“What is it that you want us to do?” asked Yuri.
“Where did the master go?”
“Inside that temple,” I answered.
“Then you lead the way into the temple.”
“Grrr,” Mugi growled. He didn’t take kindly to the owner’s arrogant attitude.
“Keep quiet, or your beautiful keepers will be burnt to charcoal,” the owner threatened Mugi. That was sure ballsy. But he got our description right, so it was forgivable.
“You coward! Using women as a shield, it’s downright indecent.”
Despite my kindness, Jeff gave the owner an earful. Jeff couldn’t help being sincere, even to a devil.
“It’s all right, Jeff,” I said calming the piping-hot sheriff. “We’ll go in first…”
I glared at the owner.
“We’d like to have a look at what the owner received.”
“And the mystery of the black egg, too,” Yuri attached to the end of my sentence.
We turned to the temple and began walking.
Mugi was in front.
This was just natural.
After Mugi was Jeff. He wasn’t about to allow us to go ahead of him. He took the hand blaster from Yuri and puffing up his chest went forward confidently.
We came after Jeff. We each had a ray gun given to us by the owner. The reason was that they couldn’t penetrate the special material of his jumpsuit. That’s how almost useless they were. But they were better than nothing. Behind us was the hand blaster-packing mobile infantryman. Finally was the mobile infantryman with the mysterious box mounted on his shoulder. The owner was sandwiched between the two mobile infantry, and faced the temple. We moved ahead with courage, but the owner was being a wimp.
“I bet the owner wishes he had his own powered suit,” Yuri whispered to me.
“But they don’t make them in his size,” I returned, giving a sideways glance at the hobbling and rotund owner. “He’d have to order it specially made.”
We both giggled quietly. Hearing nothing, the owner maintained his stern expression, and followed us to the temple. Seeing that made us giggle even harder.
We reached the temple gate as our laughs reached manic levels.
We had to pull ourselves together, as this was where things were going to get serious.
The entrance was made up of a series of stone pillars. There seemed to be some sort of pattern, but it didn’t make any sense to me. For starters, there were about ten round stone pillars lined up, and the entryway came after that and continued into the temple.
We cautiously walked down this pathway.
We used the shadows cast off the pillars as cover. After making sure there wasn’t an ambush waiting for us, we ran to the shadow of the next pillar.
The only ones walking down the center of the pathway with no fear were Mugi and the mobile infantry.
Without warning the pathway ended and we were in the center of the temple. Since there was no lighting, it suddenly got rather dark. Still, it was a bare space with no cover to hide behind. If this was going to be the case, we’d probably be better off strolling in boldly with the others and not trying to find something we couldn’t see anyway.
We ran into a door.
It was a big door. It must have been five meters tall. And it was dose to eight meters wide. A joint ran through the center, and we either had to pull or push here to open it. Nothing happened when we stood in front of it, so there was nothing to indicate that it was an automatic door. It looked to be made of alloy. That’s what I thought, at least. I really couldn’t be sure.
“Grrrr…”
Mugi stared straight at the door.
We immediately slid our bodies to the wall. Mugi began probing around. I was worried that the door might suddenly open up. I sent the two mobile infantrymen to stand in front of the door, and as a precaution we prepared our weapons.
It was a good thing, too.
The door opened up toward us. As large as the door was, it moved smoothly and silently.
Yuri and I had our ray guns out.
Jeff was also on edge, but it was the owner whose heavy breathing was actually audible.
However.
Nothing happened.
No electric bolts flying through the air or walls of flame coming at us.
What a letdown. But in these circumstances nothing was better than something.
Mugi casually walked through the doorway.
Jeff gulped, and then followed Mugi in.
That meant Yuri and I were next. Getting as low was possible, we rushed through the door.
Inside it was dim, and it wasn’t immediately clear how large this big room was. One side seemed to be covered in some kind of thick, slow-moving fog or mist, and made the whole area appear very vague and ambiguous.
The owner came in flanked by the mobile infantry soldiers. Quite a grand entrance.
And at that moment.
The door shut closed.
There was no time to stop it. Even the mobile infantrymen didn’t have a chance to jam a hand in the doorway. In a panic Jeremy was about to try to burn through the door using his beam cannon, but I rushed to stop him.
We could try that later. For now we just needed to figure out where we were and what was going on.
“Grrrr,” Mugi growled again.
He was ahead of us his legs frozen in place. His body was low to the ground and he was staring straight ahead.
The fog began to clear. It appeared to brighten up.
The full structure of this wide space came into view.
There were human-like figures to the left and right.
They appeared to be attached to the floor.
I held the ray gun in front of me. The floor also appeared to be made of alloy. I felt an icy pang in my gut. The mobile infantrymen turned on their head lamps.
They illuminated the figures.
What the—
These were statues—part human part animal, they had mysterious limbs I couldn’t quite grasp. Angels of Chakra. They measured about two meters in height, and their shape was very similar to the ten centimeter figure we’d seen at the mayor’s mountain retreat. Naturally, it was the same as the one we’d seen in the clairvoyant vision. It wasn’t made of stone, but of that unknown metal, I guessed. The situation being as it was, I wasn’t going to worry about making sure.
All together there were about ten Angels of Chakra lined up. What I thought were people were all Angels of Chakra.
So what was Mugi growling and baring his fangs at?
I moved to where Mugi was positioned.
There was a clear break in the lingering mist.
He was looking into the darkness.
A dense, soggy fluid mass of darkness.
This dark mass, which reflected absolutely no light existed just before our eyes and filled the air.
Could it be that this was the side of the egg?
“Kei, the floor—” said Yuri as she pointed. I strained my eyes to see what she was talking about.
Someone was there!
In front of the dark mass someone was crouched down, turned with his back to us. The white robe he wore blended into the ashcolored floor, and that’s why I hadn’t noticed him sooner.
This was who Mugi was growling at.
But who was it?
The robe moved.
His body rose and he smoothly stood up.
He rotated around as if he was sliding.
Above the white robe rested a smooth silver mask.
As I’d expected, it was the master.
Mobile infantryman Jeffrey pushed past us and stood in front.
Ready to kill, he held his hand blaster at his chest.
“We have you cornered, master!”
The owner went to Jeremy’s side.
His tone was ice cold.
“Now it’s time to settle this.”