Chapter 29
#Chapter 29 New Adventurer Bern (Bern) (27) - Lich
Meanwhile, after Bern deliberately sprang the trap, he was grinding down the forces that had been waiting there.
“Adventurers, stand still for now! Anyone who resists will be treated as a lich’s underling!!”
At the guild master’s declaration, the black-armband agents who had until then been focused on controlling the adventurers all lunged at several of the parties.
Guild Guard.
An armed force that represented only the guild’s own will, not commissioned adventurers.
When the guild’s blades, meant to restrain the adventurers, suddenly launched a surprise attack, the adventurers had no time to resist and could only tumble across the floor.
One of the dozen or so people who had been caught shouted, veins bulging in his neck.
“What the hell is this!! You guild bastards, have you all gone crazy!?”
“You’re the crazy ones. Did you think you’d get lenient treatment just because you’re the lich’s lackeys?”
“What the hell are you talking about!!”
“The lich’s disciple we already captured on our side has long since spilled everything. No point pretending you don’t know.”
At the guild master’s declaration, the eyes of the captured adventurers wavered wildly, and the other adventurers looked at them with shock and suspicion mixed together.
In truth, there was a bit of trickery in the guild master’s words.
It was true that the disciple Bern had captured had spilled everything he knew, but that did not mean he had identified every spy.
Thus, the guild publicly claimed it was carrying out a large-scale purge as if it knew nothing about the spies, while behind the scenes it also conducted surveillance and investigations on the key adventurers.
Before entering the dungeon, about seventy percent of the screening was already finished, and another twenty percent was filled in through their behavior inside the dungeon and their reaction to the trap just now.
The remaining ten percent.
To confirm that last ten percent, the guild master had been bluffing, saying, ‘I already know who you are.’
And the title of guild master was enough to make that bluff seem real to the culprits.
“Damn it!! Kill them all!!”
At the same time one of the trapped adventurers shouted, and jet-black mana surged from his body, blowing the black-armband agent away.
The other adventurers likewise scattered black mana and once again took up battle stances.
They flung attacks at the surrounding adventurers indiscriminately, and only then did the adventurers realize they were truly lich’s minions and hurriedly moved to intercept.
Kaang!
Puk!
“W-what is this, these guys, what power is this…!”
The adventurers who crossed blades with the lich’s disciples were horrified.
The adventurers here were all people who could at least use mana to reinforce their bodies as a matter of course, but the traitors wrapped in black mana were far stronger than that.
The black orbs tucked inside their robes continuously emitted ominous energy, strengthening the traitors’ bodies and mana.
If they had been caught in a trap, or had struck from behind when the battle was still tight, the damage would have been beyond measure.
But not now.
Thud.
Before anyone knew it, the guild master, who had come right up to the traitors’ noses, swung his sword.
With a casual slash, the warrior who had been showing off monstrous strength had his neck fly into the air.
The traitors screamed and raised their swords at the guild master, but he calmly kept up his attack regardless.
Sshhk!
There was nothing that could stand before the guild master’s sword.
Not in the sense that his movements were free, but in the literal physical sense.
When blades met blades, the blades were cut apart; when shields were raised, shield and man alike were split in two.
Like a martial artist who had reached the fourth tier and could wield sword aura to overwhelm those below him, the guild master’s aura, having reached the fifth tier, sliced through the traitors’ every attempt at resistance like tofu.
The mages, unable to watch any longer, tried to unleash attack spells even if allies might get caught up in them, but even that was not easy.
Fwoooosh!
“Ugh!?”
『Wood-Burning Magic』 was the most basic and, therefore, the weakest of attack spells.
But no matter how weak it was, few mages could calmly and coolly cast a spell when a fireball was flying straight for the face, the vital point of the human body.
While the other mages hesitated to cast because the battlefield had become a tangled mess, Blanca sniped the traitor-side mages with pinpoint accuracy without the slightest hesitation.
For her, who had continued training by crossing swords with Bern, this level of chaos wasn’t even enough to count as an obstacle.
The warriors’ formation collapsed at the guild master’s hands, and the mages couldn’t cast their spells in time because of Blanca’s sniping.
And that was the end of it.
They had tried from the beginning to offset their numerical and positional disadvantage with a temporary stat boost, but once even that boost stopped working, there was no way they had any chance of winning.
After subduing the traitors, the guild master tried to extract information about the lich and the captured victims from them, but he failed.
Because countless spikes burst out of the black orbs hidden in their robes and pierced the traitors through in an instant.
“...It seems they’re being watched from somewhere.”
Clicking his tongue and sweeping the dungeon with a fierce gaze, the guild master soon approached Blanca and bowed his head.
“Thank you. It was thanks to you that we were able to squeeze out the pus with minimal damage. However, as for your comrade—”
The guild master let the end of his sentence trail off.
Bern had volunteered to be the bait first, and the guild master had agreed, but the situation was a little troublesome now.
If it had been an ordinary physical trap or ambush, they would have sorted out the situation right away and sent a rescue team, but a spatial-transfer trap gave no guarantee that blindly following after him would lead to the same place, and it might even cost them their lives one by one.
The guild master was just as displeased at being unable to send even a single support unit to their top contributor.
But as the leader guiding all the adventurers, he also had the duty to ensure the safety of the entire team, so carrying out a reckless rescue operation was impossible.
Blanca bit her lip, but soon spoke.
“It’s okay. If it’s Bern, he’ll be fine, so let’s hurry. We have to press on before the lich comes up with a new trick beyond the traitors.”
As much as she wanted to follow Bern right this instant, before entering the dungeon he had told her not to worry even if he ended up acting separately, and to keep pressing on with the raid.
Blanca trusted Bern’s judgment more than her own feelings.
“Understood. I’ll handle the reward separately later.”
The guild master shouted to the adventurers.
“From here on out, we speed up! I’ll take the lead, so follow me!”
With no need to guard the rear against any possible emergency, the guild master personally stepped to the front and began carving a path.
Leaving aside the right-hand path, which had been the trap, the remaining options were left and center.
Some people stayed behind in front of the huge central door whose opening method was unknown to keep watch, while the remaining adventurers began moving down the left route, the one said to be swarming with enemies.
The undead blocking the way were strong, but the adventurers were stronger, and the traps that grabbed at their ankles were vicious, but not enough to rob veteran adventurers of their composure.
The deeper they went into the dungeon, the more brightly the adventurers’ eyes shone.
‘I still have plenty left in both stamina and mana. At this rate, we can hold out until we clear it!’
‘The lich is estimated to be fifth tier. It’ll be a little stronger fighting on its own turf, but we have the guild master too, so there’s definitely a chance.’
‘That our branch’s Grade 4 turned out to be a traitor was unexpected, but this is our chance. If our party can just take that position…!’
The usual adventurers who kept their heads down and disliked risk were nowhere to be seen.
Even if the motive was personal glory or profit, the adventurers were undoubtedly undertaking an ‘adventure’ in this very moment as they raced toward an unknown enemy.
Just like the heroes of the distant past that bards sing of.
However, they must not forget.
The reason heroes are called heroes and praised is… because many of them die before ever earning the title.
“—You noisy thieves.”
It was a low voice.
It wasn’t especially angry, nor tainted by resentment.
Just the sound of someone muttering softly to themselves.
But the adventurers who heard it all felt chills rise along their backs.
Because that tiny voice had come through so clearly.
As if it had been whispered right by their ears.
Front and back.
Left and right.
Without anyone knowing where it started, poisonous purple mist began seeping out from every corner of the dungeon.
The guild master squinted and shouted.
“Mages! Drive the mist back! Warriors, fall back so the mist doesn’t touch your skin!”
When the mages unleashed flames and gusts of wind, the purple mist’s momentum faltered for an instant.
Blanca did not miss that opening and rapidly unleashed 『Rock-Burning Magic』 toward the direction beyond the mist where she sensed a strong mana presence.
Boom!
Kwa-gwa-gwa-gwang!
“…Hoh.”
Through the gaps in the disturbed mist, the owner of this dungeon revealed itself.
Blanca held her breath.
The one who, in her childhood, had invaded her hometown.
The death mage who had taken Blanca’s precious family from her was gazing at her with eyes that gleamed with interest.
Just as Blanca had gone from a helpless girl to an adult, the lich had also changed somewhat in appearance.
Its once gray-white bones had been dyed a pale purple, and its head, once an ordinary human skull, had been grotesquely twisted in places and grown horn-like protrusions.
The lich. Before Mortius Barmore could say anything, the guild master charged at it.
He knew all too well that there was nothing more foolish than giving a mage too much time.
The knight exuding black mana at the lich’s side was troublesome, but the guild master paid it no mind.
After all, some sloppy sword aura like that wouldn’t be able to stop the aura he wielded.
Kaang!
However, as if to prove that certainty wrong, the guild master’s sword was blocked by the death knight.
Looking at the dull, oil-like mana clinging to the death knight’s blade, the guild master let out a low groan.
“Aura…!”
It wasn’t a true fifth-tier aura like the guild master used.
Rather, it looked like sword aura compressed to high density and treated somehow through magic.
The incomplete aura squeaked and chipped away every time it met the guild master’s sword, so if he were given just a little more time, the guild master would soon be able to overpower it, but the lich wasn’t about to sit back and watch.
From within the purple mist spread behind the lich, two new death knights emerged and rushed at the guild master.
When several upper-fourth-tier experts launched a joint attack without holding back, even the guild master had no spare attention to give anything else.
“What the hell, these things! My sword won’t cut through!”
“W-wait, my arms and legs are going numb…!”
“Don’t breathe the mist! Your body will go numb!!”
Meanwhile, the other adventurers who were supposed to back up the guild master were in just as bad a state.
The undead horde that appeared with the lich was stronger than before, and above all, the purple mist severely restricted their movements.
Cleansing the poison that had entered the body through body reinforcement wasn’t impossible, but fewer than ten percent of the adventurers here could do it.
Grit.
Blanca clenched her teeth.
The scene reminiscent of her past trauma erased the calm that had remained in her mind and blew it away.
-Fwoooosh!
The purple mist was erased and blown away by a wave of red flames.
Overwhelming firepower that covered an entire floor of the dungeon.
About half of the undead horde was swept away in one go, and the other half was exterminated by the adventurers whose movements had been freed.
The Grade 4 experts among the adventurers quickly advanced and pulled the death knights off the guild master.
The guild master, with small wounds accumulating all over his body, didn’t miss the opening they had created and charged the lich.
The lich tried to block the attack by making a wall of bones, but the sword imbued with blue aura sliced through that barrier like tofu and surged toward the lich.
Sshhk!
At last, the lich’s chest was cut wide open, and the orb at its core shattered.
Sensing that he had pierced the enemy’s core, the guild master was certain of victory, and the other adventurers also had joy in their eyes.
“…You insignificant things.”
A voice that sounded like a growl, as if it had been carved into space itself, sent a chill through them.
Right after Blanca shuddered at the ominous feeling, an enormous amount of mana gathered around the lich’s body.
And then, it exploded.
Kwaaaaaaang!
A torrent of thick curse and poison that could be felt even from far away.
The guild master, his entire skin turned black and blue as if from severe poison, lay thrown onto the floor, convulsing.
“What a pity, what a pity. Not only did you waste some of the sacrifice, but you even had to consume the heart I had treasured!”
The center of the explosion.
The purple mist gathered once more, slowly taking on a physical form.
A luxurious robe. A tasteless staff made from skulls and vertebrae. A grotesque skull with blue glowing eye sockets.
The only thing missing was the chest where the heart should have been, but even that was filled when something like a bizarre object, dense with mana, flew in from deep inside the dungeon and took its place.
The resurrected lich Mortius threw six black orbs at the guild master, who lay on the floor.
The black orbs, each lodged in his heart, head, and limbs, then turned into black armor and completely enveloped the guild master’s body.
“In truth, I would have preferred to tear your soul and body to shreds and grind you to dust, but I shall grant you the honor of becoming my servant in recognition of your skill.”
Clack.
The guild master—no, the Death Knight—knelt on one knee and swore loyalty to the lich.
A different emotion settled in the adventurers’ eyes.
Not anger, nor greed.
Pure fear.
Blanca squeezed her eyes shut.
‘Bern…!’