“Huh…?”
“What…?”
Misaki and Makoto were stunned when Vampy and the angels vanished. They couldn’t hear them, either, or smell them or sense their presence in any other way. After a few seconds’ silence, with thundering noise, the three figures reappeared, locked in a vicious battle as if someone had fast-forwarded through the first part of their clash. The fighting between these powerful beings was at such a level that the weak were unable to even witness it. Makoto and Misaki felt pitifully powerless.
They have no dignity, Vampy thought, fighting an uneven battle. The angels were within the range of effect of her unique skill, The End, but they weren’t dying, which meant they were monsters of the same or higher tier than her. If they were of equal power, she could still kill them by touching them directly, but they were careful not to allow that to happen.
They know close-range combat is to their disadvantage, so they’re switching their targets to Misaki and Makoto…
“Lapidation!”
A flurry of stones was sent flying through the air toward Misaki and Makoto. Vampy intercepted them, letting them all hit her instead. Even though she had insanely high LP, those two attacks shaved off a significant percentage of it.
When she stopped for a moment in front of the players, staring at the angels—which were staring back at her—Misaki and Makoto had the chance to get a better look at her and saw that she was badly battered.
“Oh my gosh! Vampy!” Misaki cried.
“Nothing to worry about,” Vampy assured her.
She would recover from that damage thanks to her autoregen, but the problem was that she couldn’t attack the angels when she had to defend both the players and herself. Offense was her specialty, and defensive battles were quite a struggle for her.
“You have made a mistake bringing the children of hope with you,” said one of the angels.
It was true that without Misaki and Makoto, Vampy could probably handle the angels easily, but she’d chosen to take them there with her nonetheless.
“You would never understand why it is important for them to be here,” she told the angels with a mocking grin.
The angels responded by conjuring a magic circle bigger than any they’d summoned before, evidently planning to use a spell with an area of effect so great, it might destroy the entire underground facility along with its targets.
“Apologies for my lateness.”
Between the angels and the players appeared a man dressed like a butler. A clockface appeared under one of the angels, and its movements slowed down to a stop.
Vampy sighed, annoyed. “I thought you’d never come.”
“I’m truly sorry. We had to travel quite a distance,” the man explained, pointing to the frozen angel with his eyes. “Might I have that one?”
Vampy shrugged. The next moment, Elroad and one angel faded away like illusory images. The remaining angel seemed disoriented by the sudden arrival of reinforcements.
“What are you doing…?!”
With a soft little smile, Vampy placed her hand on the ground as if caressing it. “Perhaps you really are a servant of God, but if your master is a being who torments people, the world will be better off without God.”
A small, pitch-black hole appeared beneath her palm, like an opening leading to hell. Vampy stuck her hand inside it and pulled out a sinister-looking staff.
“Your turn to be on the defense.”
She waved her staff in the air, and a plethora of magic circles appeared all around her.
“Misaki.”
Misaki heard the voice she’d missed so much. The voice of someone she’d been searching for every day, longing to see him again. At last, he showed up as a blue dot on her minimap.
Misaki heard steps on the staircase behind her and became so emotional that tears welled up in her eyes, yet she couldn’t bring herself to turn her head.
It’s him. I’m sure it is… But why…why does he sound so cold?
When she first met him in the Ilyana Tunnel, his voice had been warm and friendly, but now it was as cold as ice.
“You found Kettle. Thanks.”
Shuutarou walked past Misaki and Makoto. For the first time, she saw him without the armor he used as a disguise.
He’s a young boy… But now that I’m a bit stronger, I can tell he’s much more powerful than me…or anyone else I’ve ever met!
Shuutarou was very young, after all, but strong and dependable. Misaki idolized him just as before.
Makoto, though, was confused, not knowing what to make of the new arrivals.
“Let’s go and rescue Kettle.”
When Shuutarou said that, the invisible bonds around Misaki and Makoto fell away. Makoto shot like an arrow after Shuutarou, calling Kettle’s name.
Why…? Why is my voice getting stuck in my throat? I’ve wanted to see him for so long…
Intimidated by Shuutarou’s aura, Misaki was still unable to speak. She followed the boy with a mix of feelings in her heart.
“Kettle’s down there…”
Shuutarou looked through the thick glass. The other side was too dark to see anything.
“…”
Then he abruptly turned to look back toward Vampy, who was having a standoff with the angel. Elroad was fighting the second angel somewhere else.
What if anything was to happen to them…?
He didn’t know just how powerful the angels might be, but when he saw them, he knew immediately that they were far stronger than him. Their levels were so high, he couldn’t estimate their power, just as he couldn’t guess at the Overlords’ battle ability.
The Overlords were as dear to Shuutarou as Kettle, which made him hesitate. Sylvia read his mind.
“You don’t need to worry about those two, Master,” she reassured him, breaking the glass with her swords of light. “Let’s focus on our own task.”
Shuutarou took that to mean he should have faith in his minions, and that rescuing Kettle was his own important duty.
“Yeah, sorry. Let’s go,” he said with renewed resolve.
Beyond the glass was a circular underground room. At the bottom of it, a few meters away from them, they saw a grotesque mass of monsters of different kinds, who looked as if they had been packed into that room to cannibalize one another. Their growls and snarls rumbled through the room.
“Why are there so many of them here…?” asked Sylvia.
It did seem strange that this space, which hadn’t possessed an entrance point until they broke inside, was packed with monsters like a tin of sardines.
The next moment, a sea of flames burst forth. At the center of the roaring inferno was a young girl, casting her spells even as the flames licked her, too, melting her body.
“Kettle!” bellowed Makoto.
She’s alive! Light returned to Shuutarou’s eyes.
But Kettle seemed oblivious to them. She nimbly waved her magic rod, which was missing its tip, as the monsters fled away from her in terror. They scraped the walls with their claws. They tried to dig holes to hide in. Some were reckless, though, and crept toward the girl. The next second, they were all burned to ashes.
“Flare of Agony!”
There were no more monsters left, but the girl was still summoning more flames. No sooner had the monsters respawned than they all died again, their cries and groans drowned out by the roaring flames. The girl was burning, too, the fire cracking and sizzling in a scene straight from hell.
Sylvia gasped, and without thinking, she rushed to Kettle, slicing through any remaining monsters on her way. She swept up the wounded girl into her arms.
“Kettle… Can you hear me?!” she shouted, sick with worry.
She shook Kettle several times. Even as she was cradling her, Kettle kept waving the worn-out piece of wood that remained of her magic rod, but her motions became slower and slower, and then they stopped. She looked at Sylvia, but her eyes were cloudy.
“Aah… Uh…”
She opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, as if she’d forgotten how to speak. Her Crest uniform was gone, burned away. She didn’t have her hat or glasses, either. Her body was covered only by the default equipment, which was smeared with soot. The fire had singed much of her hair.
Little by little, Kettle’s eyes cleared as she looked at the person who had called her name—a woman she had never seen before.
“Sy…Syl…via…?” she said with effort.
She’d never seen Sylvia’s human form before, but she recognized her warmth, her smell, her presence.
Caught off guard, Sylvia couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes.
Makoto ran over to Kettle’s side. “Kettle! Kettle…!”
She slowly turned her head. A relieved smile appeared on her face when she saw him.
“You kept…me waiting…,” she said.
Tears gushed from Makoto’s eyes as he apologized again and again.
The glowing shards of the dying monsters created the illusion that they were under a starry sky.
Still in Sylvia’s arms, Kettle turned her head again and noticed someone else by her side.
“We came to get you out of here.”
Shuutarou smiled at her. The earlier icy look on his face had melted away as his warmth returned.
Tears rolled down Kettle’s cheeks. It was the belief that Shuutarou would come and save her that kept her sane during her captivity in that dark room, where monsters tortured her over and over.
“Let’s go.”
Shuutarou reached toward Kettle, who took his hand. Feeling safe at last, she closed her eyes and fell unconscious.
Misaki watched them, crying from too many emotions.
The girl, now safely cradled by her friend, had survived being trapped with a horde of monsters. Rescuing her seemed like an impossible task, yet Shuutarou and his friends succeeded. What was it if not a miracle?
You are our hope… The players’ hope…
Misaki watched Shuutarou, who was turned away from her, tears dripping from her cheeks.
Vampy and the angel kept their gazes locked on each other. She pointed her staff at it and smiled.
“I won’t give you an easy death.”
Countless human hands emerged from her magic circles, clambering on one another until they formed a single enormous, wriggling hand. The angel cut through them without resistance, and they dropped down to the ground with squishy thuds. There, they teemed and squirmed, arranging themselves into a centipede shape, then regrouping again as they crept closer and closer to the angel. Cutting them only split them into yet more crawling hands. Some of them caught their target, and the others hurried to join them, grabbing onto the angel or the hands below them until the foe was immobilized.