Chapter 11: Ruins of Visitor (part five)

  It was my first time to experience Pass Wall. So, my body penetrated the wall, and the feeling of passing through the wall was an unknown and incomprehensible sensation— No, wait……There was something similar to this sensation, what was it?   The memory of my previous life revived in my mind. At a very common tavern and a bento shop, I experienced a sensation similar to this magic.   (—Oh, it is a short curtain¹.)   Should it be said that it was a sensation of going through a lot of whole-sized curtains in a passage of about three meters. There was an approximate experience where I didn’t expect it.   (What exactly is fantasy…Ah, but this is surprisingly fun.)   The effect time of Levitation was sufficient. The sign for the end of the effect was that the diameter of the magic circle around our foot had become about half the size. Before the magic circle stopped supporting our body, I swung the wand again.   “Perhaps, isn’t it better for us to exit the Ruins of Visitor by passing through the walls, so that we wouldn’t use too many wands?” “It’s risky.” “Why?” “Outside of the Ruins of Visitor are considerably thick rocks. If we made a mistake in estimating the depth and couldn’t pass through the rocks during the effect time…” “We would be squeezed inside the rocks. That’s wretched.” “It is. Moreover, even if we successfully passed through the rocks, the outside of the Ruins of Visitor is mostly the sea. If our escape angle is wrong…” “We would drown. That’s wretched.” “It is. I don’t want to increase any more bizarre cause of deaths.” “More what?” “Oops! About this. Please don’t mind it.” “Erica, you……”   I looked away in a hurry. I was about to carelessly mouth off the collection of bizarre deaths of Erica, the villainous lady. He wouldn’t understand my previous life knowledge in every sense. It should rather be left unsaid that there was a story in the game about what happens when you failed at teleporting².   Somehow, from Klaus, I felt like I was being seen with eyes like watching a painful child. ……Harsh.   With such a situation, we had explored each layer at ultra-high speed even when there were trivial and personal failures. While we were exploring using the Pass Wall, Ann finally began to appear in Urd Sight. They were nothing more than images of a time that had passed. Even if we tried to follow her past footprints, we would be obstructed by the wall immediately because of the labyrinth which had already changed.   However, it seemed that some of Klaus’ worry eased a little. Thanks to the confirmation of Ann’s moving figure. I wanted to meet the real Ann quickly. When I thought about the sad future where those siblings would be separated by death, my heart felt painful.   “Wait, Erica. There is something.”   We were about two layers down from where the simple base camp was. Klaus extended his hands to shield me and glared at the end of the passage.   “Eh……” “Sounds of something being dragged on the floor shake the air slightly. I wonder if it was a monster or a beast that broke away from your older brother.”   Eh, a monster? Wait a moment, I had been preparing for a battle, but my heart wasn’t ready yet for the actual battle. If I listened carefully, I could hear faint fricative sounds were steadily getting closer. Should we run away?   “Don’t make a sudden move. Stay behind me.” “Oh, yes.”   Klaus kept me behind his back and held his staff at the height of his waist. What should I do, I had to help him. What wand should I use? Offensive wands were on the right side of the belt……Aah, I didn’t take out the Wand of Hold!   “Don’t push yourself. Be ready to escape at any time.” “Eh, but–” “It is a man’s job to protect a woman. Your job is to calm down by taking a deep breath. On the battlefield, a friend who is panicking is scarier than the enemy.” “Fuh…haah…Klaus-sama is calm, aren’t you?” “I’m undergoing combat training and I’ve accompanied my father in hunting and deadly extermination.”   So the duke and his son went directly to get rid of evil spirits, huh. In the ancient royal family era, there was a story that said Harvan of the East was also the highest priest of the indigenous Sun God.   We saw a shadow of something wriggling in the passage corner. Klaus quickly got two spell cards from his bosom with his left hand and threw them toward the shadow and casted a few words of spell quickly. The thrown spell cards flew while expanding a magic circle, bursting open mid-air and emitted bright white lights. Light hit the upper right corner and the lower left corner of the passage – and diagonally shone the true form of the shadow.   “—A flock of moving bones!? And moreover, this number is…”   Various types of beasts bones were grouping together while being suspended mid-air. How many? Several tens of heads? Lots of bone chunks that couldn’t be counted were filling up the passage and drew near in a surge. That was the identity of what was illuminated by the magic of Light.   “They have enough Magic Resist to trick my Glam Sight……No, they are monsters with magical structures that I don’t recognize……, no, what are those!?” “Klaus-sama……” “Listen to me. When I give you a sign, run away and don’t look back. If you keep going straight using Levitation and Pass Wall, there should be a valid exit.”   Tension ran on the face of Klaus. After glancing towards me, he pulled out a bundle of hundreds of spell cards from his sleeve at once. No matter how much battle experience he had, no matter how much of a future genius mage he was, if those bones were undeads it would be inevitable—.   In fact, if we encountered such a huge number of undeads, it was a crisis of death. —However, looking at those figures, on the contrary, I was relieved.   “Klaus-sama, it’s alright.” “What!?” “That is the cleaning automaton that my older brother made, an acid hydrogel golem.” “—Ha!?”   Those were not undeads. The large amount of bones was floating inside a golem made of translucent jelly-like substances. Unlike the regular golem, he was not humanoid but a cube. He spread his flexible body all the way into the passage and performed cleaning by swallowing up every garbage without exception.   A few days before regaining memories of my previous life, I had seen prototypes of this in Onii-sama’s room. It was an appearance like an apple jelly that moved. I thought it was convenient, but I never thought that the real golem was so huge…… As expected, Onii-sama……it was on a different scale……   “The inside is strong acid, but the outside is made of gel. It’s said that it is a smart and safely designed golem that swallowed only carcasses and the expensive materials are protected with neutral ingredients.” “Why!! Why does your older brother put such a thing inside the labyrinth!?” “Because of the cleaning……Because there were so many monsters’ dead bodies, I think that the golem cleaned up bone remains to collect materials for alchemy.” “Eei! That’s so confusing!!”   That was exactly right. But, that was something you should tell Onii-sama directly, not me. Oops, I remembered important things.   “Ah, but, if we penetrated into him in this Pass Wall state, we would be killed instantly by the strong acid without being stopped by the outer shell.” “Kuh, Edward Aurelia……!!” “We may as well stop exploring for now.”   Edward-oniisama himself was a nice, gentle person. But regarding alchemy he had no mercy and would never go easy on other people, without that dangerous flaw he was a perfect person. If we kept going without noticing, would the white bones of me and Klaus also float over there?   Wait a minute, I just noticed it now but were my death flags all caused by Onii-sama? The star crystal necklace. A trap of death set in a storage box. And now the acid golem and Pass Wall scroll combo.   “Is everything okay, Erica, your eyes seem dead……?” “Oh, I’m alright, Klaus-sama.”   That was not good, I was about to get caught up in the darkness of my mind. I actually began to doubt whether the gentle Edward-oniisama was trying to kill me. Let’s put some more trust in other people, me.   Well, let’s keep going and stop the golem. If it was an ordinary golem made of earth, stone or metal, it would be difficult unless I was the maker. However, if it was a slow-moving golem made from translucent gel, I could stop it.   First of all, proceed to the front of the moving golem while trembling, observed his interior while holding a lamp. By using Glam Sight, I quickly discovered the core of the golem – a shard engraved with activated spells – among the countless bones. With this, I should be able to stop the movement of the golem. Huh? Near the shard, there was something floating—   “Klaus-sama, there is something familiar floating in the body of the golem.” “What do you recognize?” “That, over there, doesn’t it look like Ann-sama’s hair pin?”   Klaus stared at a certain point about one-meter high. What was floating there was a white material……It was probably an object made of porcelain or bone. The metal pin seemed to have melted, but the characteristic petal-like decoration remained intact.   “……!!” “Klaus-sama. It’s alright. Ann-sama shouldn’t be using the scroll of Pass Wall.”   Klaus tightly clasped the heart part of his clothes. He wore a painfully sad expression.   “Ann-sama is not inside. Surely, the golem was just picking up what Ann-sama has dropped.” “Oh, yeah…I didn’t see anything that seems like human remains. I know that. I’m fine.”   That said, he looked much paler than when we thought we were going to battle strong undeads. He didn’t seem to be alright. Although he was jumping to a wrong conclusion for certain, it was impossible not to be affected when it had something to do with the life and death of a blood relative.   Klaus was also a 10-years-old child, although he was getting stronger. The stress that was received by his mind was immeasurable. I hoped this clue successfully leads us to Ann.   “The acid may splash, let’s step back a little.”   While retreating, I took a Wand of Mage Fingers from my leather bag. The Wand of Mage Fingers was made of yew. At the end of the wand was an opal, and the handle was golden with a pattern of spider’s nest and legs. The core material was the foot of a giant spider³.   A little magic circle in the rainbow color surrounded the five fingers of my right hand like a ring after I shook the wand with my left hand. It was visible through the Glam Sight that the Mage Fingers made with magical power were formed inside the golem. I tried to open and close my right hand. —Alright, it moved. The Mage Fingers were opening and closing following the movement of my right hand.   If I could reach the core, stopping the golem was a simple work. Moved the Mage Fingers and grabbed the shard. From the characters of emet engraved there, I scraped one character with Mage Fingers and changed it to met.⁴ Soon the golem broke its shape like a boiling hot water and melted into the ground.   “I see, the death of an automaton.”   Klaus said with a strange expression. Certainly, if you lived in the East, it might be hard to see the collapse of the golem.   Rainbow colored magic circle on my right hand immediately gone. That was because of my emphasis on scraping the characters on the golem. Because of this delicacy, Mage Fingers could only be used for fine work.   The hundreds of beasts bones that were swallowed by the golem, the core of the golem, and the hair ornament were falling. I washed away the acid that adhered, and picked up the core of the golem. I had to return this to Onii-sama. Klaus too, he picked up the hair ornament that seemed to be Ann’s. It was a pretty hair ornament that imitate the flowers of eastern country with elaborate workmanship.   “I certainly remember this. The material also made of the horn of a unicorn that lived in the Harvan’s forest. I have no doubt that this is Ann’s.” “Then, Ann-sama passed by this point, wasn’t she?”   However, as soon as we were ten meters beyond the turning point we met a dead end. Both of us swung the Wand of Urd Sight.   I could see Ann Harvan’s back walking towards the end of the dead end. She noticed something and expressed a startle, then she started to run. Maybe because she was in a hurry, Ann didn’t notice that her hair ornament had fallen. I was certain that she saw the bones masses inside the golem.   A sigh of relief from Klaus was heard nearby.   “I have a feeling that we have neared Ann-sama, but the labyrinth is changing.” “It’s okay. Since we know the direction, we could use Pass Wall.” “Yes, Klaus-sama, let’s chase after her.”   There was some margin in the effective time of the first Pass Wall scroll. If we could join with Ann quickly, the three of us could escape together with the second scroll.   At least, we should catch up with her soon before the encounter with the sealed ancient evil spirit in the bottom layer!   We used Levitation, kicked off the air quietly and ran to the direction of Ann.

¹ 暖簾 (noren) is short curtain hung at shop entrances, or split curtain used to divide spaces in a house in Japan. ² I don’t really understand this sentence: テレポートに失敗するといしのなかに入ってしまうあのゲームの話なんて、言わずもがなだ。 but I think it’s referring to a game called Wizardry, where there is a teleporter’s trap which sent the party into a wall and caused instant death for the party. ³ Giant spider (大蜘蛛) here is the alternative name for Tsuchigumo, the name for a race of spider-like youkai in Japanese folklore. ⁴ In Jewish folklore, a golem is inscribed with Hebrew words on its forehead, such as the word emet (אמת, “truth” in Hebrew). The golem could then be deactivated by removing the aleph (א) in emet, thus changing the inscription from “truth” to “death” (met מת, meaning “dead”).