[V11C2] The Mission Begins
Translated by Jodas 11: Envoy of the AbyssLate at night, eight Apprentices; Tia, Wren, Sevil, Julius, Gerald, Roswitha, Ella, and Sophie; slipped out of the village on their way to a small grove north of the Wedge Tower.
Tia knew the way, so she took the lead while tiny Agniol plodded along beside her.
Behind Tia and Agniol walked Sevil, Wren, and Julius. Then, behind them followed Ella, Roswitha, and Sophie, with Gerald holding up the rear.
Agniol made little flames float in the air around them, allowing the group to save on lantern fuel.
Eventually, Tia came to a stop near a small pile of dirt.
“Here.”
Tia swept the dirt away, revealing a thick, heavy board. Once she move that out of the way, a staircase appeared, leading underground.
“I’m surprised you managed to find this,” Roswitha muttered, to which Tia was unsure how to respond.
She did have a point. If Tia was just flying around the Wedge Tower aimlessly with her flying device, it would be hard to imagine her just happening to come across this underground pathway, especially considering how far they were from the walls.
But Sevil answered for her as she shone the lantern down the staircase.
“We’ve had our suspicions that something like this would be around here. Remember how we were working with Julius to snoop around for the Wedge Tower’s secrets?”
Sevil made it sound as if she had directed Tia to search around this area beforehand. Roswitha withdrew, saying nothing more.
Times like this made her thankful for Sevil’s talent for saying anything as if it were obvious.
“I doubt it will be a straight shot from here to the Wedge Tower… It may be a while before we get where we’re trying to go.”
“Why don’t we take our first mana-neutralizing candies while we walk? You never know when the mana density is gonna shoot up.”
Everyone nodded to Wren’s suggestion and tossed a candy in their mouth.
Since the candies Wren got from the Witch could neutralize mana by taking them three times a day, he’d distributed three candies to each Apprentice.
Tia, however, instead brought some candies with no effect. Even without these candies, a Monster like Tia had no trouble moving about in areas of high mana density.
As the Witch’s candies were in short supply, they had to conserve them wherever possible.
(There aren’t a lot of candies to let me turn back to my original form either… I’ve got to use them wisely.)
Stuffing a non-magical candy in her cheek and rolling it around her mouth, Tia listened closely.
(There’s a couple Eyeball Birds up above. About the same amount as last night… I think. I can’t hear anything from underground.)
This was most likely the path that Kai had used when Tia escaped from her captivity under Fiene.
(And now I’m going back to that birdcage…)
Would Fiene be there?
Wherever Fiene was, Kai wouldn’t be far away. Tia was just about certain of that.
Kai had no need for a god.
Fiene declared herself a god.
While this was just Tia’s prediction, she expected that somewhere up ahead was a Monster who desperately needed a god. It was for their sake that Kai had prepared Fiene.
Regardless, Tia felt no sympathy for Fiene.
If Fiene addressed her with that creepy obsessiveness again, Tia already knew what she was going to say.
This passageway, just wide enough for one person to walk through at a time, must have been made by Kai using the Witch’s power to dig through the dirt.
The eight Apprentices and Agniol silently marched down the corridor. Even ever-talkative Agniol was completely silent. Tia also restrained herself from humming.
The underground passageways were surprisingly echoey. On top of that, there was a Harpy with perceptive hearing — her sister Charonlala — waiting somewhere up ahead.
(If I start singing, Lala is gonna notice us right away.)
She had a hard time gauging how far she’d gone underground, so her time walking felt like it stretched on for hours.
While Tia had a naturally good sense of direction, that only applied when she could feel the wind blowing freely. Harpies were not well suited to being underground.
With Tia’s senses all out of whack, Sevil, Julius, and Wren counted steps and marked down corners in her stead. That allowed Tia to focus all of her attention on her ears.
Suddenly, Sevil stopped and spoke up.
“The passageway is much windier than I anticipated. I believe it’ll be just before dawn by the time we make it beneath the Wedge Tower.”
“Kuku… I wonder if the Wedge Tower and the Army are already starting to roll out by now.”
While Sevil and Julius spoke, Wren checked the time on his pocket watch.
“If possible, I would have preferred to sneak in to the Wedge Tower a little bit before the attack starts… but I think that’s gonna be pretty tough…”
Ideally, they would sneak in right before the combined forces start their attack. They’d have their talk with Finn and remove the crystal rivets embedded in ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower,’ ending the crystal contamination.
In doing so, they hoped to persuade the Monsters to return to the crystal territory.
But it would be almost impossible for Tia and the gang to accomplish all of that without being spotted by the Monsters. Thus, they had to make sure the combined forces were closing in on the Wedge Tower.
(Which means this won’t work if we’re too early or too late…)
If they were too early, the Monsters would be on heightened alert, putting Rose and the rest of the attacking force at a disadvantage.
If they were too late, they ran the risk of Finn being killed by the combined force.
“Rose did say that he’s gonna go all out the moment the attack starts, so we’ll know right away, but still…”
Just as Wren mumbled that, Tia’s ears picked up on a faint breeze. It sounded like fresh air was mixing with the stagnant underground air.
“There’s an exit to the surface somewhere around here.”
Tia whispered, and Sevil nodded.
“No more talking from here on out. Everyone, proceed in silence.”
They all nodded and continued on while keeping their footsteps as light as possible.
She hated walking in silence. She wanted to sing. She wanted to feel the breeze — As she thought that, Tia felt the mana around her get much denser. The flames around Agniol started to intensify as well.
Upon seeing this, the others must have noticed the change in mana density as well.
—They were now beneath the Wedge Tower.
(What rich mana… This is way stronger than even the Breakneck Gorge… So this is what the mana of the Crystal Territory feels like…)
The Breakneck Gorge where Tia grew up was just outside of the Crystal Territory. While the mana there was more than enough for Harpies to survive on, it was nothing compared to what the Crystal Territory had to offer.
Only the truly strong Greater Monsters were allowed to live within the Crystal Territory. Lesser Monsters like Tia were only left the scraps of that rich mana.
The Monsters here at the Wedge Tower must have been over the moon now that they could feel the sensation of mana far denser than they had ever been able to experience.
Were it not for the mission, Tia herself would have flown around and sang with glee.
The Wedge Tower had already become a paradise for Monsters.
(Without the Witch’s candies, it’s no overstatement to say these humans would not be able to survive here…)
Once they emerged from that narrow passageway, the environment around them changed suddenly. While the previous tunnel felt like someone had just pushed dirt away by brute force, from here on it was clearly the work of human engineers.
While it was still unmistakably an underground tunnel, the path was somewhat more open, and patches of crystals covered parts of the walls. This must have been the underground corridor that Möbius and the others had used.
Somewhere around here was the room where Fiene lived — The core of ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower.’ A room that they called the ‘Cradle.’
Whether or not they could remove the crystal rivets from there would make the difference between victory and defeat.
But Tia had a bad feeling about this.
(That’s weird. That room should have been somewhere around here…)
It didn’t feel like they were in the same place at all. For some reason, it just felt wrong.
Tia fretted, unable to express her feelings in any more precise terms, when Julius frowned and whispered a similar sentiment.
“Hold on, what? Something feels different from the time I snuck in here…”
Julius noticed something was off too.
Wren then spoke up.
“Hey, you guys. Your favorite brainy pretty boy’s just noticed something… The Cradle, the core to ‘Chariclea, the Wedge Tower’ has crystal rivets embedded in it, and those are the reason for the crystal contamination, right?”
“That is correct. That Cradle must be somewhere underground.”
When Julius answered, Wren looked around with a grim expression.
“…Don’t you think there should be way more crystals around here in that case?”
Julius gasped.
He was right. When Tia saw it from above, the Wedge Tower was covered in loads of crystals all over. It would be strange for the core of all of that to have so few crystals around.
Then, Tia heard something from far off to her right. The footsteps of a beast. All of a sudden, this overwhelming presence drew closer, making every hair on Tia’s body stand on end.
Her shoulder blades ached. Her Harpy instincts told her to take flight and get out of here immediately.
Appearing before them was an incredibly powerful Monster from the Crystal Territory, one a Harpy stood no chance of defeating.
“Hey, you runts. Let’s play.”
It was a wolf with silver fur — the Primordial Beast.