Chapter 110: To a Distant Land (4) |
─ Sir Great Sage, the Demon Knight refused to cooperate with the investigation and left. What should we do? –
The Archmage, who was conversing with White Wind in the reception room, slightly furrowed his eyebrows.
“Hm, what caused this?”
─ We asked about what happened in the moment he was possessed by the Demon… –
“I figured that would happen. Just leave him be. Don’t bother sending anyone after him.”
─ Understood. –
As White Wind answered calmly, it was the Archmage who seemed a lot more taken aback. He set down the teacup he was holding.
“Is it really okay to just let him go?”
“How can we catch someone who’s expressing his discomfort so vehemently?”
“Yes. It’s impossible. Like I said earlier, the absolute seal you want… will never be possible. Even if he fully cooperated, making something like that would be more than difficult. With him reacting like that, it’s even more challenging.”
“Was that the reason? I thought you meant you lacked the technical skills. Should I try persuading him again…?”
The Demon Knight was an important resource, not only because of his power, but also because his very existence ensured they didn’t have to deal with one of the Great Demons.
That was why the seal, which served as a sort of insurance, was also crucial. It wasn’t like he didn’t understand the Demon Knight’s feelings, but in this situation, they needed to find a way to make him compromise somehow.
“It’s no use.”
However, the Archmage thought the same.
“You won’t get him to do anything more than this. Not over his dead body.”
Even White Wind, who always wore a bright smile, could only whisper as much as his expression hardened. Even if he hadn’t said it, the Demon Knight’s actions spoke for themselves.
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I react somewhat similarly when it comes to certain matters. And you as well, right?”
White Wind poured some honey into his teacup. As he swirled the teaspoon inside of it, the honey melted into the warm tea.
“We know in our heads that reacting this way is neither right nor efficient, but there are still some things we can’t compromise on. Things where we would rather choose death over compromise.”
His tea should be rather sweet now.
Wouldn’t it be too sweet?
“I respect him.”
He kept adding honey to it, spoonful after spoonful, until the tea overflowed when its heat could no longer dissolve the honey.
Like the pain remaining in one’s heart that couldn’t be melted away by reason once it grew to a certain point.
“That’s why I gave him something that could blow up his heart in a moment of crisis.”
“…! Wha- That’s!”
“In fact, I find it rather surprising that you’re acting like this. I thought you would respect people and their decisions far more than I do. Or has your own self-loathing extended even to that kid?”
“…!!”
“Well, it’s not that big a deal. I’m sure you’ll handle it well.”
“…Did it seem like I didn’t respect him?”
“Not to that extent. I just wondered if you were being so sensitive because of that Hero or for some other reason. I didn’t expect you to try so hard to persuade him. I thought you’d at least give it some time. This isn't a problem that can be solved immediately. Of course, the short development time for the seal is also a factor here.”
White Wind drank the tea that was mostly honey in one gulp. Despite the intense sweetness, his face remained unperturbed.
“Well, everyone has to deal with tight development schedules and the like, so let’s just set this aside. The other issues are your personal matters, so I won’t discuss them any further. If you want to try to persuade him, I won’t stop you.”
White Wind gestured lightly with his fingers, implying that if the Archmage succeeded in persuading the Demon Knight, he should be informed.
“Don’t worry about the rest. Researching ways to deal with Demons is obviously necessary, and as long as the Hero is in the Magic Tower, we’ll fully cooperate with finding ways for her to apply her Divine Power.”
Ah, and of course, they needed to search for those informants. White Wind lightly reminded him of all the issues he’d previously mentioned.
The Archmage silently stroked his teacup.
“…Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Although they couldn’t see the outside scenery directly, Arcane devices captured and showed images of their surrounding area.
“Ah! Right, I didn’t get the chance to give the Demon Knight that request! I completely forgot!”
“Request?”
“Aah! It’s too late to get anyone of his caliber now. This is all your fault! You have to fix this!”
“How… absurd.”
“You have to fix thiiiiiiis.”
* * *
I raised my eyebrows at that person clinging to me.
“It seems you’ve lost control of your limbs along with your sense of shame.”
If Sidequests simply came to me on their own, that would be something to be happy about. I had been dealing with what might be the Main Quest or incidents of incredibly grand scale one after the other, after all.
However, a request from the Magic Tower? Shouldn’t I at least show some defiance even though I planned to handle it?
“Alright, I apologize for what I said earlier. Please, just hear me out.”
That apology seemed pretty half-hearted… Well, whatever. That kid was still young, so I decided to let it slide.
I took a stance that showed I was willing to listen now, to which the kid’s face brightened as they began to explain.
“Those snakes suddenly started appearing in the lake about two weeks ago. We always had some snakes around, but we’ve never had ones this large.”
Moreover, these snakes were incredibly aggressive, attacking people on the bridge like they’d done just now. Because of that, the number of visitors to the Magic Tower had sharply decreased.
“The smaller labs run by this Magic Tower survive by selling Arcane items. If our number of visitors keeps decreasing, those labs will all go bankrupt. We absolutely must prevent that!”
The kid insisted it wasn’t because of their own lab’s situation, but in my opinion, that seemed to be 99% the reason for their request.
“So.”
But… I had always wondered when I would come across a quest like this. It was one thing to take on quests handed out by the Adventurers’ Guild, but, yeah, one was normally supposed to take on these kinds of miscellaneous tasks like this.
However, if it was that urgent, couldn’t the Magic Tower handle it themselves?
“Th-That’s why I'm asking you to take on the request…”
So why weren’t they doing that? There had to be a reason.
“…Please, I beg you. The Adventurers’ Guild already turned us down. The wizards from the labs affected by this wanted to step in, but they’re all researchers and incredibly weak… And the other labs with combat wizards said this was none of their business and refused to help… Even the Great Sage told us to stop bothering him about this…”
While I was speculating on the background of this request, the kid, looking very sad, continued to spit out excuses. Thanks to that, I somewhat understood why they were asking me, although it also raised some more questions.
“…The Adventurers’ Guild turned you down?”
“Yeah. It’s all because of the Temple! They accused us of being responsible for this and told us to handle it ourselves! The Adventurers’ Guild sided with them!”
Huh, the Temple? That was strange. Wasn’t the Temple supposed to be all about helping others, to the point of often working for nothing? And the Adventurers’ Guild generally acted in the public interest, so why would they refuse this request?
“Aren’t they just too much? Sure, some of the labs caused the city to be overrun with bugs, or caused the ground to shake, resulting in some houses collapsing, or blocked the drain system, causing some houses on the lower levels to get flooded… But this time, we’re also the victims here!!”
…So that was the reason. Anyone would think they were to blame for this.
If incidents like this happened repeatedly, anyone would assume they were the culprits.
“And then they think that getting free treatment is already enough! We always compensated in our own way for all the damages we caused!”
And they even got free treatment. I mean, if they always had to clean up after the Magic Tower’s mess, it wasn’t surprising they were fed up with it…
Realizing why those two organizations devoted to the general public refused to help, I took a deep breath.
Anyway, they claimed it wasn’t their fault, and it wasn’t something they could handle alone, so I might as well take care of it. It wasn’t a Demon-related issue, just a simple snake hunt. This shouldn’t take too long.
“…So, I just need to kill all the snakes?”
“I beg of you… Huh?”
“I asked if killing all those snakes would be everything.”
A contract…? Eh, whatever. It wasn’t like I was short on money or glory. If they paid me, great. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t mind.
After all, the compensation for handing over the… dragon scales was still sleeping in my wallet. Ah, I felt like dust suddenly got into my eyes.
“Y-Yes!”
However, now that I thought about it, how was I supposed to kill all the snakes? In most games, one just had to defeat a set number of mobs wandering the field, but in this place… Ah, wait a second.
“Do you have an item that allows one to breathe underwater?”
“Ah, of course! I’ll get it! No, wait. Let’s get it together! I’ll provide you with all the necessary items!”
Now that I thought of it, it had been some time since I’d seen a Quest Window.
Huh?
* * *
* * *
At that moment, I realized there hadn’t been a Quest Notification, but I had no time to dwell on it further. The client’s desperation was just too intense to ignore.
Moreover… Even if there was some kind of system error preventing Quest Notifications from appearing, there wasn’t really anything I could do.
These bugs were crazy. It would be nice if this game just crashed and forced me to log out, but well, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
Although this situation was a bit unsettling, I couldn’t let myself get consumed by fear and anxiety. I fought off the sinking feeling and decided to delay uncovering the cause.
I could think about it later as much as I wanted after finishing this quest, maybe while resting or even while exploring the lake.
Besides, it had been weeks since I’d seen the last Quest Notification, and the world hadn’t ended yet. What was another day or two? If something were to go wrong, it would have happened already, damn it.
“Our savior!”
“Our light!”
“Thank you!”
So, postponing my worries, I followed the client into their lab.
They provided me with items that enabled me to breathe underwater, medicine to preventdecompression sickness, hot packs to counter hypothermia, and even an underwater flashlight.
“A-Are you sure this is enough?”
Back outside, I removed my combat boots and coat, storing them neatly in my inventory. I had no reason to swim around while burdened with unnecessary clothing, especially since I wasn’t really in a rush.
Removing these clothes didn’t affect my appearance much, either.
“Take this, too. Pressing the button will inflate a balloon with compressed air that can instantly drag you up to the surface.”
Why were they so well-prepared for underwater incidents here? I thought about the marine survival games I’d played before and took another look at the item they handed me.
It was a device resembling a harness with an airbag in the back. When I put it on, it didn’t look too bad on me, though in the best case, I wouldn’t need to use it.
After placing the hot packs—stones the size of a finger—on my wrists, ankles, waist, and chest, I bit down on the underwater breathing device.
“Good luck!!”
“Stay strong!”
Splash!
Those encouraging shouts, drowned out a bit by the sound of me diving in, felt oddly irritating.
Bubble.
I noticed that the breathing device worked well as I dove deeper.
Due to the nearby city and research facility, the water was incredibly murky, filled with what seemed to be algae and dust particles. The debris floating around the place was also no joke.
Pop, pooop.
Still, it wasn’t to the point where I couldn’t see anything.
With the sound of air bubbles popping around me, I dove even deeper. Twigs, leaves, and seaweed brushed past me, and the lakebed started to come into view.
“…?”
Strange plants were covering the bottom.
Was this alright? Without any time for other thoughts, I grabbed my knife and began to prepare. This would have been dangerous even if the bottom were completely bare, but with these plants, detecting any approaching snakes was even more difficult.
I cautiously swam around, not diving too deep. A few fish brushed past me, and soon, several of those snakes started getting closer to me.
Perhaps due to my experience dealing with a sea dragon and, unlike before, having enough Arcane Power, handling these giant water snakes didn’t seem too difficult to me.
The giant water snakes approaching me were cut in half instantly and sank to the lake floor.
“…??”
However, those plants then started wrapping around the water snakes’ corpses. It wasn't just a matter of the plants swaying around due to the current or getting pressed against the snake corpses.
They were clearly wrapping around the fallen bodies, pulling them closer.
Didn’t that seem like it might cause problems??
Bubble.
I should probably check one more time, just in case this had just been my imagination. I decided to find another snake to test this. I was a bit scared to go down there personally, so I thought I might as well experiment using the corpses of the things I had to kill anyway.
Sorry, snakes! Honestly, it was pretty unfair to call them pests and kill them just because they made this place their home. People were the worst, really.
Slash!
I found a third snake and cut it down. Then, I grabbed its sinking body and held it out.
I slowly lowered the snake corpse like a fishing line.
Rustle.
“…!”
Those things were definitely grabbing it!
I furrowed my brows as I watched the plants wind around the snake’s corpse. I decided to test the strength of those plants by pulling on the corpse.
They were pretty resilient, but I could tear them apart.
Should I go up now or investigate a bit more?
I released the snake I had used for this experiment and looked down at the plants. The dark green, swaying things almost made the floor seem like the jaws of a beast.
Buuuuubble.
…I should investigate a bit more. These things could just be natural creatures in this place, but the wizards would have mentioned them if they were. Well, who knows, they might have simply forgotten to tell me.
Even if this situation was abnormal, I still needed to collect some samples, at least, so I could ask the wizards about it. I also needed to check how far these plants had spread.
I started by examining the lakebed, putting the snake hunt on the back burner. I didn’t have to go out of my way to find those things since they kept coming at me on their own.
What worried me more was how wide those plants spread.
I frowned as I saw the plants not only covering almost the entire lakebed but also engulfing what looked like part of the Magic Tower.
Thankfully, those plants hadn’t spread to the shore yet, but if left unchecked, they would surely cover the whole area in no time.
Actually, what was more troubling was the lack of fish in this lake. I only saw some in areas without those plants. I swam around a bit more.
Having killed about a dozen snakes and roughly checked the growth of these plants, I decided to gather some samples.
“…!”
But why were these things so uselessly tough?!
My best guess was that it would be easier to grab some plants from the outskirts rather than right from the middle section.
That was the right call. As soon as I got closer, the plants quickly wound around my limbs and showed incredible resilience.
Snap!
I managed to free one of my arms and swung my knife at the plants. As I cut them down, those things let out a screeching sound.
I was finally free of their iron grip.
Bubble.
Being restrained like that felt incredibly disgusting. I shuddered as I grabbed some of the pieces of plant I’d cut off and swam upward. The seaweed-like strands continued clinging to my arms even after being cut off from the central part.
Splash!
“Ah, you’re back!”
Geez, searching for about two hours turned out to be more exhausting than I’d expected. I slowly approached the bridge after removing the breathing device with my free hand. Climbing up wasn’t too difficult since part of the railing had been torn off.
“S-So, did you catch any snakes…?”
“What is this?”
Setting aside the snakes for now, I really needed them to answer this first. What if I had approached these plants carelessly?
“A plant?”
“When I got closer to it, it tried dragging me in. Explain.”
“It tried to drag you in? That’s just—”
I swept back my wet, limp hair, which was unpleasantly heavy from the floating debris caught in it.
“Well, about that. May I explain?”
At that moment, someone unexpected intervened.
“Sir Great Sage!”
“What brings you here, Sir Great Sage?!”
It was White Wind, living up to his name by suddenly appearing out of nowhere like a gust of wind.
“This was originally something I wanted to request of you.”
I had a feeling that this situation was about to get a whole lot more complicated.
