[Salvos] 87. Cultist Scheme (Patreon)

87. Cultist Scheme

***

Trepidation coursed through my body— a tingling sense of nervousness hung around my neck. I had tried to reassure Daniel that everything would be fine, but I found myself doubting my own words now too.

This was supposed to be a Lair of Minotaurs. A place full of monsters that were like Haec if he were much higher leveled. They had killed many Platinum Rank adventurers who had stalked through these halls before. The dark, stone corridor was lit by nothing— only the creeping moonlight that seeped through the cracks in the rubble and the walls let us see in this eerie place.

And what we saw was this: nothing.

There was nothing here. The Minotaurs never came. The notification never came. I was not intuitively told that we were now in a Lair— that feeling of confirmation never settled in. So, I felt afraid. Afraid of what had happened.

“Daniel, where exactly did you say the Lair was supposed to be located at?”

I finally asked the question after we exited the dark hallway, finding ourselves standing in an open area. The ground here was covered in dust, but there was evidently dirt below that gray layer. Was this a garden? If it had been a garden, it would have been a well-kept one.

There was a marble fence crawling with vines— those thick green worms covering the entire surface of the broken mansion that was connected to the plot of land. Maybe there had been flowers instead of broken bits of stone protruding from a vibrant grassy earth. But now there was nothing but the destruction left behind by the Oracle of Light, Melissa, and the erosion of time itself.

After a moment of silence, as our gaze swept through the inner city hidden behind the tall walls circling our every direction, Daniel responded.

“I...I’m not sure. The information I was given told me that it was just deep inside the city. I had assumed it meant the inner city of the Brilsum Ruins, but… maybe it’s even further in?”

“Where else could their Lair be?”

Looking at him with a confused look, I tried scanning the area once more. My eyes glazed over the landscape as if it was smeared in oil. The oleaginous portrait was bleak and gloomy, the craters strewn about like porous holes on a face— it not something I wanted to look at for long. Especially since it almost seemed no different, or even worse off, than the city beyond the banclite walls.

However, my gaze finally settled onto a large structure in the center right of the inner city. It was a like castle, according to Daniel. And it rose from the ground like a steep cliff, its towers still partially standing although some lay fallen to the side, spilling out like the innards spread from a deadly wound.

But perhaps it had a high [Vitality], so the castle remained standing. Even despite the damage it had sustained from whatever magic was wrought to this earth. I raised a clawed finger and pointed at the structure.

“Do you think that’s where the Lair could be located?”

“Possibly.”

The Human man nodded slowly, his eyes flickering around as if he was searching for something.

“But that’s not our goal, right?”

“Right. We’re searching for the Fairy temple.”

Tapping a finger on my chin, I found my eyes breaking away from the broken castle and towards the rest of the area. I was taking a cursory look at the inner city, but I had almost already come to my conclusion.

“I don’t see anything that looks like a temple.”

“Yeah. It’s entirely possible that it had been completely disintegrated by Melissa when she came here. However, amongst crater 1 and crater 100, I’m not sure where we should start our search.”

I shrugged and took a step forward.

“It’s not like we’re in any rush.”

“Yeah, our biggest concern should be keeping quiet and staying alive.”

Agreeing with him, I led the way out of the ruined garden and into the damaged streets of the inner city. The cracked, cobbled streets brought us through the haphazardly placed city blocks; it was unlike the outer city’s regular layout of city blocks, with frequent intersections that cut perpendicularly into one another.

The discontinuous roads here would end at any given moment, bringing us face to face with a tall stone wall, or simply the side of a large house that was once luxurious in the past. Navigating through these overlapping rows of houses exacerbated by the uneven ground that held them made our task far more difficult than it had been in the outer city.

The outer city was nothing more than a ruined a mess, like the spilled remains of a wild Demon after a bloody battle, and it even had dangerous hordes of monsters led by powerful Mindreapers. I found that our search then had been far easier than now.

The looming feeling that something bad could happen at any time— whether it be more Mindreapers appearing out of nowhere, [Cultists] doing some kind of ritual, or Minotaurs— sat in the back of my head as I peered through the windows of a still-standing home. It was large, but it wasn’t designed anything like either the Sanctum of Elements or Sanctuary of Fauna had been.

So, we passed by it without even searching the interior of the building. Daniel and I crept through the inner city until day came, and the sun rose with it. The blue sky hung over us now, informing us that we didn’t have much time left.

Daniel and I stood at the edge of a crater, neither of us saying much since we began our search. Finally, I turned to him and addressed the biggest obstacle in our path— and the one that had been plaguing me ever since I met the man.

“So… you’re going to need to sleep soon.”

“Yeah.”

“And if you go to sleep, you’ll probably be controlled by those Mindreapers again.”

“Definitely.”

“That means we’ll have to leave. Going back through the outer city before we can come back and resume our search.”

“Right.”

I tapped a finger on my chin, in thought. Then I gave him a hesitant glance.

“Do you… do you think we should just try checking that building there before we leave?”

Daniel frowned and faced the tall, towering structure in the distance. The thing he had called a castle, although he wasn’t really sure if it was one. He was tired, so there was no witty comment or any outrageous reaction.

“The place where we think the Lair of powerful Platinum Rank monsters is at?”

“Yep.”

I spoke simply, eliciting a sigh from him. He folded his arms and sat on the ground.

“We don’t have to leave yet, Salvos. Honestly, I can probably go another day or two without sleep if I really try. And I’d rather we return as soon as possible. But this just sounds reckless.”

“It is, maybe.”

Casting my gaze throughout the inner city illuminated by the light of day, it was a lot clearer now what each building were and would have been. And none of them seemed like they would be a temple.

“I just think that that’s the likeliest place we’ll find the Fairies. It’s like you said, right? If we want to be as efficient as possible, we have to start our search with places where we think they’re at. And while I’m not sure if that building is the Fairy temple, it has to have something.”

“…and something is better than nothing, right?”

I nodded eagerly, glad that he understood my point. My Human companion sighed once more, ruminating on what to do. After a moment of silence, he made his decision.

“Fine.”

I brightened and stared at him with twinkling eyes.

“You mean it?”

“Yes. It’s not like there’s anything else we can do but wander around aimlessly. And why are you so excited, anyways?! We might die from whatever is in there.”

“Or—”

I spun around toward the castle.

“We can find some friendly Minotaurs and they’ll become our companions!”

“I’m sure that’s going to happen.”

I ignored his sarcastic remark and stepped forward. Gesturing for him to hurry, I bounded down the street and made my way to our new destination.

I halted a few blocks away from the looming structure, and turned around to see Daniel slowly running after me. Eventually catching up to me, Daniel spoke with renewed vigor in between each panting breath.

“Salvos, just because I agreed with you doesn’t mean we’re going to throw caution into the wind.”

“What’s the big deal?”

Dismissively waving a hand, I turned the street corner and laughed.

“We haven’t seen anything so far, it’s not like we’ll—“

My words were interrupted by the sound of footfalls, approaching at a relaxed pace. The plodding steps brought my mouth to a stop as Daniel glared at me from behind. I tried to give him a helpless shrug, but he pulled me down an alley as whoever was making their approach drew closer.

We waited with bated breath for whoever it was to pass through, peeking just at the edge to see whoever it was making the noise. The footsteps were sharp. They were sparsely spread apart, but each one resounded like a snap to my ears. It certainly wasn’t the thudding gait I thought a Minotaur would have.

And sure enough, the shadow that eventually made its appearance did not resemble a large monster with horse-like legs and curled horns on their head. In fact, I caught a small glimpse of the figure, and it looked like—

“A Human.”

Daniel whispered quietly. I glanced over at him, wondering why he even needed to say that. Weren’t we supposed to be sneaky?!

I got my answer a moment later as Daniel clenched his fist and ran out of the cover. Blinking, I was only a step behind him when he drew his blade and pointed at the Human’s back.

“You!”

My companion called out in a deep voice. The Human came to a stop, not even turning to face us. I identified him and frowned.

[Cultist – Lvl. 66]

Narrowing my eyes, I created a fire kusarigama and readied for a fight.

“What are you people doing here? What do you [Cultists] hope to achieve by summoning a Demon here, out in the middle of the Motharis Mountain Range?”

Daniel continued his interrogation, his hands tightly gripping the hilt of his sword. The [Cultist] once again didn’t respond. Instead, they slowly turned around as Daniel spoke through gritted teeth.

“Those Mindreapers out there… I knew that wasn’t natural. And when Salvos found one of your bodies, I knew you had something to do with that. Tell me, why are you—“

My companion was cut off mid sentence, and I cocked my head.

“Huh.”

Daniel’s eyes grew wide as he took a step back. He sputtered slowly.

“H-he’s… sleeping?”

Sure enough, the [Cultist] faced us with closed eyes. He moved with the same staggered movement of the monster horde outside when they haven’t been commanded to fight an enemy. He held something in the palm of his hand, covering it from our view. He was under control of mind magic. And since he was being controlled, this meant—

“You guys aren’t the ones behind this?”

Daniel asked, aghast. This time, he was answered with a powerful blast of magic.

Fire whipped out towards my companion, snapping out of the ground like a vine falling from a tree. The [Hero] parried the attack with his sword, but the magic wrapped around its blade and tugged it towards the [Cultist].

With a grunt, Daniel pulled his sword back before I reached the [Cultist] a moment later. I slashed the kusarigama across his chest, drawing a lot of blood, although he didn’t even flinch from it. I ducked under a wave of fire that incinerated a building behind me and wrapped my fiery chains around his ankle.

I hopped back and pulled, tripping him to the ground. The [Cultist] fell backwards, straight into the swinging blade of Daniel.

My companion’s sword jammed itself hallway through the [Cultist]’s abdomen, however he couldn’t finish the job. Flame wrapped around the body of the [Cultist], looking as though he was about to explode in a furious blast, before I hurled my kusarigama to the front f his head.

It interrupted the spell, knocking his head back into the powerful fist of a [Hero]. With that, Daniel was able to pull his blade free from the [Cultist]’s body and lop his head off with a final swing.

Defeated [Cultist – Lvl. 66]!

Less experience is awarded for defeating an enemy with the help of others!

I leapt down to the ground next to my companion and sighed.

“That was tough, he had a lot of [Vitality].”

“But that meant his magic wasn’t that powerful.”

Rubbing at his singed arm, Daniel nodded. I bent over and quickly patted through the corpse of the [Cultist], before pulling out an odd amulet.

“What’s this?”

I identified it with a frown. Daniel spoke slowly, repeating the words in my head that was probably in his head too.

“Amulet of Strength. A Low Grade artifact.”

Slowly tying the amulet around my forearm, I felt a surge of strength well up in me. It gave me an addition (+2) bonus to my [Strength], however I felt the mana inside the artifact begin to already drain.

“Seems like it can only last a day. So, he wasn’t using it then.”

“He was bringing it to the castle.”

Daniel’s head turn and I followed him. I glanced over in the direction the [Cultist] had been walking to before our interruption and we both had the same idea.

“I don’t think there are any Minotaurs left in there. Do you?”

“Nope.”

I nodded my head in agreement. Then I faced him and looked at him knowingly.

“I really think we should check it out, and I don’t think you’ll disagree this time.”

“I won’t.”

He spoke simply. With that settled, the two of us continued making our way to the base of the castle, uncertain of what lies ahead. We didn’t know if it had Minotaurs or Fairies or whatever we were searching for— but we knew something was going on. Something, according to Daniel, that was bad.

And that was enough to draw my curiosity and Daniel’s toward it without any more disagreements.

Author's Note:

Finals actually suck. Like, really suck.