With my Dark Scythe in hand, I cut the founder’s familiars down and rushed ahead. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the stairs that led up to the third floor, knowing that the monsters awaiting me there were much weaker. I thought I could finally take a breather, when I noticed something blocking the staircase.
✶✶✶
I gasped as tree roots pierced through the stone floor and suddenly grew out, blocking the staircase. In my shock, I stopped running, and it seemed Lilka was just as surprised.
“Huh... What is that?” she asked.
That’s what I’d like to know, I thought. What the hell are those roots? I’d visited the founder’s tumulus several times before, but never had I seen anything like this.
“It’s...blocking the path,” Lilka murmured. “Why? Is there any other way out?”
“No,” I replied, cutting her off before she could ask any more questions.
“What?”
“There’s only one staircase that leads to the floor above. This is the only path.”
I swung my Dark Scythe down, hoping to brute force my way through somehow. Lilka whirled around and screamed.
“Hey! They’re coming!” she shouted. “Something’s behind us!”
“What?” I snapped.
I turned around with annoyance, when several tree roots raced through the corridor at incredible speed, trying to pierce through us.
“Roots again?!” I grumbled. “What’s going on here?!”
I could no longer hide my irritation as I hurled a stronger swing of my Dark Scythe at the roots coming for us. I didn’t care if this attack destroyed the tumulus and used everything I had; these roots were to blame for pissing me off. My attack managed to slice through several roots before it disappeared.
“What the...”
That strike was meant to blow out the entire corner of the corridor, roots and all. It felt as though some sort of spell had caused my attacks to dissipate—something that dispersed my spell into the air. And the roots weren’t slowing down. As they surged toward us, I clicked my tongue and began to run; the internal structure of the tumulus was built like a labyrinth, so there were several routes I could take.
“Whoaaa!” Lilka screamed. “The roots are chasing after us!”
“If you can only scream, shut up!” I roared. “It’s a nuisance!”
I channeled more mana throughout my body as I raced through the tumulus. I can’t believe I’m being forced to run, I thought. If only this noisy wench on my back wasn’t with me... No, I’m just making excuses. I need to calm down. I cut down a monster in the corridor and ran ahead while I tried to think of a way to beat those mysterious roots. I suspected that they were enchanted with some kind of spell that caused my attacks to disperse, so effectively that it could nullify even my strongest slash. Which means a majority of spells won’t work on it. No, maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here. Maybe the dark element won’t work, but a different one might have an effect...
“You, girl,” I barked. “Hurl a spell at that thing. I don’t care what.”
“H-Huh?!” Lilka yelped. “I’ve never really used spells before...”
She hesitated, but I glared at her. Did you want to hide the fact that you have mana? You were busted the moment I caught you on my mana perception field.
“I know you’ve got mana,” I snapped. “Enough yapping and more firing.”
“What?! How did you— Er, but...” Lilka stammered. “All right. I was keeping this a secret, so don’t tell anyone, okay?” After a pause, she began her chant. “Air Cutter!”
She fired a blade of wind. Chantless... And it’s a type of magic that I don’t really see either... But this is by no means an advanced spell—it’s not even intermediate. It’s a basic spell, at best. The wind blade hit the root, but it immediately vanished as though a mysterious force repelled the attack.
“What the hell?!” she shouted. “My spell got dispersed!”
“Thought so...” I muttered. “I didn’t expect much from you anyway.”
“You say that after making me go through all that trouble?!”
I ignored this shrieking girl as I tried to find a solution. I guess the element doesn’t matter... Still, it’s not as though all sorts of magic are negated in a flash. My Dark Scythe managed to slice through several roots before it was nullified. I can just use pure, physical power to bust my way through the roots, or maybe I need something more powerful... A spell that can’t be so easily dispersed.
“Hmph... I didn’t think I’d be forced to use this here...” I grumbled. “Reap life, Farmer’s Scythe.”
I unsummoned my Dark Scythe and instead created the scythe of death with my chantless spell. This weapon was honed solely to cut things down, and it was one of the strongest ancient spells that I possessed in my arsenal.
“Huh? What is that?” Lilka murmured.
She turned pale when she saw my weapon, perhaps noting the power that this scythe possessed. Is she astute, or just sensitive to mana? She joined the main character’s forces, after all, so I guess she must have some power.
I ignored Lilka’s query and quietly swung my scythe down. This slash mercilessly cut down anything in its way, no matter how tough or far away it was. The slash of doom cut through countless roots in one go, and in a flash, they were all severed. It seemed even the roots were unable to completely nullify the powerful swing of this ancient scythe. But they still kept coming. Even when I slashed a few, several more took their place as they sprouted from the ground, showing frightfully swift regenerative capabilities. I can only swing this scythe four times, and I’ve used one. I can’t beat them all with this spell, but at least I know that I can cut them down.
With Lilka still on my back, I decided to run again, making a beeline away from the roots, my coat fluttering behind me.
“Wait, what?” Lilka asked. “Are you running? It looked like you had it.”
What in the world is she on about? Me, run?
“Cutting down the roots is pointless,” I replied. “They regenerate quickly, so fighting them only wastes time and energy. It’s far more efficient to hit the main body.”
“The...main body?”
“Clearly, these are from a plant-based monster. Their roots are probably the equivalent to our limbs, or maybe even strands of our hair. In other words, there’s a main body somewhere controlling them all.”
These roots weren’t of the dark element; in other words, they hadn’t come from one of the founder’s familiars. It seemed some kind of unknown monster had managed to worm its way into this tumulus. As the eldest son of House Lightless, it was my duty to take care of this mess. How dare a mere monster create a nest in this place!
I rushed down the corridor, the roots still in my peripheral as I cast my mana perception field over the entirety of the tumulus. The fourth floor was thicker with mana, making monsters harder to detect, but I managed to make do somehow and easily found the monster’s main body by following the traces of mana in its roots. The current interference made it difficult to precisely ascertain its mana levels, but it was clearly even more than most beasts with catastrophic power.
I took the shortest route to my enemy. I was wary of any roots that might try to block my path, but surprisingly, I was able to head there with very little issue. I soon found the main body nestled in a large, open room. My Farmer’s Scythe was in my hand as I stepped in, glaring up at the monster that dared to ruin the founder’s tumulus.
“Huh?” I muttered.
Even I could tell how pathetic I sounded, and it was because I knew this monster very well. Huh? What the hell? Why is this thing here?
“It’s...so pretty,” Lilka said with an enchanted sigh, ignoring my confusion.
Pretty, huh? Well, I guess you could call it that.
Sitting in the middle of the large room was a beautiful lady, her lower half turned into roots that were sprawled throughout the ground. A pair of branch-like wings sprouted from her back, and she didn’t wear a single piece of cloth on her body. Her body could be described as divine, following a golden ratio of proportions fitting only for a goddess. Her skin, however, was undoubtedly dyed with darkness.
This monster, reminiscent of an Alraune, was one that I was rather familiar with. On the altar on the lowest floor of the founder’s tumulus, a pair of statues each solemnly guarded their side of the room; on the right was a massive, wingless earth dragon that towered like a mountain, and on the left was the statue of the goddess, one that looked eerily similar to the monster in front of my eyes.
“She wasn’t...just a statue,” I muttered.
Alraune glared at me as though to respond to my words, and she flashed a faint smile. At once, I noticed a blip of condensed mana, powerful enough to make me shudder. I instinctively leaped away. A moment later, a root pierced through the floor I was standing on, swallowing the stone tile whole. One by one, the floor was penetrated by these roots as they all lined up and pointed their sharp tips straight at me. And after a single moment’s delay, they all shot out at once.
“Aaahhh?!” Lilka screamed.
“You’re too loud! Shut up!” I roared.
She clung to my back, but her screams hurt my ears, and I scowled as I dodged the roots heading straight for me. As far as I could tell, the roots weren’t dark magic themselves but just normal foliage. Damn it, my hunch was wrong... I had assumed that these roots were part of a monster that had managed to weasel its way in here, but it seemed that wasn’t the case. Alraune likely possessed the ability to cause rapid growth in plants and control them as she pleased. Hence, these roots didn’t possess the dark element.