Chapter 5: Mage Tower (2)
―Crack!!
Boom!!
Block.
Deflect.
Crush.
Slice through.
The failed products of dark arts kept revealing themselves one after another.
But Roan's advance did not stop.
‘I'm busy. So busy. I need to move faster.’
What filled his eyes was impatience and anticipation.
Burst slime, blood-soaked puppets, and everything else.
A quiet stillness trailed in the wake of wherever he swept through.
"Hah… hah…"
Velrog, trailing behind him, suddenly felt a sense of unease.
‘Why isn't he shaken? Everyone who came in here was shaken…’
"Please keep up."
Not even his breathing falters.
Not even a moment to think.
Just keeping up with those footsteps was an effort in itself.
***
Floor 5, Floor 6, Floor 7.
An unknown monster appeared on each floor, but none of them posed any threat to Roan.
―KABOOM!!
Groargh…
A monster's head split open, and stillness filled the space.
In that brief gap, Velrog finally managed to open his mouth.
"What exactly are you?"
"Out of nowhere?"
"You're using a shield, but you're not fighting in the imperial style or the kingdom's style. And yet you're handling these things so easily."
Velrog pointed to the faintly writhing mass.
"This monster was a dark mage. With the inhibitions of its mind removed, it boasts monstrous strength and mana. It's a creature that even the capable fighters of the Mage Tower can't easily face."
Not praise—words laced with curiosity.
Roan shrugged with a smile.
"I'm embarrassed… it's been a while since someone said something like that to me."
"It's not praise—"
"But in the end, it's still human, isn't it?"
Roan's eyes went briefly clear.
As if recalling something from the past.
He swept that thought away at once and lifted his head again.
"Alright! Let's get going again!"
Footsteps resuming, as indifferent as ever.
"Ugh… not a moment's rest."
Velrog hurried along behind him.
***
Basement Floor 9.
Even the air began to change.
"Hss… hnn… hah…"
A wave of iron stench and crushing air pressed down.
‘This is… Floor 9.’
A labyrinth structure tangled deep like the roots of a desert plant.
The ferocious energy that had been felt with each descent now wrapped around his entire body.
It seemed to make the despair all the greater.
Regardless, Roan simply looked around as if searching for a path.
In the brief moment of being allowed to breathe—
"Wait. What's that?"
Velrog narrowed his eyes at Roan's shield.
The center of the shield.
The pale gemstone set there was giving off a faint light.
"Huh? What's this."
No matter how Roan swung the shield around, it pointed in only the same direction.
The sight of it, as though guiding a path.
‘…What was it again? A gemstone that drives away malice and darkness, was it?’
The blacksmith's words suddenly flashed through Roan's mind.
He wasn't one to blindly trust others' words, but with no other plan, there was no harm in trusting it.
‘Let's follow it for now. I was going to search everywhere anyway.’
Having made his judgment quickly, Roan moved his feet in the direction of the light.
As he walked, the light grew stronger.
A flashing light, as if to say ‘It's here! The strongest one is here!’
And at that moment—
KABOOM!!!
A monster burst through a wall and appeared.
An enormous body with countless heads tangled together.
A mass stained with malice and wailing.
Crack crack.
Aaahh…
Having shattered the wall and instantly restored its broken bones, the thing stared at them with what must have been several pairs of eyes.
"Ugh… uggh…"
The moment that gaze landed on him, every shred of Velrog's will crumbled.
That was the level of pressure it exerted.
"…A nightmare."
Overwhelming strength, size, regeneration, and brimming mana.
A despair in which he couldn't so much as lift a finger.
It approaches. No—it charges.
It raises that enormous arm.
Ah.
He's going to die.
―Clang!
"Hah…"
Breath returned.
Velrog, clutching his pounding heart, looked at what was before him.
Roan was there.
He had received that enormous arm alone.
An unwavering stance and a shockwave that hadn't detonated outward.
The 2 legs planted into the ground seemed to say ‘you can relax.’
"Hss!"
―Slash!
A counterattack.
In a single blow, the monster's arm was cut clean off.
"Good grief…"
But the severed arm regenerated immediately.
Into a stronger, more vicious form.
Continued battle.
An attrition war unfavorable to a human.
A repetition of despair.
Even so, Roan's face was calm.
As if he wanted this—as if urging it to keep going—he threw himself into defense.
"Wh-what are you doing! Give up if you can't do it! If you make an opening, I'll use a teleportation scroll—"
"What do you mean, can't. I'm having the time of my life right now."
Unshaken.
Not even his voice.
"Because."
―Thrust!!
His sword plunged into a specific point on the mass.
The monster's core—which he had identified by receiving its attacks.
Crack!
With the sound of something shattering, the creature's body slowly began to dissolve.
"It's been proven that the path I chose wasn't wrong."
He pulled out the sword he had driven in.
"Done."
With that brief declaration, the Floor 9 amalgamation fell completely silent.
A victory alone, undisputed.
―Clatter.
"There it is! I figured the strongest one would have it!"
Roan picked up what had fallen to the ground.
His voice was so light it was hard to believe he had just been fighting a nightmare.
"This is it, right? The mana crystal."
"It… it seems so. It appears the experimental subjects all clustered around this as a focal point."
"Oh no…! That was dangerous then! If I'd shattered this instead of the core…"
"…But what I saw with my own eyes won't disappear."
Having said that, Velrog quickly turned his back.
It seemed he wanted out of this space.
"Alright then, let's go report. Even Debbie Jane will have to acknowledge this when she sees it."
But instead of an answer, something was pressed into his hand.
"…Why are you giving this to me?"
"I still have things to do here. Please go and deliver it for me."
"You still have things to do?"
"Yes. I need to find Floor 10."
Floor 10?
Velrog didn't know much about Floor 10 or the annihilation. What he had been told by Jane was simply to accompany whoever was going to retrieve the crystal from Floor 9.
But he didn't bother pointing that out.
He had seen the ability with his own 2 eyes.
"…Understood. I'll go and report for now. Just in case, I'll take your location."
Velrog agreed, cast a spell on the collar of Roan's clothes, and stepped back.
All that remained was Roan alone.
After briefly looking around the labyrinth that had gone quiet in an instant, he tapped his shield.
‘Any more reaction? Or maybe it hasn't appeared yet?’
The heretics of Basement Floor 10.
The seed of annihilation—gathering and offering sacrifices to open the gate to another world.
In truth, even though he had returned, Roan didn't know the exact date.
That was why he had gathered newspapers with burning eyes.
He had come based on the testimony from back then—’they were growing their power on Basement Floor 10’—so perhaps right now they weren't there yet—
"Hm?"
It wasn't that the light wasn't coming.
It had been emitting a faint light all along.
‘This thing is really coming in handy.’
This is why a person needs to do good deeds.
Having finished the thought inwardly, Roan followed the light and moved his feet.
***
And then, Floor 10—the one not exposed to the outside.
‘It's small.’
Unlike Floor 9, which had branched out like the limbs of a tree, this was a narrow space.
A cave-like space that someone had forcibly hollowed out.
At its center, a black crystal mass was beating like a heart.
Thud.
Thud.
A vibration too slow to be a heartbeat spread outward.
‘Certain.’
An incomplete seed.
Unable to swallow the surrounding air, it was spitting it back out and trembling faintly.
Within that vibration, a faint whisper reached Roan's ears.
"A sacrifice…"
"It will open… soon…"
‘What nonsense.’
Open soon, indeed. It's about to be closed right now.
The heretics murmuring away without even knowing he had arrived, and the black crystal.
The very moment he tightened his grip on his sword to shatter both of them at once—
―Flash!
A burst of light spread from behind him.
It fully illuminated the dark interior before vanishing, and through that gap, 2 people appeared.
"…It was real."
Velrog, who had left first, and—
"Ha, so it wasn't a bluff after all?"
Debbie Jane.
She had heard from Velrog and rushed here.
"Hey, move."
And then she said that.
An imperious command.
Those words, identical to her personality in his previous life, curved Roan's lips into an arc.
"Of course! I'll leave it to you!"
Feeling the nostalgia of the past, Roan dropped sharply into a low stance.
―KRABOOOOM!!!!
Over him, a beam of near-white scorching flame.
Compressed and fired, it swallowed the 2 dumbfounded figures and the black crystal whole.
The seed of annihilation, reduced to ash without even managing a scream.
"Tch, they went down without any resistance. Pathetic."
Debbie Jane, dusting off her hands, looked at Roan. He had already raised his head and was looking at the scene the magic had swept through.
"Hmph, you're impressed, aren't you? You've never seen magic like this before."
Debbie Jane, ready to puff out her chest at Roan's admiration and flattering words.
But the reaction that actually came back was a dull one.
"Huh… yeah."
"What? That's your reaction even seeing this magic? Be more impressed!"
It couldn't be helped.
Because the Debbie Jane of his previous life had been the completed version.
Thick beams that melted even dragon scales, a colossal fireball large enough to devour the sun.
‘…But she ended up being devoured by the annihilation in the end.’
Roan, briefly silent as he recalled old memories.
Misreading that expression, Debbie Jane ground her teeth.
***
After the commotion passed and the Mage Tower found peace again.
Roan was now in Jane's study, watching her actions.
Jane, who had been turning the mana crystal over and examining it, rolled it across the desk as if it were useless.
"Already completely drained. It seems that amalgamation you dealt with used it all up."
"What a shame. If this had been intact, it would have helped you a little."
Clicking his tongue as if disappointed, Roan followed it up with a bright remark.
"Still, we're companions now! We'll be able to find plenty of these!"
"…You've been saying that since the first time I saw you."
Grumbling, Jane looked down at the crystal.
Then a brief silence.
After thinking over something several times, she finally nodded.
"Alright. Fine. I'll come along. Going by how you retrieved this, your abilities seem quite useful."
"Huh? Really?"
"It's because I want to join, so don't get the wrong idea."
The exact same manner of speaking as his previous life.
Another wave of relief washed over him.
"Drop that irritating expression. So what are we doing next?"
At Jane's question, Roan nodded straight away.
"We need to find the next companion."
"Who? And why are you gathering companions in the first place? Isn't the annihilation you keep talking about over with this?"
"No."
There was still a long way to go.
Because every incident that had taken the lives of his 6 companions had been a seed of annihilation.
Roan traced back his memories for a moment.
"The Elfordo Knights."
Then he put that name to his lips.
"…What? That order was already annihilated."
"They're a member of that order."
More precisely, someone who had been living as a wandering knight after the order was destroyed.
"But before that, there's something that absolutely has to be done."
Having said that, Roan pointed at Jane.
"What. Fire magic?"
"No, your abilities. Right now you're too weak."
"…Do you want to die?"
The Mage Tower's prodigy.
Master of flame magic.
Debbie Jane, who had been treated as such and was brimming with pride.
A vein rose on her forehead.