“Oho ho ho ho. That’s true.” Elrica looked fondly at them as she laughed.
Although Elrica has changed a lot. Lara glanced over at Elrica as she thought about the past.
If they were asked who among their comrades had changed the most, everyone would probably say it was Elrica. She was practically a different person compared to when they’d first met, so that was only natural. This refined old lady had a secret—something that had made all the top-ranking clergymen of the great war repent.
“Okay, we’re in the deepest part. The boss dragon already showed up above, so...let’s go home?” Max suggested.
“Why?” Sazaki asked.
“Well, it’s definitely gonna be a pain. There’s bound to be a monster worse than a dragon.”
“Worse than even the Great Demon King?”
“Ain’t no way it’s that bad.”
To resolve the problem, the party continued conquering the depths without slowing down for one second, until they reached the deepest part of the Nightless Inferno in the blink of an eye. If the Depth Delvers learned this, their jaws would probably hit the floor from the shock. And yet, Max, one of the people who’d accomplished this monumental feat, only found this place to be a bother, and he and Sazaki were just messing around.
“I wonder what we’ll see here.” Ferd ignored his comrades’ chatter and went through the final gate. “Hmm? This place is different from what they described,” he said, cocking his head.
“Indeed. We were told this was a wide area meant to fight a dragon in, but this vastness is on an entirely different level,” Stein agreed,
The Rin Kingdom’s intelligence agency had already informed the party about the room where the battle with the dragon took place, but the space before them was nothing like the intel said. The area was as vast as a plain, making it hard to believe that they were still underground.
“I’ve got a really bad feeling about this, or more like it’s kind of nostalgic,” Max said.
“Same here,” Ferd agreed.
The two of them weren’t feeling nostalgic for the empty plane before them, but for when the Great Demon King had unleashed overwhelming violence in an attempt to kill them.
The next moment, not just the ground, but even the walls and ceiling started swelling, and monsters started emerging from the entire vast space, easily numbering over one or two hundred. This space was known as a killing room, where an absurd number of monsters appeared. Rooms like this one could be found in some parts of larger dungeons, but shouldn’t normally exist in the Nightless Inferno.
“Hmm.” Sazaki lowered his waist and slightly leaned forward, twisting his body as he placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. If his disciples were here, they’d turn ghastly pale and drop to the ground while clutching their heads.
“Allow me,” Elrica interrupted Sazaki—he’d made the trip here plenty comfortable for her already. She held her staff with both hands and thrust it into the ground. Was she going to use a holy barrier to protect her allies? Perhaps bolster everyone with healing and protection magic? No.
Elrica, one of the members of the Hero’s party, was generally viewed as a compassionate and merciful person, who used the protection of the Great Lord to safeguard her companions. But that common opinion diverged from reality, and for a sad reason at that. During the initial stages of the great war, the church forces had been cornered and decided that the side of the living couldn’t withstand the Great Demon King’s invasion. So they’d used the power of all the gods to create a being for the sole purpose of defeating the Great Demon King. The golem-like human Elrica had been created only to kill the Great Demon King, and for no other reason; she was a Saint in name only.
Although Elrica had once been praised as the world’s most innocent beauty, she’d actually just been unfeeling and emotionless. The first thing she’d done the first time she saw a horse was asking how it tasted, and she’d been so ignorant about the world that she couldn’t even tell salt and sugar apart. She’d been the ultimate sheltered girl, created in utmost secrecy. Elrica the Saint had been a sword, a bomb, a trump card, or perhaps an assassin specifically designed to take the Great Demon King’s life. However, in the process of fulfilling her objective, she’d learned friendship, sorrow, joy, and love. After the end of the war, she’d chosen to live in seclusion with Ferd, and even had a child with him.
But let us return to the main topic. Like the general public believed, Elrica could also provide divine protection. But considering the purpose for which she had been created, her power was...the power to kill.
“Vanish in the light.”
Following Elrica’s declaration, symbols and words related to all the gods of light started emerging in the space around her staff. Every clergyman living in the present day would probably have turned pale at the sight. To create even a single of those symbols, it would take a crowd of priests gathered in a sanctuary and risking their lives. In other words, Elrica’s body itself could be considered a grand temple or sanctuary. Light was emitted from her body, engulfing the fire-related monsters which had appeared to fill the entire plain; then, they vanished. There were no traces of the monsters left. They’d disappeared completely inside the light. Elrica’s specialties were light-annihilation attacks that unfailingly eradicated enemies who had no resistance to it—something that shouldn’t normally be possible for the power of light—and killing techniques that would put any assassin to shame.
“I haven’t used this in a while.” This was Elrica the Saint, the anti-demon weapon of annihilation created by the church’s power.
“A big one’s coming,” Lara warned, although her expression barely shifted.
As the dungeon had been nearly conquered twice in such a short span of time, it was now mustering all of its strength to fight back. Perhaps it was trying to provide a worthy challenge to these powerful challengers, or perhaps it was merely trying to kill some rats that had snuck inside of its walls. The dungeon’s methods were incredibly straightforward: just throw everything at them all at once. That said, this was more or less the optimal solution. The mass and density of this concentrated assault, along with the resistances it gained from being a living creature, gave it a degree of defense against Sazaki’s sword, Stein’s fists, Max’s dragon powers, and Elrica’s light. Though it was still powerless against Lara’s extreme firepower.
“HRAAAAAAAH!”
What this resulted in was a creature slightly larger than a person, which was currently wriggling along the ground. It looked like a mix between a child, an underground dweller, pseudo-monk slayer, flame dog, lizard, flame spirit, and even a dragon, all these elements coming together to give birth to a hideous red burning mass with traces of crushed faces and limbs sticking out from all over. But no matter how ugly it looked, it was still an aggregation of the Nightless Inferno itself, with hazard to match. The flames emanating from the amalgamation could burn anything, leaving not even ash behind...
However, the air was soon filled with light. The power that had once crushed the Great Darkness which had beset the land was unleashed.
“AAAAAAAH?!”
In front of the ugly, confused creature stood a man with dazzling light emanating from his pure white hair, wrinkled skin, eyes, and even pores of his body. This was the man who’d saved the world and defied fate. This was the power of light he wielded, which exceeded all measure. He was the incarnation of the prayers and hopes of every living thing and the very antithesis of the Great Demon King—the darkness that had given birth to the world. The brave.
“All right, it’s been seventy years, but I suppose it’s time I did something.” Ferd the Hero had appeared.
“AAAAAH!”
The blazing mass was intimidated despite having no sense of self, and it unleashed tremendous, scorching hot flames that covered the entire plain.
“Hmph!”
Ferd raised the shield in his left hand and focused his power, and crystals of light materialized like shards of glass, pouring out from it. It was a gross misconception that the Hero’s armaments were a holy sword and shield, forged by the gods themselves and decorated with primordial gemstones. They were actually just an ordinary sword and shield, the kind you could find at any secondhand weapon store. However, once the bright, aberrant power transformed them into semi-tangible light, one could easily be fooled.
“AAAAAH?!”
The creature couldn’t understand. Each and every tiny glass shard clinging to Ferd’s shield easily surpassed the power of the Depth Delvers’ barrier, which had endured even a dragon’s attacks, and completely blocked the scorching flames it fired.