Arc 1 - Chapter 4: Sigma Tower (2/4)

Depending on the answer to his question, Sharley's journey on Yu's back could end. If he heard an answer he didn't want to hear, he would release him to the ground. He had already been carrying him for half an hour, it would be better if he woke up and walked himself.

"Ah! Of course it is, I will not allow low beings to near my gorgeous mother. My mother's love is only for me, no one else will come between us." Neko didn't wait for Rie's answer, but gave her own answer to the question.

"Not a bad answer."

Neko's answer not only said that there was no relationship between Sharley and Rie, but also confirmed that Rie was not in a relationship with anyone else.

"So can I say that my path is wide open? It won't be difficult for a charismatic, talented and promising man like me. Ha! Sometimes I'm surprised at how wonderful I am! Rie is a lucky woman, she has the chance to be with me, it's not something everyone gets. She should be pleased."

But there was still no confirmation from Rie. He wanted to hear from her that she was alone too.

"Just a student, you mean?" He asked, this time to get an answer from Rie.

"My student," Rie replied.

"Just say 'only a student!' Why do you give me answers that I clearly can't understand?" He wanted to make sure Rie didn't have feelings for someone else.

"Only?" He emphasized the word to get the answer he wanted from Rie.

"W-why do you ask?" Rie turned her head and looked at Yu out of the corner of her eye as she kept walking. Yu felt embarrassed when Rie answered him.

"Lan* did she say that shyly because she likes me? I bet she does. I'm great, I'm so good haha! I mean, I am me, after all. How is it possible for a girl not to like me? I'm so cool."

There was no other explanation for Rie's embarrassed speech. He thought it was because of shyness when she accelerated her steps as if running away from Yu.

"I was just curious." He felt like he had won a small victory. He now believed that Rie liked him.

"Don't bother, you stupid creature, you don't stand a chance with me!" Noticing her mother's actions, Neko took her most aggressive stance yet. She had her claws out. "Mother! Please come back to thy senses!"

"I-I'm sorry!"

"This isn't you coming to thy senses!"

As their conversation progressed, Rie's reactions pleased Yu more and more.

"I must be even more impressive than I thought."

They continued walking straight ahead, and as the road began to narrow, Rie suddenly stopped and said, "We're here. The tower is right above us."

"How do we get in?" Yu asked, even though he could guess the answer.

"We drill a hole," Rie replied.

"You have a fantasy of making a hole? The first one in the middle of the street and now the second."

Until now he had thought they would enter the Sigma Tower through a secret passage. If the Sigma Tower was also an observatory, there would be people inside, even at night, and they would be able to hear the noisy process of drilling into the ground.

"Don't you think that noise make people above notice us?"

"At this point, above us must be the basement of the tower. First we will thin the ceiling above us, that is, the soil under the floor of the basement. Once we reach the floor of the basement, we will break it."

After telling Neko and Yu to stand back, Rie prepared her spell. It was the first time Yu had seen magic except the time he died.

First black shadows appeared around Rie, then the shadows solidified and became crystals. The crystals took the shape of shovels. The shovels began to dig into the ceiling, even though Rie hadn't even touched the crystals that had taken the shape of ladle.

"Very impressive." The words spontaneously spilled out of Yu's mouth, which opened in admiration.

"You think right. My mother is always the most impressive." Neko, proud of her mother, took her hand and reiterated that she would not give it to Yu.

When they had thinned the layer on top of them enough, a mound had formed on the ground from the falling earth. When they reached the floor of the basement, Rie began to cast a new spell.

A ring of purple light appeared on the ground, filled with shadows and solidified into a pillar. Then the pillar rose up and slowly smashed the last remaining obstacle above them.

Rie's efforts to thin the soil had worked. The hole on the ground was not as noisy as Yu had expected, but it was not so quiet as to be unnoticeable. If Yu was anywhere near the basement, he would have heard the noise and come to see what was going on.

"If I had the ability to fight, I would have come. Otherwise I wouldn't follow a mysterious voice in the middle of the night."

Their work seemed unprofessional to him. He had never tried to infiltrate a place before, but in the few movies he had ever seen, he had not seen such a simple plan.

"What am I going to do with Sharley?"

Since the tunnel was closed, Rie couldn't go back out this way unless he was planning to reopen the closed tunnel, which would mean that they would be caught by the people who were likely to be there. They would have to take a new route.

So if they left Sharley here, they would have to go down the tunnel again to get him.

"Let's leave him here and we'll come and get him later. Can you wait here with Neko?"

He didn't like being thrown out of the group, or rather, being cut off from its fighting force. It was a dangerous world and he didn't want to be separated from the only fighting force he knew in this world.

Since Yu had no combat ability, in the event of an attack, there were two people other than Rie who could fight. The first was Sharley, who was in no condition to fight, normally a mage, but he was currently a burden because he was unconscious. The second was Neko, but he didn't want to hide behind a child.

"I don't know about Neko, but I can't say that my fighting skills are worth mentioning. You faced one monster on your way here, and if another one comes, there's nothing I can do about it."

"I don't care what happens to these two lower beings. I want to stay with thou mother. That is my duty, I am thy sword fairy."

Neko was as reluctant to be left behind as Yu. They could both make a joint decision and leave Sharley behind, but neither of them wanted to be the one left behind.

Rie was thinking of a plan. "I don't know how stealthy it would be with four of us, and Yu carrying Sharley would slow us down."

"We can go with alone mother, even if those two die." Neko's cruel dismissal for Yu was heartbreaking.

After objections, Rie announced her new plan. "Then I'll leave Sharley here and the three of us will go up. When I get what I want, we'll come back here. There are different exits further down this tunnel so we can get back to home and complete the mission."

"If we do that, won't Sharley die in the event of an attack?" He didn't care about Sharley if he was going to rival Yu, but he was surprised that Rie would dismiss him like this.

"If I leave you or Neko here, two or three people might die, but if I only leave him here, one person will die." Rie didn't seem happy with her decision when she gave that answer, more because she believed it was the way it had to be.

Yu could not reject her logic. As cruel as it sounded, he would go along with the plan and be okay with Sharley's death as long as he survived.

After all, Yu, past and present, would rather another human being die than him. Even if others called it selfishness, he did not take their words as sincere. There might be heroes who would lay down their lives for people they didn't know, but Yu was not one of them.

And Yu believed that most people thought like him. Anyone else in Yu's place would have preferred the death of Sharley, a boy he didn't know, rather than risking his own life. In short, as long as Yu was alive, he was fine.

After everyone agreed to the plan, Rie went through the hole above their heads in one leap and entered the basement of the tower. The hole was narrow enough for only one person to pass through.

"Neko, you go first."

Neko stood on the purple light that appeared on the ground and the light solidified into a pillar that carried Neko to her mother.

"Okay mom, we fooled that idiot, now we can leave him and go."

"Hey!" Yu's cheeks stiffened at Neko's words, he didn't want to stay here.

"Neko..." Rie sighed, creating a new light on the ground. "Get on top of the light, Yu."

Yu hovered over the light and it turned into a pillar, just like before, and carried Yu upwards. Now all three of them were inside the Sigma Tower.

In the basement was a large cauldron and a hill of coal and wood. Presumably the boilers were lit in cold weather and heated water to keep the inside of the tower warm, so it was a simple central heating system.