Chapter 41

“They… They’ve all been turned to stone…,” Aoi said, her voice trembling. Yuuma nodded wordlessly. There were about twenty villagers in total, all a dull matte gray. Their eyes were open, but there was no light inside. Even their hair and their clothing had turned to stone, making it clear that this was not some kind of sickness. They had been turned to stone by magic, just like Aria and Oono. In which case, there could have been only one person behind this tragedy… Sawa, who was apparently thinking the same thing, leaned in and whispered in Yuuma’s ear. “Hey, Yuu, do you think he did this, too?” “…Yeah,” Yuuma whispered back. He glanced toward the gate once more. “All of these people were running away in the same direction. They were probably attacked by an AoE petrification spell that travels forward, not by the normal Petrify spell. There must be other magic users out there capable of using a spell like that, but with Guaranteed Magic Proc, the only person who can cast with a one hundred percent success rate…would have to be Niki.” “Right…? But why would he do something like this?” Yuuma gave it some thought before shaking his head. “Maybe he wanted to try out his Petrify and Billowing Breeze combo in advance. Or maybe he knew we would come here looking for a Rubellite Needle and wanted to make things harder for us… There’s a billion possible reasons, but no way for us to know for sure.” Yuuma sighed and took another look around. The plaza was almost a perfect square, about twenty meters long on each side. There was a pond in the center and a larger building to the north. From what they had seen so far, it was the only two-story building in the village, and it even had a bell tower on its steepled roof, meaning it was probably a church. It looked as if the villagers had been trying to flee inside. Yuuma signaled to the others and began heading toward the church. A similar scene awaited them inside the nave of the church. A dozen or so villagers had been turned to stone while huddling between pews or while in the process of trying to climb over them. Yuuma gritted his teeth, noticing how the faces of the villagers were all distorted in terror. This was one of the few weaknesses with Niki’s petrification magic but also one of its cruelest features. Niki’s demon exploit ensured that anyone touched by the spell would be petrified eventually, but it could take anywhere from a few seconds to almost a minute, after first coming into contact with the mist, before turning entirely to stone. The villagers had probably been forced to watch as pieces of themselves started to petrify and then, driven by pure fear, had run for the church. But it seemed whatever god they prayed to had effected no miracle upon their behalf. The one small saving grace was this was not the real world. The petrified villagers were frozen in mid-space, regardless of position. There was no need to worry that they might tip over and break off their arms and legs, no matter how unstable their position was. All the same, Yuuma was careful to avoid bumping into any of them as he made his way toward the sanctuary. Sawa and Nagi followed, as well. A simple altar sat at the back of the church with a lone woman standing petrified in front of it. Though different in design from Nagi’s and Aoi’s, she was dressed in a cassock-like robe and was probably some sort of nun or priestess. Unlike the other villagers, she was facing toward the entrance with her arms flung wide, as if trying to protect something. The reason for this immediately became clear. About seven or eight children were huddled behind the altar, already turned to stone. Although they were all children, their ages ranged greatly from the oldest, who looked to be about middle-school age, to the youngest, who looked like preschoolers. The petrifying mist had taken them all, without discrimination. Yuuma felt anger well up inside as he stared at the children, much younger than himself, who had been petrified in the middle of prayer. “Niki, that lousy jerk…,” Kenk growled. Sawa spoke up as well, her voice scathing. “Do you think he attacked this village before he showed up at the castle or after?” “I’m not sure…,” Yuuma answered, although he nonetheless had an idea of what had occurred. After logging out at the castle, Niki had gone straight to Playroom 02 to destroy the four Caliculus capsules that Yuuma’s party had used. He then attacked the shelter that same night, so Yuuma doubted Niki would have had enough time to log back into AM and do all this. Meaning Niki must have turned this entire village to stone before ever making contact with Yuuma’s group. And yet Niki hadn’t given the faintest indication, when he spoke to them, that he had just committed a massacre. It was hard to believe that the Kakeru Niki they knew, the same fresh-faced athlete who was popular enough to be voted in as student council vice president, could be capable of such calculated coldness. Was this the demon’s influence, or was it…? Just then, Yuuma’s thoughts were interrupted. “Wait… I hear something,” Aoi whispered, causing Yuuma to instinctively freeze in his tracks. Yuuma half expected an attack, but what he heard instead was the faint sound of breathing. Ragged sniffles mingled with an occasional hiccup—someone was crying. Yuuma took a quick glance around at the rest of his party, who were gathered around the altar, but none of them were in tears. Straining his ears again, he crouched down and peered into the dark space beneath the altar. Yuuma could see something pale and white behind the petrified children. He immediately realized it was human skin. One of the children had apparently managed to escape being turned to stone and was now doing their best to stifle their tears and remain hidden. With a flick of his eyes, Yuuma gestured for Nagi to take his place, figuring it would be better for someone other than him to handle this. Nagi nodded, switching places with Yuuma and crouching down. “It’s okay,” she gently said to the child. “We’re not with the people who attacked your village. We’re here to help. We won’t hurt you. Would you come out from there…? Please?” Even after Nagi finished speaking, the crying continued for a little while longer. The hiccups, however, gradually petered out, growing completely quiet after about a minute. “You promise…? You won’t hurt me?” the child asked in a faltering voice. Nagi’s voice was so full of gentle, embracing warmth as she answered that it made even Yuuma, who was standing behind her, feel more relaxed. “Absolutely,” she said. “I promise.” “…” After nearly ten more seconds of silence, the owner of the voice seemed to shift inside their hiding place, crawling out from underneath the altar. As expected, it was a child. Younger than Yuuma and the others, they looked to be about five or six. Their brown hair was cut in a pageboy bob, and they were dressed in a one-piece tunic, making it difficult to tell if they were a boy or girl. Even tearstained, however, their face was almost astonishingly adorable. Nagi softly hugged the child, who had stopped crying, and whispered, “You must have been so scared… It’s okay now. If any more scary people show up, we’ll protect you.” In response, the child clutched at Nagi’s cassock with both hands and began bawling at the top of their lungs. After a few sips of the apple juice that Yuuma had given them, the child finally calmed down. The juice, of course, had come from the back offices in Althea. The container, which had been a plastic bottle back in the real world, had transformed into simple glass when removed from his inventory in AM. The sight was still mind-boggling, but they knew from their experiments with the table salt that the contents would be the same. The child turned out to be a boy, five years old, named Harlin. They all sat inside the small parish cafeteria, located at the back of the church, as the boy told them what happened as best as he could. Last evening, a lone visitor had arrived at Thula—which was apparently the name of this village—and had asked them to hand over the relics enshrined in the church, the Masks of Deception. The mayor refused and told the brawny fishermen to chase the adventurer away. The adventurer, however, used magic, turning the fishermen and mayor to stone with a gray mist. The villagers, who were watching events unfold from the plaza, were also turned to stone, one after another. The children fled into the church, but the mist reached inside as well. “My brother Taige, my sister Manoya, and Renee, and Sran, and Gao… They were all turned to stone… B-but I hid under the big table, just like my brother said to. While I was hiding, the adventurer came into the church and took all the masks hanging on the wall,” Harlin said in a trembling voice before taking a big gulp of his apple juice. The adventurer that Harlin mentioned, the one who had used the petrification magic, must have been Kakeru Niki. There was no doubt about that. Harlin said he had come last evening, which meant Yuuma was right. This all must have happened before Yuuma and the others encountered Niki at the ancient castle. That would mean that Harlin had been obediently hiding underneath the altar for nearly twelve hours. And likely without any food or water. “Sawa, do we have anything to eat…?” Yuuma whispered. Sawa answered that she had “something special stashed away” and opened up her menu. The item she removed from her inventory was a small box made out of thick green paper. Sawa ripped off the lid and opened up the thin wax paper that protected the box’s contents, revealing a jumble of hexagonal bite-sized pie-biscuit treats poking out from within. “Dude, it’s Pie Bites!” Kenk cried out from behind them. Yuuma elbowed him softly to shut him up. In the real world, these were a pretty standard chocolate-filled snack, hugely popular with both children and adults, but Yuuma wondered if a child in Algol would find them tasty as well. Harlin peered at the tiny box Sawa set in front of him, looking uncertain, until Nagi urged him to go ahead. “They’re good,” she said. Harlin timidly reached out and plucked one of the little treats from the box, peering at it for a moment before popping the whole thing into his mouth. Harlin’s eyes grew wider and wider with each crunchy chew. He hadn’t even swallowed the first treat when he started reaching for a second and third. As long as nothing had changed in this world, there should have been seventeen of the treats inside the box, but Harlin quickly polished off at least half of them. He chugged down his apple juice and let out a cute little burp. “Thank you! That was delicious!” he said much more energetically. “You’re welcome,” Sawa replied, shrugging. “Say, would you mind telling us one more thing, Harlin?” she asked, as if the question had just occurred to her. “Of course!” “The village’s treasure, these Masks of Deception—were they shaped like a wolf’s head, by any chance?” Yuuma and Kenk weren’t the only ones taken by surprise. Hokari, Chinami, and Aoi gasped as well. Harlin blinked and then nodded enthusiastically. “They were! A long, long time ago, there was a big, mean wolf that could change its appearance to look like people. One day, it took the mayor’s place and began eating a new villager every night. But the priestess used her magic to reveal the wolf’s true identity, and then Thula’s best fisherman used a harpoon to slay the wolf. With its dying breath, the wolf said it would come back someday to eat more villagers. So they skinned the wolf’s head and made a mask. And when anyone wears that mask on their head, no one can tell who they are anymore, not even their own family, but in turn, they can see through a monster’s disguise when it pretends to be a human…” “Did…the wolf ever come back?” “It sure did! The second wolf showed up ten years after the first wolf was slain. It killed another villager, but then a fisherman wearing the mask was able to find the second wolf and slay it. Ten years after that, a third wolf showed up and they slayed that one, too… That’s why there were three masks. But the adventurer took all three of them…” “…” Sawa turned her back and nodded softly. This whole story sounded vaguely familiar, but the important part right now was the masks. This cleared up several questions Yuuma and the others had. Kakeru Niki hadn’t attacked the village just to try out his AoE petrification spell; he had done it to steal their treasure. The wolf masks that Niki, Nunono, and Metoki had been wearing when they attacked Shelter Sugamo last night must have been the Masks of Deception. This ability of the masks to hide the wearer’s identity, even from their own family, explained why their names, which should have appeared along with their HP bars, had been garbled and unreadable instead. As to how Niki had learned of these masks, that was still a mystery, but he had likely heard something in Calcina. In a town that large, there were probably plenty of NPC citizens who served as important sources of information, not just the waitress at Pomegranate Pavilion or the old man at the House of Stripes. Yuuma wanted to revisit Calcina again once they got a chance and listen to more dialogue, but there were other things they needed to do first. Now that he was sure Harlin had calmed down a little, Yuuma crouched down to Harlin’s eye level so as not to scare him and began speaking. “Harlin, the truth is, our friends were also turned to stone by the person who stole those masks. That’s why we came to this village. We’re looking for a tool to turn everyone back to normal. There’s a needle, made out of a gemstone, called a Rubellite Needle. Have you ever heard of that?” “R-rubel…?” Harlin stared at Yuuma blankly before eventually shaking his head. “I’ve never heard of anything like that… My dad said before that the mountain people dig for gems in the rocky crags across the lake, but I’ve never been there…” The emotions Harlin had been holding back came spilling out, maybe because he had mentioned his father. He hung his head as fat tears began to drip down his face. “Daddy… Mommy…” Nagi, who was sitting next to Harlin, held him close and began stroking his back. “Don’t worry, we’re going to turn your daddy and mommy and everyone else back to normal.” “…” Harlin nodded softly, but his hiccups continued. Hokari shuffled closer and whispered to Yuuma, “Is that…is that kid really an NPC? He seems completely human, just like us.” “I know what you mean… I had the same thought so many times yesterday. But he’s definitely an NPC. I think it has to be a level 4 or higher self-evolving AI, though.” “No way… During science class, didn’t Ms. Ebbers say it would take at least ten years before that kind of stuff becomes feasible?” “I guess, but compared to technology that lets us use magic in the real world, AI hardly seems worth mentioning.” “Good point…” Hokari exhaled heavily, apparently satisfied. Meanwhile Harlin, who was done crying, wiped his tears on the sleeve of his tunic and spoke. “I don’t know anything about any gemstone needles, but I do know about a medicine that might be able to cure people turned to stone.” “You do…? A medicine…?” Nagi asked in surprise. Harlin nodded deeply. “Yeah. I’m not supposed to tell people from outside the village… But I think you’re okay. There’s a white lotus flower that blossoms, um, in the swamp north of the village. If you pick it and place it in holy water, it turns into a medicine that can cure any illness. There are really strong monsters in the swamp, though, so we don’t go to pick the flowers unless a sickness comes that even Sister Ulu’s magic can’t cure…” “A lotus flower…,” Nagi muttered, parroting Harlin before querying what seemed like an important key word. “You said there were very strong monsters in the swamp. Do you know what kind of monsters?” “No…” Harlin hung his head sadly, but then he suddenly gasped in realization. He looked up at Nagi again. “But I remember something my dad said when he went to pick the flowers! He said, ‘Fire for red; ice for blue; fire, ice, and iron for purple.’”