‘It’s so booooorriiiiiiiiiingggg!’
I was bored out of my mind surveying the edge of the dome for enemies. It was practically a ghost town at this point. And the only thing that used to be interesting was the notifications I kept receiving from my shadows about catching bombers. So far, we found three dozen pairs of people planting the bombs.
It was shocking how many people had been coerced into doing this. And I still hadn’t tracked down an actual member from the invaders. What if the invaders actually weren’t coming? What if the princess was lying about this entire thing for a completely different reason?
‘This princess is giving me a headache.’
‘I know right? It’s like talking to a brick wall.’
‘A-An overly in-intelligent one.’
‘Hey guys!’
‘Ah!?’
‘New guy?’
‘I-I have a j-junior now?’
‘What will we call him?’
‘Call me Hyakkiyago.’
He told us out of nowhere. We were all stunned, since everyone who came so far didn’t even know that they were now sharing a mind with someone. Yet, this guy was acting so nonchalantly and even using the name the system master gave us.
‘Oi! How much do you know?’
‘Hmm, I’m currently at the part when Maya popped up.’
‘Huh? What are you talking about?’ (Me)
‘Wasn’t Maya like, the last person we saw before dying?’ (Akira)
‘Y-yeah. T-That’s what I remember.’ (Akkun)
‘Hmm. Wait… you don’t remember? But I do… is it cause of [Evolver] or the devil?’
‘Eh? What do you mean?’
‘Ssh! Don’t talk about the devil… it might be listening in on us right now.’
Akkun cowered somewhere after hearing the devil being mentioned.
‘Naw. Don’t worry about that. I made sure it can’t.’
‘Huh?’
‘For real?’
‘R-Really?’
‘Yep. Think of this as our safe space where the devil can’t listen in on anything we say. Besides, its always too busy processing the information it receives from the agent on a regular.’
What we were talking about, was the fact that Akira and Akkun discovered that our resident skill [Wisdom of God] had been hijacked by a devil. When this happened, we had to point fingers at that one time a friggin devil centipede tried to possess me. Someway, somehow, it found a way to survive in a unique skill.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtOf course, I would like to ask the agent how this was possible, but you know why I can’t ask. At least that explained the agent getting more of an attitude over time. It was simply the devil acting up. No wonder it was asking me for its real name.
‘Do you think saying its name will give it full power like in stories?’
‘Then why don’t we get full power when everyone says our name?’
‘We’re always at full power, idiot.’
‘Oh yeah, hahaha.’
‘Tori’s a real dumbass, huh. Hahaha.’
‘Hahaha.’
‘W-Wait. That doesn’t explain how you know anything!’
‘Oh, that’s right. I’ve been watching our lives for sometime now.’
‘E-Eh? Wait… the skill did level up.’
‘And none of us wondered why we didn’t get a new mind.’
‘G-guess we’re already used to each other, so we never considered a new member.’
‘Yeah. And we don’t have a position for him.’
‘Cheerleader!’
‘Woah! Woah! Woah! Don’t worry. I’ve already gotten myself a job.’
‘And that is?’
‘System management of course.’
As we were discussing with our new member, the whole dome darkened. I didn’t sense anything dangerous, but I saw a beautiful display of colours that came together to create a portal. Quite possibly the largest portal I’d ever seen.
‘Oh, wow. That’s amazing.’
Akkun muttered. He was so dumbfounded that he didn’t even stutter as he said it.
‘That’s art. I want to get closer to analyse it.’
‘Art? It’s just a portal with pretty colours. Ah look, now it’s just red.’
‘Y-You don’t get it. That portal is possibly the best portal ever.’
‘Um, as much as I want you to lecture me on the difference between big portals and small portals, I think I’ll pass. Back to you, new guy.’
‘Hyakkiyago. Or Hyakun if it’s easier.’
‘Uuh, sure. You say you’ve seen memories we don’t have?’
‘And we’ve seen Maya before?’
‘Yes and yes.’
‘Explain.’
‘Well, you see, your… our soul has several holes in it. I’d seen all the memories from it then decided to check out the system, there I saw that the system records everything we do. Probably how the system master watches our every action.’
‘O-Our every action?’
‘Yeah. She’s even seeing this conversation right now. I’m not sure how to avoid it.’
‘Wait. So if I’m taking a shit, she’d still be watching me?’
‘Does she seem like she has a life?’
‘Good point.’
‘So, yeah. I looked at the system and when Maya… the gothic Lolita.’
‘Eh!?’
‘When she stabbed us and that mysterious eye ball saved us, there was a brief moment where our souls clashed. I saw flashbacks of her life and ours as well. I guess when she’s judging us she also needs to share her soul with us. Quite a dumb ability if you ask me. Imagine the only way for me to kill you is by also giving you an equal chance at killing me. A very dangerous double-edged weapon. She’s lucky almost nobody knows that though.’
From the portals, whales with shiny dots came through making noise. The smallest one was about three times the size of an adult blue whale, but not even that was more shocking than what I’d just heard. I was that close to Maya? Literally an inch away from her? So, she also reincarnated? Then maybe Ken too.
‘H-Huh?’
‘Wait, wait, wait!’
‘PRINCESS! THERE IS A PROBLEM.’
I got a cry for help from all my generals simultaneously.
‘What is it? Did the invaders attack the pillars?’
‘UM… NO. THE PILLAR MEN PLACED MANA BOMBS ON THE PILLARS.’
‘Huh? What do you mean the pillar men placed mana bombs on the pillars? They’re supposed to be protecting them. Are you sure that those are mana bombs?’
‘YES. THE MANA THE SPHERES CONTAIN IS UNSTABLE AND COULD EXPLODE ANYTIME FROM NOW.’
There was no way the pillar men who had been guarding the Pillars for at least half a century would just plant a bomb there. There was also no way my generals would lie to me. But I needed to confirm this.
I used [Shadow Gaze] to see through one general’s eyes, then scanned the item with [Wisdom of God]. To my dismay, it truly was a mana bomb and it had less than 30 minutes remaining to go off.
‘Huh? Oh, come on, this isn’t even funny if it’s a prank.’
‘A… PRANK?’
‘Never mind. Generals, get the mana bombs off the pillars.’
‘UNFORTUNATELY, WE ALREADY TRIED. THE PILLAR MEN ARE TOO STRONG.’
‘Huh? For even you guys? In that case, all shadows. Subdue the pillar men, now.’
This was odd. Why would the pillar men themselves plant the mana bombs? There was no way the invaders could pretend to be the pillar men. If they did, then that would make Atlantis’ security the worst I’d ever seen or heard of in my two lives.
‘Wait… Tori, don’t send all the shadows.’
‘Huh? What do you mean?’
‘Well, it’s kinda illogical. Sure they’ve planted the bombs, but sending every shadow on hand is overkill. For all we know, this is also a distraction.’
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm‘T-True. E-even if they aren’t in this dome, the o-other domes are still available.’
‘You think that’s where they are hiding?’
‘Possibly. I mean, we haven’t searched.’
‘Yeah. We’ll simply send a sufficient number of shadows to go deal with the pillar men.’
After coming up with a reasonable plan, I sent about 50 shadows to go to each group of pillar men, meaning about 250 shadows against the groups of pillar men. Even if they were strong, taking on too many enemies was going to be stressful.
I used [Shadow Travel] to appear at one of the pillars. The pillar was a large piece of carved diamond-looking material. When I saw it, I noticed that is looked really familiar.
‘Oh, that looks like the rock from the cave we woke up in.’
‘Rock?’
‘Yeah. We formed a soul bond with Shiro with that.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yep. But it isn’t. Thank goodness. If the Atlanteans had found a way to utilise its power, they would have to be the most powerful nation in this world.’
‘Hmm…’
A lightning-fast spear coming down on me interrupted my thoughts. I barely managed to stop it with my sword. Unfortunately for me, the blow was so powerful my arm was shaking.
‘That strong? With [Shock Absorber] on?’
I looked at the attacker. He was cloaked in full golden armour that concealed all his features. There were simply eye holes that allowed him to see me.
[Item Name: Pillar Man Armour]
[Item Rank: Legendary
[Item Description: The legendary armour of the Atlantis’ highest rank soldiers. Only the best of the best can even wear this armour without dying. Once worn, it cannot be removed till its wearer dies.
Effect #1 – Boosts all physical stats by 10x
Effect #2 – Gives one high resistance to magic
Effect #3 – Gives an attribute boost depending on the user’s attributes
Effect #4 – Wearer is completely obedient to the wielder of the [Royal Trident]
[Value: 7500 gold coins| 550 store points
With this armour, they had physical stats just a tad bit below Minerva’s and Arisu. And since they had a high resistance to magic, I was basically the worst person to take them on. Fortunately for me, I had the advantage of numbers here. Even better, I had strong generals amongst the shadows. These guys were in the lower stages of B rank. And given some things I’ve heard from them, they’ve lived a long time, so their actual level shouldn’t have been B-rank.
I managed to parry the attack and retreat behind my general who had his left arm torn off.
‘T-The hell happened to your arm?’
‘KNIGHTS… TOO… STRONG.’
<A/N: Tori wanted excitement, so here's excitement. The decisive fight for the fate of Atlantis begins, I guess. Still a few more things to finish. Please give me your power stones, reviews, comments and golden tickets!
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