Chapter 42: Careful Instructions
CHAPTER 42
Careful Instructions
The monitor we’re watching suddenly cuts to static. Celemonic must have destroyed the earth serpent that acted as the camera. Regardless, Seiya sent out countless earth serpents. The adjoining bucket is already displaying the enemy leisurely walking from a different angle.
Kiriko grabs the hem of my dress and asks in a voice dripping with anxiety:
“Th-they said they were going to avenge their sister, right? What are they talking about?”
“Maybe one of the monsters we defeated after arriving in Ixphoria was their sister…”
But Seiya hasn’t really defeated anything aside from beastkin and Killing Machines. Wait… Could Seiya have killed their sister during his past life in Ixphoria, when he used to be reckless?!
Kiriko and I rack our brains over what Celemonic meant, but Seiya seems to be thinking about something completely different. He glares at me with eyes full of disappointment.
“That doesn’t matter right now. Rista, can you check their status?”
“Huh? Their status?”
I use Scan while looking at the enemy through the monitor, but nothing happens.
“I-it’s not working! I can’t see anything!”
“Figured. I tried, too, but couldn’t see anything. There are many things that could have caused it, though. We could be too far from the enemy, or maybe Scan doesn’t work through monitors. It’s even possible that they’re using Fake Out or have a cursed aura preventing Scan from working.”
Whatever the cause, it’s spooky not knowing the enemy’s status. To make matters worse, Celemonic’s appearance doesn’t make them any less frightening. Kiriko tightens her grip on my dress as she watches the two-headed monster cackle while walking.
In an attempt to cheer myself up, I tell her:
“B-but Celemonic is alone! And we have Seiya along with tons of golems around the fortress as well! Right, Seiya?”
“Yeah. I placed about two thousand outside.”
The monitor Seiya is pointing at displays the front of the fortress in a wide angle, allowing us to see the valiant figures of the golems lined up around the fortress. Kiriko and I heave a sigh of relief. However, Celemonic continues recklessly advancing toward the impregnable fortress, guarded by golems, alone. The head with unkempt hair wears a look of disgust.
“The hell kind of person would prepare this many golems? Just how much of a coward is this Hero?”
“You could consider it an honor, depending on how you think about it. This is simply proof of how much of a threat Empress Celemonic truly is. Unfortunately…there is no reason to even fight them.”
“Yeah, doesn’t matter how many of them there are.”
The two heads then simultaneously chant:
““Stealth Step.””
I blink, and suddenly, they’re nowhere to be seen! No matter how many times I check the screen, all I can see are golems and the fortress!
“…Over there.”
Seiya points with his chin to a bucket a bit farther from us. On the monitor is a bird’s-eye view of the fortress’s entrance and Celemonic already standing in front of it.
Jonde and I can’t believe our eyes.
“N-no way! When did she get all the way over there?!”
“Impossible! How did the monster get through the golems’ defense?!”
The woman with unkempt hair notices the earth-serpent camera above the entrance, so she stares right into it and hisses:
“Hya-ha-ha! Did you see that? I’m gonna teleport over there and slit your puny throats!”
“Oh, Celena. Why did you have to reveal the secret of our ability?”
“Oops! My bad!”
“It doesn’t matter. There is no way to prevent it, after all.”
The hairs on my neck stand up as I listen to the Celemonic sisters’ conversation.
“What…? D-does that mean they can suddenly teleport right over here?!”
I thought this sturdy fortress was safe, yet I feel like I was suddenly stabbed in the back with a cold knife.
Jonde unsheathes his sword while Kiriko and I look around in terror. Only Seiya remains calm.
“Relax. They might be able to teleport, but they can’t teleport wherever they want. If they could, they would have teleported right next to Rista and me while we were in Termine. Plus, they wouldn’t need to cross the ocean on a boat. Their teleportation ability has limits.”
“Limits?”
“I can infer a few. They can only teleport across adjoining land…or only to places they can see. At any rate, my strategy will change based on whether they’re really teleporting or if they’re merely moving close to the speed of light.”
Seiya crosses his arms.
“Hmph. Whatever the case, it’s nothing I didn’t expect. It won’t be a problem.”
Jonde, Kiriko, and I exchange glances for a few moments until Jonde curls his lips, lets out a chuckle, and sheathes his sword. The tense atmosphere slowly fades.
Celemonic’s eerie appearance and behavior, along with the power to teleport, would usually be something to panic about, but as always, Seiya doesn’t even flinch. The Vengeful Empress Celemonic is a mystery, but in a sense, so is the Hero.
“Now I have you right where I want you. Like a moth flying into the flame.”
It’s calming to hear Seiya spit out lines you’d usually hear from the villain.
Yeah! Seiya can beat anyone! Even if they somehow manage to make it down here, Seiya can use Berserk: Phase 2.7 and tear them apart! There’s nothing to be afraid of!
But that’s when it happens…
BAM!!
I hear a sudden, earsplitting crash. When I look in the direction of the clamor, Seiya’s face is shoved into the earth-serpent-monitor bucket.
“…Huh?”
I’m in shock. Seiya doesn’t even move as his face remains snugly in the bucket. It’s like a ridiculous scene out of a comedy.
“H-hey… This is no time to be joking around.”
“Yeah, what are you doing, Seiya?”
Jonde and I have no idea what’s going on. Kiriko, on the other hand, rushes over to him and shakes his body.
“Seiya! Seiya…! Are you okay?!”
“Oh, Kiri. Don’t worry. There’s no way Seiya’s in any danger.”
Kiriko picks Seiya up, but his eyes remain closed and his body limp. As Seiya lies on the ground, Kiriko places a hand on his chest and face.
“He’s still breathing! He has a heartbeat, too! But he’s unconscious!”
I send Kiriko a smile as she panics.
“Don’t worry! It’s gonna be fine! He’s just acting again, like he did with Oxerio!”
“I have no idea what the Hero is trying to do, but…that’s enough. Hero, get up,” says Kiriko.
But Seiya’s eyes stay closed. Kiriko then tugs at my dress.
“Rista!! Check Seiya’s status!”
I use Scan as she urges me to hurry.
SEIYA RYUUGUUIN |
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Job: Spellblade (Earth) |
||||
LV: 99 (MAX) |
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HP: 321,960 |
MP: 88,155 |
|||
ATK: 293,412 |
DEF: 287,644 |
SPD: 268,875 |
MAG: 58,751 |
GRW: 999 (MAX)… |
“See? What’d I tell you? He still has max HP.”
A shiver suddenly jolts down my spine.
W-wait! Why can I see Seiya’s status when it’s usually hidden with Fake Out?! D-does that mean he’s really…?!
“No…! Seiya?!”
I rush over to Seiya and hold him in my arms after finally realizing the gravity of the situation.
“Why?! What’s wrong?! This has never happened before!”
Standing by my side, Jonde slowly turns pale.
“I-is this the curse of Celemonic?! Was the Hero right?! Was he cursed just by looking at the monster?!”
“What?! But then why would we be fine?!”
In the midst of our panicking and screaming…
“It’s probably not a curse.”
Kiriko’s calm voice stands out. After I let out a deep breath, I ask:
“Th-then why do you think Seiya fainted?”
“Because his heart aches.”
“H-he’s in pain…? Seiya?”
“Yes…”
Kiriko gently rubs Seiya’s glossy black hair.
“He has been keeping his emotions bottled up inside this entire time. Even after returning to the spirit world or when he saw all those bodies in Baraque…he looked like he was in such pain. Actually, it goes back even before that. Seiya was already in pain ever since I met him…”
How can a robot possibly know that?
But the very next moment, I hear an ominous voice coming from the bucket.
““Grudge Hand!””
Their voices harmonize as Celemonic holds their right fist up to a golem on the other side of the monitor. Their fist only grazes it, but it immediately crumbles into dust. Three golems then try to rush them from different directions, but they all turn into dust as well from the touch of their hand. Celemonic cackles after having annihilated every last golem guarding the fortress’s entrance.
“Boooring! Humans are way more fun, since their limbs pop off and blood sprays everywhere.”
“Don’t worry, Celena. It won’t be long before we get to watch the Hero and his friends wail in agony as they die.”
Ack! How much scarier can they be?! We don’t stand a chance without Seiya!
“I’m gonna open a gate! We’re taking Seiya and retreating to the spirit world for now! Jonde, carry Seiya!”
“You got it!”
I create a gate to the spirit world, open the door as quickly as I can…and stand aghast at the sight. A white wall seals off the portal.
“Th-this is… It’s the power of the spell stone!”
No…! Is there a spell stone in Celemonic’s body just like with Grandleon?! If so, that means…we can’t return to the spirit world when they are nearby!!
“Goddess! If we cannot return to the spirit world, then how about returning to Termine for now? The Hero might recover if we allow him some time to rest! I hate to admit it, but we will not stand a chance without him!”
“Y-you’re right.”
I create a gate to Termine. While we weren’t able to return to the spirit world during the fight against Grandleon, we were able to travel within the continent. But when I open the door to the gate…I shudder, for right before my eyes stands another white wall!
Jonde bitterly mutters by my side. He promptly faces Seiya once more and shakes him by the shoulders.
“Hey! Get up! Wake up!!”
“J-Jonde, please wait! Seiya needs to rest!”
“We don’t have time for that!”
Jonde points at a bucket with live footage of Celemonic tilting their heads while standing somewhere extremely fresh in our minds.
“Monica, it looks like we’re at a dead end.”
I-isn’t that where we took the elevator to the underground control room?! How did they get there so quickly?!
It’s obvious they’re teleporting. I quietly gaze at the ceiling. Celemonic is probably only a few dozen meters above us! We motionlessly gaze back and forth between the ceiling and the bucket monitor with bated breath until Celemonic eventually walks away. But right as I let out a sigh of relief, I suddenly hear Celemonic’s voice coming from the bucket.
“Celena, I found a staircase that leads underground.”
Celemonic then heads toward the staircase. They must have noticed the earth-serpent cameras installed along the path, because the head with disheveled hair sticks her long tongue out and shouts:
“Ready or not, here we come! Hya-ha-haaa! Now, what kind of curse should we use…?”
“How about a curse that makes every drop of blood ooze from their body while they’re still alive?”
“Or we could make them start rotting from their feet up! I bet that’d make ’em suffer!”
As Celemonic disappears from the monitor, Jonde yells in a panic:
“This isn’t good! They found the staircase to the basement! We don’t have much time!”
“Wh-what should we do?!”
I’m sweating like crazy, and my breathing gets heavy. If they find us like this, it’s over! We’re all gonna die!
But we can’t run away, either, so—Ahhhhhh! What are we going to doooooo?!
While I’m freaking out…
Something long and thin suddenly leaps out before me!
“Eeeeeeeeek! It’s Celemonic!!”
“R-Rista! It’s just one of Seiya’s earth serpents!”
“Huh…? Oh… You’re right…”
“It appears to be holding something in its mouth.”
Jonde’s right. The earth serpent hands me a coarse sheet of paper.
“Huh…?”
The following is written on the paper:
Rista, if you’re reading this, it means that something happened to me during the battle against Celemonic. While I don’t want to even think about it, I cannot deny the possibility that I might be dead.
As Jonde and Kiriko read the letter over my shoulders, Jonde says in a hushed tone:
“Wh-what is this? Is this…a will?”
“But Seiya’s still alive…!”
There are people who write wills long before they die. Incidentally, I don’t really care what happens to me after I die… B-but that’s beside the point! What else does the letter say?!
I always pay close attention to my health and take care of myself, but there are some things that are not easy to prevent: sudden illness, natural disaster, and accidents, to name a few. Therefore, I plan on leaving this letter for you just in case such a thing ever happens to me.
Jonde then basically screams into my ear:
“Isn’t this a bad time to be reading letters?! Celemonic is coming down the stairs as we speak!”
“J-Jonde, wait! Look at this!”
Perhaps even right now as you read this, the fortress has been breached and Celemonic is heading down the staircase into the underground control room where you all are. Nevertheless, I want you to read this letter until the end.
“What the…?! That’s exactly what’s happening!!”
“A-anyway, let’s keep reading, Rista!”
Celemonic thinks they are the hunters closing in on their prey, not realizing that they’re the ones being trapped in a corner. Rista, this fortress itself is a giant trap. It would be nearly impossible for anything other than a powerful monster to defeat multiple golems and reach the staircase leading to the underground floor of the fortress. In short, that staircase was made to thoroughly entrap even the most powerful monsters. Celemonic descended the staircase to hell—the entrance to a thirty-floor underground maze created with earth magic.
“Huh…? An underground…thirty-floor maze…?”
Jonde, Kiriko, and I naturally look up at the ceiling.
I totally thought they were already right above us! Does that mean that we’re actually on the bottom floor of an elaborate underground labyrinth?!
I believe it is highly unlikely that I’m actually dead. I’m probably just temporarily incapacitated for some reason. Whatever the case, if you carefully follow my instructions, then even you will be able to defeat Celemonic.
There’s something written at the end of the coarse paper, almost like a signature:
I take my eyes off the paper and look at Seiya’s limp body on the floor.
Uh… If being unconscious is part of being perfectly prepared, then I guess?
That’s when…
“Rista! Look!”
My eyes dart in the direction Kiriko is pointing and jump up in surprise. All the earth-serpent monitors, which were displaying footage of the area around the fortress, are slowly changing to cameras set up inside the underground maze! In addition, something that looks like a button suddenly emerges from the stone deck in the distance!
“It’s changing into a control room for the underground maze…!”
Jonde frowns while crossing his arms.
“I understand that we are on the thirtieth basement floor, so we are not in immediate danger, but how are we supposed to carefully follow his orders when he is unconscious?”
The earth serpent that brought me the coarse paper dives into the ground. Did it really understand what Jonde was saying?
A few seconds go by until it suddenly comes back with some sort of scroll around its body.
“A-are these the instructions?”
Right as I reach for the scroll, dozens of other snakes wrapped in scrolls emerge from the ground as well.
“Ahhh!!”
I’m so surprised, I fall on my butt, and the snakes bring all the scrolls to one spot. It isn’t long before a mountain of them has amassed.
“You have got to be kidding me!! Are these all instructions?!”
Jonde screams when he sees the sheer volume of scrolls, and I feel the same. More importantly, when did Seiya have this much time to write?! I wouldn’t be surprised if he passed out due to exhaustion from writing all these!
An earth serpent coldly stares at Seiya before handing me another scroll with the following instructions:
If I am dead, turn to page 108. If I am not dead, turn to page 266.
“Wh-what the hell is this?! A choose-your-path adventure book?!”
“Goddess?! What kind of book is that?!”
“They used to be popular in the world Seiya’s from! You get choices during the story, and each choice takes you to a different path! They went out of style when visual novels came out, though!”
“Nothing you’re saying makes any sense!”
“Hey!! You asked!”
“P-please stop fighting, you two! Let’s just follow Seiya’s instructions!”
“Well, Seiya’s alive, so I guess we need to go to page 266, but…do we really have to randomly search through this entire pile?”
But when I aggravatedly look at the massive pile, an earth serpent hisses and leaps into the mountain of scrolls. After a few moments go by, it emerges with a scroll, which it opens and shows me. The number 266 is written on the bottom of the page.
Oh. If you say the page number, the serpent brings it to you. Well, that’s convenient.
I read the scroll.
Don’t be naive in thinking you can wait for me to regain consciousness just because I’m not dead. Worst-case scenario, I could be bedridden. You need to be prepared to defeat Celemonic yourselves. But, well, don’t worry. I’ve left instructions that even a brain-dead monkey couldn’t screw up.
Rude!
First, I am going to give you a brief explanation of the maze. There are no traps on basement floors one to five, which were built like a maze. This is simply to buy time to make you all familiar with the maze system. Carefully read through the manual the earth serpent is about to bring you and answer the questions.
Kiriko and I accept the scroll the earth serpent brings us, but Jonde faces the bucket monitors.
“Jonde?”
“No matter how good the Hero’s foresight is, there is no way to predict every possible outcome. Besides, he wrote these letters before even encountering Celemonic, correct? We cannot rely on them. I am going to keep an eye on Celemonic.”
“B-but, Jonde…! Please read what it says here! ‘If Celemonic possesses the power to teleport, turn to page 341’!”
“I-impossible! How did he know?!”
“He was probably considering countless possibilities before even seeing Celemonic. Having excellent foresight is so like Seiya. Oh! That’s not all! ‘If Celemonic is a beastkin, turn to page 2,687. For vampire types, turn to page 4,743.’ And…oh! Here it is! ‘If Celemonic has two heads, turn to page 7,878’!”
“…?! Why is there even a page for that?! This has gone beyond normal foresight!”
“Ugh! Jonde! Just shut up and watch Celemonic on the monitors if that’s what you want to do!”
After that, Kiriko and I read the manual, answer the questions, and select the right choices, but…after some time goes by, Jonde suddenly yells:
“Hey! Celemonic is walking down the staircase to the sixth basement floor! That monster already cleared the maze!”
Celemonic got through it quicker than expected. Obviously, they must have teleported through it. Regardless, Kiriko and I have already finished reading the manual.
I stand by Jonde’s side and gaze at the bucket showing a bird’s-eye view of the sixth basement floor. Unlike the complicated mazelike floors earlier, the sixth level is a simple path with only two turns leading to the next staircase.
The head with disheveled hair yawns.
“What a long, drawn-out maze that turned out to be.”
Monica replies:
“It was over in no time, since we teleported through it, though… Oh? I wonder what that sound is.”
Just as she’s going around the corner, Celemonic notices the giant boulder rolling right at them, but they aren’t even startled!
“Tch. A boulder trap. What do you wanna do? Not like we can teleport to the other side of the boulder, since it’s blocking our view.”
I become certain of something when I hear Celena.
It’s just as Seiya predicted. They can teleport only to places they can see!
Only when Celemonic turns around in order to escape do they realize that a giant boulder is closing in on them from behind as well!
“Perfect! The monster has nowhere to escape! They’re going to be crushed!”
Jonde cheers. However…
“Up, Celena. We can dodge a boulder of this size.”
They vanish and reappear, now hanging from the ceiling of the passage.
“They dodged the boulders?!”
“J-just like a spider!”
The boulders slam into each other and come to a stop. As Jonde clicks his tongue and both of Celemonic’s heads cackle, I press a button on the deck.
Kaboooooom!!
The powerful explosion startles Jonde, and the video in the bucket shows only white smoke.
“Wh-what was that?!”
“Seiya’s instructions said to press the button if Celemonic dodges the boulders. They were actually remote bomb boulders.”
“He assumed we were going to dodge, so he used bomb boulders to blow us up?! What kind of Hero does that?!”
Another earth-serpent camera at a different angle shows Celemonic with their dress in tatters due to the explosion. Celena screams:
“My back… Damn it! My baaaaaack…!”
“Relax, Celena. It’s no more than a mild burn.”
“D-damn them! Damn them all! I’m going to kill that Hero, his friends, and every last person on this continent!”
Celena starts spewing curses, but I try not to listen, since she scares me. I then ask Kiriko:
“Kiri, what do the instructions say to do next?”
“Let me check… ‘If physical attacks are working, turn to page 8,193.’”
I check out the new instructions.
There is a trap on the seventh basement floor that will endlessly shoot arrows at Celemonic. Wait until they teleport to the corner to shoot. There is probably a short lag until they can teleport again, so capitalize on that moment and press the button.
Celemonic leisurely descends the staircase. The burn on their back doesn’t seem to have done much damage.
They soon arrive at the seventh basement floor. The floor in front of Celemonic is bumpy, making it obvious that it’s a trap, so they teleport across it and reappear in the corner. But after taking a few steps around the corner, their smug expressions vanish, for small holes suddenly appear on the walls of the path.
I press the button just like Seiya instructed me to, and arrows shoot out of the countless holes. The shafts soar toward Celemonic from every direction imaginable, giving them virtually no point of egress. It looks like they need some time before they can teleport again, just as Seiya predicted. Celemonic is just crossing their arms, protecting both heads.
…I thought they would be full of holes after that, but when the rain of arrows comes to an end, they stand tall. Piles of broken arrows lie scattered at their feet.
Ahhh! Their defense is so high that the arrows can’t pierce their body!
Celena spits on the ground.
“Hmph. Just a few scratches.”
“Don’t be so careless, Celena. The arrowheads were coated with poison. We need to cauterize the wounds…”
“Tch! That damn Hero…!”
When Celemonic eventually appears on the eighth basement floor, they don’t use teleport. Instead, they slowly walk down the path, being extra careful of traps.
I look over Seiya’s instructions.
After all that’s happened, Celemonic should be extra wary of traps as they proceed. However, there aren’t any on this floor.
As they slowly and nervously walk down the path, Monica’s face suddenly brightens.
“Celena! I can see the next staircase!”
“Yeah! Looks like there wasn’t anything on this floor! Tch! Crafty son of a—”
But the moment their foot presses down on the first step…
““Ahhhhhh!!””
Celemonic screams. A massive needle protrudes from the step after appearing out of nowhere.
Jonde mutters in astonishment:
“Now he’s putting traps on the staircase?!”
“I—I can understand why they let their guard down!”
“Um… There’s a note in the instructions that says, ‘The powerful needles were made from platinum swords.’”
As black blood drips from their foot, Celemonic let out a bloodcurdling scream:
““You’re going to pay for this, Heroooooo!!””
Various traps await them on the ninth basement floor as well, such as a pit with spears that shoot out of its walls. Celemonic manages to dodge them before arriving…at a dead end. Hanging on the earthen wall is a plaque with the following message:
WHAT HAS FOUR LEGS IN THE MORNING…TWO IN THE AFTERNOON…AND THREE AT NIGHT? WRITE YOUR ANSWER.
Underneath the frame is a pen. Celena tilts her head.
“This is stupid. I’m sure the staircase won’t appear if we don’t solve the riddle, but it makes no sense.”
But Monica’s lips slightly curl upward.
“I know the answer.”
“Seriously?!”
“Yes, the answer is—”
Kaboooooom!!
I hear another explosion coming from the bucket. The earth-serpent camera is showing static as well! My utter confusion is followed by another earth serpent with another scroll.
At the end of the ninth basement floor is a trap that’s set to explode while the enemy is thinking. By the way, the answer is “a person.”
I feel a chill run down my spine.
“Wh-what an evil trap!”
“Y-yes, it’s oozing with the creator’s horrible personality.”
While it’s a dirty trap, it’s really effective. The explosion blew off Celemonic’s left hand!
“M-my haaaaaand…!”
When I take a good look at them, their body looks really beaten up: Their back is singed, their left hand is gone, and their foot is injured as well!
“Wonderful! We can defeat the monster before they even reach the thirtieth basement floor at this rate!”
I nod in agreement with Jonde’s opinion. Having looked through the manual, I already know that the traps get more intense and craftier from the tenth basement floor on.
That’s Seiya for you! I can see why he said he was perfectly prepared, despite being unconscious! It looks like we can really handle this ourselves!
…The wall before Celemonic comes crumbling down. Although they are breathing heavily, the moment they see the opening…
“Heh-heh-heh… Ha-ha-ha…”
Celemonic suddenly begins laughing.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“Wh-what’s gotten into you, Monica?”
“This is ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. I am done playing the Hero’s games…”
“But we can’t reach ’em if we don’t go down this staircase. They’re on the bottom floor, right?”
“Don’t worry, Celena. I don’t need to use these stairs. I simply…yes…I simply need a new power to take me where the Hero is. Kind of like how we gained a new power after slaughtering our younger sister, Shanak…”
Celemonic’s right hand grabs Celena’s face.
“Y-you’re kidding, right?! Monica?!”
“Now it’s your turn to sacrifice yourself, Celena.”
“S-stop! A-ahhhhhh!!”
Crack! Squirt!
Celena’s nose is squashed as her eyeballs pop out of her head. It’s such a cruel, horrific sight that I can’t look directly at it.
“A-ah! She betrayed her own sister…?”
A crushed head hanging beside her own, Monica cackles maniacally.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha! My sister Celena’s grudge shall guide me to even greater heights! I know you’re watching me through the earth serpents’ eyes! And now that we have even one thing that connects us, I can finally join you all at the bottom of this maze!”
We see Celemonic’s hand close up on the earth-serpent monitor we’re watching.
“W-well, this took a dark turn…”
Jonde mentions this while looking back at me. But at the very next instant…
Kiriko screams, her voice trembling. But when I follow her gaze, I see a bloody hand sticking out of the bucket that was showing footage of Celemonic! Sparks fly, and the space around the bucket warps as she comes crawling out of it! She smirks with a ghastly expression.
“The power to teleport between dimensions…Dimension Step!”
Jonde and Kiriko freeze in place with no way to fight back.
“Oh, you poor souls. Your little traps won’t work on me anymore.”
Celemonic grabs my face before I can even brace myself.
“I’m going to make you suffer hundreds—no, thousands of times more than I did!”
It’s a desperate situation…but at the very next moment, my face turns into sand and fades away. And it’s not just my face! My entire body turns into sand before collapsing to the ground.
“Wh-what?!”
Celemonic is taken aback. Jonde and Kiriko, who were nearby, have already turned into sand as well.
…And right now, Jonde, Kiriko, and I are watching everything that’s happening with a bird’s-eye view through the monitor in the bucket.
Standing by my side, Jonde finally speaks up.
“H-hey?! What is that room?! What is going on?!”
“It’s a fake control room that Seiya made with earthen dolls that look exactly like us.”
“I—I can see that…but I thought Celemonic gained new powers that allowed her to teleport through the earth serpent to where we were watching?! So why was it connected to that fake room and not this one?!”
“Read this.”
I show Jonde a scroll.
Celemonic might hijack a scout serpent to come crawling out of a monitor like a ghost. To prevent such a disaster, I will cut the connection by placing another relay point in between the earth-serpent cameras and earth-serpent monitors. By the way, the room you all are in is not the bottom floor of the underground maze. You are in an isolated underground control room more than a few dozen meters away from the underground maze. In addition, all the footage you are watching from the buckets is relayed through earth-serpent cameras in the fake control room, and the video circuits are temporarily cut off before retransmitting the data.
I boast to the former general:
“This is the underground maze’s ultimate trap! The proxy room!”