DUNGEON DIVE: Aim for the Deepest Level Volume 3, page 9
“To think she’s gonna vanish after being taken for a ride since birth, without ever being able to lay hold of the smallest happiness... I mean, it may be for the sake of the nation, but I feel sorry for her.”
For the sake of the nation? She’s gonna die “for the nation”?! Without ever getting anything out of life?! You’re telling me that’s okay?! Well, it’s not! I can’t just sit by...
“I won’t allow it.”
The words escaped my lips. The words I’d decided I’d never say aloud. At that moment, I heard my shackles fall loose with a nice clanging sound. It felt like a very important restraint had come off. The sense of loss was so very pleasant...
“Hm? What was that?” Palinchron’s voice echoed in the room. “You won’t allow it? Then what’re you gonna do about it?”
His expression made me aware of a sense of unease. My natural talent for combat clued me in to it. The source of that unease was the magic energy inside my body, which was now faintly clinging to me, leeching off me.
I’m being corroded from the inside, I realized. Most likely, by a spell cast by the knight right in front of me.
“Palinchron. Did you cast a spell on me?”
“Boy, did I. You angry?”
He stared me straight in the eye and, defenseless and, within reach of my sword, confessed that he’d betrayed my trust. But that betrayal made me pleased as punch.
“No. Thanks to your magic, I was finally able to voice it. If anything, I’m grateful.”
“No need to thank me. Everything I did, I did for me.”
“How long ago did you cast it?”
“Oh, ages ago. The curse takes time and consumes a ton of fuel too. Well, I call it a curse, but the spell’s not bad per se. It’s increased your strength, for one, and it’s dispelling any indecision in you. Both things you’ll be needing for the battles to come, right?”
“Yes indeed. That’s exactly right. So then...is this goodbye?”
I intuited that this would be the last of our secret meetings. It wasn’t just that the secretive Palinchron had cast a spell that he’d kept hidden from me. It was more because I could hear a noise not unlike whirring gears. The noise of a wheel that turned without ceasing. And I also understood that this was what Palinchron had been after.
Why had I never questioned the fact that he was collaborating with me? Why had I treated it as a matter of course? I could only assume that I’d been under the influence of some kind of spell—or some kind of curse. Palinchron must truly have been aiming for all this to happen for, as he himself said, “ages.”
“Nah, I actually don’t know if this marks the finish line,” he answered. “I planted a whole lot of seeds, but I can’t predict which ones will germinate. There’s a strong chance we’ll meet again. If we get tangled up in each other’s business, that’s certainly fun for me.”
“I see. Just so you know, I will go to bat for milady, no matter what.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it being otherwise.”
“Right then; I’ll be back.”
“Do be back. When you die, make sure you die with no regrets. That’s all I’m hoping for.”
Palinchron wasn’t praying for my safety or success. He just wanted me to have no regrets. I smiled wryly. He never changed.
“Heh. That’s so like you to say that. Goodbye, my friend. I don’t have many, but you are one.”
I exited the cathedral unaccompanied, a spring in my step. It wasn’t just my feet that felt light. So did my mind and body. I felt refreshed like never before. The nation of Whoseyards, the House of Hellvilleshine, my position as a Celestial Knight—my mother and father, my brothers and sisters, my bosses and colleagues, my friends—it was the first time that I felt free from the fetters of all my obligations. I was no longer weak. I knew neither fear nor hesitation. I was unencumbered. Empty. At long last, I could act for the sake of her happiness. I could fight as a knight with nothing to lose. Just from that, I was beside myself with joy. Now, in order to capture the pawn named Lastiara, I could advance to territory the knight pawns of Whoseyards could never reach. It was in that moment that I, Hine Hellvilleshine, could finally move the pawn called Hine.
◆◆◆◆◆
Now that I was moving my own pawn by my own hand, I waited for night to fall before heading to the pair’s house. It was on the story’s stage. I was entering Lastiara’s theater house. Using my wind magic, I woke her up and called her outside. The girl came out, rubbing her sleepy eyes, a puzzled look on her face.
She yawned. “Mr. Hine, what brings you here so late at night?”
“Well, there’re only two days left, so I came to check up on you.”
“Ah, is it that time already? You don’t need to check up on me. I can mind the time just fine.”
“That’s good to hear.”
Hearing her say she’d be punctual for her own death sentence was maddening. It made me want to kill the pricks who’d made her say it.
“Mr. Hine? If you have no business with me, I’m going back to bed.”
“There’s something I’d like to ask you.” What I wanted to know was, did my naive plan have any effect at all, or did it mean nothing whatsoever?
“I’ve been watching, milady, albeit from afar. You seemed so happy while you were spending time with him. Are you sure you can bear parting with him? Will you not regret undergoing the ritual if it means you’ll never get to see him again?”
“Wh-Whoa, what’s this all of a sudden?” The girl looked a little confused. But just a little...
“Please, your reply,” I asked. This was my last hope.
Yet the lass drowned out her slight confusion and answered with a determined expression. “It’s no problem. Thanks to you, Mr. Hine, I was able to experience that thing called adventure. Through my brush with part of the life Saint Tiara led, what was once admiration turned into conviction.”
“Does no part of you want to keep adventuring with him?”
“Becoming a hero—becoming Saint Tiara is my dream. It’s the reason I was born, so...”
There was no hesitation there. I gnashed my teeth. Shaking her conviction would require something suitably big. Something that flipped everything upside down and tore out the roots at the heart of her. I knew that the girl would be angry with me. I knew she’d scorn me. All the same, I set about rejecting her whole life.
“Even if those feelings are artificial? Even if you were made to be that way? Even if the person you’ve always been was arranged by Whoseyards for its own convenience and you’ve been lied to and exploited your whole life?”
For the sake of her future happiness, I told her, even if it meant she’d suffer now—
“Artificial’s fine by me,” she replied unwaveringly. There was no sign of pain or anger or even contempt. She didn’t ask for details about what I meant with that word. She just quietly answered the question. It was like she’d known everything all along. And her expression intimated that she’d made up her mind.
Ah, so in other words, I’ve misjudged. I couldn’t so much as grasp the heart and mind of a girl who was less than three years old. Not one bit. She already understood the truth behind the creation of “Lastiara.” She understood that her lot in life was such without anyone having to tell her, and she had even braced herself for her fate. Setting aside the question of whether that was the result of external or internal factors, it was all over.
It was all over a long time ago.
What a spineless sense of relief. And I knew full well that they were laughing at me. Those big shots. That was why I had no choice but to say goodbye to her, my voice flat and listless.
“I see. Understood. In that case, I’ll be returning to the cathedral.”
She looked nonplussed. “Okay, sure, understood.”
I left the lass behind. Walking through the town at night, I lamented how little hope was left to me. As I walked, I thought only about how far the pawn named Hine could go, and soon enough I returned to my room in the Cathedral of Whoseyards. Then, I spread out all the weapons in my room and prepared well into the morning for the battles that were sure to come. In the end, there were only two options left to me. Option one: beat an entire country. Option two: knock one girl unconscious. Based on her demeanor, she wouldn’t agree to flee the country, no matter how much I tried to persuade her. She’d been tuned to be that way, after all, and to perfection at that.
As such, I effectively had no choice but to knock her out and carry her off. I had the resolve to do so now, thanks to Palinchron. I hung my most familiar twin swords at my waist and strapped on my leather gloves. I then put on ten rings that contained some of my magic energy and put my arms through the sleeves of the knightly uniform, not forgetting to hide small magic tools under my clothes. This was the greatest fighting force I could muster.
On the way out of the cathedral, I passed a subordinate who was surprised by how armed to the teeth I was.
“What kind of monster are you going out to slay, sir?”
I smiled wryly. “I’m just going to lend somebody a hand,” I equivocated.
Early in the morning, I went to the pair’s house again, but I found only the boy’s slave there. It seemed they’d already hit the Dungeon. I had no choice but to go through the entrance of the labyrinth, proceed along the Pathway that I had once walked down alongside her, and reach Floor 20. I knew that if I waited there, we’d run into each other, so I decided to wait for them in the room that was as empty and cold as I was. And I waited. And waited. And waited.
Ever since I’d met her... Ever since I’d become one of Seven Celestial Knights... Ever since I’d started looking up to knights after seeing someone play the role of a knight in a theater in town... Ever since being born the eldest son of the House of Hellvilleshine... That was how long I’d been waiting. Until, at long last, the two emerged before me.
“I have been awaiting your arrival, milady.”
I’d been waiting for this moment. For the time I could betray Whoseyards, abandon the Hellvilleshines, and fight for my oath-sworn maiden. With that, I challenged them to a battle.
The surprise attack was partially successful. As planned, she was knocked unconscious, but the boy was different, as was to be expected of the protagonist.
With strength beyond what I’d imagined, he continued parrying my onslaught. I was frustrated that things weren’t going to plan, but I was also pleased. This proved it—he was truly the only one. Only he could clear away my past regrets in my stead. The pawn that was this boy was absolutely necessary to save the girl. In the midst of my hardship, I grew more convinced of that than ever. In the end, I lost the match that hinged on knocking them both out. But although it failed, it was a happy miscalculation. I knew now that the boy was strong enough to defeat the agents of evil in Whoseyards.
After throwing out remarks hinting at the girl’s current situation, I took to my heels. And when I returned to the cathedral, I immediately started preparing to capture the two who possessed power that beggared imagining. Since I was now fine with throwing away my positions as a Celestial Knight and the firstborn son of the House of Hellvilleshine, I used that standing to gather up the knights of Whoseyards, planning to overwhelm the boy with sheer numbers.
I cooked up a false pretense whereby they were to capture two escaped Whoseyards VIPs, and I tried to set out for the Dungeon from the cathedral once again. Then, it happened. As if they’d been waiting for me, I found the other Seven Knights at the exit of the cathedral, having come to arrest me. Among them was Pelsiona Quaygar, the head of the Seven Celestial Knights.
What I was up to was thinly veiled treachery against Whoseyards. I was using knights for personal business as opposed to the interests of the state, and I was trying to kidnap the cathedral’s princess. When the Head of the Knights asked for an explanation, I had no reply. But I’d thrown it all away now. I’d save her by hook or by crook, and I was prepared to kill my former comrades in the process. Blowing away the head knight with some surprise wind magic, I escaped from the cathedral and laid low in town.
As I rested out of sight, I reflected on how strangely fast the head knight’s response had been. Had the higher-ups predicted my betrayal? Or had Palinchron tattled on me? It was also possible that there was simply a leak somewhere. But while I didn’t know the why of it, this was not such a terrible turn of events. There was no truly turning back now.
My resolve was moving my pawn ever forward, and I was starting to get a glimpse of a whole new face of the game board. I was beginning to understand the placement of the pieces for the next day’s celebration of the Blessed Birth. It was just as I thought—I was the supporting character and the boy was the main character. The only way to keep the lass in check was through the pawn named Kanami. For indeed, there was no one else for the job. And that being the case, the role of my pawn was...
The boy would most assuredly come to the cathedral. That was what I believed. And it was on me to prepare by putting things in order. I had to be the one to clean up the proverbial theater. To set the stage. The wounds I sustained while escaping the cathedral stung, but I didn’t mind.
It’d be difficult to get her in check through just one piece. As such, I didn’t have to give it a moment’s thought. My pawn had but one role to play. One and no other. And to carry out that role, I’d move onward, always onward. I’d show them and keep on walking. Even if it meant the piece named Hine Hellvilleshine should fall in the process.
Chapter 3: At the End of Day of the Blessed Birth for “Lastiara”
“All right. The time has come.”
Mr. Hine’s voice snapped me out of my waking dream. We were in front of the bridge leading to the cathedral. Perhaps because the flashback had gone by so fast, I couldn’t remember what had happened in it save for fragments of scenes. My only real takeaway was the sense that I could definitely trust him.
“Ah, uh, right!” I caught up with him and moved next to him, stealing a glance at his face from the side. What I saw on his handsome countenance was a smile.
Through his magic energy, I’d been able to get a small peek into the state of affairs that motivated him, but that didn’t mean I understood the true meaning of his smile yet. I only realized, vaguely, that an old memory was triggering it.
We passed through the crowds waiting for the ceremony and stepped onto the bridge. Upon our crossing that line, the guard knights rushed towards us, and in response, we went about constructing our spells.
“Spellcast: Dimension: Calculash. Spellcast: Freeze.”
“Wynd Breath. Wynd Draw.”
I deployed a sphere of detection magic several meters in radius, intermingling Dimension with my ice magic. That was the preparation I needed to be able to launch my new magic at any time. Cold air began to leak from my body, and the ground I trod froze over.
Mr. Hine, meanwhile, made the wind coil around him. He also spread countless lumps of wind around us. At the sight of that, the approaching knights blanched. One of them raised his voice at Mr. Hine.
“Sir... Sir Hine, what on earth—”
“I’m sorry. I’m in a hurry.”
Mr. Hine moved one of the clumps of wind, blowing the knight away from the edge. The knight flew off to the side and fell down from the drawbridge. Then came the splash.
The other knights’ expressions hardly remained unchanged after that display. They tried drawing the swords that were sheathed at their waists, but it was my turn now. Before they could, I closed the gap and flung one of their number away with all my strength. That knight joined the previous one in the river. The others finally drew their swords and attempted to intercept the two cads who had come out of nowhere to commit brutal acts of violence in front of their sacred cathedral.
They were all so slow. They didn’t even have the time to raise their swords. Mr. Hine’s clumps of wind flew wildly, and the knights were dunked into the river one after another. I tossed the one who had escaped Mr. Hine’s zephyrean onslaught, and he too met his comrades in the drink.
A high-pitched shriek sounded behind us. No doubt it was someone in the crowd screaming in response to our dastardly deed. But my companion remained calm.
“Let’s run along,” he said. “Leave the enemies with the high ground to me. I won’t let them ring any bells or send up any smoke signals.”
“Okay.”
The knights waiting at the back of the bridge noticed the irregularity, and they swarmed after us like so many ants. Mr. Hine and I ran towards them without needing to confer. I felt his magical power swell as he sprinted beside me. One of the rings he wore cracked, unleashing the same spell as before.
“Sehr Wynd!”
The gale-force winds shooting from his hands blew away a portion of the clustered knights. I raced through the opening the squall had created and felt his magic power swell even more.
“Go on ahead, lad! Sehr Wynd!”
Yet more storm winds. A raging gust grazed my cheek before blowing away the knights in front of me and shattering the lattice gate in front. The attack had forged a path leading to the cathedral’s interior grounds.
“You want me to go without you?!”
“Yes! Listen to me—you’re the one who’ll save her! You can let me handle everyone behind you!”
Mr. Hine was adamant about me being the one. I’d have preferred him to not be so fixated on that, but his eyes were so serious and determined that I could tell he’d never back down no matter what. Pushed onward by the force of his will, I nodded.
“Got it!”
I put my strength into my legs and stamped the ground with enough power to gouge it as I blasted ahead. On the way in, various gusts of wind passed me from behind, knocking out the knights who were barring my path. Glancing to my side, I saw the knights on the elevated watchposts getting blown away and dropping like flies. Mr. Hine’s precision and speed were terrifying. To me, it served as a nice tailwind. There had to have been more than a hundred knights waiting at the gate, but thanks to him, we were able to leave them all behind in the space of a few seconds.
