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!"