As long as Hortensia ended up happy, I couldn’t care less what happened to me.
“…You seriously don’t make any sense.”
“I can live with that for now. Let me give you a word of warning, though.”
“Like I need any warnings from you.”
“You may be trying to use that guy to try and kill him, but you’re just getting manipulated yourself. Nothing will change, even if you do kill him. Depending on how things play out, you might end up witnessing an even worse kind of hell.”
“Again, as if you know anything.”
“I’m saying this because I know, Hortensia.”
She simply stood in place, her eyes bulging wide. She must have been questioning why I would know her name at all.
Well, I had said what I wanted to say. Nanami and the others looked worried, and we needed to handle something else right now, so staying here any longer would be a waste of time.
I filled a return magic stone with mana and threw it at her. Hortensia had to be shaken up. She caught the stone on reflex, then dissolved into particles of light with a bit of a dumb look on her face.
“Are you okay, Master?” Nanami approached me right as Hortensia disappeared.
“Hm? I’m totally unharmed.”
“I’m referring to the look on your face. We can all sense it, no matter how hard you try to put up a strong front. You look like you finally summoned the courage to message the girl you like, only for her to respond three days later.”
“Oh, there’s no spark there, so you might as well give up.”
“I don’t know, Takioto. You seem like the type to keep coming on strong, even when she’s not interested at all. You’re pretty assertive, and you swing into action if there’s the slightest possibility of success. Seemed like you were only a push or two away from breaking her down, too,” Yuika said, joining in on the conversation.
I mean, sure, brute forcing my way through things was all well and good, but there were a lot of complex factors at play with Hortensia. Also the story here was so different from my expectations, I sorta felt like I didn’t have a clue what to do anymore.
“For starters, though, that girl is with the Church, right?”
“Yeah, she’s got some stuff going on, and she infiltrated it pretending to be a member.”
“You sure you’re not trying to go after too many ladies at once here?” Yuika shot me a look of exasperation.
“He truly is. I wish he would spare a thought to me and my managerial responsibilities.” Nanami also chimed in with some weird nonsense.
What sort of “management” was she even talking about? Putting that aside, though…
“…You sure seem laid-back, even when we’ve got someone really dangerous coming straight for us.”
“For one, I’ve already fought against enemies who were way stronger, and you don’t seem very worried either, Takioto,” said Yuika.
“That’s because I know I can use you as a shield to escape when things go south.”
“Yeah, yeah, I doubt that one! If we do have to run away, you’re definitely going to be staying behind until the very end, don’t lie. I’ll totally flee right away, though.”
Okay, c’mon, she may say this stuff, but if such a moment really did come, I knew for sure she would stay behind without running.
“…What’s that suggestive smile for? Not you too, Nanami.”
“I can see it now. Allow me to paint the scene for you. Phew… ‘Excuse me?! Seriously, Takioto, what do you think you’re doing? I knew it, you’re a mess without me, whether in battle or in your private lif—’ Oh, Miss Yuika, what is the matter?”
“Yup, fine, I get it, Nanami, I get it. Enough of the impression, thanks. You don’t have to fabricate a scenario either.”
While we were talking, the remaining three—Ludie, Yukine and Claris—came over.
Once we all started talking about what we were doing from here, a grave look came over everyone’s faces. Yukine was the only one who looked out at all our expressions and seemed slightly relieved.
“…We chatted with those Church guys a little bit, and if what they said is true, then this whole situation’s gotten a lot trickier.”
“They were probably right. I can’t really come up with any other explanation for that nasty presence I felt a few moments ago.”
When I said this, Claris gave me an exasperated look.
“I’ve wondered about this before, but how exactly do you have such a comprehensive grasp of the current situation, Master Takioto?”
Well, that’s ’cause I’d fought against him so many times in the game before. Though, if I had to give the best answer to convince her, then I would say…
“Marino just told me some stuff about the Sanctuary.”
She really hadn’t, but for now, this is what I was going with.
“Then you’re saying you know who’s sealed away here?”
I nodded at Claris’s question.
“Oh yeah, I know, all right. I know all sorts of stuff,” I said, looking at Ludie.
Like how we would need her power to defeat the Arch Elf, for example.
“Takioto, let me get right to the point: Do we have a chance?” Yukine asked.
A difficult question.
“One hundred percent, if we can prepare.”
“And what of those preparations?”
“Safe to say they haven’t even been started yet.”
I mean, normally he isn’t supposed to be revived at this point, okay? In the game, the Church followers who come here are ultimately sent packing by the floor boss protecting the ruins. Then they try to flee and run into Iori’s party and fight. While Iori and the others win that battle, the boss recognizes them as a threat and another fight commences.
In other words, the Arch Elf sealed deeper within isn’t revived, and the event ends. The player does end up defeating him in a separate incident, though.
“I think it’ll be easier to get through this than it was with the Book of Raziel, despite us not having the luxury of preparing a bunch beforehand like we had with her.”
Yuika put a hand to her mouth at my words and went bug eyed, as if scandalized.
“Wait, hold on a second. You called us to help during the Book of Raziel incident when it was that dangerous?!”
She wasn’t wrong. If it hadn’t worked out, Ms. Sakura would have committed suicide or have died at our hands. But hang on—I had insisted over and over again it was risky, hadn’t I? If memory served, that had been enough to convince Yuika.
On the other hand, none of that really seemed to matter to Yuika. In fact…
“What do we need to do to win?”
…she seemed to take this situation far more seriously. I could understand why, though.
“In order to win…” I glanced at Ludie.
“You need me?”
“Do you know already, Ludie? And Claris for that matter…? Judging by your reaction, it seems you do.”
“Personally, I want to know why you know about this, if anything.”
Ludie had a very good point.
“I said something similar before, but let’s just say I have this knowledge because I’m a Hanamura and leave it at that. Right now, we’ve got bigger things to worry about, everyone. That guy is definitely going to come this way, so we need to prepare. We need to talk about who we’re dealing with, too.”
“Fair enough.” Ludie heaved a big sigh. Then she began to explain. “I imagine we’ll need to go over our tactics, too, but first I want to preface things by talking about who’s sealed away here.”
“Please do,” Nanami replied.
“It’s the Arch Elf.”
“The Arch Elf?”
“Yes, a superior type of elf who learned forbidden magic. Also, we’re pretty far removed, but we’re technically related. He’s a distant ancestor of mine.”
Yukine and Yuika were both surprised at the word “ancestor.”
“Why is one of your ancestors sealed up here?”
“Well, the Arch Elf…is a necromancer, someone who wields magic that controls the dead, also known as necromancy. He used his powers to wage war on Leggenze, who was kidnapping elves and turning them into slaves.”
“Elves are prized for our looks, so there was apparently no end to people looking to abduct us,” Claris added.
“Leggenze is still a human supremacist state now, but apparently, it was even worse in the past. The Arch Elf’s Necromancy was so powerful, he humiliated them when he challenged them to war. Leggenze was utterly helpless and overwhelmed against him.”
Without some sort of countermeasure, it seemed impossible to win against someone who could turn the dead into his allies over and over again.
“Leggenze decided they couldn’t keep the war going. They had lost countless citizens in the conflict. So Leggenze sued for peace with the empire. They also promised to release all the elves within their borders. There was a problem though.”
“A problem?”
“The Arch Elf wasn’t satisfied with just taking back the elves who had been captured. His way of thinking had gotten too extreme. He declared the empire needed to continue the war against Leggenze and slaughter every last one of its citizens,” Ludie said, sighing.
“The elven people didn’t approve of this. And so, the Arch Elf took to killing anyone who got in his way or insisted he was going too far, whether they were friend or foe. Then he would turn them into his pawns with his magic.”
Yukine unconsciously cast her eyes downward. “That’s…unspeakable.”
“Around that time, the Arch Elf began to unravel. He only ever expressed negative emotions like hatred and rage, and he lost whatever kindness and self-control he had left. I suppose you could say he was a bit like a runaway train.”
“How did that come to happen?” Nanami asked.
“There are several possible explanations, but his downfall is primarily attributed to the method he used to attain his Arch Elf status and his overuse of necromancy. By the end, he was no longer capable of speech, and he would attack at random anyone who laid eyes on him.”
“I see… So what happened after that?” Nanami asked, and Ludie continued.