by Fujino Omori
“Jura!”
“Eh?!”
His voice in response to her call is pitiful. Nevertheless, he twists his face into a smile and brings the whip in his single hand down onto the ground.
“!!”
“Huh?!”
To my surprise, the lambton—which I thought was focused on me—whips its head around toward the catman. Having reversed direction, it aims straight for Lyu’s back.
“Miss Lyu!”
“?!”
Just before her wooden sword makes contact with the tamer, Lyu is forced to leap back to avoid the lunging monster.
Jura leers at her as she just barely dodges the serpent’s fangs. The lambton does not harm its tamer but instead coils around him exactly like it’s protecting him.
“Ha-ha-ha…! So you thought you could aim for me, eh? You thought I wasn’t ready for that?”
“…!”
“I’ve imprinted this behavior on my pet quite well!” he brags, still smiling, as Lyu bites her lip.
Meanwhile, I’m blatantly showing my astonishment.
I’m not that familiar with tamers or their profession. I haven’t even seen Ganesha Familia’s Monsterphilia, so I have no idea how versatile they might be.
Still…this monster seems incredibly well trained!
All I know is what Eina taught me, but my understanding is that essentially, taming monsters doesn’t so much involve getting them to do what you want as preventing them from rebelling. It’s about making them realize and submit to the superior strength of the tamer—in other words, taming is a skill of submission.
Evidence of that can be found in the fact that tamed monsters will still attack people other than their tamer. I’ve also heard it’s extremely difficult to teach them multiple commands.
But this catman is controlling the monster like it’s an extension of his own hands and feet.
“Miss Lyu…Is this guy really such an amazing tamer?”
“No…I mean, he’s one of the better ones, but I think he’s below Ganesha Familia tamers. That is, the Jura Harma I knew five years ago was.”
I can’t hide my surprise at the fact that Lyu—who is both connected to his faction and is an old rival of this man—also expected his skills to be lower.
The tamer strokes the serpent’s slippery body tenderly.
“Ah, shit…It’s useless…I’m still afraid! Leon, disgusting Gale Wind!” he shouts, unable to conceal the shaking in his voice.
“Look at this trembling hand! It’s like a leaf in the wind! You almost killed me once—of course I’m scared of you!”
That’s when I realize.
His smile of a moment before was fake and forced.
“I remember, Leon! I can’t forget. There’s no way I’d forget!”
“…”
“When I close my eyes, I still see you there, thrashing around in a sea of blood the day you attacked my home! I dream about it every day. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since that day! Can you believe it? Not for five years!”
“…?!”
“That day, I hid among the bodies of my slaughtered companions, delirious! I lay there holding my breath and listening to you roar like a monster until you blew our whole home away with your magic! It’s strange I even survived.”
Lyu stands silent as he lays his feelings out in the open. I’m in a confused panic. I can glimpse his sick emotions now and then in the pair of sunken, wide-open eyes. Not only his severed right arm but even his left arm twitches in reaction to Gale Wind’s slightest movement.
I finally get it.
This man’s display of fear throughout the performances and destructive schemes he used to fool Bors and the rest of us wasn’t an act. The reason I didn’t initially question his terror was because it was real.
For him, Lyu is a symbol of trauma.
Gale Wind—the elf who severed his arm, sliced off his ear, and brought him to the brink of death—is more frightening than anyone or anything else.
“If I had to face you alone, I’d piss my pants. That’s why I got the monster to fight in my place! It’s stronger than I am, this cute little pet of mine!”
Still shaking from uncontrollable fear, the tamer cracks his whip. The lambton lunges at us again, baring its fangs.
The catman laughs as we scramble to defend ourselves from the monster under his command. Meanwhile, the monster moves with great precision and swiftness according to his tamer’s will, both attacking and defending.
But I doubt the catman’s skills are solely responsible for all this.
No—it has something to do with the circlet around its neck and the scarlet whip. They’re magic items.
“Get ’em, lambton!”
At the sound of the werewolf Turk’s voice and the crack of his whip, the wormwell charged forward.
In the face of its unstoppable advance, Aisha chose to retreat.
“Get into that side passage!”
Lilly and the others dove in just in time to avoid the wriggling mass heading for them, crushing the narrow passage as it went.
A loud scraping noise filled the corridor they had just left as the bluish-white body slithered across the floor. The screams of monsters crushed beneath its belly echoed down the passage.
Haruhime went pale, overtaken by visceral disgust.
“All this thing has to do is rush us…” Welf screamed.
“…and we’re done for!” Ouka yelled back, finishing his thought. Both were staring at the fissures spreading through the entrance to the passage as the enemy charged forward.
It had quickly turned back and was now heading for the panicked party.
“We can’t fight it here! Retreat!”
They would be at an enormous disadvantage fighting an extreme large-category monster in their current location. Aisha—who had frequently fought in the deep levels where Ishtar Familia headed on its expeditions—quickly gave up on an immediate battle and instead put all her energy into escape.
“Hey, shrimp, find us a field!” she shouted.
“A field?! What do you mean?!” Lilly shouted back, changing color.
“A dead-end room on the twenty-fifth floor! As long as there’s not a waterway in it, it will have a field! Take us there!”
In other words, Lilly needed to look at the map.
The party retreated as fast as it could, managing to dull the lambton’s movements through repeated shots from Mikoto’s and Chigusa’s arrows and Daphne’s magic dagger.
“Hey, it’s not following us. It disappeared!!” Welf shouted, glancing back over his shoulder.
“No, Sir Welf…It’s still here!” Mikoto answered, using her Yatano Black Crow skill.
“It burrowed underground! It’s coming up from under—No, from the side!! Shoot it!” Aisha screamed at the top of her lungs, sensing the vibrations.
A second later, the lambton burst through the wall next to them and lunged forward.
“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah?!”
“This thing is crazy!”
“Are the deep levels full of this kind of monster?!”
Haruhime’s scream, Daphne’s desperate shout, and Ouka’s horrified question filled the passageway as they just barely evaded the serpent. By this point Haruhime was no more than baggage slowing down the group, so Aisha told her to drop her backpack and slung her over her right shoulder. She clicked her tongue as she glanced back at the approaching monster.
We’ve been totally prevented from following those adventurers. Bell Cranell asked us to keep an eye on them, but we’re really in a tight corner now!
Cursing herself internally, the group’s only second-tier advent
urer searched for some way out.
Meanwhile, back in the passageway that Aisha and the others had fled, Turk and his three companions were celebrating.
“Ha-ha-ha…! This magic item is amazing! I can’t believe I can make even deep-level monsters obey me…Thank you, Evils!”
Turk looked down at the scarlet whip with the jewel fixed to the end, drunk on a false sense of omnipotence. The magic item had been created by the Evils’ Remnants hiding out in Knossos. The mysterious crystal—or more accurately, the cursed lump—had been conceived as a way to convince buyers of Xenos and other monsters smuggled for profit by Ikelos Familia hunters that the “product” they were buying was safe.
By attaching matching collars to the monsters, the forbidden magic items allowed less-powerful tamers, or even those with no ability at all, to subordinate the creatures. Jura had taken advantage of the recent events in Knossos to smuggle out all these valuable items, which were extremely effective but could not be mass-produced.
“When I heard Jura’s plan, I thought he was crazy…But it can fly. If they work this well, it can fly!”
The young werewolf—who had originally belonged to a band of small-time criminals who had nothing to do with the Evils—had sniffed out something lucrative in the last remaining member of Rudra Familia, Jura. Now that he saw the effects of the magic item with his own eyes, he was ready to swear his allegiance.
He was determined not only to frame Jura’s old enemy, Gale Wind, but also to make sure the catman’s whole plan came to fruition.
“Now’s our chance to act! Do what Jura commanded!”
The three adventurers wearing backpacks nodded.
Leaving behind the lambton as their parting gift, the party left the scene.
“Haruhime, we need Level Boosts! Start chanting!” Aisha ordered.
“Do you mean Kokonoe? For Lady Mikoto and everyone?”
“Two is enough! If you exhaust yourself now, we’ll be in trouble later. For now, just boost Ignis and Masuratakeo on the front line!”
The party had arrived in a dead-end room thanks to Lilly’s directions. As soon as they got there, Aisha had started spitting out orders, including one to boost the levels of Welf and Ouka. She was the only one among them with experience exploring the deep levels, and she hadn’t allowed Lilly or Daphne to take command. Their situation was too critical—as was clear from Aisha’s harsh tone. Plus, she had a detailed understanding of the party’s internal balance, gained from her usual non-commander position.
“First that enhanced species, now this…I sure don’t get bored when I’m with you guys!” she joked, shaping her mouth into a smile as she brandished her great podao.
“I never dreamed the Amazonian Berbera would be saying those words!”
“Yeah, it sure is unexpected…An honor, should we say?”
Ouka and Welf bantered with her as the particles of light from Haruhime’s Level Boost encircled them. They stood on either side of Aisha, holding their greatsword, ax, and shields at the ready.
With their strongest forces at the forefront, the group was prepared to fight the deep-level monster.
“…Is this the calamity?”
“Cassandra, snap out of it!”
As the prophetess of tragedy stood in a daze, the curtain lifted on the battle.
“—!!”
As if resonating with the serpent’s roar, the collar around its neck pulsated with light, and the beast trembled.
“It was a real pain to get this thing onto this floor.”
Lyu and I frantically dodge as the lambton twists its long body and attacks viciously, responding to the crack of the whip on the ground.
“Granted, it was able to dig its way here itself, but the problem was that body. It’s just so easy to spot. I had to make it swallow any adventurers who saw it.”
“…!”
“The hardest part was getting it out of Knossos.”
The catman glances at me as I tighten my fists in response to his casual confession to murder.
“Rabbit Foot, after you tangled with Ikelos Familia, I decided I’d better get out of Knossos. Thanks to you—no, it started when Dix messed up—I figured the Guild would eventually reach my hideout. And they did!” Jura shouted. “Once the place we’d been quietly hiding in was gone, there was no guarantee we’d be safe…That’s when I started moving forward with my plan.”
A shock wave from the serpent’s movements sends me flying. As I land, I look over my shoulder and ask him a question.
“From then?!”
“Yeah. You didn’t think we’d managed to move the monsters down here since yesterday, all with Leon chasing us, did you? We started by hiding two lambtons on this floor.”
“Wha…?”
“See, as long as we kept them quiet under the water, none of the other adventurers would find them. Oh, and who knows? Turk and his guys might be attacking the adventurers right now. ’Cause I gave them one of these here whips.”
“…!”
As I absorb these shocking words, the catman continues.
“Then two days ago, when the forces finally swarmed into Knossos, we were about to push our plans forward and hightail it out of Knossos…But Leon happened to be in the group, and she spotted me.”
His eyes are filled with a deep hatred as he glares at Lyu.
“She kept chasing me, so I used Jan and Turk to do something about her. I knew she’d follow us onto this floor, so I lit a fire under the people in Rivira in order to stop her.”
I’m guessing that when he temporarily evaded Lyu and escaped from Knossos to the eighteenth floor, his first step was to send his two underlings to Rivira. But one of them was captured and questioned by Lyu, leading her to head as quickly as possible to the twenty-seventh floor.
And then Turk, who had escaped her notice…must have decided to make use of his friend. He killed the injured Jan, making it look like Gale Wind was the murderer, and ran to tell Bors and me in Rivira. After that, he spearheaded the formation of a hunting party to pursue Gale Wind, just as the catman had ordered him to.
All of this is mere speculation on my part, but it nevertheless makes me sick to my stomach. And I’m fairly sure I must be right.
“I figured I’d use the guys who came with me down to the twenty-seventh floor as decoys to keep you and Leon away from me! But then when the Rivira crew finally got down here, I just blew them all up at once with the explosions!”
“…!”
In other words, he sacrificed his companions in order to keep the residents from Rivira on his side and make them afraid of Gale Wind.
Anger spreads over Lyu’s face as she listens to our opponent’s clear explanation.
I, too, feel both fear and disgust toward this man who was willing to use any means whatsoever to achieve his ends.
But…why is he telling us all this now? To demonstrate his own calmness? To upset us? Or…to buy time?
As I stand here bewildered, a tail drops down from above my head and crashes into the ground with an even stronger impact than the others so far.
“Argh!”
I jump as far away as I can. As I catch my breath, Lyu lands beside me.
“As I suspected, Jura’s been feeding this monster magic stones to enhance it…”
“…!”
Her words make me realize we have a long fight ahead of us. It will be nearly impossible to reach the magic stones inside a body this big. Risking an attempt at a single deadly blow won’t work. It probably makes more sense to try to tip the balance with magic, even at the expense of huge mental strain.
Acting as a wall won’t work in the face of our opponent’s all-out attacks…But what if Lyu and I use Concurrent Casting and Concurrent Charging to turn ourselves into a living fortress? Would the tamer let us get away with pulling off such an obvious strategy…?
I’m drawing on all my past experience to try to come up with the best possible strategy. The next thing Lyu says catches me totally off gu
ard, though.
“…But I’ve already figured out the connection between Jura’s commands and the monster’s movements.”
I can’t believe Lyu already understands the behavioral patterns the tamer has imprinted onto his monster—in other words, the relationship between the motions of the whip and the lambton’s actions.
How did she figure it out in such a short time?
“One option is to destroy the magic item, but once the monster is freed from its control, it will go wild and that will be a hassle to deal with. I’m going to immobilize it by force.”
“Uh, okay, got it! B-b-but how…?!”
“Jura is wary of my magic, so I’ll kill it with my weapon.”
Ignoring my confusion, Lyu runs her finger down her wooden sword.
“Mr. Cranell, you feint while I kill it.”
“O-okay, got it!”
“Its only really troublesome behavior is its ability to burrow underground. If you see it trying to do that, use your Swift-Strike Magic to block it. I believe in you.”
The battle-hardened upper-class adventurer speaks unwaveringly even in the face of this overwhelming monster.
“I’ve fought a lambton before. There’s no reason to think it can beat us.”
The record that Lyu—or rather Astrea Familia—has registered with the Guild is the forty-first floor. She is a truly incredible warrior experienced in fighting in the deep levels. I’m struck by her powers of observation and insight, her intelligence in developing and proposing a strategy without hesitation, and more than anything the determination that underlies her decisions and actions.
I have a long way to go before my ability as an adventurer reaches hers.
“Let’s take care of this thing quickly so we can capture Jura.”
The flames of rage still burning high in her breast, the elf transforms herself into an arrow of the gale wind.
“!!”
At the same time, I start running in the opposite direction.
The monster’s multiple eyes roll around in its head, following both of us as we split off to the left and right.
In order to draw more of its attention toward me, I increase my attacks, using my agility and speed to confuse it.