On the day of the mass subjugation mission, adventurers and soldiers of the domain army were gathered in front of Euron’s gate. About the same numbers as for the goblins: a hundred adventurers or so, two hundred soldiers or so.
The soldiers are there chiefly to carry rations and to recover magic stones and materials, though. The fighting falls almost entirely to the adventurers.
“So that’s ‘Crimson Anatoria.’ She doesn’t look much older to me, but she’s A-rank all over, isn’t she.”
Rani was watching the woman elf knight in crimson armor giving orders some way off, thoroughly interested. Freinil kept stealing looks as well, though for some reason from where she had hidden herself behind me.
I looked for the pair of adventurers from the other day. They were easy enough to pick out of the crowd, and there was still nothing about them that struck me as suspicious.
Anatoria came forward, and I put my attention back on her.
“If any adventurer party has a member who can use ‘Holy Attribute Magic,’ come to me.”
Anatoria called it out in a voice that carried. She will want to know who can use magic that bites on undead. There was no not coming forward, and Freinil caught my sleeve and turned an anxious look up at me.
“Soshi-sama. Must we go after all?”
“We must. She’s the commander of this whole force. We can hardly ignore an order.”
“I see… Very well.”
Some grievance of hers toward Anatoria, perhaps. There’s nothing to be done about it either way.
I took Freinil and Rani over to her.
Only three parties had gathered. ‘Holy Attribute Magic’ really is a rare skill. Anatoria gave the first two parties their instructions and came to us last.
“Hm. I know your face.”
She looked at me, and her fine brows gave a twitch.
“You had charge of me at the goblin subjugation in Tolson, some while ago.”
“That business. Soshi-dono, was it. I ask your service again. So, you have a party now. Which of you can use ‘Holy Attribute Magic’?”
“Freinil here. She is E-rank, so the ‘Holy Attribute Magic’ she can use comes to two spells.”
Freinil had in fact learned her second holy spell just before we set out. It’s called ‘Purification,’ and as the name says it drives defilement out of its target. Very much the sort of spell for laying undead to rest, though it appears to have a physical effect as well, something like disinfection.
At my introduction Anatoria turned her eyes on Freinil. She said “Hm,” and her eyes narrowed to a line. But when Freinil looked down, ill at ease, she took her gaze off at once and turned back to me.
“‘Holy Light’ and ‘Purification’ make her sufficient as a fighting asset. Physical attacks come hard against the spirit-bodied undead. Very well, your party will act with mine. Attend on me from the march onward.”
“Understood.”
“Good. I ask it of you. Wait there until we move out.”
I bowed and withdrew to the place Anatoria had indicated.
I hadn’t expected to be ordered to attend on the commander of the whole force. Given how she reacted on seeing Freinil, this posting most likely has its cause in whoever Freinil really is. Freinil herself was wearing an apologetic face and murmuring “I am sorry…,” which rather settles the matter.
Rani was saying “Getting to watch Anatoria fight up close, that’s lucky,” so there’s no call to take it badly either. Acting alongside a former A-rank adventurer and a C-rank party is treatment an E-rank party has no business expecting.
Day one, the subjugation force was to march to the village nearest the forest with the undead castle in it, a full day’s walk.
On the way I decided to tell Anatoria about the two adventurers.
“Anatoria-sama. I would like a word.”
“Soshi-dono. What is it?”
“It concerns those two adventurers over there…”
I pointed, quietly, at the pair walking some fifty meters ahead of us.
“Freinil, the one I introduced who uses ‘Holy Attribute Magic,’ says she feels something faintly connected with undead coming off them.”
“A presence?”
“Yes. Freinil appears to be built in a way that senses undead, and in fact she detected the ‘Lich’ we ran into the other day. There is nothing beyond that about the pair, but it stayed on my mind and I thought it best to tell you.”
“Hm…”
Anatoria drew her brows together and looked hard at the two of them, and then, half to herself:
“…That gear. Mekarinan adventurers?”
“Very well. I will keep the information in mind. I shall have those two watched by someone reliable.”
“I am sorry to bring you something so unclear.”
“No. There are points about this affair that do not sit right as it is. I wanted whatever information there was. You have my thanks.”
“Then I will take my leave.”
So Anatoria—the Viscount’s side, in effect—seems to have been taking the undead castle for something with a back to it as well. There’s nothing further I can do about the pair in any case.
The force reached the target village around evening, and the soldiers began pitching camp around it with trained efficiency. The plan had us spending one night there and going in at the castle the following morning.
Naturally, spending the night meant watch kept to the utmost. Undead are, in the main, inhabitants of the night world. And they’re hardly going to leave an army camped outside their base unmolested for a night. There was intelligence in the ‘Lich’ we fought.
We were given a tent the domain soldiers had put up and told to sleep in it. Worn out by marching with so large a company, perhaps, Freinil and Rani were both breathing softly the moment they were in their bedrolls.
I dropped off before long myself, and then woke in the middle of the night. Trying to sleep only left me wider awake.
I had a bad feeling. Not the sort of feeling that’s only nerves or impatience, some movement of the mind, but something closer to a physical pressure.
“…Don’t tell me that’s a skill too. It isn’t impossible.”
The thought got as far as my mouth, and then I took my gear and slipped out of the tent alone.
In the dark of the night, magic-tool lamps stood here and there through the camp, throwing light around them. Magic tools ought to be expensive, but the domain army evidently runs to them.
Out at the edge of the camp, domain soldiers were keeping watch in threes. Looking around, I could see two more such groups. The guard looked thoroughly strict about it.
“What’s the matter with you—adventurer, are you? We’ll do the watching, so get your rest.”
One of them called out as I came up.
“Ah, sorry. I wanted a bit of night air. And I’ve got a bad feeling about tonight, as it happens.”
“That an adventurer’s hunch, is it? Don’t go frightening us.”
“I’m a worrier by nature.”
We were still talking when ‘Presence Sense’ brushed against something. A weak reaction, but something was coming closer, no question. A small animal, perhaps… no. It could be a monster with a skill that fools ‘Presence Sense.’ In which case it may be a strong one.
“Something’s coming. It may be a monster. Get back.”
“Wait, seriously!? Oi, fall back!”
At my warning the soldiers pulled back toward the camp. If it was a monster I’d need them calling for support at once.
I fixed my eyes on the dark of the plain beyond the lamplight. ‘Vision’ makes it a good deal better than it would be, but I’d take a ‘Night Vision’ skill if such a thing exists.
The undergrowth rustled. What came out was a dog.
A wild dog—no, there’s something wrong with it. The coat is in tatters and parts of it look rotten. A zombie dog, then.
“Monster! Support!”
“Attack! Attack!”
The soldier shouted in answer to me, and I heard the camp go up all at once.
The zombie dog out of the grass appeared to have settled on me for its target. According to ‘Presence Sense,’ though, a great many more were behind it. Support was going to be essential.
The zombie dogs came leaping one after another and burst apart the instant they entered my mace’s reach. Having a skill that hides their presence is all they have; their strength, by the feel of it, is no more than it looks.
Scraps of flesh scattered and the stench spread with them. Zombies are the worst thing to meet in the field.
I must have turned several dozen of them to mince. A few adventurer parties had reached the ground a little way off by then and were killing zombie dogs as well.
“Soshi-sama!”
“Soshi—ugh, the smell!”
Our two had come out too, by the sound of it. But Freinil and Rani both stopped some way short. Which is fair enough: a great heap of rotten flesh had piled up around me. A fair amount of it was on me as well.
“Kill whatever gets past me from there. You don’t need to come any closer!”
I said it and pushed on toward where the zombie dogs were still coming from. There was a somewhat larger reaction deeper in. If that was the boss, better to have a look at it.
I burst zombie dogs as fast as they threw themselves at me and worked my way gradually toward whatever the boss reaction was. The boss showed no sign of moving.
“What in the world is that…?”
Whatever it was came into sight.
I had taken it for a monster, but the shape standing out of the darkness was an ornament, something like a stone stele about two meters high. Looking closer, I found a black mist of some kind hanging around it, and out of the mist came zombie dog after zombie dog. Which made it a zombie dog dispenser. What a thoroughly inconvenient piece of equipment.
I ran at the thing and gave it a whack with the mace. The stele itself had no thickness to it, and it broke off easily at the base and went over. The black mist around it began to thin, so it appears the function had stopped.
Sweeping the area with the presence-sense skill told me there were several more of them set up. I ran around and destroyed every one. That should be the end of zombie dogs.
“What? …Adventurers, this far already…?”
“That’s as far as this goes. We fall back.”
Just then a man’s muffled voice came from the direction of the forest. I strained my eyes that way and there was nobody there. On ‘Presence Sense,’ two reactions moving away at speed, and moving toward the undead castle. Involved beyond any doubt. And that voice: I’ve heard that accent.
Come to think of it, Zeal, the leader of ‘Fortuner,’ said something about there being ‘those who summon undead.’ Perhaps those two were exactly that.
Either way the commander needs a report, though first I’d like to do something about the filth and the smell.
Back at the camp the fighting was already over, and domain soldiers were cutting magic stones out of the zombie dogs’ corpses and gathering the bodies into one place to burn. The burning was being done by adventurer mages.
I looked like a zombie myself, but as the commander’s attendant I was cleaned up personally by ‘Fortuner’s’ woman mage (Leila, a beauty; and for the record they’re a party of four) with a high-pressure wash of ‘Water Attribute Magic.’
Freinil put ‘Purification’ on me afterward, and by the end I felt cleaner than I had been before the fighting.
“Mm, no smell at all, you’re fine. Freinil’s magic is really something.”
Rani had put her nose up to me and sniffed, and having got her seal of approval, I thanked Leila and Freinil and went to make my report to Anatoria.
“Soshi-dono. I hear you destroyed the ‘Summoning Stones.’ Well done. Let me have the report.”
Anatoria said it as I put my head into the headquarters tent, and offered me a chair.
I took her through it from the zombie dogs’ appearance to the destruction of the zombie dog dispensers—‘Summoning Stones,’ apparently—and finished with the voice I had heard and whoever it belonged to.
“…Hm. Going by those words, the ones who placed the ‘Summoning Stones’ would be those same men. And the two went toward the castle?”
“As far as I can sense, yes. Though could two men carry ‘Summoning Stones’ of that size?”
“With the ‘Item Box’ skill it is not impossible.”
‘Item Box’ is the outrageous skill that lets a person keep things in another space. So it can be turned to this sort of work as well; I was quietly impressed.
“I see… Ah, and the accent on their words resembled that pair from before.”
“What…? Wait a moment.”
Anatoria gave an order to a soldier nearby. The man ran off toward the adventurers’ tents and came back some ten minutes later with two more soldiers. Those two made their report to Anatoria, apparently apologizing throughout.
When it was finished Anatoria dismissed them and came back to me.
“The pair in question appear to be gone from their tent. I had them watched, and still they went, some skill of theirs, perhaps.”
“That is… beginning to look thoroughly suspect.”
“It is. But if they have fled toward the castle, pursuing them at night is impossible. Never mind, we will handle that from here.”
Anatoria’s eyes went sharp for a moment, and then she must have judged it a matter no longer to be settled on the ground. Which put it well past anything an E-rank adventurer of my sort could speak into. I confined myself to a nod.
“Your work tonight will be reflected in the payment. Tomorrow the mission proceeds as planned, so rest until morning. I expect a good showing from you at the castle as well, Soshi-dono.”
“Thank you. I will do what I can to meet it. Then I will take my leave.”
I left the headquarters tent and went back to ours.
I had told them to sleep, so Freinil and Rani were breathing softly already.
Lying down, I did some reflecting on how I had handled the pair, and whether I had been too easy about it. Then again, if we had tailed them and looked into it, I’m not sure an amateur like me would have caught them at anything. That was the excuse I made to myself, and I resolved to do better next time.
The bad feeling had gone, at any rate, so sleep until morning looked possible. I lay down at the edge of the tent and shut my eyes.
When I woke in the morning Freinil had somehow got herself into my bedroll and was holding on to my left arm.
“Freinil panicked last night. She woke up in all the noise and Soshi was gone. Give her a bit of thought, would you.”
So said Rani, and now that she said it, I may well have worried her. There’s still something very young about Freinil, and when I leave her side like that I should at least say a word first.
The order to assemble came, so we got our gear on and went to the assembly ground.
We fell in beside the C-rank party ‘Fortuner.’ Attached to the commander again today, of course.
“Hey. Sounds like you put on a showing last night.”
Zeal, ‘Fortuner’s’ leader, called over to me. Behind him were Leila, the woman mage who had washed me down the night before; Dorno, a hard-faced warrior with a shield as tall as he was; and Kenig, a beastfolk woman dressed something like a ninja.
“I ended up covered in zombie meat. Leila-san saved me.”
“Zombies, yeah. When the numbers are up there’s no finishing it unless somebody wades in and accepts getting filthy. Lucky for you the young lady Freinil can use ‘Purification.’”
“Truly. If that smell hadn’t come off, it would have been the end of me.”
“Heh. Two girls in tow, a man has to watch his grooming.”
We were still talking when the call came and Anatoria began to speak.
“You fought well last night, all of you. Some of you are tired. But every day we delay is a day they add to their numbers. Today we destroy this undead nest utterly and lift the fear from the people. I expect everything you have!”
“Aye!” went up from the whole force, and the subjugation force began its advance on the forest. The usual shape: a hundred adventurers in front, two hundred of the domain army behind them.
The undead castle wasn’t yet visible at that distance, though several of the adventurers seemed to feel there was something out past the trees. Among themselves they were saying things like “there’s definitely something.”
Two hundred meters short of the forest Anatoria halted the advance. She went forward alone and raised a short staff with a crystal set in it. The crystal flashed hard, and something like a castle came clearly into view deep in the forest. Some tool for breaking a hallucination working, apparently.
“Ehh, there was a thing like that standing there!?”
“For a castle that size to be hidden… It is just as Soshi-sama said.”
Rani and Freinil stared with their eyes wide at the castle standing up out of the forest. The other adventurers were making noise as well, though the four of C-rank ‘Fortuner’ only glared at it in silence.
“From here on we are in enemy ground. Advance, and keep your guard up!”
We went into the forest with ‘Fortuner’s’ beastfolk woman Kenig at the head. She is extremely good with detection skills and apparently good at finding traps and the like. The scout, in game terms.
We reached the front of the castle without incident. Not so much as one Terror Knight came out, which probably means they’re waiting inside.
Up close the undead castle really was an enormous building. A main hall about three stories high, with spires at the four corners.
Strangely, there wasn’t one window in the walls, only a large pair of doors at the front. Nor did the foundations look properly laid, so it clearly wasn’t built by any legitimate method.
“Mages forward. We break the doors with pebble-type magic. Prepare.”
At Anatoria’s order some twenty-five mages, every party’s together, lined up at the front and began to gather their focus.
“Fire!”
A mass of stone shot and rock spears struck the doors, and with a great noise of destruction the doors broke and blew inward.
I expected monsters to come out of the opening and none did. Instead a strange, clinging sort of presence came flowing out of the hole gaping where the doors had been.
Freinil came to my side with a tense face.
“Soshi-sama, I feel a very strong presence. I think there are three undead with power in them.”
“You can tell?”
“Yes. I think they are stronger than the Lich the other day.”
“Hm…”
I considered telling Anatoria, but Freinil has too little experience for me to guarantee how accurate her senses are. Information of unknown reliability, passed on, amounts in the end to the same thing as passing on nothing.
Telling nobody at all seemed a problem too. Better to have someone capable know it. Which made him the appropriate man.
“Zeal-dono. Might I have a moment?”
“What is it?”
Zeal answered without taking his eyes off the entrance.
“Our Freinil says there are three undead in there stronger than the ‘Lich.’ Keep it in mind, if you would.”
“That reliable, is it?”
“Freinil seems to have a sharp sense where undead are concerned. It may be some skill. But she has little experience, and how far it can be trusted is still unclear.”
“…All right. I’ll remember it.”
That will do. He would have been within his rights to tell me to keep my mouth shut, but Zeal is a man who can swallow that sort of thing. As you would expect of him.
When I got back to Freinil and Rani, Anatoria had begun giving orders.
The shape of it, apparently, was to split the adventurers in half: the force including her would go into the castle, and the rest would wait outside and provide support if anything happened.
A hundred people inside would only jam the place, and the domain army waiting outside needed adventurers to protect it.
“Right. We go in. Follow me!”
The commander of the whole force, of all people, went for the entrance at the front herself. Certainly, if something powerful comes out at once, having an A-rank in front should hold the losses down—still.
The three of us went into the castle behind ‘Fortuner.’
Inside was an empty lobby. Being dim as well, it had a haunted-house air of dread about it. A wide corridor ran off into the building, with two more passages on each side.
Once all fifty adventurers were inside the castle, a clattering came out of the passages left and right.
The adventurers spread to both sides and set themselves as they felt it, and Terror Knights came walking out of the passages in a stream.
“D-ranks to the front, E-ranks support!”
For a force put together on the spot, the adventurers were facing the monsters with reasonable coordination. Even a Terror Knight’s hard armor seems to come off badly against a D-rank attacker. They were cut open, beaten flat and run through, and went down one after another.
We were in the center, so there was nothing for us to do yet. Judging by the way Anatoria was watching the corridor at the back, though, we weren’t going to get off easily.
“Right. ‘Fortuner’ and Soshi-dono’s party, with me. We kill the boss at the back.”
The order I had expected. For a moment I wondered whether E-ranks ought to be going along to a boss fight, but the leader’s order is absolute. I can only take it that Anatoria has some estimate of what we’re underneath.
As we went up the corridor, more Terror Knights came out ahead of us in a stream. In front of Anatoria and ‘Fortuner,’ though, walking plate armor might as well be paper. They were cut down one after another and vanished.
We could hardly stand and watch, of course. I worked with the mace and Rani with a longsword carrying fire attribute.
“Ha, crushing one of these in a single hit. That’s the man who put a King down!”
Zeal apparently had room to spare for watching me. The longsword he swings cuts a Terror Knight in two at a stroke without any magic on it at all.
“Pushing by force is what I’m good at.”
“That’s a thing worth being good at. Arm strength helps in any situation there is.”
“It might, at that.”
We were still talking when the Terror Knights had thinned to about ten, and I was putting my back into one more push when Freinil spoke from behind me.
“Soshi-sama, there is a powerful monster presence at the back. It does seem to be three of them.”
Looking down the corridor, I could see a large pair of doors. The relief of a skull worked into them was in poor taste, but by the feel of it what lay beyond would be the throne room. A boss in there is exactly right.
Anatoria’s flying slash took three Terror Knights out, and with that nothing stood between us and the doors. There was still the sound of fighting in the great hall, so it would be Anatoria, ‘Fortuner’s’ four and our three going in.
“Kill the master beyond this and the monsters will stop appearing. There do appear to be three, but by the feel of it we can handle them ourselves. Is everyone ready?”
Anatoria checked, as I had expected. Nobody there was in a position to question an A-rank’s judgment. When everyone had nodded, she opened the doors slowly.
Beyond them was the throne room, as expected.
A room about the size of a school gymnasium, a shade narrower; a crimson carpet down the floor, and at the end of it a raised dais, and on the dais three armored warriors.
All three were swordsman-shaped and carried longswords, though the sword and the armor of the one at the back looked a grade above the others. A higher monster, I guess. What was eerie was that not one of them had a helmet. Armored warriors without heads.
Anatoria set her sword and stepped forward.
“The two in front are ‘Headless Swordsmen’—Sordiers—upper C-rank; the one behind them is a ‘Headless Adept,’ upper B. The ‘Adept’ I take alone. ‘Fortuner,’ engage the ‘Sordiers.’ Soshi-dono and his party support them.”
“Understood. We’ll hold the two.”
Zeal answered sharply.
The three of us took position behind ‘Fortuner’ and off to one side. Our support is mainly Freinil’s ‘Holy Attribute Magic.’ Rani and I take guarding Freinil.
The monsters moved. The two Sordiers in front came at us first, sliding across the floor.
The Adept started to move a beat later, and by then Anatoria was already on it, cutting. She had gone between the two Sordiers in an instant, by the look of it. That will be the ‘Sprint’ skill Rani has too, but at a different order of speed altogether.
“Here they come!”
Zeal shouted, and ‘Fortuner’s’ shield, the big man Dorno, brought his enormous shield up and stepped forward.
“Freinil, get ‘Holy Light’ ready.”
“Yes, Soshi-sama.”
Having given the order I moved up a little myself and set my shield. Not that I have any confidence about stopping the sword of an upper C-rank monster. If it comes at me I will simply have to do it.
“Magic coming!”
‘Fortuner’s’ mage Leila swung her staff, and more than twenty rock spears appeared overhead and rained down on one Sordier. It was blown off its feet with a tremendous noise, though the armor barely held its shape.
“Hah!”
The Sordier was trying to get up with its armor half wrecked when Zeal’s longsword cut it in two. One down.
Dorno took the other Sordier’s attack on the great shield. The Sordier tried to use ‘Sprint’ and go for the back line, and when Dorno shouted “Don’t you run!” it flinched and went back at him. That will be the skill called ‘Taunt,’ which pulls a monster’s attention.
‘Fortuner’ fight the way a C-rank party should: not a wasted move anywhere.
So there might be nothing for us to do. And thinking that was perhaps the mistake, because new Sordiers appeared out of nowhere on both sides of the room. No: looking closer, something like a stone tablet lay on the floor. Another ‘Summoning Stone,’ possibly.
There was no time to look into it. Of the two that had appeared, one Zeal took on. Kenig and Leila were supporting Dorno and Zeal.
Which left the last one coming our way. That one was ours to deal with.
“Come on!”
Letting it get to Freinil or Rani is out of the question. I set the shield and the mace and stepped out, and the Sordier used ‘Sprint’ at once and came in cutting.
“Ngh!”
Having raised ‘Kinetic Vision’ and ‘Reflexes’ and the rest of them, I could just about react. The Sordier’s longsword landed on the shield and the shock ran up my left arm: strength on the order of the goblin King. But with my level up and specialization in arm strength gone further, I can absorb that well enough.
Blocking was fine; the problem is that there’s no gap in a Sordier’s swordsmanship. It appears to have the ‘Body Twist’ skill. Under that torrent of blows I couldn’t get a counter in with the mace. On strength alone, though, I didn’t seem likely to lose.
“Hyah!”
A dozen-odd blows in, I timed it and drove forward with the shield, forcing the Sordier back by main strength. The armored swordsman lost its balance and gave ground.
“Freinil!”
“Yes, ‘Holy Light’ going out!”
A single beam ran past me from behind and struck the Sordier full on the breastplate. A fist-sized hole opened in the black armor and its movement dulled for a moment. Nowhere near fatal, though. The difference in rank tells, as you would expect.
“Freinil, a ‘Charged’ ‘Halo’!”
“Yes, Soshi-sama!”
‘Fortuner’ didn’t look to have much room to spare against their two either. Anatoria was trading blows with the Adept, but the movement there was too fast to read who had the better of it. What was clear was that this was no place to hold anything back.
The Sordier came in cutting again. I took the storm of strokes on the shield, and the shield had started to complain. With the metal frame going out of true, it wasn’t going to last long.
“You—wait, this thing’s hard!”
Rani cut in from the side, and even with fire attribute on the blade she could do the armor no real damage. The Sordier moved for an instant to deal with her, then—deciding she was no threat, or else that my mace was the greater one—ignored her and went on attacking me. It knows it wins if the shield breaks, presumably.
“‘Halo’ ready!”
“Do it! Light, everyone!”
Freinil’s focus came faster than I expected. She raised the staff, and the room filled with a holy light.
‘Divine Halo,’ which weakens monsters. And the ‘Charge’ skill should have strengthened the effect. With this—
“The hell was that—no, never mind, they’ve gone slow. That’ll do me!”
Zeal took the instant’s opening and swept his blade through the Sordier’s body, and the top half and the bottom clattered onto the floor separately.
Dorno shoved his Sordier away with the great shield. Kenig cut both arms off the buckled armored warrior from behind, and Dorno brought an axe down on it, and that one fell silent too.
The last one was in front of me. It put one blow into my shield and then turned sharply, trying to slip past my flank.
A feint off the ‘Body Twist’ skill. It had judged Freinil the threat, apparently. Unluckily for it, I have that skill as well.
“Hyagh!”
I moved in a way the laws of physics don’t allow and swung the mace sideways into the Sordier.
The violence that ‘Brute Strength,’ ‘Heavy Blast’ and a trained ‘Arm Strength’ make between them. The weakened Sordier’s armor crumpled like paper and flew, and it didn’t move again.
“That ends it!”
A sharp voice went up some way off. Anatoria’s longsword flashed, and the Adept came apart from top to bottom.
By any reading her sword didn’t touch it, and whether that was a skill or simply her arm, I couldn’t say. Either way the boss fight was over.
We were collecting magic stones when the other adventurers came up behind us. With the boss dead, the Terror Knights had apparently stopped appearing as well.
Immediately afterward a fine tremor came up from under the ground. Perhaps with the master boss dead the castle had begun to come down.
“Withdraw! Out of the castle, quickly!”
We followed Anatoria’s order and got ourselves out of the castle without delay.
