Chapter 409 – The Royal Capital Underground

000

A mansion located on the commoners’ street in the kingdom, “Palanatia’s Coffin.”

This place, prepared for adventurers who cooperate with the Tromeya family, was used as a base in the royal capital by Cleon’s party, who had been residing for several months now.

Even though there was a big event called the victory parade, the one who didn’t straighten his face was Quon, who was looking out the window with a cautious expression.

“… Cleon, are you okay?”

When Quon muttered that, Sasha, who was servicing equipment for an unexpected event, looked up at Kuon standing by the window.

“I’m sure it will be fine… If it’s Cleon. Rather, for now, it’s better to be prepared for any assassins who may come to this mansion.”

The sight of Sasha talking with her bowstrings and daggers stretched out on the floor gave off the feeling of a veteran who is not far behind even a professional adventurer.

[Quon. If you need it too, prepare to fight using me.]

Then, a phoenix with red feathers flew towards Quon standing by the window.

She, who usually lives in her Quon’s room her, is the sun holy sword “Galatin” Who contracted with her at the ruins of the desert.

“Are you going to see Papa?”

Then, when Lilim, who was quietly watching the scene by her side of her, reached out to grab the blade of her dagger, Sasha quickly grabbed her hand of her.

“Lil, Lilim? Trying to hold the dagger is dangerous, so stop… Oh yes. Maybe that would be fine…”

Saying so, what Sasha handed over was a dagger with fancy decorations that was treasured inside her equipment box.

[Butterfly Dagger Titania!]

“Wow.”

I wonder if I pressed something when I took it out, if I heard that kind of voice from the dagger.

Lilim looked at the training dagger Sasha held in her hand, her eyes twinkling.

“It looks like the real thing, but it doesn’t fade… “

Talking like that, Sasha handed over the dagger, and Lilim excitedly accepted the dagger and ran somewhere on the second floor.

“Mr. Merca has placed investigators around this mansion as bodyguards, but assassins are assassins… I don’t know where it will come out.”

And, hearing Sasha’s story her, Beatrix also nodded beside her.

“As Sasha said, Kuon. She said that before Leila left, she put a barrier on the mansion, so she wouldn’t be able to break in at all. Because she has to assume what-ifs…”

While Beatrix was talking like that, boom! And there was a shock that seemed to resonate throughout the mansion.

Thanks to that, the dishes on the table fall to the ground, and a slightly loud sound echoes in the kitchen.

“Is it an earthquake?”

“No, it’s too short for an earthquake… “

It was a really instantaneous shaking, so it was a vibration that made you think that something had exploded.

When Quon hurriedly looked outside-

“Oh… !?”

In the distance, smoke could be seen rising from the place where the march was taking place.

[Lyla! What happened?]

Beatrix tries to send her message her to her using her magic channel her with her lila connected to him, but as she advances, she feels her voice her disorienting her and disappearing, dispersing into the air.

It was a phenomenon that appeared when the target to receive the message was not nearby or disappeared.

“…I can’t connect to Lila…”

“Then…!”

When Beatrix’s murmur was over, Lilim came down from the second floor with another clattering sound.

In her hand her, the arm of Caliburn rubbed her drowsy eyes.

“House, it shook… Papa, when are you coming…?”

When Sasha approaches and soothes Lilim, who talks with a troubled face, Caliburn speaks.

“Huaam… She was sleeping well for a long time, but I hit her with this toy and woke her up~”

Caliburn puffed out her cheeks as if in displeasure, pointing at the Titania she held in her hand her as her lilim her disturbed her own sleep her.

However, when her mischievous expression subsided like a calm wave, Caliburn spoke.

“… Well, she doesn’t seem to be sleeping right now. The connection with Cleon has been lost. Even with Galatea.”

“…!”

As soon as Caliburn speaks, the three of them try to transmit their voices to Cleon at the same time, but she is blocked by an invisible wall and cannot reach Cleon.

“Did something happen to Cleon-san’s body!?”

“Maybe… It looks like she lost consciousness. I can’t locate it on my side of her.”

“…We have to go to the march right now!”

As Sasha tried to stand up, Beatrix grabbed her wrist her.

“Miss Beatrix… ?”

“It’s definitely not an ordinary thing that happened to Layla and senpai, both of them. … You can’t just walk around the outside comfortably. Assassins might attack from all sides.”

“That, like that… “

Clearly, Sasha knew she was right, but that Cleon might be dangerous drives her into her urge to go outside.

“Don’t worry. That doesn’t mean there’s no way to go. I don’t mean to imprint her portal on your body like Lyla did.”

Sasha tilted her head at Beatrix’s words.

Beatrix gets up from her seat, picks up the equipment she was preparing and asks Quon.

“Quon, is there a basement in this mansion?”

“Ugh no. There is no basement.”

Layla’s private house, which she used to live at her academy, had a cellar with an experimental workshop, but Palanetia’s coffin didn’t have a basement because of the complicated water supply system underground.

“Then… It’s just fine.”

As she said that, what she brought out was the ‘Demonic Sword Ariadne’.

Her demonic sword her, which had awakened, actually looked like a ball of thread rather than a sword, and the silver thread was wrapped around the handle of the sword.

That thread was Ariadne’s blade, and thanks to its excellent cutting power and magical conductivity that surpassed most mediums, it was also an excellent weapon for the magician Beatrix to use.

But, if that Ariadne’s real strength.

“…Ariadne Labyrinth. Limited deployment.”

In the next moment, the threads entwined around her sword handle unraveled and burrowed into the ground of the mansion.

Pazzzzzzzz! It cuts the ground, erodes the terrain with magical power, and develops the memories of the labyrinth held by the demonic sword to form a shape.

Looking at that figure, both Quon and Sasha looked surprised, but Beatrix quietly watched as the entrance to the basement was created.

“Wow! There is a door!”

As Lilim raised her voice, as if feeling better at seeing something strange, Beatrix raised her body while wiping her forehead.

“It’s good that you trained how to use the magic sword.”

After Cleon and Lyla left the academy, the first thing Beatrix did after accepting a new teacher was to learn how to use the recovered magic sword, Ariadne.

Ariadne had the power to create an underground labyrinth, but that was only part of the magic sword’s function.

As a result of creating a space in a form with no established purpose, what was created is an ever-changing labyrinth with unclear entrance and exit.

Ariadne’s true power is the ability to create space as Beatrix wishes by borrowing the magic of the spirit vein.

Fortunately, the royal capital was a miraculous land similar to the academy, and Ariadne easily connected to the spirit vein and drew out the necessary amount of magic power, creating a space that the owner needed in the basement of the coffin of Palanata.

“I made a passage leading to the royal capital’s underground water. People on the outside won’t notice.”

“Awesome… !”

Certainly, among the powers that a single human can wield, it is a power that boasts an unconventional scale.

“Using this aisle, the place where the smoke came up – the approximate location, is it a corner of the royal road where the march event was in progress. If you head there and go back to the surface, you will be able to get out there.”

“…There, Cleon and Lyla… ?”

“I’m not sure. First of all, we should go see what happened to the two of them.”

At Beatrix’s words, both Quon and Sasha nodded.

“Are you going with Caliburn?”

As Lilim asked, looking back at her still sleepy expression on her.

“Cha-am… There’s nothing we can do. It’s my role to appear when Cleon is in danger~”

Caliburn speaks in a languid voice as she rubs her yawning eyes.

Then, she changed that shape into a small dagger, and hung on to Sasha’s waist as it was.

[Now~ Shall we start~]

“You’re going that way… “

Sasha shook her head, still unaccustomed to Caliburn’s self-paced behavior her.

001

The royal capital’s underground aqueduct was a dark, humid place with a stench coming up every time you walked.

All of the group passing by this place for the first time were walking cautiously, frowning and covering their mouths and noses.

“If I knew this would happen, I would extend Labyrinth a little farther… “

When Beatrix spoke regretfully, Caliburn, who was hanging from Sasha’s waist, spoke.

[It’s good that I don’t have a respiratory system like this~]

“Ugh… “

Sasha was more desperate to hold her breath than to respond to her jokes on her.

“Smell, smell, smell~! I want to go back soon!”

“Lee, Lilim… If you scream like that, you have to breathe more, so you have to smell more… “

As soon as she entered her underground waterway, she tried to appease Lilim, who was complaining, but Sasha was also close to her limit.

[…Lu, Ruben-sama. Shift for a while… ]

[Hate!]

[Huh~!]

Sasha screams at Ruben’s resoluteness, who rejected it at once.

It can’t be helped, but Sasha’s body her is in a state close to that of a beastman, half of which is mixed with animals.

Although it was caused by Ruben’s possession of her, her five senses of her were far more sensitive than those of an ordinary human.

Thanks to that, she had a much stronger stench than the others.

[I am also feeling remorse for avoiding the stench like this.]

And, the huge greatsword strapped to Quon’s back.

Galatin, too, was avoiding the stench by taking the form of a weapon different from his usual appearance.

“Okay, it’s okay. There is no need to deliberately go through the hard road.”

“…But, the royal capital’s underground canal is deeper than I thought. The structure is like a labyrinth… If you do it wrong, you will get lost.”

“I’ve heard from Cleon before. There is a road leading to the ruins in the royal capital’s underground aqueduct.”

“Is it the underground ruins of the royal capital… ? Perhaps, they may have already entered the underground ruins.”

With Quon and Beatrix talking like that, somehow going along the dark road-

Little by little, but as the stench disappears, the decorations that make up the surroundings change their appearance.

“…For a moment.”

Sasha, who was walking in front of her, was the first to feel the presence of her and stopped her party of her.

If you hang the arrow hanging from her back on the bow she was holding-

Beyond, beyond the darkness, thud. Tboob. And feel the presence walking by.

Magic power so strong that it makes hair stand on end.

The other party, as if feeling it, holding their own weapons in their hands and holding their breath—

“Calm down. Because I am not the enemy.”

A blue-haired woman appeared, blindfolded.

She, taller than Cleon by one head, walked towards her party, waving her legs and arms while wearing a black robe.

[The devil’s presence…]

When Caliburn’s voice is heard by her Sasha her as well, Sasha asks her without returning her arrow in her hand her.

“Don’t come any closer!”

“…Oh dear. Haven’t you heard anything from Cleon? I deliberately rigged the lights in the aqueduct to come this way, just to let you know what’s going on up there.”

Everyone gathered there reacted to the word Cleon that she put in her mouth as she answered while shaking her head.

Except for one person, Lilim.

“Do you know Cleon? What are you-“

“I am Florous. We had a hot night. Well, as you can see, he’s half-demon, but I’m on his side. They are hostile to Ishtal.”

“A hot night!?”

When Beatrix responded with a screaming voice, Quon let go of the handle of the Galatine in his hand and spoke to Flarous.

“…Are you really acquainted with Cleon?”

“Of course. I’ve met Ruba and Princess Amelia before. Will you believe me if I say this?”

“If you know about Princess Amelia… I can believe it.”

At Beatrix’s words, Kuondo and Sasha also nodded her head.

“Ah… But, I got to see a familiar face. I never thought you were together.”

And Floraus puts his hand on his chin and chuckles.

He had an eyepatch on his eyes, but his gaze was undoubtedly behind Sasha.

Lilim, who shrank from there, held her breath and gazed at Florous with a fear-filled gaze.

“… Lilim… ? Do you know each other?”

“Should we say that we know each other… ? Should I call it a colleague? I was originally a member of Astarote, and I came from the Empire along with Lilim and Ishtal. However, that lilim seems a bit different from the lilim I know… First of all, I’m not a demon.”

“… A lot of things happened. … Anyway, there must be a reason for calling us this way, right?”

When Quon says so, and she still doesn’t let down her guard against Flous, she nods her head.

“Right now, going up here is not recommended. A very, very big deal came to Princess Amelia. If you get caught up in that ordeal, I’m sure you won’t be safe either.”

“—But, Cleon is on top… “

“Same goes for Cleon. I got caught up in it and got into trouble. Well, don’t worry about that part. His fate her will not end here.”

Floraus scratches his head while talking to the others who are still not relieved after hearing his words.

“What you guys have to do is… We are preparing to leave this capital from now on. After the above incidents are sorted out, you won’t be able to leave this royal road normally.”

“…What the heck is going on up there-“

As Quon puts her hands on her chest with a worried face, Flous talks.

“It would be better to hear her explanation of her, not me.”

“… She? Are you talking about Lilim?… She has her memories of her and her self as a demon sealed away. I don’t think she will be able to answer our questions-“

At Beatrix’s words her, Flarous closed her mouth for a moment before opening it.

“No. She’s up early. Right? Lilim.”

“… “

Instantly, everyone’s eyes turned to Lilim.

Then, Lilim stood behind Sasha, as if her frightened appearance her was a lie, she slowly straightened her back and ran her hair through her hands.

“… Yes, what is it? Yes. … She must have noticed. Flarous.”

“… Oops… ! Lilim!?”

And, somehow, Lilim’s expression was calmer than usual.

Seeing her face her, Sasha, somehow fighting with them in the village of Crystal Gorge-

She feels similar to ‘Lilim’ before she lost her memory of her, so she has a bad feeling about it.

“Sorry. Sasha. If possible, she wanted to continue playing Lilim, who lost her memory of her…”

Sasha felt deeply betrayed by her words, and clenched her trembling hands into fists.

“… Lilim. What the hell is going on?”

When Quon asked such a question to Lilim, she trudged forward and quietly opened her mouth while standing between Florous and her party her.

“A flower… It’s been smoked. It will dye the sacred soul black and bring great chaos to the world… A crystal flower.”

Quietly and in a clear voice.

I could n’t help but stare at her talking to her party in silence.