by Nikita Thorn
They had reached the edge of the bamboo woods, and while Mairin’s idea seemed highly unlikely, Seiki had to agree that the kitsune was right. The bamboo woods usually appeared as a wall of dense bamboo, but now a dark path had opened up, leading deep into the thick growth.
During his exploration in earlier runs, Seiki had tried venturing out after the instance ended to see if there was valuable wood to be found. The bamboo thicket had always been impossible to get through. He had even tried cutting the bamboo, but found that they yielded no crafting ingredients and gave no Woodcutting experience. After being cut, the trees also faded back in almost immediately, so he always thought they were present to serve as the instance boundary.
This time, however, the Hinezumi had apparently created a path through the thick woods. A narrow opening stood before them, visible in the moonlight, a pitch-black hole against the greenish gray around it, like a gaping cave mouth. The damaged bamboo trees themselves gave the impression of walls of an ancient ruin, and towered high over them on both sides.
Mairin leapt up and down in excitement as they carefully approached the entrance. Seiki would not be surprised if she would be trying to grab people’s ankles soon once they were inside.
“Shouldn’t we get a torch or something?” asked Yamura as the group gingerly stepped into the shadowy grove.
“No,” said Ippei. “I’d say stealth.”
Kentaro sounded a little worried. “You think there will be more enemies? Just so you know, I’m out of energy potions.”
“No idea.” Ippei drew his Hikari. “Only one way to find out.”
An apprehensive silence fell as they made their way down the dark and winding path. It was not before long that the successive sharp turns completely hid all lamplight from the temple, leaving them in the gloom of the thicket, where the only source of light was the pale crescent moon. Their footsteps rustled through the dry leaves blanketing the ground, and Seiki suddenly noted how quiet it was, as if not even insects lived in those woods.
“This is pretty cool,” said Mairin in a whisper.
Seiki could not see her, since the only thing still visible was perhaps Yamura’s armguard, glowing and dimming every fifteen seconds as it gave him back his health—which was still missing from his trial duel earlier.
“You know,” Mairin began after another moment of silence. “I heard the Society said that—”
“No ghost stories right now, please,” Kentaro interrupted her.
“Uh, I’d advise stealth, if you can,” said Ippei with almost a sigh.
“Hey, samurai-san,” said Mairin cheerily, ignoring the warning. “You know something we don’t?”
“Wait,” Yamura joined in excitedly. “Don’t tell me we’re in one of those secret areas where you can find a unique? Man, if that’s the case, this will go down in history as the most profitable run ever.”
Kentaro chuckled. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself.”
“Well, two uniques have never been found, right?” said the ryoushi. “You never know. Sometimes when you’re lucky, you’re lucky.”
“I thought you needed a puzzle poem to get to one of those,” said Seiki, quoting what he remembered.
“You do,” Ippei confirmed. “So unless one of you happens to have a valuable piece of cryptic poetry in your bag at the moment, I don’t think this is it.”
“Right,” said Seiki, to himself. The mention of cryptic poetry reminded him to warn Renshiro and his outlaws again about whatever twisted plan the Kano Castle had in mind for them. All Seiki knew was that it concerned the outlaws getting their hands on a puzzle poem, but the significance of which he had been entirely too busy to figure out. His previous letter to the other ronin had gone unanswered, and he was not sure if the pigeon had been intercepted. Perhaps he should try Miya instead.
“What’s that?” asked Kentaro.
Seiki jumped. “Oh, uh, nothing,” he said, realizing he must have said something out loud. “Just one other thing I have to do.”
Kentaro laughed. “Apart from the ten quests you need to turn in but can’t remember where?”
Seiki gave a lopsided grin. “Something like that.”
“You can ask the Social Guild. They know all the NPCs. They even know what the NPCs look like, where they live, who is married to whom.”
“Whom,” echoed Mairin nonchalantly. Yamura stifled his laughter.
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Seiki agreed, although he could not help but feel that, like most things he had planned to do nowadays, he would never get to it.
Once he had reached the later Levels, he learned there was simply too much stuff to do, and now that War Games were coming up next, he doubted he would have time for anything else. According to Ippei, a good number of players rarely ever set foot into Shinshioka again after starting on the war events.
“Okay, how long is this going to take?” Yamura asked. They had already made their way at least the length of the temple through the bamboo, but there was no sign of anything happening. “I’ve got class tomorrow. And let’s get out of the instance before it glitches and cancels the drops or something.”
“Maybe it’s just a bonus objective?” Mairin continued to guess, sounding a bit disappointed.
Seiki had completed a few of those, and he knew for certain that whenever there was a bonus objective after a quest, it was always clearly stated and marked as optional.
“Come on, Ippei. One hint,” said Mairin.
At that moment, Seiki thought he discovered one. “My sword glowed,” he blurted out as he remembered the fact. “On the Hinezumi. It never did on the normal boss rat.”
Ahead of him, Ippei chuckled softly. “Someone’s been paying attention.”
Seiki understood now why his friend had been so keen to explore the instance further. Ippei could never say no to anything that had to do with the Demonic Clan. He had been using his Jade Steel for the Nezumi Temple runs, so it must have been the glow from Seiki’s sword earlier that had clued him in. Ippei had now switched out his Jade Steel for his Hikari, which meant he was anticipating an encounter with demons.
“You samurai and your demon love,” Mairin groaned. “I swear it’s 99% samurai out the West Gate.”
Light-forged blades only glowed when dealing damage to members of the Demonic Clan, or whatever wild animals the demons managed to corrupt—as was often the case in military missions out the West Gate. Over the past weeks, Seiki had completed enough of these missions to learn that low-level demons, especially ones that only growled and did not speak, took damage from normal weapons. But bosses, if the mission happened to include one, usually required light-forged weapons to defeat.
“But the rat was taking damage from normal weapons, too,” said Seiki. Ippei and Yamura had been using weapons optimized for instances, which usually had higher stats but were not light-forged. “Which is strange.”
“Right, and that arrow that killed it was light-infused or something,” said Yamura.
“So, what… you think the Demonic Clan was behind the fire-rat?” said Mairin doubtfully, before laughing. “Well, shouldn’t it be a shadow-rat in that case? For consistency?”
“Fire-rats are based on a real folklore,” said Kentaro. “The whole Demonic Clan thing, on the other hand, is complete fantasy, so it’s not surprising that it makes no sense.” Seiki was very certain Kentaro was just saying it to annoy Ippei.
“I’ll spend Favors to get you people on a War Game one of these days,” Ippei said. “Then you’ll see what I’m talking about. Actually, it might interest you to know that war is apparently the hottest thing on the market at the moment. The West Defenders are even offering carries now, which is something they’ve never done. It means there’s demand.”
If Seiki remembered correctly, Ippei had told him the West Defenders had finally beat the last stage of an event called Kakoku Fields, and the next event called the Ruins of Hitsu Temple or something of that sort h
ad opened up for them. In Beta, no one had ever managed to get past the second stage of the Ruins, so excitement out the West Gate was currently running high, and this was why Ippei had urged Seiki to hurry and get in on the action.
“Or maybe they’re just broke and desperate,” said Mairin.
“Quite right,” a deep voice boomed out from the darkness ahead of them.
Ippei froze, let out a kind of curse in a way that suggested nothing short of Doom’s Day, before he collapsed onto the ground, mid-syllable. His sword fell out of his hand and clanked against a nearby bamboo.
Like a swooping bird of prey, a kind of mental horror that could only be the Demonic Clan Fear effect hit Seiki, sending cold shivers through his body and instantly dropping him too. The familiar artificial terror bloomed in his mind, screaming with a thousand high-pitched voices. Seiki had experienced it enough times to simply grit his teeth and wait.
All around him, he could hear the rest of his friends falling in quick succession as Fear also hit them, cutting short their surprised gasps. Seiki could not yet place the booming voice, but it certainly sounded familiar.
He glanced up and found that they had reached the edge of a small clearing. In the middle stood a large humanoid figure, whose muscular black frame was darker than the surrounding darkness.
“Now, did the Shogun not teach you any manners at all?” the figure said. “Aren’t you aware how rude it is to walk in on a private conversation?” His voice had an unnatural nerve-grating ring that vibrated through the air almost like distorted speakers, and Seiki suddenly remembered who it was.
Kagenushi [Level Unknown], standing in the middle of the clearing like a thick pillar made of swirling darkness, slowly turned to face them, his thick lips twisted in a smile. Ippei had been right to curse. This was no one but the mastermind behind the constant raging war, the Shadow Lord himself.
The first and only time Seiki had met the demon was during the escort mission that involved the ambassador of Fuoka, which now seemed like a lifetime ago. Now, the demon appeared just as before, twice the size of a grown man, his large angled jaw protruding below his crimson-glowing eye sockets. Seiki did not fail to notice that the chink in his armor that had been his downfall last time had been patched, and now the demon lord’s armor exuded an unearthly glow that was a mixture between purple and black, blurring the edges around his figure and making him look like a vengeful spirit.
“That’s better,” said Kagenushi with a smile as he swept his glance over Seiki and his friends. “On the ground, where you belong.” The demon then casually turned back, and Seiki only now noticed a second figure in the opening. “So, where were we before we were interrupted?”
The other silhouette in the clearing was human-sized, but his red eyes and pitch-black body and armor marked him as a demon. Labeled First-Ranked Demon Captain [Level Unknown], the lesser demon cowered before his master. “Forgive me, my lord!” His voice shook with fear. “I thought there were only the old priest and the boy in the temple. I had no idea there were others. The fire-rat would have destroyed the temple and we would have been able to search it.”
Kagenushi regarded his subordinate coldly, allowing for a second of uncomfortable silence. “What was my order again, captain?”
“To find the light weapon, my lord,” the demon stammered.
“Exactly,” said Kagenushi, his voice hardening. “Find it. Not destroy it.” He raised his hand and the Demon Captain writhed in pain. “Not neutralize it with uncontrolled contact with a shadow rune.” Kagenushi clenched his fist and the demon started screaming. Seiki heard sickening crackling sounds coming from the demon. “After my scholars spent so much time locating it.”
“Mercy, my lord. Mercy!” The demon captain’s cry was hoarse. “These people. They… they have light-forged weapons.”
The Shadow Lord scoffed in disgust as he swept his gaze over Seiki and the rest of the group again. “These children? You’re talking about the toys the Shogun gave them to play with?”
“It was them who found the arrow and destroyed it!” said the demon.
Kagenushi scoffed again, before a smile slowly crept over his lips. His crimson eyes burned bright as he turned toward Seiki and his friends once more. “Get up.”
The Fear effect unexpectedly released Seiki from its grip, as quickly as it had come, and Seiki glanced at his friends as he pushed himself up from the ground. Ippei had his eyes fixed on the demon as he slowly rose. Seiki could hear Kentaro picking up his staff somewhere behind him, and further away, Mairin burst gently into fox form and growled.
Seiki placed his hand on the hilt of his Hikari, and the Shadow Lord looked at him. “Go ahead,” said Kagenushi. “Draw.”
“I have no idea who that is, but this isn’t going to work, is it?” said Kentaro.
Seiki vaguely remembered Ippei mentioning how the escort quest was optional for all other classes but samurai and ronins, so this was most likely the first time Kentaro had ever seen the demon.
“I’m afraid not,” said Ippei grimly. He let out a deep breath as he steadied his sword with both hands. “Actually, I think we’re here just to take a beating.”
“What the heck does that mean?” cried Mairin, popping back into human form just to voice her discontent.
“It’s the Shadow Lord himself,” said Ippei. “We’re probably going to need a whole army to take him down in end game.”
Kentaro frowned. “So why this encounter right now?”
“Well,” said the samurai. “In War Games, once you clear an event, you can redo it in Hard Mode, if that’s how you want to call it. The odds are stacked higher and higher against you, and if you go deep enough there’s a chance that the Demonic Clan will invite their ultimate boss to join in.”
“Okay,” said Mairin. “And?”
“And it’s a guaranteed wipe at that point,” said Ippei. “Nothing you can do.”
“What?” cried the kitsune. “Why would they even design—”
“Take your time now,” said Kagenushi with a mocking gesture, his voice drowning out the kitsune’s and sounding as if it had been amplified tenfold and coming from various sources at once. “I’m sure my captain can wait.” Seiki noticed the demon was looking at Yamura, who was somehow still on the ground.
“Uh, Yamura, you okay?” asked Kentaro in confusion. “What are you doing?”
The ryoushi was simply lying there, arms crossed over his chest. “The demon lord tells me to get up, I’m not going to freakin’ get up.”
Kentaro blinked. “Uh, I’m not sure that—”
“Time to die, then.” The Shadow Lord’s patience had apparently run out as his right hand shot forward, letting fly multiple black bladed discs toward the group.
Out of instinct, Seiki stepped up, drew his Hikari and pulled the sword up with both hands in an Upslash. The discs were fast, perhaps faster than a ninja’s Shurikens, and he had no idea of the amount of damage they could inflict. So, he swept his sword up a little early, choosing to go for a smaller percentage of damage reduction from the wind effect rather than risk being too late.
Energy flowed through his arms as he kept his eyes on the incoming whirling shadow discs. They seemed rather deadly, but he might be able to survive them, especially since he was starting to feel air around him tightening while Kentaro’s Ward started to form. As the discs came within range, his Hikari cut through the air, sending out a bout of wind toward the projectiles. However, halfway through the move, a freezing numb suddenly clamped around his hands as if he had dumped them in a bucket of ice. His eyes widened when he saw his Hikari flash angry red, with black mist exploding around the blade. Then the sword pulled from within, as if drinking his energy, and Seiki gasped as a percentage of his health was yanked away from him.
The houshi’s Ward—which was not a Ward anymore—slammed into him like heavy black fire-blankets. From somewhere, he could hear Kentaro cursing, perhaps for the first time ever. The
glowing Hikari in Seiki’s hand was starting to pull again, burning blood red, draining his health, and Seiki dropped the blade in horror. The dark smooth air around him that would have been a shield against damage instead tightened and started to smother him.
Seiki groaned with his remaining breath. He had no time to check on his friends. All he could see was his sword dropping to his feet, its red glow fizzling out as it left his fingers. The Shadow Lord was laughing, and before Seiki could decide what to do next, Fear gripped him once again. His knees buckled, and a second later he was once more on the ground, trembling uncontrollably.
His health was at a third, and silence had fallen around him. His friends were all collapsed on the dry leaves, Mairin, in fox form, still growling. Seiki stared at the now-lifeless Hikari and grimly noted that Ippei was probably right. He knew there was nothing they could do against the demon lord at this stage, but it still kindled a spark of anger in his mind. This was the one feeling he had always hated the most: helplessness. Something he had been actively struggling against.
The Shadow Lord towered over them. “How does it feel to be betrayed by your own trusted weapons?” Kagenushi smiled. “Sweet, isn’t it? Light is fickle. Keep that in mind.” His lips twisted, turning the smile into a sneer. “Just like human will. Fickle. Always ready to betray you, turn against your master, against your allies.” His eyes narrowed as he turned his attention back toward his demon captain, who was now whimpering on the ground. Seiki remembered now that he and his friends were mere bystanders in this scene.
“So… on the matter of will…” Kagenushi had his sight fixed on his captain. His voice was ice cold. “I have come to the conclusion that it’s much better for my subordinates not to have one at all.”
The demon captain apparently knew what this meant. “Please, no, my lord. No, I—” His wail was cut short as Kagenushi stretched out his hand, and the lesser demon was raised up into the air as if in an invisible grip. “Corrupted fire-rat,” Kagenushi scoffed. “Disgraceful. I’ll show you something worthwhile.”