Conquering the Sunken Ruins of Melusine 2
Jayr POV - Tortus, Sunken Ruins of Melusine - 2013
After successfully wiping out the mana-based illusions, I and Eri decide to approach the biggest sailing ship enshrined in the center of the ship's graveyard, looking at it I can't help but be amazed by it, even the early sailing ship of my previous world couldn't match the gigantic scale of this one.
No less than 300 meters in length, and as large as a ten-story building, it is only partly visible from the ground, all along its hull magnificent decorations are mounted, and although they are in a state of decay, they still give off a strong impression that made you want to admire them, at the same time, I can't help but be impressed and admire the time and effort the artisans put into creating them.
After admiring the ship's structure and decoration, I hug Eri and jump on top of the terrace of the huge ship that almost reminds me of one of those huge luxury cruise ships, only made of wood, and clearly made for battle, and the same instant as we land, the surrounding space begin to distort again, so I declare, "Another Illusion incoming... be ready for anything!", but Eri who is already looking around replies, "It looks fine to me".
Hearing that, I take a quick survey of our altered environment, this time it seems that we are on top of the same ship, this time in a pristine state, sailing out at sea, it's nighttime, with the full moon shining in the sky.
The cruise ship is shining with light sparkles, and on the deck, there are various arrangements of buffet-type style cuisines lined up with many people who are chatting with each other while having delicious-looking food in one hand, seeing this scene I comment, "This is a party… isn't it?", and Eri with a smile asks, "Un... Do we need to kill everyone here too?", to which I reply with, "No, not for now, let's just see what is going on...", and so we remain standing on the terrace looking over at the party going on below on the enormous deck.
Then the door behind us opens and several chatting sailors walk out, and quickly we decide to mix in with the sailors and listen to their conversation.
From listening to the sailor's stories we learn that this maritime party is apparently being held in celebration of the end of the war, a war that had continued for so many years, and rather than ending through invasion and annihilation, it has been resolved by signing a peace treaty.
The sailors seem happy, and as we look more closely we notice that not only are there humans on the deck but also demons and demi-humans, without distinction for race, everyone is freely chatting among themselves, seeing this scene Eri comments, "This isn't going to end well, isn't it?", I continue to look down at the deck, let out a sigh, and say, "Yeah by now we already know Ehit's modus operandi... Although I'm not sure how many years have passed since the end of the war, the fact that they are still able to laugh so freely means that the period of peace is quite long… That means that it is time for a new conflict to start soon..."
And after I said this, we notice an elderly man climbing up onto a stage prepared on the deck, there is a sense of respect in the eyes of the people below as they notice him on stage and abruptly stopped chatting to focus on him.
There is another man who appears to be an aide standing near the elderly man, but for some reason, he is wearing a hood and trying to blend in with the background, an attire that I quickly recognize and so I mutter, "An Apostle... as I thought... Things are about to get ugly...".
Eventually, when all the chatter has subsided, the elderly man begins his speech, "Gentlemen, those who wished for peace, the brave souls who ran through the war risking their lives, are the messengers of peace. Today, at this place, I truly feel that it's a great fortune for all of us to be able to meet here together. It was a war that began a long time, even for my generation, yet we were able to stand together in peace after bringing an end to the war. To see such a dream come true… my heart still trembles".
Everyone is listening in silence as the old man spoke, meanwhile, the speech continues, events such as doubt, crossing paths, and incidents that became stepping stones towards peace.
He spoke of those who were often reckless in their attempts to overturn this, and the friends who scattered during the middle, and as the speech progressed everyone's eyes begin to look far away, yearning for their missed ones and suppressing moisture from the corners of their eyes, enduring the urge to let their tears flow, and soon the people nod to show their respect, and the man that I think is some kind of king is about to finish his speech, "... and thus, one year has passed since the signing of the peace treaty... It was all so foolish", at the same time, I notice the hidden movement of some sailors, who start to slowly move to surround the crowd.
At the words of the King, for a moment the crowd appears puzzled, and everyone is looking at each other in confusion, in the meantime, the King's heated speech continues, "Yes, it truly was foolish. To see both the beasts and the heretics talking about the future and exchanging drinks, it is ridiculous. Do you understand, gentlemen? That's right, I am talking about you", with the sudden change of King, one of the demons who is agitated by his words stands up before him and yells, "What on earth are you saying Aleist?! Hell, what's wrong with sayin- gaah!?", then, as he tried to question King Aleist, his chest is pierced by a sword.
The Demon race man who was stabbed looks back over his shoulder to see the startled expressions of the Human race and see that they are all honestly surprised by what just happened, and with a final expression of disbelief, the man of the Demon race collapses, and at the same time, screams arise and the entire deck falls into an uproar, as several men and women rush to the collapsed body of the Demon race man crying, "Your Majesty!".
At the same time, the human king Aleist continues his deranged speech, "Well gentlemen, as I stated originally, I am truly happy to bring everyone together tonight. We will create a country free from the races that were abandoned by god, where all can be equal. In the Genesis of this world, there was only one god, Ehit-sama. Those who turned their backs on him, foolishly worshiping a false god, such pagans mustn't be allowed to leave! It will end today! The only path to peace is through destroying all the heathens! Therefore, on this day, as we sweep away the leaders of the non-believers, I cannot help but rejoice! Now, servants of God, pass judgment on these heathens with the hammer of justice! Aah! Ehit-sama, please watch over our work!".
King Aleist's laughter echoes loudly as he falls onto his knees and gazes up towards the sky, at the same time, he signs to the soldiers, who had been dressed as sailors, to completely surround the party on the deck.
In an instant, all kinds of magic are finally released and bombarded the deck, and although the passengers tried to fight back desperately, they were at a disadvantage, in the end, it is a one-sided massacre as those who resisted were slaughtered, while those who ran fled towards the inside of the ship were killed as they ran, the deck had been completely changed into a sea of blood in only an instant.
Seeing this macabre spectacle, I snort loudly, while at the same time, my conviction of removing the shitstain that is Ehit from this world becomes stronger, meanwhile, Eri who is looking at the King Aleist as he soon joins his subordinates in pursuing the remnants who had fled into the ship, mutters, "It appears that the king was thoroughly brainwashed by Ehit and became a puppet under his control... Did you notice how everyone looked at him with eyes full of love and respect when he appeared, and how everyone was surprised by his sudden change?", to which I silently nod.
Then the last scene of this illusion appears before our eyes, the hooded man follows the king into the ship, and just before he stepped inside he turns around and looks back at the deck, and in that instant, a tuft of silver hair escape from the fringe of his hood and shines brightly in the reflected moonlight, and I say, "As I thought, an Apostle...", then the surroundings distort once more, and we soon find ourselves back to on top of the derelict cruise ship.
I look at the now, damaged and decayed deck, and say, "Come on, let's move on... I think our next destination is that door that King Aleist entered...", and so we both jump down onto the deck and bolt toward the same door the illusion went through, and without hesitation, I kick it open.
The inside of the ship is completely enclosed in darkness, and seeing this Eri says, "Since the outside is bright, it wouldn't have been strange for light to shine in through crevices in the rotted wood, but for some reason, there is no light at all... How clichè...", in response to this, I simply raise my hand and use some basic light magic, Light Ball, to shine our way, and without delay, we step inside and move forward until we spot something ahead shining in response to my light.
We stop and watch as the light slowly approaches us when it got closer I can see that it is a girl in a fluttering white dress, she stops in the hallway in front of us and stands there, swaying slightly with her head looking downwards, seeing this scene Eri mutters in surprise, "Oh! Its Yamamura Sadako-san...", but instantly, the girl collapse into the hallway with a soft thump, then, at an angle impossible for a normal human's joints, raise herself up onto her hands and feet like a spider and launched herself straight at them while letting out a strange laughter that echoes throughout the hallway.
As she approaches us, Eri tilts her head and calmly asks, "Or is Saeki Kayako-san?", totally unafraid of the situation, and once she reaches us, Eri simply taps the ghost head with her staff and chants, "Bind!", and the next instant, black chains appears and wraps around the ghost's body holding it in place, then the ghost looks like it met its nemesis and with a frightened expression on her face it starts to fiercely struggle, but it is powerless before Eri's magic, then Eri taps the ghost again and chants, "Suppress! Mark! Enslave!", and three magic circles appears around the ghost that stops struggling and only shivers, until a strange black mark appears on its forehead that looks like some kind of stylized eye.
(AN: For those who don't remember/know, and don't want to search on Google, Yamamura Sadako and Saeki Kayako are the ghosts of the movies The Grudge and Ring...)
Then Eri removes the binding and starts to lovingly pat the ghost's head as she says, "There, there, don't worry I'll treat you well... I have always liked the movies like Ju-On and Ring... Now I can't wait to make you as powerful as them... or even stronger, then unleash you on those who deserve... I promise you that if you follow me, I'll make you the most feared ghost...", and surprisingly the ghost seems to understand Eri's words and calms down before it nods, then with a smile Eri says, "Good, now go rest..." and pulls her back into her shadow, then she looks at me and says, "I hope there are some other ghosts like her here... Can you imagine an army of Sadakos and Kayakos...".
Looking at how easily Eri dealt with the ghost, I can't help but say, "As expected of a Necromancer... This kind of beings are totally under her control...", then the door ahead in the hallway flies open with a bang, and on the other side of the door there are countless bloodstains on the floor, and when I look up I see the head of a woman with long, dripping wet, hair hung up on the ceiling looking down at us, at the same time, I hear a noise and turn around to see a headless man dragging an axe along the floor behind us, and think, 'Luckily it isn't another Sadakos or Kayakos type ghost... I truly can't stand more of them, while I can easily destroy these ghosts I can't help but find them creepy, and some of their abilities are truly strange and unpredictable...'.
While I was thinking that, Eri easily catches the evil spirit, then she uses her Spirt Magic to refine its energy and feed it into her new pet evil ghost that she named Noriko, that seems quite happy as she is wriggling around with her creepy laugh, while Eri looks at her with a smile and says, "Eat well, Noriko. For what I have planned for you you will need a strong foundation, luckily it seems that this place is full of tasty treat...", and so we continue exploring this place, now with Eri leading the way as she catches and refine all the evil spirits and ghost we meet for then feeding all the energy into Noriko that is growing stronger at each passing moment, and eventually we arrive at the ship's hold.
As soon as we step through the opened heavy doors, we proceed towards the back of the ship's hold, moving in between the sparsely spread out cargo, however, before we progress far, the doors behind us shut themselves with a loud sound, and soon, a thick fog begins to slowly block our field of view, and Eri cheerfully exclaims, "Good! Another sacrifice for Noriko and this one feels a lot stronger than the others...", then she summons from her shadow, some of her Undead Puppet that start to surround her to protect from an eventual attack.
An attack that doesn't take too long to come, as I hear the ring of something as it tears through the air, flying towards us, but I easily grab the incoming object aimed at my neck with my left hand, and see that it is a simple arrow tied to a thin thread and comment, "A simple trap? How unusual...", then I hear the continuous ringing sound of the air being cut as arrows fly at us from all the sides, but I easily repel them by casting a weak Omnipotens Dis (Almighty Push).
Then Eri who is more sensitive than toward such matters, quickly warns me, "Jayr be careful, it is making its move!", and soon after her warning, the fog ahead of us begin to swirl violently and a fierce storm struck us, "Kya!?", and Eri is blown away in the storm leaving behind me with her Undead Puppet, as her figure disappears in the fog.
I try to use my special magic to find her, but it seems that the fog has a function that inhibits these types of magic, similar to inside the Sea of Trees, but it can't hinder my trained senses, so I can still clearly sense Eri's position and know that she isn't too far away from me, but then my senses pick up another movement from within the fog, and so without hesitation, I pull out the Tactical Arms in its Sword Arm Form, and prepare for the next wave of enemies, fully calm about Eri's safety as in this kind of setting, the enemies should be scared of her, not the other way.
Soon, from the fog ahead, a knight wielding a longsword come tearing out of the fog, and using an unusual technique, he lunge fiercely and swings the sword at me, but I easily parry with one blade, while I use the other to split the enemy into half, making it vanish into the mist.
However, immediately after, a line of swordsmen and knights emerge from the fog, these warriors hold a variety of different weapons, and use the fog to launch attacks, one after another, fading back into the mist after each strike, but even with their hit and run tactics they can't keep up with my speed and power, and so using the twin blade, I'm like a tornado sweeping away all that gets in my way, and before long I have dealt with 50 ghostly warriors more or less, and just when I thought I dealt with all of them, a large man wielding a greatsword comes out from the fog, charging straight at me and swing a blow that boasted of enormous strength.
I dodge the attack with the smallest movement of my body, and at the same time, I join my blades together to change the Tactical Arms into the Sword Form, and with a spin I swing my weapon at the ghostly warrior, who in the meantime, bounced the greatsword back into the air using the recoil from the blow to the ground to attack again.
The two greatswords clash one against the other, but it is clear that I have the advantage, as I blow the warrior's greatsword away, then I take advantage of the opening to spin once more and throw a sweep kick that makes the warrior crash on the ground, and without hesitation, I swing my sword to cut off the large man's head.
At the same time, the large man's head is cut off, the surrounding fog begins to fade away, and I hear the sobbing voice of a girl that seems to plead to someone in despair, "Iwanttodisappear! Iwanttodisappear! Iwanttodisappear! Iwanttodisappear! Iwanttodisappear! Iwanttodisappear!", then I hear Eri's voice as she says in a chilling voice, "No can do... You not only tried to possess me, but you also tried to take Jayr away from me... For such sin, I'll slowly refine you and make sure that your desperation will become the greatest seasoning for Noriko's next meal...", then, soon after, the ghost's wailing voice disappears, and I can see Eri calmly walking toward me with a smile on her face.
Once she is close enough, she looks at me and says, "I took care of that little annoyance, and now this place is free of spirits", I nod with a smile and pat her head while saying, "Good job...", but then I pinch both her cheeks and admonish her, "But you didn't have to torture that ghost so much, I can understand being ruthless to your enemies, but do not lose yourself to such cruelty... In the long run, it brings more harm to you and those close to you than to your enemies...", and Eri with a pout replies, "Okay... I'll be more careful and won't make my enemy suffer too much...", then she adds in a lower voice, "... Unless they deserve it...".
Hearing that, I nod, peck Eri on her lips, and let go of her cheeks, then I notice a magic circle that is shining brightly further inside the storeroom, and patting Eri's shoulder I say, "That looks like the way out of this place. Let's go!", and walk toward that magic circle while holding Eri's hand, and without hesitation, we step inside the magic circle that shines even more brightly, blinding me for a moment, then I sense my surroundings changing, and when I open my eyes, I find that we are transported in what appears to be the last room of this Labyrinth, Melusine's Abode.
There is a faint light coming from the ceiling that is entirely made of the swaying waves of the ocean above, in front of us there is a building that is like a temple surrounded by ocean water, which is supported by five huge columns, and there is no wall between the columns, but there are pathways that float on the surface of the sea that extends in five directions, and these pathways end in a circle, on which is drawn another magic formation, and of course, right now, we are standing on one of these five circles.
Like me, Eri is looking around and she mutters, "It seems that this is the end... I have to admit that this Labyrinth was quite a lot easier than the others...", but I quickly say, "No, not really... It's just that we are getting stronger and our strength scaled way above what is normal for this world. This Labyrinth had quite a lot of hazards that we would have found difficult to overcome before...", hearing my answer makes Eri realize the same as she explains, "That is true... Without Spirit Magic, I would have found it difficult to deal with the ghost... especially the last one... It did take me by surprise and was able to possess me for a few seconds, but thanks to Spirit Magic, I was able to counterattack and suppress that bitch... Moreover, without Nagumo-kun we would have been forced to use some other methods to cross the ocean and reach this place, a method that involved the use of some other Age of Gods Magic....".
Soon after that, I notice, that a magic circle on another pathway is shining brightly and from it, Hajime carrying Kaori on her back appears, but it seems that they are too busy takling to notice our presence, but that changes when the remaining magic circles start shining too, and soon after, Yue, Tio, and Shea, appear on one of the circles, making me realize, 'It seems that Yue ended up together with Shea and Tio...', then Freid and Kouki appears soon after both having a deep frown on their faces, 'It looks like the vision shown in this Labyrinth hit them the most... Probably because they saw a piece of themself in the fanatics, especially Freid...', and after then Suzu's group makes its appearance, and all of them seem to have taken quite a blow too as their faces are quite pale but overall they seem fine, 'Yup the bloody sight of the war isn't something they were prepared for...'.
The next moment, Yue and Shea rush toward Hajime and Kaori, while Kouki moves toward his best friend, Ryutaro, and his childhood friend, Shizuku, and seems that they quickly start to talk about what they went through, meanwhile, Tio gets closer and bowing lightly she calmly says as she shows her inviting cleavage, "Master, this one is back... but as this one is a little late, please punish this one as you please. You can even use my body until it is unable to live without like you did with Miss Eri, I won't mind...", but Eri quickly moves and hits Tio's behind with her staff yelling, "Ero-Dragon! Stop trying to seduce my Jayr or I'll make you disappear!", but all she gets in response is Tio's excited moan as she says, "Aaaah~ You know I don't mind if you join us~ haaa, haaa, I'm sure that someone as great as Master can't be satisfied by this one alone~ But at least hope that this one first time would be a one on one affair~", and Tio's openness seems to stun Eri for a few seconds as she doesn't know how to respond, meanwhile, Hajime seems to have the same kind of trouble, as Kaori and Shea seem to have reached some kind of agreement, while Yue looks at them full of fighting spirit.
Then we all gather in front of the altar in the temple, and set foot on the magic formation with everybody at the same time, going by the usual, the magic formation starts to carefully examine the inside of our minds, and our memories of the Labyrinth are read.
However, it isn't just that this time, it looks like it is also sharing what it sees with the others in the magic formation, in other words, right now, I'm also seeing what the others went through, and they are seeing what I and Eri saw, it seems that we all experienced some kind of plot, betrayal or manipulation of some kind of Church and the Gods through the ages, sometime it started by the human, other times by the demons, but what always stands out is the silver-haired person behind the scene, a characteristic we are all too familiar with, the Apostle.
Shea, Suzu, Kaori, Ryutaro, Kosuke, Kouki, and Shizuku seems to pale even further as they are forced to remember the bloody details by the magic formation, some of them appear to be on the verge of puking, but luckily soon this process ends, and it seems that the magic formation confirmed that we all passed the trial successfully, as the next moment, the knowledge of a new Age of Gods magic is imprinted into our minds, Restoration Magic.