Chapter 13: Arrows and Magic (8)
Kudangtang!
“Ugh!”
Shortly after, Artier was thrown into an unknown place.
Holding his aching waist, Artier stood up and looked around for his missing companions.
“Jeina? Gerard?”
“Foolish one!”
Suddenly, a deafening loud voice echoed from all directions.
Artier reflexively raised his sword, but what appeared before him was an unimaginable being.
‘A wolf……?’
It was a wolf’s face.
The reason he called it a wolf’s face was because one face filled an entire passage in the large cave where Artier was.
‘How big is it exactly?’
Just the height seemed ten times Artier’s.
“I clearly warned not to touch my domain! Yet you dared to destroy my domain with that irreverent power!”
The wolf opened its mouth and surprisingly spoke human language.
Its deeply furrowed expression clearly showed immense anger.
“Huh?”
But the words it spat out were unusual.
‘Destroy the domain? Does it mistake me for a tomb raider?’
Artier hadn’t done anything to collapse the ruins. And the tomb raider had mentioned God’s wrath.
‘The tomb raiders encountered this being.’
It felt like the puzzle was coming together.
“I’ve shown an example through your companions, so leave this place immediately! Otherwise, I’ll punish you too!”
The wolf glared at Artier with even fiercer eyes.
‘What? Leave alone?'
But instead of being scared or frightened, Artier showed a bewildered expression.
‘Make sense! How hard was it to gather these companions!’
All three were very hard to acquire at this point.
Abandon them and escape alone? That was no different from quitting the game!
‘Wait…… something’s off?’
Looking around, Artier tilted his head at the awkward situation.
‘No status window. No quest either.’
Artier looked at the wolf’s face.
But no information about the wolf appeared.
There were only two cases for this.
Either the wolf was treated as an NPC, not a monster, or from the beginning…….
“Ah…….”
“You wretch! Can’t you hear me!”
“Enough with the joke.”
“What?!”
“I have one question.”
Artier sheathed his sword and approached the wolf, asking.
“The visible face’s diameter looks over 50m. So, your height would be around 120m?”
“……?”
“That’s impossible for the depth of these ruins.”
When playing as a game, the descent depth was displayed in golden letters, so he remembered clearly.
“Doesn’t it seem strange?”
“What do you mean?”
“Even reaching the lowest floor of these ruins wouldn’t be 75m, so where is a 120m body?”
Artier smirked and pointed to the ground with his finger.
“Logically thinking.”
Whoosh!
Soon, blue smoke gathered at his fingertip, forming a small sphere.
“There’s no body to begin with.”
With those words, Artier fired the Mana Bullet.
Only then did the wolf, grasping the situation, roar.
“You treacherous human!”
Whoosh!
The Mana Bullet passed straight through the wolf’s forehead and vanished into the air.
“As expected, an illusion.”
Artier grinned and ran forward.
Something had felt off from the start.
Artier knew these ruins inside out. There was no way a boss monster with such overwhelming specs would appear, taking all companions.
Puhwak!
The moment he passed through the wolf’s face, Artier felt like jumping into a cool mist.
Emerging from the mist, he discovered a fairly small and narrow corridor continuing.
“Where is this?”
Artier looked around.
All around were translucent glass tubes lined up like test tubes, filled with unidentified green liquid.
“What?”
Could something like this exist in a medieval setting?
But looking closely, magic circles were operating on various parts of the devices. It seemed a type of magical engineering.
“A person?”
Artier approached a tube containing something.
“Ugh!”
It was a decayed corpse.
A rotting corpse with exposed bones was floating inside the tube.
“What on earth is this place?”
“All administrators, eliminate the irreverent intruder!”
At that moment, a loud voice echoing through the corridor resounded.
It was the voice that had shown the wolf illusion earlier.
As soon as those words ended, Artier heard something approaching rapidly from all sides.
‘I need to hide.’
Artier looked around and, seeing a corner nook nearby, immediately threw himself in.
Kaduduk…….
Soon, the long monsters that had abducted Artier earlier appeared where he had been.
‘So these guys are the administrators?’
[Lv.15 Ruins Administrator (Low-Rank)]
The administrators were moving attached to the nearby walls.
They circled where Artier had disappeared and soon scattered in all directions, starting to patrol.
‘It’d be a headache if they catch me.’
They were fast, but the problem was their numbers.
Artier organized his thoughts briefly.
‘Are they all here?’
The answer came quickly using detection.
At both ends of the cross-shaped long corridor, he sensed Bow, Jeina, and Gerard trapped.
‘From the looks, I need to move to both ends without being detected by administrators and free the companions…….’
It wasn’t easy, but it had to be done.
Moreover, thinking about it, it wasn’t that difficult.
If he advanced hiding in the darkness like now, he could rescue them.
‘This should be easy.’
While an administrator passed elsewhere, Artier quickly slipped out and moved. And when the administrator turned its head, he crammed back into a nearby nook.
Beep…….
As expected, the administrators didn’t notice Artier.
He also learned an unexpected fact: they couldn’t hear sounds.
‘Because they have no ears?’
He didn’t know why, but even if Artier accidentally breathed loudly or stepped on a small pebble, the administrators didn’t notice.
For creatures living in a dark underground like a cave, it was a quite fatal weakness.
‘This might be even easier?’
If it was just blocking the administrators’ vision, there was a method to try.
Artier used basic magic telekinesis to strongly touch a sandstone brick near an administrator.
Rustle!
As the sandstone brick crumbled, the administrator’s gaze naturally turned there, and in that gap, Artier reached the tube at the end of the corridor.
“Gerard!”
Artier banged on the tube and shouted, but Gerard didn’t respond, as if in deep sleep.
Gerard had a deeply wrinkled expression, clenching his fists as if having a terrible nightmare.
“Wait a bit.”
Artier took a stance and drew his sword.
Crash!
Immediately, the tube shattered, scattering green liquid and glass shards everywhere.
“Cough!”
“Gerard, are you okay?”
“Where is this…… exactly? Why am I here?”
Gerard looked around with a dazed expression.
He seemed to remember nothing of the process to get here.
“The situation is complicated. Let’s hide for now.”
Artier said and pulled Gerard along.
As soon as they distanced themselves and hid, an administrator discovering the broken tube rushed over and began scanning everywhere with hawk eyes.
“Intrusion trace detected. Requesting enhanced security. Entering re-investigation.”
The administrator scanned the area for over 5 minutes, but thanks to Artier creating distance in advance, their hiding spot wasn’t discovered.
In the meantime, Gerard, who received all the situation via mercenary communication, sighed and said.
I activated detection sensing something off. But suddenly my mind went hazy……. Sorry.
It’s fine, it’s not your fault, Gerard.
Their level was a whopping 15.
Even Artier, using a hidden skill, only managed to take down one, so it was impossible for Gerard, whose only resistance was Mana Bullet, to escape.
Bow and Jeina are trapped at both ends of the corridor. Can you go to Jeina?
Yeah, be careful.
With those words, Artier parted from Gerard at the center.
Reaching Bow wasn’t that hard.
Thanks to the shattered tube drawing the administrators’ attention, he arrived even easier.
“Bow!”
Artier shouted while looking at the tube where Bow was trapped.
“I’ll get you out now!”
Artier immediately swung his sword at the tube.
Clang!
But this time, something was different.
Contrary to Artier’s expectation that it would shatter, the tube not only repelled the sword but exploded with a flash, pushing Artier back hard.
“Reinforced glass?”
Why only this one?
Artier made a puzzled expression, but it wasn’t time to ponder.
“Intrusion trace detected.”
“Alert confirmed.”
“Immediate capture.”
The administrators couldn’t miss the large flash filling the corridor interior.
Turning his head hurriedly, almost all administrators were filling the left corridor, swarming like an encirclement.
‘Damn, a hiding spot…….’
Artier hurriedly looked around, but administrators had already approached close.
‘Fight?’
Behind was a dead end. No space to run.
Moreover, with that many administrators focused on searching, slipping into nooks was meaningless.
The moment he grimaced and gripped his sword with both hands.
Stick to the nearby wall and hold your breath!
An unfamiliar youthful boy’s voice echoed in Artier’s ear.
Who?
Is that important? Hurry! If wrong, you’ll be detected right away! After detection, I can’t help!
‘Follow those words?’
He hesitated, but there was no more time.
“…….”
Artier leaned against the nearby wall as the suspicious voice instructed and held his breath.
Then, shortly after.
[Collie is using a skill.]
Camouflage Veil (Lv.1): Camouflages allies within range.
A dark, damp sound seemed to echo in his ear, and soon all surrounding sounds became muffled. And Artier confirmed his body had become semi-transparent.
“Intruder, confirmation impossible.”
“Reconducting search.”
Afterward, administrators swarmed in, but they only looked around as if Artier was invisible.
‘Collie?’
Meanwhile, Artier tilted his head seeing the status window that appeared.