by Fujino Omori
Having come to the end of the chant, she activated the magic.
“Soul light.”
A magical light resembling sunlight poured down in a circle about ten meders across, with Cassandra at its center. This particular method, which allowed her to treat multiple people at once, was called area healing. All the adventurers aside from Aisha were within the sphere, basking in a healing light whose power was far greater than that of any ordinary potion.
As their wounds closed, their movements regained a remarkable alacrity. Cassandra’s ability as a healer was obvious from the strength of her patients. They were fully recovered.
“I’m ready to go!”
“Thank you, Cassandra!”
“That was a bit too close for comfort, wouldn’t you say, Li’l E?”
“We can’t be using Cassandra’s skills every other second at a time like this!!”
“Why are you arguing when I’ve just healed you…?” she moaned.
As Ouka and Mikoto applauded Cassandra, Welf and Lilly were back to their usual quibbling. The healer looked on the verge of tears.
The adventurers re-formed their battle line and, in a single surge, scattered the monsters blocking their way forward and once again began moving down the passage.
“You guys aren’t half-bad…I thought when we lost Bell Cranell, everything would fall apart, but I guess I didn’t know what I was talking about,” Aisha said, gazing with narrowed eyes at the strenuous efforts of the party.
They were still in a tough spot, but she let her admiration for the third-tier adventurers show as they cooperated to push through one lower-level attack after the next. At the same time, she revised her view of them.
She could use these people.
“Turn right at the next passage!” Lilly shouted. Following her order, Welf and the others found themselves leaping into a long, wide passage.
It was a straight, dry path with no stream running alongside it. Although they could see small tunnels dotting the sides, large hordes of monsters would only be able to approach from ahead or behind them. The white crystals on the ceiling cast an unusually strong light. As the group approached the center of the passage, Lilly issued another command.
“We will intercept monsters here!”
“Here?! Seems like the kind of place likely to have a lot of them!” Ouka countered.
“In this passage, they’ll only be coming from one direction! We should be able to keep them within the range of fire for our magic swords! Mr. Welf, burn them to cinders!!” Lilly screamed back, adding a command to Welf at the end.
“Ha-ha!”
Welf was overwhelmed by the ferocity of the party’s brain, whose eyes were practically popping out from the speed her mind was spinning at, but he couldn’t help chuckling. He had to admit—her plan was easy to understand. Annihilate the enemy on a single axis.
In the depths of his heart, he didn’t want to admit it, but his insanely powerful Crozzo Magic Swords were unrivaled in this situation.
As he crossed paths with Aisha, who was running up from the rear, he faced the pack of approaching monsters and swung the crimson magic sword he had drawn from his back downward.
“Kougou!”
As the sword descended from above his head, it breathed out a huge ball of fire.
The surge of heat it created surpassed even that of the magic sword he had used against the Goliath, wiping out the pack of monsters about to reach the group. The roaring of the fire drowned their screams as a storm of sparks danced through the crystal passage.
“The heat is incredible…!” Daphne said, throwing one arm in front of her face as the swelling flames exhaled their searing breath toward her. Blazing corpses of monsters and melting magic stones buried within piles of ash lay scattered before her eyes.
But in the distance, she could see a new parade approaching.
“We may be using the terrain to our advantage, but what are we gonna do when the magic swords crumble?” Aisha asked, sweating profusely as she drank a potion.
“Whenever we run, the situation just gets worse! Even if we escape from this labyrinth, we’ll somehow have to bring down the overall number of monsters or else we’ll be trapped on this floor!”
Lilly desperately scanned the map as she answered Aisha, searching for a solution. As Welf’s magic sword seared away the second wave of the parade, the Amazon—who had more experience as an adventurer than anyone else in the party—tossed back the rest of her potion.
“We’ll just have to see how it goes.”
“—”
But the situation was about to get worse.
It was Mikoto, of course, who first sensed the danger.
“Mikoto?”
“—This is bad.”
She stood beside Haruhime, who was handing an item to Aisha, and scanned their surroundings with her violet eyes.
As if to affirm her murmured words, a crackling noise shot through the passageway.
“—”
Fissures raced across the crystal walls. Thousands of them, covering a huge expanse.
For Lilly, time stood still. Ouka and Daphne were struck dumb, while Cassandra froze, and Welf, in the midst of swinging his magic sword, looked up. Even the enfeebled Dormul, Luvis, and Chigusa turned pale.
These adventurers who had made their way to the lower levels knew instantly what the fissures foretold.
A monster party. Local monsters were about to emerge en masse.
This dirty trick of the Dungeon plunged the adventurers into an abyss of despair.
The fissures extended from the center of the wide passageway for about fifty meders, placing the adventurers completely within their boundaries. The Dungeon had revealed its malice and was clearly trying to murder the party.
“This is insane!” Welf shouted as he took on the approaching parade of monsters. Even as he did, the ominous creaking and cracking of the fissures did not stop. It was as if the walls were proclaiming the number of minutes the adventurers had left to live.
“It’s too huge…Can ye believe it reaches down there?”
“Shit, we’ve made it this far…and now…!”
Dormul and Luvis grimaced at the soul-crushing scene before them. Hopelessness crept over the faces of the other elves and dwarves, too, as they took in the incredible scale of the event.
“Well…I don’t have any other choice.”
Aisha alone clicked her tongue in irritation. Sweeping her bangs aside as if she was, in truth, reluctant to do what she planned, she turned to Lilly.
“Okay, shrimp, I’m gonna do this. Get ready.”
“…!”
Not bothering to wait for a response from the surprised prum, Aisha walked toward Luvis and the other wounded.
“Hey, you—promise me something,” she said to them.
“Huh?!”
Aisha thrust her podao at the elves and dwarves who lifted their faces toward her. Then she pressed its tip into the base of Luvis’s throat. He blanched with shock. So did Dormul, who was propping him up with one shoulder. Aisha swept her sharp gaze over the stunned dwarves and elves behind them.
“You will never speak of what is about to happen…Do you promise me that?”
“Wh-wh-what are you talking about?! Going crazy at a time like this?!”
“A-aye! What the crikey are ye—?”
“Do. You. Promise?”
Dormul’s voice broke off as Aisha jabbed the tip of her sword into Luvis’s neck, tearing the skin. As a drop of blood trickled downward, the weakened pair of adventurers turned even paler.
Aisha was not joking around. As the cries of newborn monsters rang out and the labyrinth walls strained as if they were about to fly apart, her eyes glinted fiercely.
Death was confronting the party. Terror trampled Luvis’s mind.
Faced with Aisha’s bone-chilling gaze, the dwarf and the elf forced themselves to respond.
“I-I promise.”
“I-I swear on the name of Her
Majesty the queen of the elves.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Aisha said. As Dormul and Luvis nodded repeatedly, she withdrew her weapon. A second later, she smiled and called out.
“Okay, Haruhime—do it!”
A pair of fox ears stood up in surprise and a head of luxurious golden hair trembled.
Then the renart girl gave Aisha a nervous but resolute nod and prepared to release her magic.
“Get in a circle formation around Miss Haruhime and defend her with your lives!” Lilly shouted, looking up. Her order was simple and clear, and the others obeyed quickly.
Ouka with his shield and battle-ax, Mikoto with her sword, Daphne with her dagger, Cassandra with her short bow, and Aisha with her podao formed a circle around the renart. Welf leaped back, kicking the ground to join them. In the center, the girl quietly pulled her black robe low over her eyes and brought her hands together like a shrine maiden performing a ritual.
“—Here I go.”
The next instant, the Dungeon walls around them roared like an avalanche as they spawned a huge swarm of monsters.
“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The monster party had begun.
As a sword bounced off slashing claws, a shrill metallic screech echoed through the passage.
Haruhime could sense that Mikoto, her black ponytail tousled, had fended off a monster’s charge with her first blow. The renart closed her eyes and used the thread of her concentration to pull herself together. Then she unleashed the inner power that the grimoire had opened her eyes to.
“Kokonoe.”
Surprisingly, the new sorcery she had learned began not with a chant but with the announcement of the spell’s name.
“Beloved snow. Beloved crimson. Beloved white light.”
As Haruhime sang the chant, her body began to change. The magic she released turned to innumerable sparks of light that gathered around her buttocks. A sound like a bell being rolled rang out, and at the same time five tails made of light the same color as her fur sprouted from her behind.
“Please let me be beside you—this love I have found at the end of two thousand nights.”
Haruhime now had six tails, including the original one, all of them glittering with golden light. Her black robe absorbed the aftereffects of the magic and floated airily around her. Like the girl herself, the dwarves protected within the circle of adventurers were spellbound. Even the noble elves forgot their surroundings and stared bedazzled at this girl who resembled nothing more than a shrine maiden chanting ritual prayers.
“Shit, we’re screwed,” Aisha murmured as the magic took effect. She had strictly forbidden Haruhime from using the spell except when she commanded it. The reason she had done this was that once its power became known, she knew an ugly struggle for the girl would occur yet again.
The other reason was that it was their ultimate trump card, the only one that had the power to single-handedly break through a deadlocked battle.
This is so hard.
Beads of sweat formed on Haruhime’s forehead. She could feel her mental strength draining away. It was as if fragments of her life were being sucked into those tails of light. It occurred to her somewhat randomly that this must be what the sacrificial shrine maidens in the Far East felt like.
“My name is Magic Fox, former destroyer. My name is Ancient Song, former dreamer. For you who beat your wings like a bird, I shall allow the nine spirits to dwell within me.”
Her throat was on fire. Her body was burning. The golden light became ferocious fangs tearing into her tender flesh as it almost set off an Ignis Fatuus.
“GYAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
She could hear Mikoto fighting a monster. The roars of her companions protecting her powerless self set her heart on fire.
All Haruhime could do was sing.
And so she would sing, until her voice dried up, until her life drained away, breathing a prayer for her beloved companions. She would fulfill their spirited hopes. And she would help the boy whom she yearned for.
As her friends held back the ever-more-ferocious attacks of the monsters, Haruhime began to chant more quickly.
Mikoto gathered what little strength she had left and slashed her blade again and again and again at the onslaught of violent assaults. Welf unleashed fire from his magic sword at close range. Ouka bellowed war cries as blood ran from his wounds. Aisha’s podao mowed down any monster that approached her.
“Echo song of gold, sacred poem of Tamamo. White face, golden fur, king of nine tails.”
The battlefield song shook Haruhime’s self-possession, yet still she was able to continue the chant without breaking off. Squeezing her eyes shut, she sang the next line of the song of golden light.
“Oh tails of the auspicious beast, consume all, grant all wishes—”
And then:
“—Grow.”
She was performing Concatenated Casting, linking two different chants to cast their spells one after the next.
“That power and that vessel. Breadth of wealth and breadth of wishes. Until the bell tolls, bring forth glory and illusion. Grow.”
As soon as she uttered the familiar words, the tails of golden light began to move as if they were looking upward toward the heavens. Each one undulated seemingly with a will of its own, sending masses of golden dust like the powder on fairy wings billowing outward. The crystals pulsated with diffuse light, then the dust swallowed them up. It was a truly mystical scene.
“Confine divine offerings within this body. This golden light bestowed from above. Into the hammer and into the ground, may it bestow good fortune upon you.”
As Haruhime sang these words, a thin mist of magic power materialized. Quickly, it changed into a cloud of light that summoned a spiral pattern and a hammer of light above her head.
Even the monsters turned their eyes to the gorgeous sparkling light and stood still for a moment.
“Grow.”
Haruhime’s long eyelashes fluttered. She opened her eyes, raised her delicate eyebrows, and announced the completion of the spell.
“Uchide no Kozuchi!”
The hammer of light split open with a high sound, shattering into brilliant fragments that were absorbed by the tails. Now they shone with the same light that had emanated from the hammer.
“Dance!”
As Haruhime thrust one arm toward the ceiling, the tails tore from their base and danced into the air. These fat tails of light gathered in midair and then transformed into a glittering ball of light that danced down onto the party, still in the midst of battle.
Masses of light were absorbed into the bodies of Mikoto, Ouka, Welf, Daphne, and Aisha. The next instant—
“““““…!!”””””
It was a chain reaction of level boosts. Five of them.
All five adventurers instantaneously leveled up.
“YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!”
Their war cries sent the monsters stumbling backward, and their raging weapons easily broke through the enemy siege. They began a counterattack.
“Wh-wh-what is going on?!”
“Th-they’re moving differently!”
Luvis and Dormul sputtered idiotically at the sight of multiple level boosts taking effect in front of their eyes.
Haruhime’s new magic was called Kokonoe. The unique enchantment endowed its user with fox tails made of light, then concentrated the effects of a separate magical spell chanted directly afterward into the tails. Once this happened, Haruhime was able to activate the magic in as many iterations as there were tails, all with a single effort of will.
Like magic swords, the multiple tails acted as mediators of magic. And like the killing stones that sealed off sorcery, this spell allowed her to give level boosts to multiple people at the same time.
The elves and dwarves were in a state of confusion.
“H-hey, what’s happening here?”
“They’re all
so strong I barely recognize them!”
“Simply put, everyone leveled up,” Lilly said.
““Huh?!””
On hearing Lilly’s overly straightforward explanation, the elves and dwarves rolled their eyes back in their heads, and bubbles foamed from their mouths. They were in shock over this skill that defied common sense and was illegal to boot.
The magical combination of Kokonoe and Uchide no Kozuchi created a group level boost. It was Hestia Familia’s new trump card.
According to Haruhime’s status, the maximum number of tails the spell could generate was nine. Currently, however, she was able to create only five.
She had expended a huge amount of energy, and now that she was done, her legs folded beneath her. She was at her limit, one step from total Mind Down. Still, the adventurers had reaped more than enough reward from her magic.
“Zhaaaa!”
“GAAAAAAAAA!!”
That magic was now a thick swirl of light particles encircling Mikoto’s body as she used her new power to the fullest. All five adventurers were filled with a feeling of omnipotence and excitement over the strength that poured from them. They thwarted the attacking monsters with newfound speed, force, and might, sending their enemies flying with their weapons.
They’ve rallied.
Aisha looked coolly at the battle under way around her. The morale of her fellow party members had skyrocketed in tandem with their abilities. They were putting up a hell of a fight against the numerous monsters that still surrounded them in a dense ring, slashing and mowing down their enemies. Through their combined efforts, they were holding back that most despair-inducing of all phenomena, the monster party.
They had withstood the Dungeon’s ultimate weapon, its barrier of resources.
For a minute there I was worried…but if we can reduce their numbers a little more, we should be able to get out of here.
The absolute number of monsters on any given floor had an upper limit. On the lower levels, new monsters could be spawned at shorter intervals, but given that so many had just appeared in one area, there would probably be a lull once they got past this spot. The number of monsters they encountered would definitely drop off.