Here Comes the Holy Sword
A game of tag with the faculty.
The moment the activity began, we cut straight across the island.
Not long after, my team and I reached the edge of it.
"Whew... we got here right on time."
A fierce sea wind slapped my face.
A few steps ahead was a cliff.
Shhhhhh.
A sheer drop, and below it, a blue sea.
There was no cover around us, just the cliff standing there.
"What? This is a dead end..."
"Sir Viktor! I think you took a wrong turn!"
They urgently pointed it out, but I only smiled calmly.
"It's fine."
"Huh?"
"Everyone, relax. We're exactly where we should be."
"But, um, there's nothing around us..."
"Didn't I tell you? We're going under the sea."
"...?"
They tilted their heads like they had no idea what I meant.
Leaving that loaded line hanging, I pulled something from my pocket.
It was an item I got as a quest reward last night.
Ding-!
[Sea-Flavor Candy]
-Category: Food
-Grade: B-
-Status: Sweet, Salty
-Description: A blue candy that resembles the sea itself. Upon consumption, the user gains the [Underwater Breathing] effect for 30 minutes. Its taste is said to blend sweet-and-salty flavor with a hint of the ocean.
Little blue spheres sat inside a small glass bottle.
I swallowed one first, then held the bottle out to the others.
"Each of you, take one."
"Um, this is...?"
"Candy? Why all of a sudden...?"
"I have my reasons. Please trust me and do it."
Question marks filled their faces, but they couldn't refuse my firm request.
Without much suspicion, they tossed the sea-blue candy into their mouths.
A bluish shimmer flickered around them right after.
"Hm? Why is my body glowing...?"
"What is this? We all ate it, so explain."
"It's candy with a special enchantment. It'll let you breathe underwater."
Underwater breathing.
I explained it as plainly as possible.
"We're jumping off the cliff."
"...What?"
Caitlin just frowned blankly.
I nodded as if I understood.
'She probably thinks I'm talking nonsense.'
Cultists hiding in the deep sea.
Naturally, that branch couldn't be reached through any normal route.
If it could, the faculty would've discovered it during their preliminary inspection long ago.
Outsiders couldn't even detect that the space existed.
Even in the original story, you couldn't enter this field until the incident began.
'Then we use a method that isn't normal.'
We were taking an absurd route.
Why jump off a cliff?
Because diving from here was the only way to pull off the wall-clip perfectly.
I gathered their hands together tightly and started walking slowly toward the edge.
"I'll lead."
"Wait a second! Is this really safe?"
"Of course. I guarantee it."
"There's really somewhere to hide down there? Not some graveyard?"
"Want to bet? If there's no hiding place, I'll become Miss Caitlin's slave starting today."
"No..."
My confidence left Caitlin speechless.
There was no reason to fear this cliff anyway.
Alice aside, Ranne and Caitlin were both top-tier elites even inside the academy.
With the ocean below us, a fall from this height wouldn't hurt them.
'Alice just needs me to hold her when we jump. The Evil God's Mask will cancel the impact anyway...'
The plan fit perfectly.
Of course,
that didn't mean I had no concerns at all.
'If this is a cultist branch, maybe I really am dragging them into danger...'
But there was no helping it.
These girls needed to get stronger too if they wanted to survive.
In the original story on [Difficulty: Impossible], calling it hopeful would've been a joke.
Main and supporting characters dropped like autumn leaves, and near the end, total-wipe endings happened all the time.
'I need to help them grow enough to overcome it.'
Ranne especially had to grow, since she was the protagonist of this world.
There was no point in me carrying everyone forever.
I didn't even have the ability to shoulder everything myself.
So it was better to let them build experience inside my fence, under my watch.
'As long as they're where I can see them, I won't let them die...'
That was what I meant by safe growth.
And while doing that, I could also get some help with quest progression.
"Trust me."
"..."
I stepped forward again and led the team the rest of the way to the cliff.
Soon, all four of us were suspended in open air.
Then gravity dragged us down at terrifying speed.
The blue below grew farther away, the blue above rushed closer.
Swoosh.
Alice squeezed her eyes shut, and Carmilla sat in my front shirt pocket.
I held both of them close and adjusted my mask.
Moments later, a heavy sound hit us.
Splash!
Our bodies pierced the surface and sank.
I rode that momentum all the way to the seabed.
Even through the water-blurred view, the status window was clear.
Ding-!
[Item 'Evil God's Mask' has been activated.]
-Remaining charges: 1/3
-Time until next charge: 35 hours 36 minutes 29 seconds
My vision wavered as we sank deeper.
Soon, my feet touched bottom.
Thud.
My hand was still gripping my teammates tightly.
I pulled them along and started dragging my feet across the seabed.
<Hoo...>
Thanks to the candy, breathing wasn't a problem.
As I kept a steady rhythm, something caught under my dragging foot.
'Found it.'
I pushed my leg into that spot.
At the same time, my body got sucked through the floor.
Splat!
The next moment, we were in a completely different place.
My teammates tumbled in a heap, then looked around in a daze.
"W-what? This isn't underwater..."
"We were definitely sinking to the bottom just seconds ago..."
What came into view was a neatly arranged corridor.
The ceiling stretched endlessly high, and the halls twisted into hundreds of maze-like branches.
Considering this was beneath the deep sea, the scale was hard to believe.
Ding-!
[You have entered hidden rift 'Beneath the Deep Sea'.]
[This rift is not displayed by coordinates.]
Maybe it was the unknown world in front of them.
The girls just stood there, stunned.
"What even happened... we're underwater right now?"
"Sir Viktor, did you cast teleportation magic? But I didn't sense any mana flow at all..."
My teammates were sprawled there defenseless.
Then shapes burst out as if welcoming intruders.
Centipedes several meters long, their whole bodies lined with fangs.
<Srrsrrsrrsrrsrrsrrsrr>
<Ritritrit>
It's lit.
The mutants were dropping right above my teammates' heads.
An ambush launched while they were still off guard.
"Activate. Scythe."
Stab!
Of course, I'd already read their move long before this.
I'd cleared this area so many times in the original that the pattern was burned into my hands.
A pitch-black scythe skewered the mutants.
<Srrsrrsrrsrrsrrsrrsrr>
<Ssikssikssikssik>
The centipedes thrashed violently.
I added one short line.
"Activate. Spikes."
Burst!
Black spikes erupted from all over.
The mutants were butchered on the spot and dropped as heaps of flesh.
Thud, thud.
I casually shook out my hand.
When I turned around, I saw my teammates with trembling eyes.
"Are you all right?"
The girls were still sitting there.
Their eyes were fixed on the corpses on the floor.
Dark mana was seeping out; they were obviously chimeras.
"..."
Their expressions hardened.
In the middle of that, only Alice seemed to realize something and asked in a whisper.
"Viktor-nim, don't tell me this is..."
"Correct. It's part of Slayers activity."
"I-I knew it..."
Alice nodded as if it made sense.
She seemed to accept it calmly.
Ranne was also scanning the area first.
Both of them had built some resistance after seeing all kinds of bizarre phenomena while traveling with me.
"What... is this..."
The most shaken teammate, as expected, was Caitlin.
Her yellow pupils rippled like waves.
'Fair enough.'
We were suddenly moved to an unknown space.
Before she could even process what this place was, those things attacked us.
And with dark mana leaking off them, this was exactly the kind of scene that screamed cultists.
"Where the hell did we end up...?"
Caitlin muttered.
I answered casually.
"These seem to be chimeras modified with dark mana. Looks like we stepped into some hidden cultist branch."
"Who asked because I didn't know that? I'm asking why a cultist branch is under the sea!"
"I don't know either."
"You don't know?"
"This place should've been inspected by the academy several times already, so how did this even happen..."
"Hey, this is where you led us, right? Stop dodging and give me a real answer...!"
Maybe because everything happened so suddenly, Caitlin's temper flared.
She was about to snap, then suddenly stopped herself.
After that, she took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
"Wait, whew..."
She rubbed her face dry.
It looked like she was trying to get her emotions under control.
As always, she was soaked in jealousy, inferiority, discrimination, and hate, but in moments like this she could still be cold-headed.
'Spilled water is spilled water.'
Once you'd stepped into a dangerous zone, causing conflict with your teammates had no value at all.
Caitlin seemed to reach the same conclusion and cooled herself down.
She pressed at her brow for a while, then tossed out one question.
"...Let me ask you. You're not some cultist spy, right?"
"You're not forgetting who exposed Professor Glinbert, the cultist spy, in that informant arrest case last time, are you?"
"Yeah. Right, damn it..."
Caitlin nodded slowly.
Her anger had cooled, but her confusion was still there.
"What the hell is going on..."
"Miss Caitlin? I know you're shaken, but we don't have time to sit around."
"Why now?"
"I said we don't have time. Just like my parents."
"Damn it, stop reusing that line."
Sadly, my point about no break time was true.
Something was already rushing toward us from those endless corridors.
Mutants like the centipedes from before.
<Stompstompstompstompstomp>
<Hik hik hik hik hik>
<Thud thud thud thud thud!>
Grotesque things stitched together from all kinds of lifeforms.
Squirming heaps of tentacles seized the eye.
"See? This doesn't look like somewhere we can stay and relax."
"Damn, feels like everything I ate at lunch is about to come back up..."
"That might hurt the chimeras' feelings."
"Can those things even understand you?"
"Who knows."
Crackle, bzzzt.
Caitlin raised electricity with a frown.
Behind her, Ranne and Alice also prepared for battle.
[Viktor.]
[This lady shall help as well.]
Princess-nim had been wriggling around in my shirt pocket.
She released her bat form, silver hair flowing as she stepped to the front of the corridor.
"What? Where did that come from now?!"
"Good."
Leaving surprised Caitlin behind, I took one step forward.
The hand rummaging in my coat soon gripped something tight.
A colorful blade slid out.
[Balloon Sword+]
-Category: Growth-type Weapon
-Grade: D+
-Growth Limit: None
-Status: Colorful, Squishy, Sparkling
-Description: A special Balloon Sword. It emits a faint purifying light from the blade.
"Let's go."
The Absolute Balloon Sword Plus had entered the field.
Perfect timing, since I also had a challenge objective to clear.
I held a scythe in one hand and a sparkling Balloon Sword in the other.
Ding-!
[Sub Quest]
-Title: Growth Goes On! Balloons Go On!
-Objective: Reach 3000 parries with growth-type weapon 'Balloon Sword+'.
-Failure Penalty: None
-Reward: Growth-type weapon 'Balloon Sword+' grade increases by five stages -> (Grade B)
<Current Progress>
2971/3000
"Let's wipe them all out."
Now then.
Make way for the holy sword (Balloon Sword).
===
This is Javert Droit.
She is always in uniform, so she does not wear a swimsuit like the one above.
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