章 65: Thebel (1)
The feeling when they entered the entrance was very uncomfortable. It was as if they were sucked by a powerful vacuum wave so when the sensation had stopped they were kind of disoriented and dizzy.
After regaining their clarity they found out they were inside a dark corridor like place. This corridor reminded Haruto a lot of the schools from his world. In short it was a modern like buildings. Even the floor was made from ceramic like materials with checkerboard pattern.
"...This place is really creepy...."
Fia who was looking around the place said while clinging to Haruto's left. The others too silently agreed with her opinion. This corridor like place was extremely dark with only a dim dark green light coming from the windows on the wall. On the ground, they could see traces of blood staining the floor.
Haruto could compare this place to an abandoned haunted building back on Earth. In fact this place was just perfect for people to play the "Kimodameshi (Test of Courage)" of which his friends at school were very fond of during a school trip.
But unfortunately if a slightly weak person entered this kind of place perhaps it didn't need to be a ghost to make them fell unconscious out of fear. That's just how creepy the place was.
Not to mention....
"My body feels strangely heavy..." Haruto said.
"Uuu~ and somehow the air made me feel so uncomfortable....." Kaori held her body while trembling. She really hated this kind of place since she's very scared of ghost. Reflexively, she clung on Haruto's sleeve tightly on the right, opposite of Fia but Haruto currently did not pay any mind to that because he's too having a hard time getting used on the atmosphere.
Even Rikka who seemed the most tough at this kind of place had her expression distorted out of discomfort from the sensation around her. She also did not pay attention to the fact two girls were clinging on Haruto's sides.
{Elsie are you alright?} Haruto decided to check on his last companion inside his body.
{...The scenery kinda spooked me a bit but I think I'm alright inside of you Nii-sama}
Right, Elsie was a actually a devil in her original story. So naturally she built up some kind of resistance towards a creepy place. And apparently staying inside his body protected her from the harmful atmosphere inside Tartarus.
'Looks like my senses were greatly hindered here. The ominous aura around the place must be the cause....' Haruto closed his eyes and tried to sense his surroundings but he could not detect around more than ten meters away, even that was kind of hazy.
He took out the guild card end confirmed the changes on the progress section.
- Tartarus Exploration Progress : Thebel 2F
'Thebel? Is that the name of this place?'
A strange name was written beside the floor. He recalled Selianna said that Tartarus was divided into several sections or commonly referred to as "Blocks".
So perhaps Thebel was the name of the 1st Block.
"Haru-kun, something's coming!"
Rikka shouted, awakening Haruto from his thought.
He looked ahead and saw a black fog was swirling around. Slowly, it began to shape into several beast-like figure clad completely black.
"...."
In the end it formed about five completely black wolves with glowing yellow eyes. Haruto could not help but opened his eye wide in shock seeing the newly formed monsters.
'Aren't they very similar to those black minotaurs before?'
Their completely black shadow-like body was extremely similar to how that black minotaurs' look like, except the monsters in front of him did not emit any dark red mist like those minotaurs. Still, he could sense a tint of that malicious energy from their bodies. Maybe they also possessed that mist but a lot fewer.
"ROARR!"
"Watch out!"
They all dispersed to various direction following the charge of the wolves. Rikka and Kaori dodged to the left while Haruto and Fia dodged to the right.
The black wolves growled from having their prey avoiding their attack, they scattered to the people's direction and attacked them.
Three wolves aimed at Rikka and Kaori's side. Responding to their movements, Rikka drew her crimson katana from her waist and prepared against their assaults.
Kaori also summoned both of her black and white large swords before she rotated her body and cut two of the incoming wolves together horizontally.
Rikka was left with only one black wolf and following the claw aiming at her head she stepped to the side and thrust strongly against its body, impaling it to the wall.
The moment the black wolf was stabbed by the sword, a strange black markings went out from the wound and spread around the black wolf's body. The markings was also black in color but it's also had tinge of purple aura so the markings could still be seen clearly on the shadow-like body of the wolf, it was spreading to where its heart was located and at that moment the wolf lost the light on its eye and turned limp before disappearing into ashes.
A tiny red mist left by the wolf was then absorbed by the Murasame. The same also happened to Kaori who just cut the two wolves, the mist went to either one of Kaori's swords.
Haruto and Fia on the right side were also aimed by the other two black wolves. He tried to deal with them quickly since they're not that powerful but Fia stopped him with her eyes. Thinking she wanted to fight them alone he decided to pull back after giving her a good luck pat on her shoulder.
Fia smiled and moved forward while reaching her hand to the side and summoned a certain object on her hand.
Haruto saw the object she formed and it was turned out to be a white rectangular paper talisman with a mantra scripture drawn on it resembling a claw. Fia put the talisman on her right arm before calling out the name of the talisman.
"Juusougenpu (Beast Claw Master Talisman)"
The talisman glowed brightly following the chant and covered Fia's right arm with a gust of magical energy like a vortex, it brightened up the dark place around them. Fia's body was also surrounded by the waves of magical energy and blew away the two black wolves lunging against her.
The light magical energy faded out revealing Fia's right arm now completely transformed into a white rocky beast claw. The claw was completely white with lines of gold around it and light blue on the long huge nails.
"Byakuren Kohou (White Lotus Tiger Arms)."
Haruto nodded satisfied seeing her new weapon. It was originated from the manga series Sousei no Onmyouji/Twin Star Exorcists. The enchanted gear of Byakko the white tiger wielded by Amawaka Seigen. He always liked the series even though it was not that popular, especially because the anime ruined the series, at least on his opinion. Reading the manga, Haruto thought that Seigen's gear was very cool and now he could see Fia using those very gear right in front of his eyes so he was very excited.
Fia didn't move from her spot and waited until the black wolves leaped and assaulted on her again. But when they were aiming on her body, Fia swiped her right arm and in that instant one of the wolf's head was decapitated even though her claw did not reach its neck.
The other wolf who jumped right behind the just died black wolf slammed against the limp body so it dropped to the ground while the body turned to ash. Soon after Fia swung her claw casually downwards, releasing a shockwave slash from the claw and ripped the other black wolf into three parts.
The two disappearing bodies left out two tiny red mists that was absorbed into Fia's white claw the same as Rikka and Kaori.
With this Haruto confirmed his suspicion that those black wolves also possessed that red mist but in a lot smaller quantity. That left a lot of questions but right now was not the time for it so Haruto dismissed his thought.
"Un! you wield it even better than before Fia-chan!" Kaori praised Fia.
"So that's Fia-san's weapon is it? It has a strong power and also fast. I also think it suited Fia-san very much." Rikka gave her opinion.
"Comparing to the you from before, you're indeed grown much stronger Fia." Haruto also added a praise to her. Measuring out the black wolves power it was indeed about lower Medium rank monster just like Selianna said. That meant Fia just easily defeated a monster as strong as the giant mountain boar she and Haruto fought around the first time they met, showing her tremendous growth.
"U-Umm, thank you very much.... It's also thanks to everyone." Fia was embarassed and also happy from their praises, especially from Haruto.
"Don't mind it, you also worked very hard." He pat her head.
"Un..." She nodded while blushing.
"...But still even though I only moved a little I feel like I spent more energy than I should...." Rikka suddenly said while narrowing her eyes.
"Yeah, I feel it too." Kaori nodded while shivering from remembering what kind of place she was in.
"I did not even participate in the fight but I can also feel my stamina decreasing faster than usual...." Haruto also noticed the abnormality.
They all agreed that their current situation was caused by the Tartarus itself. Now it was no wonder exploring the tower was very grueling. Their stamina drained faster and so with their morale for having to get exposed to such nasty air and atmosphere, this was especially true for Kaori who's very afraid of ghost and creepy places. Haruto could only hope she'll get use to it as soon as possible otherwise it will be a huge trouble in the future.
Thankfully the 1st Block shouldn't pose much problem for them since according to what Selianna said this section only included monsters ranging from lower Medium to lower High rank. Though that was only the ordinary monsters, not considering the boss guarding the "checkpoint" floor. Even so not a single one of them was planning to let down their guard on this kind of abnormal place.
Nodding at each other, they continued their exploration.
週次パワーステータス
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