CH 154

Chapter 154

When Peaceful Times Cease To Exist : The Archfiend Workshop, Part 9 — Center Of The Workshop

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

When Elsa looked back at Eliza after blowing away all the Anomalies, she too had just finished cutting down most of the failures-to-be. The “failures-to-be” were fearless. That is probably why they jumped into Eliza’s whirlwind of slashes without realizing it was self-destructive. If they had kept their distance and gradually pushed her back, they might have been able to put up a slightly better fight.

Nevertheless, Elsa wasn’t planning to use Delay Spell here, and she is certainly worn out from the unexpected. Eliza, who has finished slashing everything, seems to be uninjured, but she is indeed out of breath, and above all, the blood returning from her wounds is terrible. Her beautiful blonde hair was almost half dyed red by the returned blood.

「You look terrible, Eliza.」

「Ah… I apologise.」

Eliza is somewhat stunned as she accepts Elsa’s offer of the cloth used to cover her twin swords to wipe off Eliza’s returned blood. Seeing this, Elsa senses that Eliza is also quite overwhelmed and decides to give her a break.

「Eliza, get some rest. While you’re at it, I’ll stock up.」

「Stock up… for what?」

「I’m going to destroy this facility.」

Elsa then examines each part of the room, looking for any areas that might be supportive or fragile, and applies the delay spell she has just used. She also applies magic to a tank-like object at the end of a strange tube in the room, and sets it up while consulting with her own remaining magic power.

Elsa can set the activation time of this holy explosion magic at her discretion. Of course, if it’s deactivated before it’s triggered, that would be the end of it, but the shortest it can be detonated is five seconds from the time it’s touched. No matter how much of a master she is, Elsa believed that it would be impossible to disarm it in five seconds. Even her equipped fist is a decoy. She can practically send her opponent to their death as long as she can touch them. Even if it didn’t die, no creature would be able to survive a small-scale explosive magic from zero distance and not suffer any damage.

When Kazas argued with Miranda, he accused the Church of Arnelia of keeping magic secret, and rightly so. The Church of Arnelia is generally known as a defensive group, so it is difficult to perceive them as a threat despite their size, but those who have witnessed the actual fighting style of the Templar Knights are well aware of their combat capabilities. The magic used by the Church of Arnelia is by no means limited to restorative magic. There are a number of offensive magic techniques that are taught only to priests and above, or to those who act alone, such as pilgrims.

Conversely, someone like Elsa, who has a background in this kind of undisclosed offensive magic, could be said to be on pilgrimage duty. Otherwise, it would be impossible to go on a pilgrimage that may involve defeating fiends in various places. However, this magic used by Elsa consumes quite a bit of magic power. There is a limit to the power of the explosion, and it’s not something that can be set off at the same time by punching. It takes time to「build up」to activate the magic, and if caught off guard, it cannot be set up. Conveniently, Anomaly began to babble on his own, which made it possible for her to successfully prepare her magic. During the previous conversation, Elsa had already finished preparing her magic.

「Well, we’re lucky.」

Since she considered a retreat here to be unavoidable, Elsa was grateful just to be able to slowly do the trick like this. At the same time, Elsa again draws a magic circle here with chalk. After finishing all the tricks, she checks her own remaining magic power.

「About half a room left. Can we get one more room? I don’t know how much more of this facility is big enough.」

Even as she says this, Elsa returns to Eliza. At the same time, she turns the hourglass in her backpack upside down to find out the time until the explosion. The hourglass, fixed to a back made strong enough to withstand battle, indicates that once the sand falls out, they must retreat at all costs.

Also, Eliza’s condition is important. If she is mentally unable to fight any more battles, they need to consider blowing up this place and returning. They have already had some success. However, since this room seems to be a laboratory, Elsa really wants to keep only the site of the Archfiend production. In fact, one might say that this is the essence of this infiltration.

While suppressing her inwardly flustered feelings, Elsa speaks kindly to Eliza.

「Eliza, have you calmed down a little?」

「Yes, I’m fine now. But…」

Eliza showed her twin swords to Erza. The blades were rusted as if they had been used for a long time. It should’ve been as good as new until a few minutes ago.

「This is…」

「Their blood seems to be acidic. It doesn’t seem to dissolve the skin, but it does seem to corrode metal. It managed to hold up in the fight I just had, but it would have broken if I had slain 10 more of them. And Elsa-sama’s fist.」

Elsa looked at her fist with a start. The mithril, which shouldn’t rust in the slightest, was corroded. It doesn’t seem to be as good as Eliza’s twin swords, but this may not be useful for any amount of money.

「I can’t believe they’re going to ruin mithril. They’ll do it. They’re so precious.」

「What do you think? I think any further advance would be fraught with further danger.」

「…We’ll blow this place up in about an hour. Until then, let’s proceed.」

「Understood.」

Having said all that, Eliza seemed to have no more complaints. The two of them headed further back from the entrance where Anomaly and the others had entered with her. Neither of them was a Sensor, but they could search for signs to some extent. They looked at each other when they saw too little sign of anything, but cautiously proceeded to the back of the facility.

Apparently, this is a place where there’s a lot of normal coming and going, and lit candles are placed at regular intervals on the walls, so there’s already no need for the eye to get used to them. It’s good to be able to walk easily, but the unpleasant vibe wafting from the back of the facility grows stronger the further they go.

After another half hour or so, the hourglass was nearly half full. Determined to go further in, they find a descending staircase on their left. The path continued in front, but Elsa had a gut feeling that she just couldn’t pass up that dark hole that seemed to be inviting her to the underworld. Eliza looked a little apprehensive, but she sensed that Elsa’s will was strong, and when she saw Elsa take a step forward, she followed suit.

It took some time for their eyes to adjust to the darkness at the back of the stairs, but the staircase wasn’t long, and soon they were in a large room. Although dimly lit, there seemed to be something shining dimly, and it was not entirely invisible. There was also an open door at the bottom of the stairs, so they can assume that no one’s in the room, given that there was light in the hallway earlier and no light in this room. They could assume that no one was in the room. Elsa closed the door and lit the torch she had brought with her, illuminating the room. What she saw at that moment was——

「Kyaaah!!」

「Ahh!!」

Not only Eliza, but even Elsa involuntarily raised her voice like a little girl. It was no wonder, for what they saw in front of them when the light came on was the head of something the size of a human body, stuck in a large, transparent jar. Moreover, its eyes are wide open and bloodshot, as if they could kill a person just by staring at it. Its mouth is sewn shut and its skin is green. No, the color of the liquid is green. It was hard to say by torchlight alone.

Elsa, who was surprised for a moment but soon returned to a calm state of mind, saw a number of similar pots around her. Inside the jar, which is twice the height of Elsa and Eliza, are not only their faces, but also their arms, bodies, and legs. They contain the body parts of a wide variety of creatures, and come in all sizes. Eliza asked Elsa a question as she looked around the jars.

「Elsa-sama, what in the world was that?」

「I don’t know… Eliza, I think we may have found something very serious.」

In front of Elsa was a very large jar. Inside it was an indescribable creature with a crustacean body, tentacles for arms and legs, and a crocodile for a head. Its body is connected to a tube extending from outside the jar, but they can clearly see its body pulsating. The creature inside the jar is alive.

「I’ve seen a parade of creatures like Sahagin, Kelpies, rock birds, sandworms, and many more… Quite possibly, this is where the Archfiend are being produced.」

「This is…」

Eliza says somewhat emotionally, and then, wondering what she was thinking, she rushes up to the top of the jar with a light movement. Eliza looks around as she climbs on top of the jar, with Elsa a little perturbed by her sudden action.

「Elsa-sama, may I borrow your torch?」

「Go ahead. There!」

Eliza dexterously takes the torch thrown by Elsa and illuminates the surroundings. Unlike the previous laboratory, this room seems to be quite large, and the light doesn’t reach all the corners of the room. But she can clearly see that the jars are evenly spaced and arranged in tremendous numbers. What if these contain several such individuals that are now at her feet? Eliza shook her head from side to side to shake off the unpleasant anticipation and jumped down from the jar.

「How’s it going?」

「The light didn’t reach the edge of the room. So I don’t know exactly, but I’m thinking there are at least 100+ pots here.」

「That’s bad. With so many production plants operating at full capacity, it would be possible to build a force that could take down a country in a matter of seconds. It’s not an easy situation.」

「I see…」

Elsa wondered if it would be better to destroy even a few of them, although there probably would not be enough magic power to blow up this place.

「Eliza, do you hear something?」

「Huh? There’s nothing… no, that was…」

Clop, clop.

She hears a sound coming slowly down the stairs. The door had been closed so there was no way she could hear such a sound, but Eliza could hear it clearly. Even if there’s nothing around that emits sound. It was a strange thing. But the footsteps sounded like the footsteps of the Grim Reaper to both of them.

Elsa hurriedly extinguished the torch and hid in a jar to hide from the door with Eliza.

Creak…

Soon after, the door opened with a creaking sound and the owner of the footsteps entered. At that moment, the two felt as if the very air in the room itself had frozen. But the owner of the footsteps stopped where they entered the room, or perhaps there were no footsteps this time. The pause was so unpleasant that the two of them involuntarily tensed up without breathing.

Thud, thud!

Soon after, the owner of the footsteps starts walking. The footsteps are not completely muffled because of the soil below. The two hid in a jar that was quite far from the door, but they seemed hesitant to even breathe, let alone move. Instinct tells Elsa and Eliza. They must never move.

But strangely enough, the owner of the footsteps walks straight toward them. It was as if they knew they were there, even though there were no lights on and they couldn’t see anything. In case someone’s wondering, both of them had Sensor Avoidance Magic applied before infiltration, but it may not matter to the owner of the footsteps. If their whereabouts were known, they would have to leave this place immediately. And yet.

「（Ah, my legs won’t move… why!?）」

Elsa was completely cowering like a frog staring at a snake. She has been fighting for a long time, but this hadn’t happened since she had a hand-to-hand combat with the all-powerful Miriazar once. Other than that, I don’t even remember a time when she fought a Archfiend-class Fiend or a Magical Beast. Elsa already found herself shivering, not just on her back, but all over, in a greasy sweat.

Meanwhile, footsteps were slowly but surely approaching. Elsa had to get away right away, but for the life of her, her legs wouldn’t listen to me. Her body was numb, but her mind was ludicrously calm.

「（If I don’t do something, we will die. Why is it that I can feel that death is so near, so certain that it resembles the feeling that I am me, but my body won’t listen to me?）」

The footsteps were already on the other side of the jar in which they were hiding. The owner of the footsteps must have known from the beginning where they were hiding. They can’t even escape from here. They will die here without being able to do anything. No, they hope they just die, but she’s sure she’ll be used as a consolation prize for experiments by some pervert like Anomaly, who they mentioned earlier. The corpse of the woman who had died laughing flickered in her mind. How much hell do they have to go through to die like that? While she can’t even begin to imagine, something grabs Elsa’s shoulder.

Suddenly, Elsa looked up and there was Eliza, looking like she was about to cry. She is trying very hard to wink with her right eye, but whether from clumsiness or nervousness, she’s not doing it well. But because of this tense situation of facing death, the somewhat funny gesture brought Elsa back to herself. She had instructed Eliza to be prepared for any eventuality, but she had forgotten all about it. Eliza was faithfully following what Elsa said in the same situation.

And at the same time, the moment her black fluttering hair came into view from behind the jar, Elsa had activated the magic she had set up.