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7.44% Start - The World Behind the Door / Chapter 14: Arc 1 - Chapter 4: Sigma Tower (3/4)

Chapter 14: Arc 1 - Chapter 4: Sigma Tower (3/4)

"Basically, this is a boiler room."

Rie waved her torch in the air to investigate, but there was nothing remarkable in the basement except for a few odds and ends.

"Mother, I don't feel anyone." Neko's eyes squinted suspiciously up at the stairs leading to the ground floor of the tower.

"I don't feel it either, something might be wrong..." Rie began to climb the stairs slowly.

"Maybe it's night and everyone has gone home." Yu didn't know how their so-called 'feeling' worked, but he had an idea that was ignored by them.

Rie, followed by Neko and Yu, went up the stairs and she felt the door to the basement. The door was unlocked, she slowly opened it and looked out.

"No one's here." They opened the door fully and entered the first floor of the tower. Yu couldn't see clearly what was going on as they had no light source other than the torch Rie was holding.

There were seats, a reception desk, stairs leading up and corridors leading to places he didn't know. The floor was black and white like a chessboard.

Rie saw a map on one of the walls of the tower, looked it and said, "The museum is on the top floor, one floor below the observatory. We need to go there."

Rie led the way and they started going up the stairs. As they went up the tower, Yu's nose smelled an unpleasant odor. To find out if they smelled the same, he asked, "Do you smell something too?"

"I don't smell anything," Rie said.

Neko did not answer. After interpreting her silence as a no, he fell silent and continued to follow Rie.

The stairs were narrow and long. Climbing the stairs here was like death. The railings on the side of the stairs were also low, so Yu was afraid to go up. The steps were also long, so it would not be surprising if someone lost their balance and fell down.

"It must be very difficult to get things up and down inside the tower. It's a pity for the workers, what kind of building is this?"

They climbed the floors of the tower one by one. As they went up, the smell in Yu's nostrils was getting stronger, now he was sure something was happening.

"I smell something burning, don't you still smell it?"

"Your nose is broken, stupid creature." Unable to smell it, Neko replied mockingly.

"I'm serious, there's a fire."

Rie turned and looked at Yu. Even though she couldn't smell it, she was taking Yu seriously.

"Are you sure, I still can't smell it?"

"Yes, I'm sure. It's the smell of burning," he sniffed the air some more, making sure it was the smell of burning again.

No matter why Rie and Neko couldn't smell it, Yu was sure of it. The higher he went, the stronger the odor he smelled. Since Yu's nose wasn't broken as Neko claimed, the reason for the smell was that something was on fire.

"If there is a fire, why aren't the people in the tower taking action?" asked Rie.

"That's another strange thing, I haven't heard a single footstep in the tower belonging to anyone other than us. Maybe people are asleep because it's nighttime, but considering that this is also an observatory and a museum, there should be researchers moving around inside, and if not them, there should be security. The fact that we haven't met anyone so far makes me uneasy."

It could be considered a good thing that they hadn't met anyone because they didn't want to be caught, but they should at least have heard the footsteps of the security guard protecting the museum. There was danger in the silence.

"Maybe they ran away because of the fire?" Neko suggested, but Yu immediately disagreed.

"They would have tried to put it out first to protect the books here and the things in the museum, or we would have seen them evacuating things."

This wasn't a small house, there had to be things inside that were too valuable to abandon.

"If there's a fire, we have to hurry."

"Is the smell coming from upstairs?" Rie's face tensed, the most serious Yu had ever seen it.

"Yes."

"What I want to get is upstairs, I need to get up there."

"There's a fire up there."

"But I have to get it." Rie's voice was harsh enough to make it clear that she could not be persuaded otherwise.

"Really, young lady?"

Before any of them realized it, a skinny human appeared in front of Rie. A woman, judging from her cheerful voice, handed Rie a long skewer and spoke from behind a white clown mask with an eerie smile etched on it.

"Oh my, did we have to meet you around here, huh?"

She was unhealthily skinny, short, and her rainbow-colored clown suit was embroidered with flowers, animals, hearts, and stars, and her belt around his waist had many skewers. Her unkempt, curly blue hair, sticking out from behind the mask, was covered in blood, like her dress, and fell over her shoulders.

"You!"

Did she know her? If they knew each other, Yu hoped they were friends. Rie had said she was a witch and creepy lady seems like someone who could be a witch's friend. Although he didn't think the freak woman standing in front of them would make any friends. In fact, if they were friends and she was here to help them, Yu would feel a great relief in his heart.

But Rie's tone was not the warmth of meeting a friend, but the anger of meeting a hated enemy. Although Yu couldn't see Rie's face because he was standing at the back, he was sure that her face was hostile from the tone of her voice.

"We have prepared so much for the young lady, and now the young lady is going to leave us?"

The mournful voice that made Yu's skin crawl and his blood run cold came from right behind him. He quickly turned around to see the fat clown who had snuck up to the nape of his neck unnoticed. He was the opposite of the clown in front of Rie, unhealthily overweight despite wearing the same style of clothes, tall as a giant and wearing a white mask with a mournful expression etched on it. He had a scythe as weapon.

Without a second thought, without wasting a single second, Yu put his foot into the clown's balls.

When the clown groaned and moved his hands to his balls, the scythe fell down the stairs. Yu punched the clown in the jaw to make him go down with his scythe. With his body following his head, the clown fell down the stairs. The clown on the ground groaned, clutching his crotch.

"Sorrow!"

Yu gasped as the skinny clown, shouting the name of the clown Yu had pushed away, jumped superhumanly, just like Rie had jumped before, and stepped between Yu and Neko, bringing the skewer directly to his eye.

All of Yu's fighting ability was applied to the clown behind him. Taking advantage of a moment when his opponent was not expecting an attack, he had struck him in the groin in a move that would have been dishonorable to some warriors, but obligatory to Yu, and then secured himself by knocking him down the stairs.

But now it was Yu who was caught unprepared, expecting no move. Even if he had prepared, he could do nothing against a move as fast as this one. He reflexively closed his eyes and brought his arms to his face to shield his eyes.

"Arghh!"

"Mothrefu-!"

Both opponents screamed in different ways as they tumbled down the stairs, both screaming in pain.

The clown's scream was caused by a red stone thrown by Rie, which exploded when it hit the clown's head. Even Yu felt the heat of the explosion.

Yu's scream was caused by the skewer stabbed into his arm. Instead of going in straight, it went in diagonally and came out above Yu's elbow. The clown's skewer broke inside Yu's arm and stayed there.

They did not stop after falling down the stairs, but continued to struggle and roll around the floor they were on. They broke the door of one of the rooms on the floor and entered. Yu didn't know where he went, but he came to a staircase again. They rolled down the stairs and fell into a small room.

The moonlight coming in through the window illuminated the room. Once in the room, Yu and the skinny clown rolled to different places.

While Yu was still on the floor in pain, the clown recovered and came towards Yu with hard steps and kicked him in the face. The force of his kick broke Yu's nose.

"How dare you attack my brother!"


Chapter 15: Arc 1 - Chapter 4: Sigma Tower (4/4)

If his opponent had been someone he could communicate with in a healthy way, Yu might have been able to rationalize his action.

With someone who was frightening in every way, suddenly appearing behind him with a weapon in his hand, there were two things he could do: either cower and run away, or stay and fight. The logic was the same as that of a crow facing a scarecrow.

Yu, who had no chance to escape at that moment, did what he had to do to protect his life against the person who looked like he was going to kill him.

Although his defense was ready, Yu was not in a position to defend his action, nor was his opponent willing to give Yu the right to defend himself. In fact, even if he did, the freak in front of him did not seem to understand him. She was a madman, her angry voice contrasting with her cheerful mask, the clothes she wore and the way she spoke.

The clown raised her foot to kick him on the balls. Yu rolled on the ground and avoided being kicked on the balls, but his body shook with pain as he rolled on his injured arm.

As long as he was on the ground he could easily be killed, he had to get up if he wanted to increase his chances of survival. To stand up, he needed to open his distance. If he tried to stand up now, a kick to the jaw would knock his teethes out and knock him down again and Yu would lose the chance to stand up completely.

He tried to think of something to get up and get away, but the pain that spread through his whole body prevented him from thinking of a plan. He couldn't plan, he couldn't fight. He could only try to escape from his opponent by using the reflexes he had not needed to develop thanks to the modern life he had lived so far.

The clown wanted to strike Yu's balls again and lifted his foot. This was Yu's chance to make a move. Yu drove his foot into the clown's foot on the ground and knocked her down.

As his opponent lay on the ground, he wanted to kick her a few times in the face, but it would have been best to get away from him and run away. Of course, he couldn't do that either, because the clown was in front of the stairs they had come up, and if he tried to jump over the clown he might get caught and things would only get worse for him.

"Why isn't Rie coming?"

He crawled on his haunches away from the clown and stood up, hoping that Rie would come and save him.

His arm, his nose, his whole body was burning in pain. There was blood in his mouth, and even if he spat it out, it quickly pooled back up. He wanted to vomit, but if he did, he would give his opponent a chance to kill him.

Yu was at a disadvantage no matter how he looked at it. His opponent was probably strong enough to withstand the blows he had received so far, but Yu was not like her. His arm was hurting more and more every second and he was losing blood. With a little effort, he could have removed the skewer, but he was afraid of getting hurt and his opponent would not give him time to do so.

The clown on the ground stood up nimbly and, taking two of the skewers attached to his belt, rushed forward at a speed Yu could hardly follow with his eyes.

As the distance diminished in the blink of an eye, Yu stopped trying to think and threw himself to the ground to escape.

He escaped for the moment, but he was down again and his opponent was standing, this time instead of kicking him, she threw a skewer at Yu.

The skewer missed its target and lodged slightly below his chest. The pain of the skewer piercing an organ was worse than any other pain. Yu crawled to the wall and leaned back against it in his last struggles for life.

His opponent was furious, he could hear her breathing furiously. She grabbed another skewer and pounced on Yu. She was about to stab him in the face with both of the skewers in her hands. Yu tried to stop her with his hands. One of the skewers went into his palm and pierced his hand, grazing Yu's cheek, while the other skewer went into his shoulder.

It worked and he managed to survive again, but that was it, he no longer had the strength to endure the pain or the energy to move.

"I don't want to die."

He couldn't hold back the tears as vomit mixed with blood poured over him. As Yu felt a crisis coming, the clown took another skewer from her waist to make a final move on Yu, who was moaning on the floor.

At this point, Yu had nothing. He was lying on the floor and didn't even have the strength to put his arms around his head.

"Haa!"

The voice Yu heard belonged to the person he had hoped to save him. The owner of the voice appeared before the clown made his last move and a red light filled the room, burning Yu's eyes as well. The clown's scream rang in Yu's ears.

As he drifted in and out of consciousness, it was hard to understand where he was. He found himself in an unfamiliar place, then being carried on the shoulder of an unknown woman. In the scene before his eyes, he was again on the ground and in another scene he was again being carried on the shoulder of a woman.

While his arms and legs were dangling, his teeth were clenched and he bit his tongue because of his clenched teeth and filled his mouth with blood again.

Sometimes he seemed to be able to think, but then he lost his ability to think again. The scenes in front of his eyes would change quickly, and just as quickly he would forget where he was in the next scene.

After a while, Yu began to feel peace in his body. His whole body was being blessed, the warmth his body felt was increasing as he felt better.

"I will try to slow down the fire, heal Yu."

After the last sound he heard, he lost consciousness again. In none of his previous crises had he ever lost consciousness at such a rate. When he regained consciousness, he felt better than before, but it was strange to meet a person he didn't recognize every time.

He felt relief in the place of the skewers that had been removed from his body, and the healing mana being transferred into his body was healing Yu's mind as well.

Unexpectedly quickly, all the wounds on his body healed and he regained full consciousness and remembered what had happened. He also realized who was healing him, the girl with cat ears on the top of her head was healing Yu with white light emanating from both hands.

"I'm sorry."

He was apologizing to Neko, but he didn't know why he was apologizing.

Neko didn't answer him and continued to cast her spell. Being healed by magic didn't feel real to Yu. He was conscious, there were no convulsions, there was a bad taste in his mouth but no more blood, and his wounds had disappeared without a trace.

It was so hard to believe that this was real that the possibility of it being a dream came to his mind again. The heat was getting unbearable.

"I got what I wanted, let's run."

Rie came in, completely covered in blood, her robes torn, her beautiful face covered in bruises. Yu didn't know what she had taken, it must have been something small that she had hidden inside her shredded robe.

When Neko saw her mother's wounds, she ran to her crying and began a healing spell.

"I managed to contain the fire upstairs, but there is a fire downstairs too. Right now we don't have to worry about the fire upstairs because it's protected by my magic, but if they get near there my spell will be broken. We need to find an escape point before they come to us."

Yu came to his senses, but the only thing he understood from what she said was that they were going to escape.

"What about Sharley?" Would they leave the child he had carried on his back all the way?

"I don't know, I don't have time to think about him now, let's go."

The meaning of that sentence was: I'm not going to risk the lives of all three of us to save one person. Yu could understand that logic, especially if one of those two people was a small child, Rie's logic became more acceptable.

He and Rie were going to look for an escape point on the floor they were on, but before they could even start looking, their enemies in the tower reappeared.

"Where are you going after hurting me like that? We have to hurt you now, don't we, Joy?" said Sorrow. His voice was as sorrowful as his name.

"We have to hurt them, brother. Especially yours, young lady, we are very sorry," said Joy. She sounded like she was having fun.

Showing that things weren't over yet, their enemies came out for a second round, announcing their names.


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