by Nikita Thorn
Without having to wait for orders, his unit ran in and started slashing at the Scrollmaster, with Saburo yelling something incomprehensible. Screaming in anger as his health dropped, the demon seized a different scroll from his arms. This time, he turned directly to Seiki as the spell burst from his lips. The scribbles on the parchment flashed black.
An invisible impact threw Seiki back like a gigantic wave, taking nearly half his remaining health at once. His unit grunted as they crashed onto the ground beside him. Being NPC troops, they suffered greater damage, and while there were no visible injuries on them, their health was now below a fifth.
Seiki had not expected the spell to be that severe. “Okay, stand back for now,” he told his unit as he got to his feet. They scrambled behind him.
Fortunately, the stun had worked to keep the demon pinned to one place long enough for Yamura to get a charged Focused Shot in, as well as Kiku to Life Drain. Being far away, the obake’s ability was much weaker, but her being Level 23 still meant she could cause a significant amount of damage. The synchronized attacks worked, and the demon was down to half health before he could fade away again.
“Do I heal troops?” said Kentaro.
“Uh, yes, please?” said Seiki.
“No,” said Ippei. “Players over troops. We’re a bit low on healers.”
“Kindred Spirit will be off lockout in a minute and a half,” said Mairin. “Tell them to run into the foxes.”
Kentaro’s Heal filled his health, and Seiki readied his Hikari. The demon reappeared near Ippei, who was ready to attack with his double Swerve Cut—his unit of nine rushing in from behind to prevent the demon from backing away.
“So red flash, area damage, black flash, focused spell,” said Kentaro.
As the demon’s health dropped below a third, Seiki had a feeling that the encounter was a little too easy. He glanced around the room, and his cause of concern became apparent. The demon used scrolls to attack, and the whole place was full of them. Every chest was brimming with rolled-up paper tubes similar to the ones in the demon’s arms, and Seiki doubted they were there to be scenery.
“We’ve got to destroy the scrolls,” Seiki shouted to his friends.
It was a little too late. The demon resurfaced near one of the shelves near the entrance and reloaded himself with an armful of fresh scrolls. His lips twisted into a smile. The next incantation flashed green and refilled his health by more than half.
Ippei snarled. “Of course, he also has a heal.”
In response, the demon let out a gleeful cackle as he read his standard incantation, robbing another ten percent from the group’s health.
“Your energy is limited,” said the demon. “See how long you foolish humans can last against my spells.”
The demon was completely right, and that was perhaps the whole trick of the encounter. Turning toward the closest shelf, Seiki slashed through its content with his sword. He had never tried cutting through so much paper at once, and it was satisfying to see the brittle documents explode in thick puffs of black smoke.
He nodded to his unit and told them to do likewise. In the middle of the room, Mairin seemed to have noticed what he was doing and followed suit, running at the chests and activating her Fox Dust near them.
The Demonic Scrollmaster screeched at the sight. “You dare destroy my life’s work!”
He teleported near Mairin and activated his next single-target spell, sending the white fox slamming against the wall.
At half health, she shook her body and transformed back into a human to apply the three-bout Spirit Mend on herself. Luckily, the demon had no interest in following up with further attacks and faded away once more.
Around the room, the group had made destroying the magical scrolls their priority. Yamura ordered his archers to shoot at the shelves, and the ryoushi himself drew his dagger to slash through as many scrolls as possible.
“He doesn’t like it,” said Mairin as a warning.
Enraged by the view, the demon had started to alternate rapidly between the lesser blanket attacks and direct single-target spells whenever he was near a player. Soon, Kentaro was having problems keeping up with the damage.
“I think I’ll save my energy for heals only,” said Mairin as she took stock of the situation.
Seiki raced to the next cluster of shelves. He was dragging his Hikari left and right in a downward zigzag as he dispersed everything into smoke, grateful for how sharp the blade was. The demon appeared beside him again. And trying to avoid as much damage as possible, Seiki dove behind one of the shelves as the black-flashing spell activated. Breaking line of sight cut down on some damage, but the spell still tossed him violently against two wooden chests.
The whole room was becoming a frenzy of flying paper, arrows, and spells, and the group was getting low on health and energy. Thankfully, their efforts in destroying the scrolls were paying off. Ippei had managed to land several more attacks and Kiku had pulled off a close-range Life Drain. Soon, the demon was once again below thirty percent health.
“Don’t let him heal!” cried Kiku.
Yamura shot an arrow through one of the green scrolls in the demon’s hands, and the busy lettering fizzled before they could light up. With a furious growl, the Demonic Scrollmaster teleported back near his desk. “You!” he cried as he grabbed a large purple scroll from a hidden drawer. “You forced me to use this, my latest invention. Very well. You will be my first test subjects.”
“Purple,” said Kiku.
“Phase Three,” Ippei said warily.
Indeed, the last incantation was different. As the ugly, screeching language exploded from the demon’s lips, Seiki felt a chill run through his body and a strange fog descending on his mind. His surroundings moved in a blur for a few seconds before returning to normal.
He had braced himself for massive damage. Surprisingly enough, the purple scroll did nothing beyond that, except buy the demon time to reach into his sleeve and produce what appeared to be a shiny object: a conch shell, palm-sized, dark red and transparent.
The demon raised it to his lips and blew, sounding a long trumpet-like note.
Seiki first expected another stun, but none came. Then he expected reinforcements, like from a demonic summoning call, but none came either. Instead, the demon grew larger and seemed to melt, before splitting into two identical forms.
They both bore the exact same label:
Demonic Scrollmaster [Level Unknown]. HP 4498/17300.
“Their health just doubled?” said Kentaro in horror.
“What do we do?” said Mairin.
“No idea,” said Ippei. “Attack?”
Seiki swerved down to pick up his Hikari as he burst toward the nearest demon, who teleported before he could reach him.
“I don’t like this,” said Mairin as her Dash found no target.
The two Demonic Scrollmasters, speaking from two mouths at once, smiled. “I’m a master of scrolls, you puny humans. No matter how many you destroy, I can create new ones.”
In perfect synchronization, both demons produced a piece of paper from their sleeves. Biting their fingers, they used their blood as ink to draw quick symbols on their parchment.
Mairin dashed at one of them, and they both dispersed, teleporting to a new safe spot, still perfectly synchronized in their actions.
Rushing toward the nearest one, Seiki’s blade met nothing but air as the demon safely faded away.
Taking time to finish their scrolls, they once again smiled.
“This is bad,” said Kentaro.
“You are correct, houshi,” said the demon in his double voice as he glanced at the newly-made spell in his hands. “It is bad. Very crude, but we shall see.”
A distorted incantation rose in unison from the two demons’ lips. It was one of those red-flashing area spells. But with double the power now, it took a fifth of their health. Grunting, Seiki ran at the nearest demon, but once a
gain the timely teleportation relocated both of them.
“You can’t even touch them anymore?” he said worriedly.
Smiling, the demon raised the transparent conch shell to his lips again and blew. Both of them then started melting, splitting into more copies of themselves and growing a little larger.
“They’re like amoebas,” said Yamura.
Demonic Scrollmaster [Level Unknown]. HP 8996/34600.
“Okay, now there’s four,” cried Kiku. “And their health doubled again.”
“Why aren’t they taking any more damage?” said Mairin. Again, her Dash missed and the demons teleported away to safety.
The group was now unsure what to do. The four disappearing demons did not appear to be interrupted at all by the forced teleportation as they continued to draw careful symbols on their pieces of paper.
“Oh, no,” said Kentaro.
The paper hissed, confirming successful creation of the spell.
“Ready?” said four voices mockingly, before bursting once more into a demonic incantation. Twice as strong as the last one, Seiki felt the spell drop his health by nearly half.
Frantically, Mairin and Kentaro raced to fill the group’s health as the four demons raised four conch shells to their lips and blew, splitting again into a total of eight copies and growing even larger.
“We need a strategy,” cried Yamura.
“I don’t have one,” said Ippei. “Get close to me so you’ll be in the range for Shout.”
There was indeed a pattern here, and they knew what was coming. If the last spell took forty percent, this next one was going to take twice as much. But without a way to damage the demons, they were helpless.
Seiki’s mind raced. As one copy appeared next to him, he tried his Vertical Spike, but this time the stun did not even catch the demon as he dispersed.
Eight voices read the spell in unison, and Ippei let out his Battle Shout. The ability strengthened Seiki’s resistance a little, but he still nearly staggered as his health dropped sharply to below a fifth.
The demons laughed, again in uncanny synchronization, as they blew their eight conch shells and once again doubled their number.
Mairin glanced at Seiki, a wild look in her eyes. With healers out of energy, they would be forced to drink their potions now. Seiki had ordered his unit to stay out of range of the attacks, but after successive blanket spells, they were nowhere to be seen when Seiki glimpsed back in their direction.
Avoiding the group’s attacks, the demons were teleporting rapidly around the room, their hoarse laughter ringing out like a hundred broken speakers. They were running out of time. Sixteen brushes lifted and scribbled on sixteen pieces of paper, and the spells flashed blood red to confirm successful inscription.
“You can’t save everyone,” said Ippei quietly to Kentaro.
Kentaro understood his meaning and Seiki felt a Ward on him as sixteen voices filled the room. There was no time to put a protective shield over all group members, and the houshi had to choose.
The wave of cold, much stronger than he had felt before, crashed into them. Even with the houshi’s Ward negating much of the damage, Seiki felt his health drop to a single digit, nearly blacking him out. Strength of Will kicked in then and stopped him from wobbling.
“That must have hurt,” said the sixteen demons.
Seiki glanced at his friends. None of them were dead yet, but they were all at a sliver of their health. Mairin was sitting on the floor, eyes wide; she had gambled and healed herself and put out another bout of Kindred Spirit at point blank right when the damage hit, and was still hovering above ten percent. Ippei had Braced once more, and Kiku had Faded to avoid damage, which meant both were still not in real danger. But Yamura and Kentaro had collapsed now that they were below six percent.
Koharu was nowhere to be seen.
Sixteen demons started snickering. Sixteen conches sounded, and the demons split into thirty-two copies, growing to more than eight feet tall this time. They were now filling almost every inch of the room. Seiki felt as if he was in some surrealistic nightmare.
Their demons’ health was now astronomical, at HP 35982/138400.
“This can’t be real,” Seiki thought aloud.
“It’s not,” Koharu confirmed.
The girl had been out of sight all this time, and had just now sprung up from behind one of the chests, her four obake unit in purple popping up behind her. With a determined look, she dashed towards one of the bookshelves and pulled with both hands, yelping as the wooden structure toppled toward the floor in a loud crash, scattering torn pieces of paper like a flock of tiny birds.
Behind the shelf, stood a lone normal-sized Demonic Scrollmaster [Level Unknown]. HP 2249/8996.
“Life Steal!” Koharu angrily raised her hand. Her four identical girls copied her move.
The invisible obake spell dropped the demon’s health to half its existing amount. Out of scrolls, the demon struck out with his arm, catching Koharu at unawares and throwing her against the wall.
Seiki had taken the chance to scramble to his feet. Sliding forward to close the distance, he rammed his bared Hikari into the demon’s side. It must have been a Focused Strike, and it must have been an Upslash, too, either with or without energy, but at that point Seiki was not sure he knew anymore as he was desperate to end this.
His Hikari shone bright as it connected, and he slashed again, and again, before the demon dropped in front of him in a pool of dark blood.
Demonic Scrollmaster slain. 784 XP gained.
Drawing in a deep breath, Seiki stared at the lifeless demon on the ground. Once he was certain the corpse was not moving, he slowly lowered his sword, feeling a little light-headed. His health was once again very low even when he had not taken any extra damage, which meant he must have unconsciously traded it for energy again.
Looking up at the room, he found that the fake copies of the demon had all disappeared, leaving only an utter mess of broken shelves and torn scrolls that covered the whole ground like fresh snow.
His friends were slowly picking themselves up from the floor, and Mairin ran to top up Kentaro and Yamura, bringing them back into safe health levels. At the far end of the room, Seiki could see his unit peering out at him now that the danger was over. Apparently, when he had told them to hide, they really did, and it had saved them from death. Too exhausted to speak, Seiki nodded to them in approval.
Mairin was slowly filling Kentaro’s health, who, in turn, started topping everyone off. Yamura had lost a few of his unit members. So had Ippei and Kiku, and their total troop numbers between all of them were in the low twenties.
“That was really ugly,” Ippei said.
Koharu grimaced. “Sorry.”
“Actually, I don’t know if we could have done it any better even if you hadn’t started it like that,” Kiku said. “Since it pretty much depended on figuring it out at the end that the copies are a bluff, which you did.”
“I felt it was my responsibility,” said Koharu. “So I was watching them, and there’s no way they can expect us to deal with a hundred thousand health. Then I realized that none of the fake copies actually went anywhere near that particular book shelf.”
“All’s well that ends well,” said Kentaro with a smile. “Don’t worry about it.”
“There’s a good reason we don’t negotiate with the Demonic Clan, you know,” said Ippei as he sheathed his sword. “It’s supposed to be guilt-free slaughtering, so they never reason with you, they never beg, never bargain, never do anything to make you think twice about killing them. You go easy on them, they always try to backstab you. So it spares you the actual moral choice of having to decide.”
“That’s… uh, kinda meta,” said Yamura.
“No, that’s the deal that we pay for,” said Ippei in unmovable seriousness.
Kiku started laughing. The demon was now slumped on the ground, and Seiki bent down to disperse the corp
se.
The black smoke thinned, revealing a small pile of loot. First were three nearly-identical rectangular items:
Polished Shell Card of the Ocean Wave [Instance Item] – Calls forth a refreshing wave from the East Sea, cleansing poison effects from all players and troops, and restores 5% health every 5 seconds for the next minute.
Polished Shell Card of the North Star [Instance Item] – The light of the North Star shines on lost souls, returning all troops to life.
Polished Shell Card of the Rolling Tide [Instance Item] – The tide of life rolls, allowing a 75% chance to revive the last player who died in the last 5 minutes.
The cards, true to their names, seemed to be made of polished shell, and were smooth and cold in Seiki’s hand as he picked them up to inspect. Just like wooden War Cards, these were exactly the same size and had text carved into them in neat lines that were somehow very pleasant to the touch.
Beside the cards was a single red transparent conch shell that was far too familiar by now.
Glass Conch [Instance Item] – Blow the instrument to create an illusion of double troops size for the next 10 seconds. 10-minute lockout.
“Oh, wow,” said Mairin, as she snatched up the conch shell and held up to the light to check if it was really transparent. “Pretty.”
At the bottom of the pile was a written order:
Alert! A human swordsman has been spotted in the caves: tall, carrying a long curved sword, white attire. He might not be working alone. Kill all intruders on sight.
“So Shousei got in,” said Seiki, not sure if it was good or bad news.
Ippei crouched down beside him as he stared thoughtfully at the loot. “I see,” he said after a bit. “This is probably a War Game for non-war people. These cards we can probably burn at the gold tano-shrine outside, and they give you buffs and utilities for the instance.”
Kiku shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Me neither,” said Ippei. “It can’t seem to make up its mind on whether it’s a quest, a dungeon or a War Game, or something else entirely.”
Seiki studied the items in his hands. “Uncharted territories,” he said quietly, not sure why he suddenly felt as if after drifting through obscuring mists for so long, he had spotted the first signs of land: foreign, unknown, yet full of promise, and finally answers.