WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
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◈ The Wizard's Memoir ◈
Chapter 11: Sixth Sense
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Even at its fastest, Etran's magic took seven or eight seconds. And even a genius was human and could make mistakes when drawing a magic circle.
By comparison, a crossbow wielder was fast, reliable artillery. All it took was aiming a loaded crossbow and lifting the trigger.
Thump!
The quarrel tore through the mine's stale air toward its target. It went, quite literally, “like a shot.”
“A hit!”
The steel tip cut through skin and muscle, broke bone, and drove the heavy body back. The mechanism's stored elastic energy had become stopping power strong enough to overcome its momentum. To describe the sight more simply, the “giant” lost its balance and fell forward.
“Hriyaaah!”
Olivia raised the shield to just below their nose and gave a battle cry. It turned into a rather awkward battle cry. The giant slid across the smooth floor with a Scrrrape! and stopped at Olivia's feet. No one had expected it to die in one shot.
“Ahem. Ahem...”
Olivia cleared their throat and relaxed their stance. For someone who was supposed to be both the leader and the tank, opportunities to shine were hard to come by.
“So this is a spriggan? I can't exactly say it isn't ugly.”
The corpse shrank back to its original form. Its skin must have been elastic, because it hung loose in layers. It was a truly grotesque fairy.
Dahlia brought a dagger toward it to collect proof, then put the blade away. If the spriggan was the dungeon's master, the job was done. Proof and individual contributions no longer mattered. Everything belonged to Olivia's party.
“It's over that easily?”
Something felt wrong. An adventurer's instincts warned that this wasn't the end. More importantly, there was nothing resembling treasure in sight.
“Surely that wasn't just Trash Mob Number One?”
“Something that big couldn't be an ordinary monster, right?”
Olivia and Dahlia tried to reassure each other. It was a wasted effort. Etran pointed at the shrunken spriggan and asked a question.
“What's so big about it?”
“...”
It was a tiny monster, much smaller than even a goblin. How should they put it? It lacked the presence expected of a dungeon's master. Not every boss monster was enormous, but they still felt uneasy.
Before long, that unease proved justified.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
That “unwelcome” sound came from farther down the tunnel again. It began with light thumps, then grew into an ominous Thud! Boom! Crash! Ka-boom!
“More monsters!”
They weren't even coming from the same direction. Giant spriggans charged toward them from both ends of the tunnel.
“This isn't how I wanted my chance to shine!”
Without hesitation, Olivia moved to block the nearer spriggan. Meanwhile, the artillery needed to concentrate its fire and take out the other one first. In the trade, this was called burst damage, though the term's origins were unknown.
It was standard party tactics, but difficult to pull off. Everyone had to trust one another completely, and have the skill to repay that trust. Olivia's party was being put to the test.
Olivia lowered their center of gravity, covered their whole body with the shield, and blocked the spriggan's charge.
It was excellent shield work, but there was no overcoming the difference in mass. Olivia's body lifted briefly off the ground. Still, the warrior neither fell nor went flying backward. Olivia held the stance even in midair and landed firmly.
When the human warrior refused to budge, the spriggan grew agitated and threw punch after punch. It would have been better off grabbing the shield and shaking it. Olivia steadily endured the wild barrage.
Meanwhile, Dahlia was doing good work on the other side. The seeker threw slender daggers in quick succession, aiming for the spriggan's eyes. Unfortunately, neither hit the mark, but they did frighten it.
While the monster covered its eyes and flailed about in a manner quite unsuited to its huge size, Etran completed the replication magic circles for Homing Arrow. Thirty-odd circles spread throughout the tunnel. They went beyond dazzling and became downright excessive.
“Lux sagitta.”
True to the incantation, glowing arrows rained down. From above to below, from left to right, past its head and around to the other side, they left it nowhere to escape. The huge body was ripped to shreds...
“Kehah!”
...or not. The cunning spriggan undid its transformation.
Whether that even counted as a transformation was debatable, but in any case, it returned its enlarged body to its original size. The Homing Arrows lost their target, rose into the air again, and punched holes all over the tunnel walls.
“Huh?”
Etran sounded stunned. This was the first monster to evade that spell.
But adventurers worked in parties. Dahlia threw a third dagger and struck the spriggan in the chest.
It might have been nothing to its larger body, but to its true form, only the size of a forearm, it was like being struck by a ballista. It died instantly, without even a scream.
Meanwhile, Rolf planted a foot in the crossbow's stirrup and worked the windlass hard to reload. A weapon that powerful took a long time to prepare for another shot. But, as had been stressed repeatedly, adventurers worked in parties. Olivia held firm until the others had things under control.
“Ready now!”
Rolf set a quarrel in place and aimed at the last spriggan. Etran also formed more magic circles.
Perhaps it noticed everyone looking its way. The monstrous fairy, which had been raging wildly, suddenly stopped. It seemed to recognize the danger at last, but it was far too late. Olivia struck its knee and forced it to kneel, and physical and magical arrows flew toward it.
It was concentrated fire in the most literal sense.
@
They gathered the three spriggans in one place. Now that the bodies had shrunk, moving them was easy. They quietly studied the grotesquely ugly faces, as Etran had described them.
“They're not, are they?”
“Doesn't look like it.”
The experienced adventurers reached a unanimous conclusion. The spriggans weren't the dungeon's masters. They couldn't put their fingers on the exact reason, but the monsters lacked that special presence a boss had.
“We encountered no monsters on the way here.”
Rolf spoke while loading the crossbow. The gesture said that the danger wasn't over. Dahlia casually took the opportunity for some self-praise.
“Because my navigation was perfect?”
“...I mean the mine isn't the dungeon.”
Etran unfolded the copied map. As usual, Etran couldn't trace any of the route they had taken, but the words “Monster Sighting” gave a rough idea of their current location.
“This is the lowest level.”
“The real dungeon lies beyond here. The monsters appeared because the mine tunnel connected to it.”
“Which means...”
“We must go to the end of the tunnel. That should be the real entrance.”
There was no such thing as an easy adventure. If it was easy and comfortable, it was just play. They exchanged looks and readied their equipment.
Since they might not finish clearing the dungeon today, they needed to collect proof. After some thought, Dahlia cut off a spriggan's right hand. Its ears seemed too small to prove what it was.
“This should convince the Guild, right?”
It wasn't a pleasant sight, but they were adventurers. None of them let it show.
They retrieved their weapons, adjusted their packs, raised the Light Orb higher, and chose a new direction.
“You're just going without looking at the map?”
“I told you, I can't make sense of that thing.”
“Then how do you find the way?”
Dahlia hopped onto an abandoned crate and planted a hand on their hip. Even then, the halfling's eyes were below Etran's, which spoiled the effect.
“My sixth sense!”
“...”
“I'm joking.”
Of the two directions the spriggans had come from, Dahlia chose the one where sounds echoed more deeply and the air was staler. It was something a human couldn't do, so calling it a halfling's sixth sense wasn't entirely wrong.
Adventuring experience combined with halfling senses made for surprisingly accurate navigation. The tunnel grew narrower and rougher until an adult human could barely crawl through it. They had reached the working face, the front line where ore was dug out.
“Isn't this a dead end?”
“There's air flowing through. It smells stale, too.”
Trusting the seeker, Olivia changed the marching order. Dahlia would lead, and Etran would bring up the rear.
With the well-built warrior and crossbow wielder at the front and back, the others would have no way out in an emergency.
“Keep some distance and follow slowly.”
This was Etran's first time taking the rear, and it was a little nerve-racking. At least Etran could use Light Orb. In an ordinary party, this would have been a dark, isolated position beyond the reach of their light. There was a reason the person at the back always got attacked first in old stories.
They pressed on toward the working face, the very end of the tunnel. The ceiling was too low to walk upright, and the floor rose too high to crawl on all fours. Even using magic felt risky in such a dangerous place, without a single support beam. Perhaps it was just nerves, but breathing felt difficult.
“I think I've developed claustrophobia.”
“Me too. Me too.”
“Please send the Light Orb forward.”
Etran wasn't the only one struggling. Quiet complaints came from the others as well. Strangely enough, that was reassuring.
How much farther had they gone? Not much time had actually passed, but it felt like forever before they reached the end of the working face. Something strange happened there. The mine tunnel had ended, yet they could now straighten up and walk.
Etran's sharp eyes picked out something unusual.
“This stone has been worked.”
There was something smooth beneath the earth. This wasn't stone broken apart by mining. It had been cut and shaped. In other words, it was part of a structure.
“This is the real dungeon.”
The veteran adventurers had already realized it. Olivia ordered a rest. Rather than poke around blindly, they needed to investigate calmly.
“It'd be nice to have someone who knew the history of the ancient kingdom...”
Dahlia scraped away a pile of earth and examined the wall. All that could be learned was that rectangular stone blocks had been fitted closely together. There was no way to tell when it had been built or what it had been used for. Perhaps they needed another support specialist.
Rolf drew on experience from working as a mercenary in the war. Pressing a finger into the dust on the floor, the crossbow wielder frowned.
“Those monsters definitely passed through here.”
There were several small footprints. Some were recent. With a little imagination, they could deduce that the spriggans had also broken through the working face. After all, the miners hadn't known this place existed.
“You mean there might be more than three?”
Olivia adjusted their grip on the shield, looking tense. The spriggans were better than hobgoblins in that they didn't use tools, but they were far from easy opponents.
Dahlia made a cautious suggestion.
“Shouldn't we head back now and ask the Guild for help? We've found the dungeon entrance and identified the monsters. Even our share of the reward should be enough...”
“They aren't paying attention because of the holy relic. Even if they take an interest, it'll be a long time from now.”
That was true. The bold promises they had made in front of the villagers weighed on them. People said pride wouldn't put food on the table, but at least it helped the food go down.
“Even so, we must return for now. We aren't prepared.”
They had brought plenty of weapons, but less than two days' worth of food and drinking water. If this ancient dungeon was a long, complicated maze, even having a seeker wouldn't guarantee their safety.
Olivia looked between the ancient unknown, untouched by human feet for a thousand years, and the three pairs of eyes watching their leader. Then came the decision.
“Let's head back.”
The party members' expressions shifted in various ways. Joy, doubt, unease, relief. But beneath them all was trust.
“We'll prepare properly and come back down. Even if no other parties come, we'll clear it ourselves. I believe we can do it.”
Etran believed it too. They might not be the strongest party, but they could become the best.
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