I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss - Chapter 60

WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

◈ I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss ◈

Chapter 60

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Grave Robbing and Theft (3)

I'd finally reached the point where I could think of the days I spent running from pursuers, using fake names, as fond memories.

...or so I'd thought, until yesterday.

'Ugh, my life, seriously.'

Being thrown into a similar situation again, I get it now. That old vivid fury comes flooding right back in, and there's no way I can just chalk it up as a fond memory.

I swallowed a curse, watching a giant made of lightning crawl up from the bottom of the ruins.

A humanoid body formed from gathered, brilliantly flashing lightning. Clutched in its left hand was the upper half of a fixer's body, charred black. Scattering ash sank into the lightning-storm body and sent sparks flying.

Behind the fixers squaring off against the lightning giant, clumps of Argyrion's silver threads crept steadily closer.

Having pulled back for a moment to watch the whole mess, a headache hit me. How did it come to this?

* * *

Ortes hadn't set out to cause this kind of chaos from the start. All he'd wanted, at first, was to enter the deep layer to confirm the Talisman of Thunderknell was there.

But something strange caught his eye before long. He'd been told that the excavation teams that headed out each morning numbered one surface team and one deep-layer team.

Yet when departure time actually came, three groups had gathered.

A quick glance showed that, aside from the handful of Toress Magic Tower mages accompanying each as guides, the surface and deep-layer teams were mostly fixers and mercenaries. But the third group was different.

It was a mix of Toress Magic Tower mages and some unidentifiable group. Their clothing had a uniformity to it. People from another Magic Tower?

Ortes asked the fixers nearby about the third group.

For some reason, people seemed a little friendlier when his whole face was hidden behind a visor than when he went around bare-faced, though Ortes chalked that up to imagination.

"Ah. Seems like some company under an exclusive contract with Toress Magic Tower. Turns out there's a middle layer too, besides the surface and deep layers. That's the real prize, probably, where all the management systems for both the ruin's deep layer and surface layer are concentrated."

"'Only people they can trust get to go,' huh? Nice excuse."

"Cronyism's fucked, sure, but what can you do about it? Guess it's some company run by a relative of some Toress Magic Tower big shot, and leave it at that."

A middle-layer excavation team, specially managed by the site manager and other higher-ups. Ortes filed that information away, in case he failed to find the Talisman of Thunderknell in the deep layer.

* * *

Having set out for the deep layer under the name Outis, Ortes put on a spectacular show.

A passage split into five branches. Anyone who picked a false one would be struck by a forgotten, ancient curse.

Ortes walked without hesitation toward the second passage from the right.

"Hey! You don't even know which passage is safe, and you're just walking in...!"

"Lucky, I suppose."

A stone door appeared at the end of the passage. It had rotating rings set into it, ones that had to be aligned into a specific sequence of symbols.

The fixers tried to decipher the Magic Age script carved into the wall, or dig up clues from photos of already-excavated artifacts.

"Damn it. It's a Magic Age riddle. We need to figure out the order of these three symbols-"

"Lucky, I suppose."

Guuuoong, with a resonant boom rolling through the wide space, the stone door slowly began sliding open. Ortes could feel the fixers' stares filling with an expectation he'd never live up to, but he didn't much care.

'Not like I'll ever see any of them again once this job's over anyway!'

Behind the visor, his eyes narrowed to slits. Ortes made full use of the information flooding in and descended deeper into the ruins.

Actually, given how the excavation had been progressing so far, "plummeted" fit the pace of his advance better than "descended."

More and more fixers started trailing after Ortes. In their eyes, he was a ruin-excavation specialist with skill the likes of which the world would never see again.

Ortes didn't order the fixers following him to do anything. He'd expected some number of people to gather.

Even so, the reason he kept up his eye-guided blitz through the traps was simple. If he turned back partway saying "guess my luck's run dry," who could possibly say otherwise?

The instant his eyes detected the Talisman of Thunderknell's presence, Ortes planned to halt all excavation work and turn back. The plan was to return to the surface first, then, once no one was around, come back down into the ruins alone and steal the talisman.

In other words, this whole exploration of the ruins was nothing more than groundwork for stealing the talisman.

Ortes kept opening and closing his eyes over and over, praying for some trace of the Talisman of Thunderknell to turn up.

'Something's off.'

An artifact as fully realized as the Talisman of Thunderknell should have made its presence known right away. But even though a good while had passed since he'd entered the ruin's deep layer, he still couldn't sense the talisman anywhere.

Ortes looked at the metal door in front of him.

Beyond it stretched a straight passage. And past that passage, there was just a single room.

The moment he sensed something existed beyond that room, Ortes closed his eyelids again. Whatever was in there, it wasn't the Talisman of Thunderknell.

An eerily dense concentration of lightning energy (雷氣) had condensed there. If whatever lay beyond the door had actually been the Talisman of Thunderknell, that energy wouldn't have been pooled in one place like something sealed away, it would have been radiating out without end.

'Damn it. Is it in the middle layer?'

Ortes turned around. Dozens of fixers packed into the narrow passage all stared at him.

It wasn't just the fixers. Somehow, over a dozen fully armed Toress School mages had arrived without his noticing, and they were watching his every move.

Paying no mind to their stares, Ortes strode forward.

"W-wait a second. You're not going any further?"

Ortes answered without hesitation.

"My luck's run dry. Nothing but misfortune waits beyond that door."

* * *

The Toress School mages received news hard to believe. The deep-layer exploration, which had been crawling along, was suddenly advancing at an insane pace.

A Toress School novice, who'd been serving as a guide in the deep layer before rushing back up, shouted between gasping breaths.

"That crazy bastard in the visor... he keeps saying 'lucky' and clearing every single trap as he goes!"

At first they'd taken it for the reckless bravado of some lunatic. Once, by chance, sure. Beating one-in-five odds a single time is simple enough.

But once became twice, and by the time the number of cleared traps was more than one hand could count, the guide had bolted for the surface. At this rate, they might actually reach the end of the deep layer before the day was out!

The Toress School mages exchanged glances. As a rule, if fixers turned up an artifact, ownership was recognized up to a point, but they couldn't hand over the great lightning spirit sealed somewhere in the deep layer.

The deep layer's lightning spirit was practically the whole reason Toress School was excavating this ruin in the first place. The spirit sealed on the island of Crete was on a completely different track from ordinary spirits.

Unlike an ordinary spirit born from gathered natural essence, this one had once been the master of a Magic Tower that stood on this island, transformed.

A secret art that turned a human into a spirit, spirit-transformation. This was the ancient magic Toress School was after.

It was common knowledge that a spirit, an astral body by nature, moved more freely through Ether Space than a human ever could. But once the Ether Space that needed hacking was on the scale of the Ten Towers' domain, an ordinary spirit would fall apart the instant it even tried to connect, its own mana torn away and swallowed by that domain.

But it wasn't simple to secure a powerful spirit either, most already had contractors, or the Ten Towers already kept tabs on their movements. So Toress Magic Tower hoped to use the secret art of spirit-transformation to lay the groundwork for hacking into the Ten Towers' domain.

Their whole school's cherished ambition, riding on this secret art, might end up snatched away by some uninvited guest who'd suddenly appeared.

The Toress School mages who rushed down to the deep layer found exactly the scene the guide had described. The stranger in the visor paid no mind to the ancient riddles or snares, silently dismantling trap after trap.

He occasionally muttered "lucky" to himself, but everyone could tell.

Those weren't traps you could clear through luck alone. He'd clearly come here with some kind of certainty, some clue to go on.

So when the visored stranger turned away from the sealed tower master's laboratory, the Toress School mages assumed he'd negotiate with them, demand money or a share of the secret art.

But he made no demands at all.

He left only a chilling prophecy, "nothing but misfortune lies beyond that door," and headed for the surface.

The fixers shifted the stares they'd been fixing on the visored stranger over to the Toress School mages. Their eyes demanded the people in charge make a decision.

The Toress School mages exchanged looks.

"Who is he? Some other school's mole?"

"Checked the contract, name's Outis. Has to be an alias. No idea who he really is."

"Anyone see him do something to the door?"

"No. He just walked up, took a look, and backed off. No trace of a curse or an enchantment either."

The mages traded looks again. As a rule, when a particular explorer made an overwhelming contribution to finding an artifact, convention held that the artifact went to that explorer, but...

Right now, Outis had given up on the excavation and walked out.

Consumed with greed, the mages shouted.

"Anyone who breaks that door's seal before the day's out gets double the contract pay! Whoever plays the decisive role in opening it gets five times the reward!"

A secret ambition, to steal the knowledge locked within the Ten Towers' domain. Toress School decided to trust in greed rather than heed the warning.

* * *

I'd expected fixers to flock in, but I hadn't imagined even the Toress School mages waiting up on the surface would come down too.

'Well, I guess if word got out that the ruin's deep layer was about to get cleaned out in half a day, they'd want to come check it out just out of sheer disbelief.'

It worked out well for me. With this much manpower drained away, infiltrating the middle layer ought to be that much easier, right?

I could feel someone's presence trailing behind me. I'd been planning to shed the visor and powered suit anyway. Mana-powered suits were bulky by nature, no good for infiltration.

I ducked into a passage I'd scouted out on the way down, one twisted and tangled enough that it'd take a while for anyone to track me down inside it. That should be enough time to shed the powered suit and slip past the other fixers' eyes.

The powered suit I'd requisitioned locally this time worked on a simple system, you climbed in through a hatch that opened at the back. If you knew what you were doing, putting it on or taking it off took barely more than ten seconds.

Even after I'd finished stripping it off, I still had a little time before anyone chasing me arrived.

Best to prop the discarded suit up right where it stood, somewhere it'd draw the eye. A shame to throw it away like this, but it wasn't like I couldn't get another.

Even if I waited a few more days, Toress School's watch would probably never thin out this much again. Time to move in, right now.

* * *

Those who'd been following Outis found him standing frozen in place, as if he'd turned to a statue.

'Why'd he stop?'

Strung tight with tension, the fixers scanned their surroundings.

Nothing there.

Nothing at all.

The ruin's passage held nothing but the sound of breathing. One of the fixers worked up the nerve to step closer to Outis.

"Hey! What exactly is this misfortune supposed to be-"

The instant the fixer's hand touched Outis's shoulder, his form tipped over and collapsed.

Crash!

When Outis's body hit the floor, the visor came loose.