with spinning, complex Taoist-like patterns in its wake.
With a great gushing sound, Filo’s attack punched a hole in the heart. Before blood could spray from it, Raphtalia brought her sword back around and sliced deep into the flesh.
The heart’s eyes shot open wide, and the heart split in two—
“. . . !”
Behind me, I head Ost gasp. I turned to see her clutching her chest in pain.
“Are you okay!?”
“Yes . . . I’m fine. But that is not good enough.”
“You . . .”
“To kill my true body is to kill me.”
She had done all of this, knowing that she would die if we were successful. It must have taken an unbelievable amount of courage to do what she’d done. I don’t think I could have done it.