Satou here. There’s an old saying that schemers succumb to their own schemes, and it is true that the smarter you think you are, the more obvious the trap you fall for. Perhaps a reputation for making rational choices makes you easier to manipulate.
“Once I’m in, stop maintaining it,” I told Tia, then leaped through the Warped portal she was holding open.
On the other side, it had felt like a horizontal movement to me, but I was in a free fall somehow.
“Avast, sir!”
I glanced back, and Pochi was at the head of my entire party.
“We are accompanying you.”
“Ensembleeee!”
“Together.”
“Master, I wish to avenge the larvae, I insist.”
Liza, Tama, and Mia were emphatic, and Nana was still fuming.
“Girls…”
“Of course we’re coming with you! Right, Lulu?” Arisa scoffed.
“Right,” Lulu said. There was a smile on her lips, but not in her eyes. She must be equally furious with the villain who’d hurt Roro and the hamsters.
The entrance closed behind them.
In their current state, few threats could harm them.
“Fine, let’s do this together.”
The fall speed was something else, so I grabbed everyone with Magic Hand and used “Skyrunning” to search for a landing spot.
This place had no map available, so I had no insights on terrain. The “Space Awareness” skill suggested the ground was unstable, the walls ever shifting—like we’d been swallowed by an enormous beast.
“A fork, sir!”
“Gah, mercy!”
The path ahead of our fall split in two.
I landed on the divide, scoping both paths out.
“This one.”
“Feels baaaad!”
Mia and Tama both pointed to the passage with more miasma.
“Then that way it is.”
“Wait!”
Arisa shot me an impatient look, but I waved her down.
“No telling what’s waiting for us. Change into the golden armor.”
Anything to boost their odds of survival.
We weren’t sure how large this lair was, so better prioritize longevity and avoid the MP-draining exoarmor. I used “Quick Change” to swap to Nanashi’s outfit.
“Got it. True gear!”
Arisa struck a weird pose she’d set up, transforming into the golden armor.
That high-speed gear change protocol was already in use. Arisa herself had picked that trigger phrase. The rest followed suit, each with their own code phrase.
I kept an eye out, but the silver armor was cast off and collected, and the golden armor popped out and was put on without any issues.
At the moment, this was only possible with the first pose and keyword they’d set up, but I could add to that in later versions. Arisa had asked me to make it look like the space behind her was splitting open and her gear was emerging from that—a reference to some famous series.
“A bit flavorless,” she mumbled. “I should have gone with ‘Cutey up!’ or ‘C’mon, golden!’ Something with a bit more camp!”
Whatever Arisa was going on about could wait.
“Too cramped for an airship, so let’s go as is.”
I scooped them up with Magic Hand and dove down the passage Mia and Tama had chosen.
There were several more branches, but “Miasma Vision” made it clear which we should take, and we easily made it to the end.
“Walllll?”
“It is below us, so it is a floor, I insist.”
“Oy veyyyy!”
Tama slapped her forehead like a vaudeville comedian.
“Landing.”
Holding them aloft, I put my feet down—and it proved to be an illusion. I slipped right through.
An instant later, I was in a wide-open space. Through the filter of the golden armor, I sensed fresh air. Comfy.
“Whoahhh!”
“Sky?”
“We’re falling sideways, sir!”
What had been down was now horizonal.
Or we’d been flipped around when we passed through the floor.
I used “Skyrunning” to correct us in the direction of gravity, and that righted the others with me.
We were a solid five hundred yards up, with nothing flying around us.
Back in ordinary space?
“Stay calm. Panic gets us nowhere,” Liza said, but her fear of heights meant she was clinging to me.
We’d been falling for a while, but the nearest surface was much farther away now, and floating without visible support had set her off. Even though she was fine on Garuda or an airship.
“Eeek! I’m scared!” Arisa cried, seeing her chance to glomp. She used a Short-Range Teleportation spell to plant herself on me.
“Mm, fear Wind Kaze.”
Mia called out a pseudo-spirit to do the same thing.
“Pochi wants to cuddle, too, sir!”
She was swimming in the air but not getting any closer.
“Don’t worry, be happyyyyy!”
Tama used some ninja arts to move her and Pochi over to me.
Nana and Lulu both shot me pleading looks, so I had Magic Hand bring them in close.
“Okay—”
I opened my map to take stock, but the display had changed—there was a new name.
We were now in the Otherworld divided jungle, so I used the Search Entire Map spell to dig further. This appeared to be a section of the Jungle Labyrinth about a mile wide, sectioned off and pulled into a pocket dimension.
At the center of this subspace was a building.
“The Temple of the Evil God, seriously?”
I doubted it was real, but this temple allegedly housed the remains of the Dark Lord of Necromancy—a demon lord. Having a place like that at the center of an Otherworld space was not a good sign.
“That’s where our villain is.”
There was a blank space beneath the fake temple. Since that was a different map, I couldn’t be totally sure, but the curse’s trail led there, so odds were extremely high.
There were lights flashing on the ground.
“Mew?”
“Sense Danger.”
“Incoming, sir!”
I used “Skyrunning” to move everyone.
A bunch of light bullets flew by where we’d been.
“Flying monsters coming up from the surface!” Lulu warned.
Jet-propelled wood monsters—rocket trees—were at the head, followed by birdlike creatures and some blobby things…mushrooms? Jellyfish?
My AR display showed all of them were possessed by demons.
“Awright! Time for Arisa-chan’s awesome Fire Magic—!”
“No, Arisa. Time to flaunt our new gear, I insist,” Nana said, with a glint in her eye. She looked my way. “Master, permission?”
“All right, go for it.”
“Equipping Gunslinger Exoarmor. Proceeding to annihilation, I report.”
Nana summoned artillery-focused gear to her golden armor, which put a Gatling-style Fireburst Gun on each arm. They spun up without a sound.
I saw sparks—and a moment later, Fireburst Bullets from the rotating barrels filled the missile-like rocket trees full of holes.