ch1-ch20 · 013-ch12

Chapter 12

Present. Shinjuku Tower, floor 7.

Kuri Mio was struggling, surrounded by a swarm of Gray Wolves.

"Tch...!"

She still had magical power left, and if she took them down one by one, she could manage somehow.

But she'd twisted her ankle.

When she fell through the pit trap, she hadn't landed properly.

And to make matters worse, the gun rod — a mage's weapon she'd spent a fortune on — was broken.

It was a magic wand designed to fire spells like a gun, but now it just made a pathetic puff sound and barely functioned. This was bad.

She had a feeling she wouldn't last long enough to reunite with Hiyori on floor 8 and escape.

"Fire Wall!"

She shouted and formed a wall of flames — a Fire Wall.

While the Gray Wolves recoiled, she generated magic bullets and fired.

One hit a Gray Wolf, but it only grazed it and didn't seem to do much damage.

Her mind screamed at her not to panic, but the panic was overwhelming.

Is Hiyori okay? How much longer can my magic hold out? I can't escape. What do I do? How much mana do I have left? These Gray Wolves are annoying with their coordination. I want to get to Hiyori. I can't escape. What do I do? Should I call out to Hiyori for help? She was fighting goblins. There were Redcaps too — higher-ranked goblins. If I called for help, it'd break Hiyori's concentration. That'd be even more dangerous.

"Hiyori! I'm fine!"

She ended up shouting that out loud.

If Hiyori was still near the pit trap, she might have heard.

Yes, she was still fine. She was fine. She was fine, because...

...It was frustrating.

Why had she fallen into that pit trap? She knew there was a pit trap there. She was supposed to be paying attention. Why had she immediately tried to fight the goblins that came out of the hidden door?

She'd never heard that so many goblins could pour out of a hidden door like that.

Frustration and regret gnawed at Mio.

The pack of Gray Wolves was annoying. One would posture like it was about to bite, then not attack, while another wolf would try to strike. They were all growling from every direction, yet they predicted her counterattacks and refused to commit to a big move.

They were waiting for the moment Mio's spirit broke, the moment her tension slipped.

Even though Hiyori might be in more danger, they were making her panic.

"Get out of my way!"

Out of anxiety, she fired a gatling-like stream of fire magic bullets. A ridiculous number of magic bullets. She took down one, but the remaining Gray Wolves were perfectly fine.

Should I call for a rescue? How would I even call in this situation?

She couldn't calmly send out a rescue alert with enemies right in front of her, ready to attack.

Death.

She felt the possibility of it.

A single Gray Wolf was no big deal, but here — in a room the size of a closet — forming a pack and attacking while disrupting her focus, they were truly troublesome.

She'd thought she was used to rough combat from fighting demons, but demons and Gray Wolves fought differently. The demons Mio had faced before didn't have this kind of intelligence.

One small misjudgment could seal her death.

Strange sweat poured out in buckets.

A terror she'd never felt before tormented her.

Her skin broke out in goosebumps.

"...Somebody..."

A small cry from her heart.

She couldn't ask Hiyori for help.

Then other adventurers. There had to be plenty of adventurers on floor 7.

That's right! If she called out loudly for an adventurer...!

"Somebody......!"

At that moment.

The Gray Wolves attacked Mio as she tried to shout.

They'd keenly sensed the instant Mio's spirit broke.

A Gray Wolf sank its fangs into her leather gauntlet.

Mio was knocked down, pinned.

The next moment, other wolves bit into both her legs. It hurt.

"No...! No...! S-someone... Hiyori!"

She tried to raise her voice, but couldn't get the sound out properly.

The Gray Wolves were using their bodies to pin down the fallen Mio.

Just as the pain threatened to drive her mad —

A loud crash. The door to the room was blown apart.

The Gray Wolf near the entrance was taken down instantly.

"I'm here to help!"

A middle-aged adventurer entered the room.

The Gray Wolves lunged at the sudden intruder.

But the adventurer mowed them down without breaking a sweat.

It was over in an instant. The pack of Gray Wolves that had given her so much trouble was wiped out in a flash by the middle-aged adventurer's attacks.

Mio watched the scene, dumbfounded.

The middle-aged adventurer, having wiped out the Gray Wolves, approached Mio.

"We can talk later. Can you stand... nah, don't push yourself. Drink this."

He said that and handed her a low-grade recovery potion.

Before drinking it, Mio had to tell the adventurer in front of her something.

Her partner. Hiyori was still fighting alone on floor eight.

"Th-there's something more important..."

The middle-aged adventurer was staring at the large hole opened in the ceiling.

"It's fine, I've heard the story. Sorry, but I'm going to be rude."

He princess-carried Mio.

"Huh?"

"Drink the potion, quick! And don't bite your tongue!"

Mio found herself being princess-carried by the old man who'd suddenly appeared.

It was so sudden she couldn't even process what was happening.

"Eh?"

And then, still holding Mio, the old man leaped toward the gaping hole in the ceiling — the pit trap.

"Whaaaaaaaaa——!?"

Ignoring Mio's scream, the middle-aged adventurer — Sai — arrived at floor eight. ◇ Ichijō Hiyori was frustrated.

"Man, I messed up..."

A swarm of goblins had appeared on floor 8. Normally, with her and Mio, this level of enemy was no big deal.

The prodigy of the Ichijō clan. The Ichijō clan's greatest masterpiece. A girl who possessed talent that was a cut above the rest among exorcists of her generation, and had been fighting demons since elementary school.

Her training and practical experience had honed her talent.

A gifted girl who steadily grew stronger, achieving results beyond what those around her had expected.

Her misfortune was that she'd never met a teacher who could teach her how to fight.

The level of the Ichijō clan — no, of Japanese exorcists as a whole — had declined as history progressed.

As the light of science illuminated the darkness of mystery, demons disappeared and evil spirits weakened.

In Japan, this weakening had apparently been happening gradually since the late Edo period.

And this weakening had in turn caused the exorcists' own abilities to decline.

As a result, in terms of pure combat ability, Ichijō Hiyori was already stronger than her grandfather, stronger than her father.

That couldn't be helped. Neither her grandfather nor her father had ever engaged in real combat before Shinjuku Tower appeared.

The world had been peaceful until Shinjuku Tower appeared.

Creatures called demons hadn't appeared at all.

Low-ranking evil spirits showed up occasionally, but they were the kind of beings that vanished if you exorcised them with a prayer.

They were barely even worthy of being called mysteries.

That was why exorcist techniques had withered, reduced to mere family lore passed down through books and oral tradition, talked about within the clan as "back in the day, there were techniques like this."

And now, phantoms and monsters ran rampant, and demons had begun to appear.

Shinjuku Tower had activated the mysteries.

As a result, the exorcist clans were being forced to rebuild.

Days of re-examining the orally transmitted techniques and putting them into practical use had begun.

Hiyori's grandfather and father studied desperately, pouring their efforts into training exorcists.

Countless hours and countless sacrifices were born.

There was no time to mourn the sacrifices. They couldn't afford to stop.

If they stopped, what awaited them was the end of Japan — or the end of the world.

If things kept going as they were, the sealing barriers would unravel, and the calamitous fox spirit, the hellish demons, the great demon of despair would revive.

They had to maintain the barriers for as long as possible.

They had to grow stronger, even a little, to oppose the demons.

That was the mission imposed on the Ichijō clan — on all of Japan's exorcists.

And now.

A girl who, before she'd even entered middle school, had more combat power than any other exorcist in the Ichijō clan. Ichijō Hiyori.

And her partner, recruited as her teammate — an extraordinary rough diamond of the same generation. Kuri Mio.

The two said to bear the future of Japan's exorcism on their shoulders.

That was what they were called. And yet, to put it simply, it was just a pit trap. A mere pit trap had caused Hiyori and Mio's pair to fall apart.

They'd noticed the pit trap.

But they'd never imagined so many goblins would pour out of a hidden door.

As a result, her partner Mio had fallen into the pit trap, and now things were like this.

There was no one in the Ichijō clan who could polish the pure gem of supreme talent.

Even if she was called the greatest masterpiece, she was still a blade before the forging. No one possessed the skill to hammer and forge that blade.

The performance ceiling was what had led to failures like this.

"Hiyori! I'm fine!"

Trusting Mio's words from floor 7 below, she kept cutting down the goblin swarm one after another.

She wanted to follow Mio down to floor 7 right now, but if she did, the goblins would chase after her too.

The monsters Mio was currently facing seemed to be wolves. She could hear them howling occasionally.

She could hear the sounds of Mio, a back-line mage, fighting alone.

She wanted to rush to Mio's side. But if she did, the goblins chasing her and the wolves on that floor would create a chaotic melee, which would be even more risky.

The Hobs and archer goblins were a pain.

And to make things more troublesome, even a Redcap — a strong enemy of floor 8 — was here.

How much longer could Mio hold out? If her spirit didn't break, Mio should be fine.

And so, she finally finished clearing out the surrounding goblins.

All that remained was the Redcap.

The most troublesome one.

Just as she thought about taking it down quickly, a loud explosion came from below the pit trap.

A shouting voice. She couldn't make it out clearly, which only made her more anxious.

I need to finish this fast and get to Mio!

Hiyori steeled herself, treating this as the critical moment.

"...Mist Three-Stage!"

She unleashed the Mist Three-Stage — a recreation of an Ichijō technique using a mana-infused Skill.

The original "Mist Slash" was a technique that kept the opponent from reading whether the attacking hand was the left or right, confusing them.

But this "Mist Three-Stage" was a finishing Skill that, by infusing it with magical power, unleashed slashes from three directions simultaneously — left, right, and overhead.

The Redcap's body was brutally slashed and it vanished.

Without even bothering to check the drops, Hiyori rushed toward the pit trap.

"Mio-chan!"

The moment she aimed for the pit trap — something emerged from it.

"Eh?"

What Hiyori saw next was her partner being princess-carried by an old man.

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Thank you for reading.

Today also marks a two-chapter update.

Another update is planned for 8 PM.

Thank you very much.