Chapter 469 - Familiar faces (Patreon)

Sofia and Bookie silently observed the rot slowly consuming itself and everything in sight.

The Sunless’ mana usually disperse when they die… But it looks like the rot I spread before my demon transformation worked a bit too well.

Well. It should run out of mana in a bit… Surely… There won’t be anything left in the area but it’s not like anyone lives there.

Right?

Hopefully there wasn’t anyone around…

Out of nowhere, Kyle appeared next to Sofia, blinking several times as he observed the ravaged landscape; he could hardly believe his own eyes.

“Huh. Explains why I lost the Nightbringer’s signal,” he finally said, hiding his emotions, “You really don’t make it easy on me whenever you do anything…” Kyle sighed. “ I’m still busy. Let’s deal with this fast.”

Blame the scribes who designed the transcendent rituals if you want to blame someone. Sofia answered in her head.

Ah, right. He can’t hear me because of the dagger.

Sofia started to bring up a bone slate to write on, but she stopped to observe the Magic Kyle had started channeling.

It was too complex, she could not understand anything from the mana movements around the Seraph Vampire, all she knew was that he channeled something for about ten seconds, sent a huge blast of mana forward, and the entire rot-covered zone ahead of them disappeared. Hundreds of kilometers of land, emptied in the blink of an eye. All that was left was a huge cylindrical hole.

Kyle wiped the sweat off of his forehead, “Well, I’m happy for you, didn’t think you’d make it, honestly. Now return to the core, you have just about two hundred hours left; Clint’s probably going to eat his apron if you don’t make it in time. All your friends are already out, by the way. Aight, gotta go now.”

Bookie waved him goodbye from Sofia’s arms, “Goodbye Mr. Kyle!”

“Goodbye little guy, see ya!”

The Seraph disappeared as fast as he had arrived.

For a second, Sofia thought about using her [Skill Capture™ - 042] module right then and there, but she decided not to.

Two hundred hours? I need to hurry up.

Getting to the core was meant to be the final stretch of the trial, coming with its own difficulties, but Sofia was not particularly worried, especially since she already knew how to find an entrance. There were probably other ways to get down to the center of the planet, but the easiest way was just to find any of the many IPS towers, and she would be able to find a path from there. As for why she knew about that, Sofia had to thank the loose lips of a certain Sunless dungeon core. 

With the help of her Undead birds, it only took Sofia two days to find a tower, hidden within the empty trunk of a dead giant tree.

Sofia entered through the hidden entrance common to all IPS towers. She looked up at the spiraling stairs leading to the higher floor. I wonder which moon this one goes to.

But what we’re looking for now is a way down.

Spreading her mana senses around, Sofia felt no obvious results. To begin with, the entire tower was full of mana, be it the walls or the floor, they all were enchanted with self-repair and other such magics, which did wonders to obstruct any vision of what might lie beyond.

Of course I can’t summon the graveyard here… Bookie, Pareth, come help.

The two skeletons appeared to help Sofia search for the way down.

Sofia had just started to carefully examine the walls when Bookie called her.

“Sofia! Sofia! I found it!”

Already?!

Even Pareth looked surprised, he and Sofia walked up to Bookie, and now that they knew where to look thanks to Bookie, the way down was very obvious. One of the square metallic slates making up the floor of the IPS had a small round hole on its surface. 

Bookie bent over and put two fingers into the hole, then pulled the iron slate up. It opened awkwardly to the side, this was actually a small hatch revealing a square hole with a ladder going straight down.

Great job Bookie, want to go down first?

“Brother Pareth should go first in case if it’s a trap!”

Pareth shrugged, he reduced his size a bit more to comfortably fit inside the hatch, and jumped down without even touching the ladder.

Down he goes. Actually, want to get on my shoulders, Bookie?

“C- Can I?”

Get up here, I’ll carry you down.

Sofia held Bookie on her shoulders while she jumped after Pareth. She kept her left hand on the ladder to slow her fall when needed, the friction heating up her bone hand.

The descent was quite long, and the ladder finally ended up leading to a small square room with various green glowing indicators built in the walls. A single light was red, labeled ‘Maintenance hatch’. There was a door leading out but it had no handle.

Oh, I left the hatch open. Well, not my problem, I’m not climbing back up to close it.

How do I open the door?

Pareth touched the door, sending some mana into it, and the door opened by sliding into the walls. 

Right.

The door led to a dimly lit, long corridor going two ways, the room they just walked out of had its own label: ‘IPST-28’. Sofia naturally turned right, until she encountered another door about ten minutes later, labeled ‘IPST-29’. I think we went the wrong way.

Turning back, she had to walk all the way to ‘IPST-20’, where another door faced the maintenance room’s door. Sofia opened it, and she found herself face to face with a paper-person.

The paper-person’s body lit up, an intense yellow light washing over its crumpled body, only lasting for an instant before it turned back to a calm blue. Sofia did not even have time to try to communicate, the paper-person just stood aside and pointed at the ladder hatch going down in the room behind him.

Ahah… Let’s be a bit more careful while we go down this ladder, alright Pareth? I think we are the danger here. I don’t want to be responsible for a ladder accident.

Going down the ladder at an acceptable speed was painfully long, but when Sofia was finally out, after opening one more door, she found herself in known territory, a random dark alleyway in the underground paper-person city.

Simple as that! We even have time to go get a meal at the inn if we want.

If not for the awkward realization that at the moment, no one in her party could physically eat, she might have done just that, but instead, she walked directly in the direction of Clint’s house. Just like the first time, the paper-people barely paid her any attention. 

It was Sofia who stopped in her tracks when she spotted a familiar figure from afar, down several levels at the other side of the city a paper-person was floating around, followed by a couple of glowing sprites.

Is it the same person? Agh, the paper-people all look the same to me, there could be other ones with sprite-related classes… If only I could still use Identify…

Even if it’s the right one, they won’t even remember me unless I touch them… That might be a bit awkward, I can’t just approach a stranger and start touching them. Still if it’s the Sprite Dancer I would like to thank them.

Hmm… What’s a good present for the paper-people, even?

I’ll ask Clint or Kyle to help me with this. Let’s focus on the important stuff right now. To Clint’s house!

Sofia walked all the way to the teleportation room where Moon had casually ripped Clint’s head off, and the apron-wearing large man was already there waiting for her.

About damn time you showed up lassy! Love your new looks.

Sofia summoned a human skull with the choir to answer, “Nice to meet you again too, Clint.”

Spare me the crap and follow me, we got a ton of work to do, starting with skeleton man over here. I can’t wait to get started!

The scenery just changed around the group from the empty teleportation room to a giant underground forge. The temperature was suffocating, with sluggish streams of magma running down the walls.

Clint did no introduction, he just walked away to grab two weird pedestal things covered in runes, and dragged them up to Sofia and Pareth. 

Get the hearts on there, that’ll stop the setting process. This’ll mark the official end of the trial. Congrats to the both of you.

“Kyle isn’t coming?”

Boy’s busy, give him a break. He’ll be there in a bit, we need him for the signature skills. Anyway, get to it already! Clint impatiently pointed at the pedestals.

Sofia retrieved both mana hearts from the protection of her armguard, giving Pareth his own. They placed them on the pedestals at the same time under Clint’s watchful eyes.

Clint brought his face closer, almost drooling, he couldn’t take his eyes off of Sofia’s mana heart.

Sweet fuck, that’s the good stuff.