Chapter 227: “Ah! UFO!” |
The next day, accompanied by Blanc and Lyra, we headed to the outskirts of Hugelcup.
The reason for the one-day delay was to wait for the city invaded by Blanc to calm down. Having conquered what would be an important commercial hub, it wouldn’t be surprising if knights were sent from the country and surrounding cities. However, it seemed that, for now, priority was given to guarding against angel attacks, and there were no reports of such knight reinforcements.
But no matter how cautious they were, angel invasions would not happen again.
Players probably understood this well, but for NPCs, especially until the end of this event period, countries would likely maintain a state of alert. At least, Blanc had instructed her subordinates in the city, merchant guilds, and the churches of Wells and Aural to be cautious, and Lyra had done the same.
“Azalea is still in the city, so everything should be fine! By the way, about that instance place? Is it okay to transform after moving to it?”
“It’s ‘instance field’. Since it should only be us, it’s probably fine, but what about changing clothes?”
“Don’t worry! I’ve decided to always carry a few sets of the same clothes!”
What I wanted to know wasn’t about changing clothes, but about the place to change, but if Blanc was okay with it, that was fine.
“Lyra, is that tent and stuff the entrance?”
However, items available here could likely be bought in the city of Rifure, and those useful for combat were likely already in the inventory. Shopping probably wasn’t necessary.
“By the way, why set up a shop outside like this? Isn’t the artifact in the underground of the castle beyond the underground passage?”
“I might have mentioned it, but you can’t directly go from the castle to the underground. Also, gathering locally would make everyone a target for the artifact, so it was concluded that waiting in line outside was better. This long underground passage is like a waiting queue.”
“But there doesn’t seem to be a line outside now, maybe it’s empty. Those who failed the challenge probably won’t try again until they come up with a strategy, right?”
“Yeah. If it’s the same as the Archangel I fought, instead of looking for a strategy, you just have to go through it multiple times until you can dodge everything with your body.”
“That instant death attack everyone’s talking about among players?”
“Without seeing it, I don’t know which one they’re talking about, but at least the most dangerous attack for Blanc is probably close to death at the speed of light. Even if she grew in size and increased her LP, it would probably hit her multiple times, so it’s likely the same in the end.”
“Really!? Is he not planning to let us win?”
“Even if she transforms?”
“Even if she transforms. Well, thinking about it that way, there’s not much room to play around. Maybe we should save the rampage for another time. Let’s play it safe this time. Blanc was originally focused on magic. Let’s go with that.”
“Oh, right. Hmm. I see… It’s a party play, after all. Got it! Let’s save the superhero play for next time!”
Then Lyra, as if pondering something, put her hand on her chin and began to speak.
“Um… I wonder if this might be some kind of mistake. It’s a bit strange for the Archangel to die suddenly in his first appearance. And at this stage, even Blanc dies in a few hits; isn’t the balance off?
Originally, there was probably an event in this alternate world about what happened in the past on the second or third occurrence of the angel attack event. Due to some mistake, it might have been unlocked, and as a result, it’s happening now.”
“Is it because of you, Rare, that the Archangel got defeated?”
She shook her head in response.
“No, the system message was sent in the middle of my fight with the Archangel, so that’s not it… probably. At that time, I hadn’t defeated any Archangels yet.”
“Not any?”
“Well, it’s nothing. Anyway, I’m certain that it was definitely not the defeat of the modern Archangel that triggered this event.”
“…Well, it’s fine.
Another thing to mention is that I received a cooperation request from the management much earlier. It was before Rare-chan headed for the Archangel extermination. No, was it right before the regular invasion before that?
If we consider the timing of the communication from the management to me as the starting point of this situation, our actions can be said to have had no relevance. Back then, I was just fooling around with experiments in Tore Forest.”
While it’s not impossible that it’s related to the Alchem Extractor, it’s too disjointed. The only commonality is that they are both artifacts. Moreover, Stanislav, an NPC in Shape, had been ‘activated’ with the Alchem Extractor long before. If it is triggering something, it should have been from that time.
“Well, considering irregular players like us exist, and there might be other players doing irregular things for some reason, it can’t be said for sure that it’s because of such players. It might be thanks to that someone that the event is progressing smoothly even after I defeated the Archangel.”
In any case, if the attraction is currently empty, that’s convenient.
Upon closer inspection, indeed, there are no players around the stairs that seem to lead to the underground.
Instead, for some reason, or perhaps as a substitute, many players are gathered in a meadow a little away from the stairs, away from the stalls and tents.
There might be about a hundred of them.
What they are doing is unclear, but if they are grouped together, it’s convenient. Even though their faces are hidden, it would be troublesome if they paid attention to us.
Currently, I am in a state where all my features except for my super-beautiful appearance and magic eye are turned off. I’m wearing a backless dress made by an Arachnea with a shawl, and on top of that, a robe made of the same material. I’m covering my face deeply with a hood, and a cloth is wrapped around my mouth to hide my face.
Lyra is dressed the same way. However, unlike my robe, which remains the color of the material, hers is dyed black. It seems that adamantine powder is used for the black dye. When dyeing fabric with the skill [Dyeing], a derivative of [Sewing] is required, but to use metal powder, [Smithing] is necessary, and to make a solvent, [Alchemy] is required. It’s an extremely complex technology.
But it seems that the value of doing all that is worth it, as not only did it turn black, but various resistances also seem to have improved.
On the other hand, Blanc’s robe is red, and she also hides her face. However, Blanc chose a cheap robe sold in the store, thinking that it might tear when transforming. Red is a color that generally suits anyone, and it’s probably chosen because it’s available in most stores. She mentioned something about red, but I didn’t ask for details.
In short, we are a suspicious trio clad in white, black and red.
“Okay, leave it to me.”
Before the players notice us, at a position still quite a distance away, Lyra gave instructions somewhere. The person she gave instructions to is likely far away, so she probably used friend chat, but she spoke aloud to make it easy for us to understand.
Soon, something approached from the eastern sky. It’s Abigor, the Gargouille. What Lyra did was give him instructions.
Abigor gradually lost altitude and speed, and casually roared. Since it was just a cry with no particular skill riding on it, nothing really happened, but it was at least enough to attract the attention of the players gathered on the grassy field.
“What’s that? It’s a dragon!”
“There’s a dragon flying, dude! Oh my god!”
Abigor approached, pretending to have only just noticed the noise of the large group of players. Seeing this, the players make even more noise.
“Well, let’s get out of here while we still can.”
“Agreed.”
With the players in the background, we sneaked down the stairs and proceeded down the underground passage.
If the goal is just to hide, it doesn’t necessarily require magic or skills. Just diverting attention is enough.
Cooperating with Abigor didn’t have much significance. However, if it were, for example, Ubel of Amphisbaena, many players would have witnessed it by now, potentially causing unnecessary inquiries and commotion. That’s not what we wanted.
In terms of standing out, Ururu might be an option, but it’s unrealistic for it to pass through here by chance.
Due to the players’ fantasies about dragons and reasons such as not being unnatural even if encountered during a casual stroll in the sky, Abigor, who visually looks like a dragon, was chosen.
After teasing the players a bit in the sky, Abigor flies to the west, following a large circle, as instructed by Lyra, back to the Tore Forest.
Initially, I thought we could use Camouflage together and sneak in quietly. However, since it’s part of the Light Magic tree, it can only be acquired if the Light Magic tree is unlocked. Currently, both Lyra and I are leaning towards the dark side, so maybe we can’t even unlock Light Magic. However, it’s possible to allocate experience points to the trees that have already been acquired.
I had acquired it before becoming the Demon Lord, and Lyra seems to have acquired Sacred Magic when she was a Noble Human.
But Blanc, being a skeleton from the beginning, cannot acquire Light Magic. Therefore, I planned to find a way for the undead to acquire Light Magic.
However, Blanc suggested changing the plan by saying, “If the goal is just to hide, do we really need to disappear?” Certainly, with Camouflage, if there were characters with True Eyes or Demonic Eyes, complete concealment would not be possible. If they can hide by diverting the attention of everyone present, it would be more cost-effective and rational.
In the underground passage they entered, there was no one other than Rare and the others. They confirmed that no players had come down the stairs for a while, and the team that had entered the underground passage before them should already have activated the artifact.
If someone who had won in the battle against the Archangel were to come through this path, it might be possible, but judging from the state of the forum, it seemed unlikely for a while.
“Ah, the group from earlier. It was something like that. It seems they were just gathering as many people as possible because it didn’t seem winnable. There weren’t any players going down the stairs because they were being intercepted there. If we had gotten a bit closer, we might have been noticed and talked to.”
Lyra, who was checking for victory declarations on the forum, seems to have found a thread created by the player group from earlier.
“It was the right call to use Abigor. Good job, Blanc.”
“Oh no! I just wanted to say it once. <Ah! UFO!>, like that.”
Chatting while walking through the underground passage. It seems to be quite a distance, but considering walking from the outskirts’ grassland to the city center, it’s natural.
“It’s cleaner than I thought. I expected it to be dirtier and smellier.”
“It was dirtier and smellier before. Our knights cleaned it up. They were equipped with disposable magic items that could activate [Cleanse] in abundance. It cost a fortune. Also, see the lighting over there?”
“Aren’t you going to get some compensation from the devs? Well, that’s fine, right?”
“Ah, isn’t that it? Something is faintly glowing at the end of the path!”
Certainly, there is a faint light ahead, different from the cheap magical lights hastily installed.
Even with Demonic Eyes, that was apparent. In other words, it’s light emitted by something magical.
We confirmed that there was no one else and entered the room emitting that light.
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