ch41-ch60 · 058-ch50

Chapter 50 — Shadow Mystery Tale ②

After being teleported to Kakuriyo, Sai and the others began their exploration.

Mio was the first to notice something off.

"What is this... I feel like magical power is surging through me."

"Yeah, that's the mana in the atmosphere. There's a lot of it."

"Is that so?"

"I don't have definite proof, but take a look at that tree."

Sai pointed in a direction where an unusual tree grew.

Its silhouette resembled an ordinary broadleaf tree, but its coloring had a reddish tint.

Not the red of autumn leaves, though.

To Mio, an ordinary person, it looked unsettling.

"See that. When there's a lot of magical essence, plants change too."

"Magical essence?"

"Just think of it as a component in the atmospheric mana. When magical essence is abundant, things start to transform."

In truth, Awakening and monsterization were both caused by this magical essence.

The laws of physical science were distorted by the 'demon' element.

"Hexaria, how's the magical power feeling? Can you put out some strength?"

"Not bad compared to the present world. I should be able to fight. The excess of magical essence is annoying, but... either way, against the Shadow-Eater, it shouldn't be a problem."

As a High Elf, Hexaria possessed vast reserves of magical power, but conversely, when atmospheric mana was low, she couldn't fully exert her strength.

Compared to the other world, she could only put out about half her true power.

Mio had heard that Hexaria couldn't go all-out on Earth, but it seemed it wasn't simply a matter of having enough atmospheric mana to draw on.

Mio suddenly recalled a lesson about engines she'd learned somewhere before.

An engine, in simple terms, converts the force generated by mixing and compressing fuel like gasoline with air and igniting it into power.

In this case, Hexaria was the engine, magical power was the fuel, and atmospheric mana was the air... something like that image.

The magical essence in the air was interfering with the mix, making compression inefficient... that kind of logic. Whether it was a problem with the combustion itself or damage to the engine called Hexaria — she couldn't say for sure.

As she was thinking about this, Ginreibo the crow, who had been scouting the area from the sky, returned.

"Sai-dono, Hexaria-sama. I've found the location!"

"What did you find?"

"It seems to be... the Minato ward or Shinagawa area, in present-world terms."

"I see. So if we head north or northwest, we should be near where the Shinjuku Tower is."

Sai organized the map in his head.

The present world and Kakuriyo had somewhat similar terrain, but everything didn't match exactly.

The present world had more reclaimed land than one might expect.

As Sai recalled, areas around Chuo Ward and Koto Ward had a lot of reclaimed land, and even the Arakawa area's river course was different now from the old days.

Land reclaimed in the present world wasn't necessarily reclaimed in Kakuriyo.

But even in Kakuriyo, there was something that matched the present world.

The Shinjuku Tower.

When in Kakuriyo, Kinya and the others had said they came to the present world "to investigate Shinjuku Tower." So Sai was betting there should be something that served as evidence of that.

"Saria, can you sense where the Shadow-Eater is?"

"It's not precise with all this magical essence, but it's to the north."

Sai's detection ability was short-ranged, but within its range, he could perceive things quite precisely. On the other hand, Hexaria's detection was rougher compared to Sai's, but her search range was more than double his.

So if she was pointing north, the Shadow-Eater was probably to the north right now.

"However, if that thing hides in the shadows, even my detection won't work. I'll keep scanning, but don't expect too much."

"Of course."

Right. While the Shadow-Eating Demon King lurked in the shadows, all detection techniques became completely useless.

It seemed to be awake now, probably for feeding, but once it was full, it would hide in the shadows again.

"Alright, let's check Shinjuku Tower first, then head north from there."

Everyone nodded at Sai's direction.

"By the way, I'd like to confirm something... are we going to proceed like this?"

Among them, Ginreibo spoke tremulously.

Sai and Hexaria, on the other hand, were completely unconcerned.

"That's the plan."

Right now, in order to teleport, they needed to deceive the world, so they were pretending to be "spirits."

Up close, it would be clear they weren't spirits, but their presence was made to seem like spirits.

"But to low-rank demons, spirits are food... the finest prey!"

Hiyori, who had been concentrating all five senses, noticed something, cutting off Ginreibo's cry.

"Something's coming this way!"

"Perfect timing. The demons found themselves a delicacy called spirits and came crawling."

A huge crowd of ogres was teeming not far away.

Some of them were demons Hiyori had never even seen in the present world.

Even Hiyori and Mio, who had fought through the Shinjuku Demon Frontline, were overwhelmed by the numbers.

Hexaria spoke to the two pale-faced girls.

"Hiyori, Mio. Isn't this wonderful? Time for some training."

"Eeep!?"

"Come now. If you don't want to be tonight's dinner, fight!"

Both Hiyori and Mio had braced themselves for combat when coming to Kakuriyo.

But they never imagined they'd have to fight this many demons at once.

"Hehe, Hiyori. You know, once this adventure is over, I'm going to confess my feelings..."

"Mio-chan, what's with that death flag!?"

What was Mio saying at death's door like that?

And so, their first battle in Kakuriyo began. ◇ Demonic ogres came in many varieties.

Some were of low intelligence, others were sly and cunning.

Most had a human-like skeleton as their base, but some, like the ushioni, had spider-like bodies, and there were even horse-types.

Generally, the only thing that made an ogre an ogre was that "its head was that of an ogre."

Thinking such thoughts, they continued fighting for several tens of minutes.

Sai and Hexaria were invisible but seemed to be fighting nearby — the sounds of magic bullets exploding and impacts could be heard.

Hiyori and Mio fought back-to-back, covering each other's blind spots.

"I think I'm starting to get the hang of this."

Hiyori cut down a nearby ogre as she spoke to Mio.

"You have to kill them efficiently with minimal effort or you can't keep up."

"That's... hah! You might be right... hmph!"

Mio fired a holy-attribute magic bullet at a distant ogre and smashed her staff-type magic wand into a nearby one.

"But I don't have as much stamina as Hiyori..."

Thanks to that, she felt like she'd been wasting magical power needlessly.

"Hiyori, Mio! A giant rat is heading your way!"

Having lost his power, Ginreibo was acting like a proper crow — scouting from above, identifying enemies, and relaying information.

For an adventurer, it would be better to enhance their five senses and find enemies themselves, but with such a prolonged battle, Hiyori and the others didn't have that luxury.

So Ginreibo had taken it upon himself to do the scouting.

"Something like an iron rat, huh!"

A large rat in a kimono charged toward Hiyori and the others.

It supposedly had iron teeth and could use magic too.

"Mio-chan, I need backup from behind!"

"Yes!"

Hiyori charged toward the giant rat.

Mid-charge, the rat fired a fire magic bullet at her, but Hiyori didn't even try to dodge.

The arrow-deflecting necklace she'd borrowed from Sai sent the magic bullet flying in a random direction. She'd borrowed it last year and tried to return it, but Sai told her "Demon extermination is important work, so keep it." And indeed, in this chaotic battle, it was proving incredibly useful.

Thanks to that, she could close in on the giant rat without wasting unnecessary stamina.

"Soul-Shattering Flash!"

Since it was a mid-rank demon, Hiyori used her ultimate technique and took down the giant rat in one blow.

Once the extermination was done, she immediately returned to Mio's side and took out the ogres surrounding her.

Ginreibo flew closer to Mio as well.

"Are you alright, Hiyori, Mio?"

"This is way less stressful than when I fought you!"

Hiyori shouted as she kicked away a smaller ogre.

"That's right. Back then, we had no help. Compared to that, now we have Sensei with us."

During the Shinjuku Demon Frontline, both Hiyori and Mio had gone through a terrible ordeal.

About three months had passed since then, and compared to that time, this wasn't so bad.

Physically it was exhausting, but that was it.

Even now, the sounds of battle could be heard nearby.

The sounds of Hexaria's magic processing demons.

The sounds of Sai's strikes hitting demons.

As expected, it couldn't be compared to that time. Having their teachers Sai and Hexaria nearby was a source of reassurance for young adventurers like Hiyori and Mio.

"Not that I'm planning to rely completely on Sensei, though!"

With that, she cut down another approaching ogre.

After fighting nonstop for a good while, the ogres finally stopped coming.

It looked like it was going to be a pretty hard adventure, but Hiyori and Mio were satisfied with the experience they'd gained — the kind you couldn't get from ordinary adventures.

Thank you for reading.