Chapter 8

Chapter 8.

"The final gate will take place in the 'Sanctuary.'"

Gugu's voice sank with gravity.

The playfulness was gone.

"The Sanctuary is originally a sacred place, but it is currently severely contaminated by corrupted spirits."

Corrupted spirits.

A tainted Sanctuary.

Words that reeked of decay just hearing them.

"Your mission is simple. Purify the Sanctuary. Whoever achieves the highest contribution will receive the top score."

Gugu added a warning.

"However, take heed. It is extremely dangerous. The corrupted spirits are ferocious, and the Sanctuary's very air will gnaw at your mind and rot your flesh."

No time limit.

But the longer you stayed, the closer death crept.

Above all.

"Until the Sanctuary is fully purified, there is no stopping midway. There is nowhere to run. If you wish to forfeit, now is your only chance."

Backs to the wall.

Die, or get it done.

The conditions were brutal, but not a single seed forfeited.

Anyone who'd back down after coming this far wouldn't have entered the tower in the first place.

"Very well. Then I wish you the best of luck."

CLAP!

The world flipped with Gugu's applause.

FWIIIIING!

Before the dizziness of the spatial transfer could even fade.

A stench slammed into my nostrils.

The smell of rotten eggs.

No — the smell of a corpse decomposing into mush.

"......Hm."

I frowned and surveyed my surroundings.

The sky was bruised a sickly violet, and the earth was dead black.

A forest of withered, skeletal trees standing like ghosts.

An endless, maze-like terrain.

And weaving through it all.

SKREEE!

GRRRRR.......

Monsters in the shape of dark crimson mist drifted about.

Corrupted spirits.

Even at a glance, the numbers were staggering.

Thousands? No — easily tens of thousands.

'They want us to purify all of this?'

Insanity.

By conventional means, this would be impossible even with years of effort.

That was when it happened.

"......Of all people."

A sigh from beside me.

I turned my head.

Someone was there.

Just one person.

'Random transfer, then.'

The five thousand-plus seeds must have been scattered at random.

The one who'd landed next to me was an elf woman.

She looked at me and scowled without pretense.

A gaze dripping with contempt.

Probably because I'd scored zero on the disaster aptitude evaluation.

She must have thought dead weight had latched onto her.

Instead of responding, I studied her face.

A cold demeanor.

Skin so pale it was almost white.

Her eyes were an icy, piercing blue, and her brows were white as snow.

Strapped to her back was a massive bow as tall as she was.

Strange markings engraved on the bow's limbs.

'That looks familiar.'

I'd seen it somewhere before.

Not simply because she was an elf.

That distinctive aura.

Cold yet razor-edged killing intent.

I searched my memory.

Humanity's final strike force.

When we'd staked our lives to climb the tower.

In that hellscape where we'd cut, stabbed, and burned countless enemies to death.

'Ah.'

It came back to me.

If you added a few more scars to that face.

If those eyes were steeped in just a bit more venom.

It was her.

"Frost Tribe?"

The elf woman flinched and glared at me.

"......How does the likes of you know my tribe?"

A sharp reaction.

Just as I'd thought.

Ordinary elves loved forests and preferred warm places.

But the Frost Tribe was different.

They were born and raised in lands of perpetual blizzards and bitter cold.

That made them far tougher, crueler, and more reclusive than other elves.

Above all.

'She was the mid-boss on the 50th floor.'

No doubt about it.

In the past, the tower's 50th floor.

The sniper who'd driven us to the brink of annihilation across a snowfield battered by blizzards.

Elusive stealth that appeared and vanished like a phantom.

The nightmare who'd popped our allies' skulls like watermelons with unerring arrows.

Far more formidable and relentless than the Floor Master of the 50th floor — that had been this woman.

'Seria.'

The name came back to me too.

The memory had been that harrowing.

"Whoa, whoa. Don't be alarmed. Your kind is just so rare that I'd heard of you, that's all."

I shrugged.

The elf didn't drop her suspicious gaze, but soon lost interest and turned away.

"......Just don't get in my way."

She drew her bow.

She hadn't even pulled the string, yet the air around us frosted over.

She seemed to have resolved to thoroughly ignore me, taking the lead and walking ahead.

The corrupted spirits sensed her presence and began to converge.

SKREEEEE!

Masses of black mist bared their fangs and charged.

Seria's eyes glinted cold.

FWIP! FWI-FWI-FWIP!

I couldn't even see her hands.

It was as if she'd skipped the motion of drawing the string entirely.

Three arrows flew simultaneously and embedded themselves between the spirits' eyes.

CRACK!

The frost imbued in the arrows detonated.

The corrupted spirits froze and shattered without so much as a scream.

Clean work.

She definitely showed the makings of the 50th-floor nightmare.

But I couldn't just stand around either.

The promise with Heimdal.

Overwhelming first place.

Simply passing wouldn't be enough.

Following that elf around scrounging for scraps wouldn't satisfy him.

I stopped walking and looked around.

'Purify the Sanctuary.'

Sounds nice on paper.

But they want us to beat down those tens of thousands of spirits one by one?

That's the worst possible approach.

A waste of time and stamina.

I needed to figure out the designer's intent.

The true purpose of this trial wasn't 'hunting' — it was 'resolution.'

In other words, head to the center of the Sanctuary and eliminate the cause.

On top of that.

'Are those spirits really corrupted?'

I narrowed my eyes.

My knowledge as a mage sensed something off.

Spirits are pure clusters of nature.

Unlike humans, their sense of self is faint.

It's exceedingly rare for them to corrupt themselves or harbor malice.

In most cases, a spirit's state follows the 'state' or 'intent' of its contractor.

'Then the answer is obvious.'

These tens of thousands of spirits.

Their mana wavelengths were connected as one, like fine threads.

A single contractor.

A massive being deep within the Sanctuary.

Because something had gone wrong with its mind — or because it had intended this deliberately.

Even its vassals, the spirits, appeared to have gone haywire.

'Besides.'

I observed their movements closely.

Until Seria had fired her arrows, they'd simply been circling the area.

They weren't aggressive.

If anything, they were defensive.

As if trying to frighten intruders away.

— Don't come.

— This place is dangerous.

That's what they seemed to be saying.

It was only after Seria's preemptive strike that they took on a murderous edge and counterattacked.

'What if I don't attack first?'

Once you form a hypothesis, you verify it.

I acted immediately.

SWOOSH.

I withdrew the mana I'd been cloaking myself with.

I erased my killing intent.

Purged my hostility, emptied my fighting spirit.

Complete disarmament.

In that state, I stepped toward the swarm of spirits.

"Are you insane?!"

Seria screamed in alarm.

To her eyes, I must have looked like a madman.

Walking into that vicious mist of his own volition.

But.

SWAAAA.

The instant my body touched the dark crimson mist.

The spirits parted.

They didn't attack.

No biting, no cursing.

They simply brushed past me.

As if I were invisible.

The reason was simple.

'Because I showed no hostility.'

They were guardians protecting the Sanctuary.

If an intruder showed no intent to attack, they had no reason to expend energy driving them out.

I turned around and waved.

"Good luck."

"......!!"

She couldn't follow me.

She'd already fired her arrows.

She'd drawn blood.

To the spirits, she was now a clear 'enemy.'

SKREEEEE!

"Damn it!"

Spirits surged toward Seria once more.

She spat a curse and had to resume firing her bow.

I left the commotion behind and strolled forward at a leisurely pace.

The mist was clearing.

***

I walked for a long time.

The Sanctuary appeared to be an endless maze on the surface.

But finding the way was surprisingly simple.

'Their gaze.'

If there was only one contractor for all the spirits.

The bound spirits would instinctively face the direction of their master.

Like sunflowers turning toward the sun, their awareness was always fixed on that point.

If I'd been hostile from the start, I never would have noticed.

Blinded by killing intent, I'd have missed their subtle movements.

But I'd treated them like air.

And thanks to that, I could see it.

The direction the spirits in the mist kept sneaking glances toward.

'This way.'

I walked without hesitation.

The mist cleared, the rotting trees disappeared.

And at last.

TAP.

The sensation underfoot changed.

No longer the squelching marshland.

Well-polished marble flooring.

I'd arrived.

First place, as expected.

I raised my head and scanned the area.

Then furrowed my brow.

'It's clean?'

Gugu had clearly said this was a contaminated Sanctuary.

But the scene before me was the exact opposite.

A temple without a speck of dust, pristine white.

Brimming with sacred energy.

Corruption? Contamination?

It was a sterile zone where not even an ant could be found.

I ventured deeper inside the temple.

Before long, I encountered a being.

"......"

Enormous wings.

Feathers so blindingly white they stung the eyes.

Floating in midair — an 'angel' straight out of mythology.

She hovered with her eyes closed.

As I approached, she slowly opened them.

Golden irises pierced through me.

[An unusual guest.]

The angel's voice resonated inside my head.

[You haven't harmed a single one of my children.]

Children.

She must have meant the mist spirits outside.

I felt relieved inwardly.

What if I'd killed even one spirit on the way here?

The fight probably would have started the instant I set foot in this place.

The problem was.

'She's strong.'

Absurdly strong, even at a glance.

Enough to make Angragon bristle on my shoulder.

Fighting someone like her alone would mean certain defeat.

Without relaxing my guard, I asked.

"Why were you blocking the way?"

The reason she'd used the spirits to cut off access.

The angel's expression darkened.

She looked behind her.

[This is a place none of you should have come to.]

Behind her.

At the deepest point of the temple, a pitch-black sphere roughly three meters in diameter hung suspended in the air.

A mass radiating a dreadful energy — the polar opposite of the sacred aura surrounding it.

[This is a prison.]

The angel gazed at the sphere with sorrowful eyes.

[Long ago, a god lost its mind and went mad. This is where it was sealed.]

A mad god.

The puzzle clicked into place.

The seeds fight through the spirits.

Having killed spirits, the angel rages and attacks the seeds.

If, after a vicious battle, the seeds kill the angel?

The guardian protecting the seal disappears.

'The designer's intent was to eliminate the angel.'

If it hadn't been, they'd have told us to help the angel kill the mad god from the start.

But instead, they'd used fear to goad us into attacking the spirits.

To make the angel hostile toward the seeds.

But why?

'Because killing the angel is the only way to swallow that sealed mad god.'

Gugu's real objective was the sealed mad god itself.

He wanted to recover it, most likely.

But.

'There's no need to play along.'

Following the intended path wouldn't earn me a high score.

Besides, I had no intention of killing the angel.

Why waste such a magnificent asset?

The answer, then, was simple.

I took a step toward the angel.

"Then all I need to do is eliminate the thing inside there."

[......What do you mean?]

I dropped my voice low and spoke with gravity.

"Noble one."

I looked the angel straight in the eyes.

"Let's kill the mad god in there together."

[......!]

The angel's eyes widened.

Not guarding the seal — killing the sealed being.

A proposal that defied common sense.

"It must have been hard alone, but with two of us, it's possible."

I pointed at the black sphere and smiled.

"Leaving something like that around only adds dead weight. Let's clean it up for good."

I was curious what was inside, too.

But the real reason was something else entirely.

'My right hand is itching.'

The golden rune embedded in my right palm.

Others wouldn't be able to see it, but to my eyes it was vivid.

A golden thread extending from the rune, reaching frantically toward that black sphere.

There was a disaster inside.

And a substantial one at that.

The angel's eyes wavered.

But soon, a faint smile spread across her lips.

[......Bold of you.]

She spread her wings wide.

Sacred light flooded the temple.

It wasn't a refusal.

[Very well. I shall follow the wishes of one who respected my children.]

A party had been formed.