Volume 8Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – The Frozen Hell and the Strongest Four

Ephthal’s Perspective

Cocytus.

Known to everyone as the Mages’ Graveyard, and in plain terms, a top-difficulty dungeon.

As a mine, it’s played out. The dungeon itself was cleared ages ago, and governments and adventurers have picked its relics clean. But the monsters never ran dry, and ultra-grade horrors still prowl the place. Even over four hundred years ago it was a notorious dungeon that swallowed adventurer after adventurer and left corpses stacked in its halls. Today’s weakened mages are no match for it, so almost nobody goes in. A few thrill-seekers sneak in now and then to test themselves, and they all end up dead.

But enough of that. What matters for this job is what makes the dungeon special.

It was apparently an ancient-civilization warehouse to begin with. True to the name, the inside is an ice cave, which is reason enough to use it as cold storage. On top of that, preservation magic has been laid thick over the whole dungeon, so organic matter in there basically doesn’t rot. That’s the one use the place has left today, and it’s a big one.

It still holds a huge number of mages’ corpses from over four hundred years ago.

Granted, corpses that don’t rot still end up as mummies and skeletons, apparently. But according to Sasha, that’s no obstacle to building an undead mage legion.

⁂

So, one way or another, we’d left Magic Academy City and were heading north on foot for Cocytus.

The sky was clear, a far cry from the darkness over the city. Still, a sky with the Nine-Headed Dragon for a lid is ridiculous when you stop to think about it. Under there, day and night meant nothing, only black. Step out of the area it covered, and the scenery flips: the sun blazes as if nothing had happened, the same old world as ever. Strange.

Most regions with no dragon overhead probably didn’t even know there was a problem yet. But the dragon lay stretched across the world’s sky in a long, thin strip, and inside that strip… people must be panicking at a darkness that had come out of nowhere.

Then again, once I became the core and shut the thing down, what happened to all that? Would it just hang there while the planet turned, and the whole world get sudden daytime blackouts a few times a day? Or would it stay over one region as a lid, and leave that whole area in permanent night? If so, some regions would grow no crops at all, and refugees would pour out in huge numbers…

A headache was coming on when a voice reached me from behind.

“Still, Ephthal… you did well to settle it all by yourself.”

I turned around. Sasha was nodding, deeply moved. And the rest of the party were all nodding the same way.

For the record, this trip’s members were:

・The Four Emperors, me included

・Sasha

・Merlin

・Anastasia and Sheryl

It was the biggest party we’d ever had. Svetlana was due to join us partway, so the count would only go up. The dragons had scattered from Magic Academy City the moment the Nine-Headed Dragon appeared, and with so many of them dead since the last battle, she was run ragged with clan councils and all that.

“What, master? Is it that surprising that I talked it out with Balthazar alone?”

Everyone nodded at the same moment.

Isaac spoke first.

“Well, Ephthal, the only picture I had of you was a man old enough to know better who still blows up in an instant. I assumed that if you went alone, whatever could have been settled would fall apart… Of course I worried.”

I admit I’m short-tempered. Still… there’s a way to say these things, and I could have done without that one.

“…Among my disciples, Ephthal was famous as the angry grandpa,” Itam said.

Angry grandpa? My face twitched.

“Ah, that’s right,” Cliff said. “Among my disciples, Ephthal was called the cocky old geez—”

I held up a hand to stop him.

“Cliff… I’m begging you. Stop talking about that.”

Even for me, old story or not… I didn’t want to hear that people had been calling me a cocky old geezer behind my back.

Anastasia had watched the whole exchange with her mouth hanging open.

“M-M-M… Master looks flustered! I’ve never seen that before!”

“…Fufu. Flustered Ephthal is cute too.”

Sheryl being Sheryl, nobody could tell what she meant by that.

Come to think of it, though…

Anastasia had never seen me with my peers. All she’d seen was my master, Sasha, and my disciple, Merlin, and my family back at the Alcott house, my brother and sister and my mother. No wonder it felt like news to her, seeing me with my buddies.

“Okay, enough of the nonsense. Let’s get to it.”

Everyone nodded, and I pointed north.

“We’re headed for Cocytus, the Mages’ Graveyard. As you know, it’s a top-difficulty dungeon.”

Next I looked at Anastasia and Sheryl.

“It’s too much for you two. After what happened with Maria, I’m worried sick, to be honest.”

Merlin lowered her eyes, her voice barely there.

“I am sorry. Though I was at her side…”

“I’m not blaming you, Merlin. Forget it.”

If I’d been there, or Sasha, we couldn’t have protected Maria in a one-on-one against Balthazar either. Not a chance. So I wasn’t angry at all, and Merlin had nothing to be ashamed of.

“Master? Then are we staying behind?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “This time you’re going into the dungeon too.”

Merlin’s eyes went wide.

“Ephthal-sama. What do you mean by that…?”

“I can’t keep Anastasia and Sheryl in sight for the rest of their lives, and I don’t plan to… But at least until this is over, I want them within my reach. They’re my precious disciples, too.”

Anastasia’s cheeks went red in an instant. Her eyes filled, and she cried out, overwhelmed.

“Th-thank you, Master! To think you valued me that much…”

Sheryl smiled, pleased.

“…Fufu. Being told so plainly that you love me is embarrassing.”

Isaac let out a small laugh.

“Ephthal, you’ve always taken care of your disciples. That never changes.”

Itam chuckled.

“Among my disciples, Ephthal was always known as an overprotective grandpa.”

Cliff shrugged.

“Among my disciples, Ephthal was an overprotective cocky old geez—”

Again I stopped him with a hand.

“So… Cliff. I’m begging you. Stop with that.”

The painful part was that I couldn’t flatly deny cocky old geezer.

Anastasia, who’d been watching the four of us, gaped again.

“Master’s flustered again!”

“…Fufu. Flustered Ephthal is cute again.”

Honestly, we just say whatever we like to each other, no standing on ceremony. And when the subject turns to Cliff being a social disaster, everybody tears into him too.

I sighed, and Anastasia spoke up cheerfully.

“But, you know… Master?”

“What is it, Anastasia?”

“You seem strange today.”

“Strange how?”

“For one thing, you’re still being rough, aren’t you? Not like usual.”

Ah.

Now that she mentioned it, maybe so. Was it just that I was with my old best friends, and the old me was coming on strong?

“And even though it’s a terrible situation with the dragon, you look calmer than usual, somehow relaxed. And most of all, you look like you’re having fun.”

She sounded genuinely baffled. But there wasn’t any mystery.

“Here’s the thing, Anastasia.”

“Yes?”

“If I look relaxed, I probably am.”

“How so?”

“Usually I’m the one responsible for the scouting and everything else, all on my own. And nobody values these guys’ power more than I do, so it’s a relief in more ways than one.”

“…I see.”

“And if I look like I’m having fun, I probably am. Even on the worst battlefields we traded jokes. That’s old friends for you.”

“Old friends…”

Anastasia thought for a moment, then clapped her hands as if she’d figured something out.

“So you’re all really good buddies!”

“Well, I won’t deny it. ‘Good buddies’ is a bit too cute, though.”

Just then, the trees that had been blocking our view opened up, and a grassy plain lay ahead.

“Good, we’re almost there.”

Our destination was visible a few kilometers down the road across the plain.

“Um… Master?”

“What is it?”

“We’re going to a cave in the mountains, right?”

“Right.”

“Then why…?” Anastasia tilted her head. “Why is our destination a town?”

Well, if she was asking that, there was only one answer.

“Because we’re going to the Adventurers’ Guild.”

⁂

The town of Arje.

It had grown up as a relay city for silk from the East, and it was pretty big. Obviously smaller than an imperial or royal capital, but a fine regional hub.

On a bustling main street lined with stalls, at one corner of the round plaza in the middle of town, stood a four-story brick building. That was the Adventurers’ Guild we were after.

“So why the guild?”

The moment we reached the front of the building, Anastasia looked up at me and asked.

“I told you we’d gather corpses at Cocytus, the Mages’ Graveyard, right?”

“Yes. That was the idea.”

“How we turn those corpses into a lich legion with necromancy… we haven’t settled that yet.”

“…What do you mean, not settled?”

That had apparently caught her completely off guard. She looked worried.

“The plain fact is, we’re short of material, short of time, short of everything. It all rides on Sasha’s and Cliff’s skill.”

Her face clouded over.

“But Master… you said those two would manage easily, didn’t you?”

“Of course. They’re the two I trust completely… so for them it’s a piece of cake.”

I grinned, all confidence. Both of them shot me a look: don’t be absurd. I ignored it, naturally.

“Even those two can’t prepare anything without the actual corpses, though.”

“Meaning?”

“So first we have to collect the bodies in the dungeon. That’s where the Guild comes in.”

I pointed at the guild in front of us, and Anastasia gave a small “Oh!”

“You mean you’re hiring porters?”

“Exactly.”

Good answer. I patted her on the head, and she smiled, bright as a flower.

“We need a hundred bodies or more, you see. Just hauling them takes an idiotic amount of time.”

“Um… Master?”

“Yes?”

“Cocytus is full of corpses of absurdly powerful mages who could use Level 7 and up, right?”

I nodded.

“Otherwise we wouldn’t have come all the way out here.”

“And a lich legion keeps the magic ability it had in life, right?”

“Naturally.”

She peered up at me timidly.

“A hundred liches who can use Level 7 and above…? In terms of fighting strength, wouldn’t that…”

“And not just Level 7. There’ll be Level 8 and 9, and some who can use Level 10. So yes, you’re right: it could swallow a modern nation or two without breaking a sweat.”

“It’s amazing that Master can gather all that so easily, but… do we really have to go that far to beat Balthazar?”

“Well, he’s planning the collapse of a civilization. Anything less and we’re not even in the game. It’s not overkill, at least. And besides…”

“Besides?”

“The real star isn’t the lich legion. It’s what we make with it… Well, no use explaining it to you now. Whether it works at all depends on Cliff and Sasha.”

Anastasia tilted her head. What?

“Anyway, porters come first. Even if we wipe out the monsters in the dungeon, without porters the difference in time is night and day.”

“We only have two weeks, after all. So you want to save time wherever you can?”

“Right. There’s the formula work afterward too. We can’t spend that much time on just collecting bodies.”

“But, but… Master?”

“What?”

Anastasia raised one eyebrow, looking troubled.

“…The Mages’ Graveyard is an insanely dangerous dungeon… the kind only people with a death wish go into, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s what I hear.”

“Um… well… with a place that dangerous, is there actually an adventurer who’ll take a porter job?”

⁂

The guild receptionist girl.

It’s an old saying, and in this world it holds: the front desk of a guild is run by a pretty young woman. A guild is the first place adventurers stop after a monster hunt or a dungeon crawl, an oasis where they can unwind, a bit like coming home from a hard battlefield. It’s supposed to heal people, so the front desk is supposed to be a pretty girl.

I’d heard all this ages ago, back when I belonged to a guild, from a senior adventurer of the day, and I’d thought, huh, makes sense. Whether the old-timer was telling the truth, I don’t know. But as guild tradition, a young woman at the desk is a worldwide fact.

At this town’s guild, though, a bald man stood planted behind the front desk like a temple guardian.

Not that I had any complaint. Whether a man or a woman does the job doesn’t matter to me.

“What? The Mages’ Graveyard? Dream on! A place that dangerous? No number of lives would be enough!”

I could have done without that reaction.

Anastasia’s hunch had hit the mark. We were being turned away at the door, and the moment I’d explained what the porter job was, this was the answer.

“I’ll pay at least ten times the going rate. Can you round up twenty people?”

“Come on, mister, don’t be unreasonable. Pile up all the gold you want. Nobody takes a job that amounts to a suicide pact.”

“…Suicide?”

“Well, yeah. The Mages’ Graveyard, pal! The bare minimum for even walking around in that dungeon is a top-rank mage who can use Level 8, and there’s what, ten of those in the whole world, if that?”

“…”

“And even that guarantees nothing. It only means you won’t get killed the instant you step in. Dragging a line of porters in there, no way I can promise anybody’s safe.”

“…”

The clerk clapped his hands. That was that.

“So that’s the end of it. I’ve got other work, so sorry, but could you go home?”

I couldn’t just say “Sure, fine” to that.

“Sorry, but could you call the guildmaster for me?”

“What? You want the guildmaster?”

I nodded, and the clerk snorted at me.

“Some shady drifter walks in with a job like that, and you want the guildmaster out here? Don’t be unreasonable.”

I glanced at Sasha. When Sasha nodded, I turned back to the clerk.

“The Undead Emperor, Sasha, is here. Just tell the guildmaster that.”

In circles like this, Sasha’s name carries real weight. And now that I’d used it, we couldn’t be brushed off.

The clerk’s face froze.

“The Undead… Emperor?”

He stared hard at Sasha’s face.

⁂

Soon after, the clerk came back with the guildmaster.

“And what proof is there that this girl is the Undead Emperor?”

The guildmaster had looked pale when the clerk brought him out, sure, but the panic was gone now. One look at Sasha in the flesh and his whole manner had changed. He’d listened to us, more or less, and what it came to was: you look fishy, show me proof.

I looked at Sasha and sighed. I couldn’t blame him.

After all, going by looks alone, Sasha is a perfectly ordinary, lovely girl. Nobody connects that face with the infamous Undead Emperor, the name that shuts crying kids up. A guildmaster in a big city might have seen Sasha’s face, but this was the countryside. If you’d never laid eyes on Sasha, this reaction was only natural.

“That’s right, Guildmaster! These people have been spouting nonsense since the start!”

The clerk was snorting with indignation. The guildmaster nodded hard, I knew it. Then he looked at the big sack of gold on the counter and sniffed.

“They’ve certainly got the fee. Some big trading house’s idle heir, I’d say.”

Then he said sharply: “But.”

“Money can’t buy lives, and the Guild does not bow to money. Don’t take the Guild lightly!”

Anastasia tilted her head. “Huh?”

“Isn’t an adventurer someone who fights monsters? Isn’t that a dangerous job?”

“You’ve misunderstood the root of the matter. Danger and recklessness are different things.”

The guildmaster looked around and grinned.

“Right, gentlemen!”

The onlookers started nodding together. A crowd of adventurers had been gathering around us ever since the quarrel with the clerk began, and by now it was a sizable audience.

“The guildmaster’s right!”

“Recklessness isn’t courage!”

“Don’t think money gets you whatever you want!”

“We’ve got a right to pick our jobs too!”

And so on. A big crowd was yelling whatever it liked, and the situation wasn’t good. The adventurers honestly seemed to think we’d come as a rich man’s hobby, and the whole guild had caught that mood. By now nobody would take our job.

Great. Then Sheryl tugged my sleeve.

“…Ephthal. These people are unpleasant.”

The guildmaster fixed me with a threatening stare.

“So, if you would be so good as to leave.”

Threats and intimidation don’t work on me. And I’m not so well-mannered as to say “All right, then” and go.

“So if we show we have the strength to protect the porters, there’s no problem, right?”

Fine. We’d show them it made sense. All I needed was for them to see that what we were asking wasn’t reckless.

“Show your strength?”

The guildmaster burst out laughing. “Haha.”

“Spare me the jokes.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Heh. You really understand nothing. The Mages’ Graveyard is a dungeon of unprecedented danger, you know?”

“Like I said, if we show you the strength, it’s fine, right?”

“What strength? Even a Level 8 mage would be too weak, and you claim to have power beyond human that can use Level 9?”

“…And if I said yes?”

“Oh, what a surprise, meeting someone of the Four Emperors’ class in a place like this!”

He wasn’t even trying to hide the sneer. A roar of laughter went up from the onlookers too.

I could have said “The Four Emperors, correct,” and made it easy, but then… how should I play this?

Anyway, I wasn’t about to waste more time here. I wasn’t hiding my strength in the first place. Show them one high-level spell and they’d understand.

The question was how flashy to make it.

Cocytus has a reputation as a dungeon you can just barely survive at Level 8. Even so, I couldn’t go and fire off a Level 10 like some kind of lunatic. In that case…

If I did Level 9 right here, as the guildmaster said, would that end it?

Decision made, I started sizing up the building. Casting indoors risked bringing down the guild itself. Where could I do a demonstration?

The guild lobby had a terrace attached with a good view, and conveniently, a mountain in the distance. If I stepped out onto the terrace, I could use that mountain as the target.

Then Anastasia whispered to me.

“Master? Are you really… going to do it?”

“There’s no other way here.”

“But is it all right to blast that mountain?”

“It’s fine.”

“What do you mean? If there are people on it, it’d be a disaster!”

“Scouting magic. Even I check beforehand whether anyone’s there.”

I’d just said that when Cliff, who’d been standing beside me watching, cut in.

“Ephthal. I’ve already confirmed there’s no sign of anyone on that mountain.”

“Hm? Why have you scouted that mountain already?”

“Because I was watching how you all were going back and forth, and—”

Cliff raised a palm overhead.

“I thought showing proof is faster than arguing.”

The lobby filled with dense magic. The air trembled, and the desks and chairs rattled slightly. Every eye turned to Cliff, who was giving off power far beyond anything normal, and no one knew what was happening.

Then Cliff’s sharp, boyish voice rang across the lobby.

“Then, as requested, I’ll show you.”

He thrust a palm out toward the mountain beyond the terrace.

What is this insane power? This magic… wasn’t in the same class as Level 8 or 9. It was… it went past even Level 10. You idiot… don’t tell me—

“Level 11: Homura.”

A single red beam stretched from Cliff’s palm.

Sizzle.

The heat ray instantly melted the glass door between the terrace and the lobby. As the red, liquefied glass ran down to the floor, the beam shot straight at the mountain like a laser, and the whole area was swallowed in a flash of pure white. A light so strong you could almost call it violent.

Everyone was whited out. Then the deep boom of a huge explosion thudded through our lungs. Last came the wind, a howling gale that arrived just as the light died.

A wind strong enough to lift people threw the guild into chaos, then outright panic.

“Wh-waaaaaah!”

“What is this!”

“H-h-he blew the mountain away!”

“Wi-wi-wind! Windddd!”

Some grabbed pillars. Some crouched on the floor. Tough-looking adventurers were tossed about by the blast and flailed, each yelling something different. Everything flew through the air and scattered. It was like a scene from hell.

“Well, that’s about what we can do, Guildmaster.”

In the middle of that, Cliff spoke coolly.

The guildmaster could only open and close his mouth, over and over.

“Ah… Y-yes… Le… Level… Level… eleven… the mountaintop is gone… ah… ah… ha… wa… aah…”

Rasping that out, he sat down hard on the floor.

“Hey, Cliff…”

“What, Ephthal?”

“…You overdid it.”

Cliff gave an exasperated shrug, and I sighed. He never changes.

“Hey, Anastasia?”

“Y-yes, Master?”

Anastasia looked shocked, though not as shocked as the guildmaster.

“What do you make of Cliff?”

“Well, that’s… very much a friend of Master’s, I guess, or something…”

“You and Maria always called me a wild, reckless troublemaker, but…”

I pointed at Cliff, exasperated.

“…Cliff is ten thousand times worse.”

Seriously, this guy doesn’t read the room, and he’s got no consideration at all. At least I try not to stand out. Next to him, I’m the far more decent one.

“…I understand perfectly.”

Anastasia stood there dazed, staring at Cliff.

⁂

And so, one way or another, we secured twenty porters and left the town of Arje behind. About half a day’s walk later, we were halfway up a sacred mountain.

A cave mouth opened in the mountainside, and just standing there you could feel the thick magic unique to ancient ruins. This was the cave that led to Cocytus.

“Then let’s go with the plan we agreed on.”

Sasha, who’d been doing knee-bends beside me, nodded.

Sasha was dressed in a midriff-baring top and a sports bra, with his hair tied back, ready to exercise. Well… why a man would need a sports bra is a genuine mystery. But there’s no point raising it with my master, who’s a walking punchline just by existing.

“Now then, Ephthal. So this time you all rampage as you please while I guard my porters, is that it?”

“Yeah. The main attackers will be Cliff and me. I’m on bodyguard duty for Anastasia and Sheryl too, though.”

“Bringing the brats was your own whim. More work comes with the territory.”

I was uneasy about Anastasia and Sheryl myself. But with Maria taken, I didn’t want something irreversible to happen because I couldn’t keep an eye on them, and it’s only human to want those two within reach.

“I’ll look after them myself. I won’t trouble you.”

Anastasia and Sheryl beamed.

Just then Isaac spoke from behind me.

“Hey, Ephthal? Cliff has already done his thing, but…”

“Hm? What, Isaac?”

“Are Itam and I really free to use our magic however we like?”

“You two are the sensible ones, unlike Cliff.”

I laughed out loud. I’d known it, but Cliff really is reckless. He caused us all kinds of trouble back then, and being on the receiving end again after so long is strangely nostalgic… Somehow I don’t mind.

“Sure, no problem, no need to hold back. Do as you please.”

In the first place, with the Nine-Headed Dragon up there, nobody was going to blink at Sasha’s friends using Level 10 or 11. It’d be written off in the chaos. And we weren’t hiding anything anymore anyway.

Cliff, who’d been listening, gave a small “Heh.”

“I’m not one to hide my strength, either. That policy suits me.”

He looked delighted, but all I could do was slump with a sigh.

“No, you, a little restraint, please. Just a little is fine.”

He looks like a man who’d blow up a crowd of ordinary people and not care. We’re in a temporary alliance, a truce, but he’s got dangerous ideas of his own. And going to extremes with no sense of proportion is his bad habit.

I’m no one to talk, probably. But I don’t do what Cliff does, sacrificing the world for one family member.

“Restraint? Even holding back, it’s hard to break through Cocytus in a short time, you know?”

“I didn’t say hold back. I said don’t drag civilians into it, since we’re bringing porters.”

“Hmm… Ephthal?”

“What?”

“Do I look like someone who enjoys slaughtering ordinary people?”

Cliff puffed out his cheeks, sulking. I answered him bluntly.

“You don’t look like you’d do it for fun. But if you got them caught up by accident… you wouldn’t look sorry either.”

“Well, anyone who gets caught up is a nobody who couldn’t dodge the blast. Tagging along with us is presumption, and the consequences are on their own heads, isn’t it?”

He was so breezy about it that my head started to ache.

“That’s what I mean by restraint.”

“…What do you mean?”

“The Guild people are here because we asked them, right?”

“…Well, yes.”

“Then it’s not on their own heads, is it?”

Cliff fell silent for a bit. Then it clicked, and he smacked a fist into his palm.

“I see. So that’s a way of looking at it.”

He needed it spelled out this far? Geniuses, I swear.

No, in his case it wasn’t a matter of reading the room or a flaw in his personality… At the root, he probably didn’t really understand ‘ordinary people.’ That might be the real problem.

“Still, Ephthal. To the bottom in six hours. Is that really your order?”

“Yeah, that’s what I asked of you.”

“Six hours to reach the deepest floor… then three hours to collect the bodies, then three hours to get back up… Twelve hours total, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

When I nodded, Cliff openly scowled.

“And when we get back, we start the necromancy research that same day, with the materials. Even getting to the bottom in six hours is a hard job… what a slave driver you are.”

“But you can do it, right?”

Cliff spat out a sour, grudging concession.

“Well, yes, that’s true.”

Just then, the guildmaster of Arje came up behind us, worked up.

“To the deepest floor of Cocytus and back… twelve hours!? Impossible! That can’t be done! I object, and I object firmly!”

“Object? You agreed to send your people, didn’t you, Guildmaster?”

“We’ve confirmed that you’re a group of elite mages traveling with Sasha-sama, that much is true!”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“The problem is huge! If you go wild like this, my people will be in danger!”

“I keep telling you, we’re here, so they’ll be fine.”

The guildmaster took a huge breath and looked ready to leap at me as he rattled on.

“I don’t know whether it’s ambition or what, but all you want is to set the fastest route through Cocytus and make a name for yourselves, isn’t that it!? We accepted a porter job. We did not accept a job to help you set a speed record! That is unnecessary danger, and I won’t stand for it!”

I could tell he truly cared about his people, and he wasn’t a bad guy. Still, having him jump on every little thing wore me out.

“In any case, if you’re going to put my people in danger, you come through me first!”

Sasha, who’d been silent until then, crossed his arms.

“Ho, you’re a persistent one. I’ve told you many times it’ll be fine. Besides, taking risks is an adventurer’s job, isn’t it?”

Sasha frowned sourly, and the guildmaster bowed his head as if pleading.

“Danger itself is fine! I just ask you not to put them in danger for no reason!”

“Hm,” Sasha said, a hand to his chin. “So long as nobody dies, it’s fine, isn’t it? I’ve told you that many times, so rest easy.”

“I’m not doubting your ability, Sasha-sama. But—”

The guildmaster pulled a book out of his coat. It was old, well used, its cover torn in places.

“Hm? What’s that?”

“The Guild’s clearing manual for Cocytus, handed down since ancient times.”

“…And?”

“You know it was an enormously hard dungeon even before magic declined?”

“Yes,” Sasha said. The guildmaster looked pained.

“According to the records, the fastest clear so far was by the six strongest elite mages of the Magic Society of that day, and it took two days round trip, I tell you!”

“I know that. We’re not fools. We read the materials beforehand.”

Not that we’d seen the manual. Our source was Cliff, secondhand. But Cliff has a photographic memory, practically a cheat, so I could swear the information had no errors.

“I’m not doubting you, Sasha-sama! But even the strongest mages of that day took two days!”

“If you’re not doubting me… why am I being backed into a corner? Are you picking a fight with me?”

The guildmaster was practically snapping at Sasha, too. If he grabbed Sasha by the collar, a fight would start on the spot.

“No! But on top of that, to do it in twelve hours while guarding my people… is insane!”

Sasha and Cliff exchanged a look. Hopeless.

I could sympathize with the guildmaster. But by now he was so anxious it was getting annoying.

While we were at a loss over how to handle him, Cliff spoke up.

“Say, Guildmaster. Two days was the best of the Magic Society of the time, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. That’s why I’m saying twelve hours round trip is insane… and you should go to the bottom normally!”

Cliff smiled boldly.

“Then there’s nothing wrong. If the Society’s best of the time took two days, there’s nothing odd about us, the greatest in the Society’s history, clearing it in twelve hours.”

“Th-the greatest in history? Maybe Sasha-sama… but a mere attendant talking big!”

It was big talk, he was right. I think we’re the greatest lineup in history myself, but I’m not about to say it to an outsider. Still, I don’t dislike that overconfidence of Cliff’s.

“I’m not an attendant, and I’m not talking big, you know?”

“Then I’ll ask. The fastest record is two days… which is forty-eight hours. How do you plan to close the gap down to your twelve?”

They glared at each other, trading barbs, sparks practically flying between them.

“By going the shortest way… That’s all. Isn’t that right, Ephthal?”

Cliff grinned at me.

⁂

Inside the cave, this floor was a humid marsh, fed by an underground lake and lit by glowing moss… And the marsh turned out to be a slime nest.

“Eeeeek! S-s-split slimes!”

The adventurers started panicking.

In front of Cliff and me at the head of the line were three slimes, each big enough to swallow a person whole.

For the record, slimes in Japanese RPGs are the weakest of the weak, but not in this world. They grab you, dissolve you, eat you. It’s a crude attack, but it works anywhere. They lurk in the shadows and spring out of nowhere like a spider after prey, and to adventurers the word ‘slime’ means terror. And a dungeon at Cocytus’s level breeds special slimes, as every adventurer knows.

Of course we knew split slimes would show up here. Cliff had told us beforehand. They’re rare by any standard, and a nuisance even among nuisances.

Biologically, they’re like planaria. Cut one and it splits in two; crush it and it splits into a heap… The more you attack, the more of them there are, and the worse it gets. Cutting and crushing do nothing. A truly nasty one.

But we were the original Four Emperors. In terms of fighting power… frankly, we were the bigger nuisance. Which meant…

“Level 10: Crimson Ifrit.”

At the touch of Cliff’s flames, one split slime vanished with a sizzle.

“Again. Level 10: Crimson Ifrit.”

Another split slime was wrapped in flame and vanished.

“And lastly, Level 10: Crimson Ifrit.”

The third was gone. The spot was empty.

“I-impossible! A split slime, even if you burn it, comes right back! Why didn’t it split!?”

The guildmaster wore a look of stunned disbelief.

“Cliff isn’t burning the slimes.”

“Th-then what is he doing!?”

“Vaporizing them.”

If cutting, crushing and burning don’t work, that’s how you deal with them.

“V-vaporizing…?”

“Right. They regenerate from wherever cells remain, so if you turn the whole thing to gas at once, no problem.”

“…You can do that?”

“Any mage allowed to stand with Sasha in a party can do that much without thinking about it.”

Mind you, today’s mages can’t pull off a stunt like this. It takes Level 10 difficulty, so even for the mages of the old days it was a master-class spell.

“We’re short on time. Let’s get deeper.”

“Y-yes. Let’s.”

The guildmaster nodded, and we turned to the rock passage beyond the marsh.

It ran straight about ten meters to a dead end, with a corner right before it.

“Well… here’s the first hurdle.”

Muttering that, Cliff stepped into the passage. And without turning at the corner, he walked straight at the dead-end wall.

“Hm? That’s a dead end…?”

The guildmaster sounded puzzled. Cliff didn’t answer, and just kept going toward the wall.

“H-hey… you…?”

The guildmaster stood agape, not understanding what Cliff was doing. Anastasia and Sheryl looked just as lost.

“What’s going on, Master? The path goes that way… That’s a dead end!”

“No, this is as planned.”

I had no doubts, but no wonder Anastasia and the rest were confused.

“Anastasia, there’s a proper reason for this.”

“A reason? But… it’s a dead end.”

I gave a small nod.

“From what I heard beforehand… if you turn the corner there’s a staircase down.”

“Meaning?”

“You go down the stairs, pass through the lower levels, and finally… come to a staircase going up.”

“…Lots of dungeons are built that way.”

“Right. It’s a detour in the end.”

“A detour?”

“Yeah. Follow the route I just described and where you end up is… right on the other side of the dead end Cliff’s heading for.”

“Well, that’s just how it’s built,” Anastasia said. “Walls in high-difficulty dungeons like these are made unbreakable… You’re not actually going to break through it, are you?”

“Right. No way around it. So—”

“So?”

As Anastasia tilted her head, Cliff held a palm up to the dead-end wall.

“Level 11: Homura.”

Dazzling blue-silver flame wrapped Cliff’s palm. Then his right hand, like a gas burner, started to bore, no, melt through the wall.

“Whaaaat!? H-how!?”

Anastasia flailed in alarm, and the guildmaster stood dumbfounded, his mouth flapping.

“S-s-s-such a… in a dungeon of ultimate difficulty… there’s a wall that can be broken through?”

He was right: normally impossible. That’s why even the Society’s elite who cleared this labyrinth ages ago needed two days. If a trick like this worked, the dungeon would be full of holes.

“Right. The walls of this dungeon are the indestructible kind you get in ultra-hard labyrinths.”

“B-but Fire God Emperor-sama is melting the wall right now, isn’t he?” Anastasia said.

Cliff called back without turning.

“As Ephthal says, the walls of this labyrinth are solidified mana, ultra-hard. Like diamond, in fact.”

“Exactly!” Anastasia said. “Walls like this are famous for being unbreakable! It’s impossible!”

“But think about it, Ephthal’s disciple… Anastasia, was it?”

“Oh, yes. What do you mean?”

“Diamond is a lump of carbon. And if we assume the wall is the same, the way through is simple.”

“Simple?”

Cliff added a pleased little laugh and went on.

“Diamond is weak to fire.”

“Hey, Cliff… don’t teach my disciple nonsense.”

“Heh. Call it my sense of humor.”

“I’ve always thought your jokes are hard for normal people to follow.”

Diamond is a lump of carbon, so technically it does burn. But Cliff was breaking down a rock wall, and he was obviously not burning any carbon.

“Um… what does it really mean?”

“‘Unbreakable’ means unbreakable by ordinary destruction magic, up through Level 10. Anastasia, you know Cliff’s specialty is destructive power, right?”

“Oh, yes! Of the four elements, he’s fire!”

“Exactly. As you know… fire is the hardest element to handle.”

“Right! Um, fire magic is basically a big boom over a wide area, and there aren’t many spells for fine control, are there?”

“Exactly. What Cliff’s doing is simple. He’s packing the heat into one small pocket of space and shaping it into a blade of flame.”

Anastasia frowned in thought, a wrinkle forming between her brows.

“Um, Fire God Emperor-sama’s Level 11: Homura… that’s a huge explosion spell that burns a whole area down, right? Hmm… So he’s squeezing the explosion’s heat into a single point?”

“Yeah. In an extremely small area, but the heat is up around Level 12… no, at the tip where it’s cutting the rock, maybe 13.”

“Level 13? But… wait… that’s strange!”

“Tell me what you find strange.”

Anastasia finally put on a serious face. She seemed to have realized I was giving her a lesson in magic theory.

“I understand the idea of not scattering the heat in a big explosion but punching through at one point to reach extreme temperatures. But that’s incredibly hard to control, practically impossible, isn’t it? If it could be done, punching through at one point with an explosion would be standard practice all over the world!”

“Correct. Even Cliff can’t do it, and I can’t. Search the whole world and you won’t find anyone who can.”

“B-but it’s actually happening, isn’t it?”

“If two people do it together, though, there’s exactly one pair in the world who can pull it off. I’m controlling Cliff’s magic.”

“…Master is controlling it?”

“Same principle as Merlin running the Divine Enhancement calculations for me.”

“So Fire God Emperor-sama focuses only on raising the heat, and Master handles the spatial heat control, keeping it sealed in one place so it doesn’t damage the surroundings?”

“Exactly right.”

I nodded, and Anastasia smiled. A moment later she looked like she couldn’t quite accept it.

“But you just told me, Master: one pair in the world. It’s an insane feat of teamwork. Can you do that… on the fly?”

“Of course not. It takes knowing each other’s habits inside out.”

“Like Merlin-sama and Master, then?”

“Right.”

“But… you two haven’t seen each other in four hundred years, have you?”

“We pulled off Level 11 as a ritual spell long ago, and we drilled that kind of thing endlessly back then. These days… I can cast Level 11: Four Emperors alone, without a ritual, but the four of us together could build a Level 11 stronger than my solo one in a few seconds.”

“I see… But honestly it’s astonishing. To actually… go straight through by the shortest route…”

Then Cliff called, “Done.”

Sure enough, the wall he’d been melting had a hole big enough for a person to walk through.

Anastasia’s expression changed as she looked at the hall beyond the hole.

“There are monsters. A lot of them!”

About ten bird monsters were visible: flame birds, phoenixes, clearly high-difficulty monsters.

The guildmaster was flustered.

“Those are fire incarnate, and fire doesn’t work on them! You, red hair! Fire mage, fall back right now and put another mage in front!”

He shouted, but Cliff didn’t care. He strolled into the monsters’ nest, raised his right palm, and delivered a sentence of death to the phoenixes.

“Level 10: Thunder God Emperor Ephthal.”

A flower of purple lightning bloomed in the hall, painted with the death cries of flame birds.

In an instant every phoenix was a corpse on the floor.

With my specialty stolen, all I could do was smile wryly.

“Sorry,” Cliff said, “but there’s no attack spell up to Level 10 that I can’t use.”

And the guildmaster just stood there stunned, watching Cliff.

⁂

“S-s-Sleipnir!”

The deepest part of Cocytus.

In a wide limestone cavern, a giant horse appeared in front of us.

According to legend, Sleipnir is Odin’s eight-legged warhorse, and sure enough, this horse had eight legs. It stood about four meters at the shoulder and was six meters long.

The magic drifting off it said this was no ordinary monster, and I couldn’t blame the adventurer for yelling in fear.

“Ho, a beautiful horse. I’d like one for my collection.”

If Sasha wanted it, then it was no ordinary monster. It was a seriously troublesome one.

But Sleipnir’s misfortune was that we had five troublesome mages, and one of them was a man hopeless at holding back.

“Level 11: Homura.”

A small-scale nuclear explosion within a confined space. Sleipnir was reduced to cinders instantly.

Cliff rolled his shoulders with a crack and yawned.

“There’s just no resistance.”

“Hey, Cliff. If I hadn’t sealed the heat off from the surroundings just now, the porters and Anastasia and Sheryl would have been burned to a crisp.”

“Exactly. That’s why I can go all-out on firepower. Firepower is justice and the highest good. Heh, if I can skip every other annoying thing and focus on firepower, teaming with you isn’t half bad.”

I clenched a fist, wondering if I should hit him. But Cliff had gotten us the fastest clear, so just this once I backed off.

Cliff smiled, satisfied, and Sasha nodded hard.

“Now then, shall we begin the explanation?” Sasha said.

“Yeah, let’s.”

At Sasha’s urging, I called to the Guild’s people we’d brought from Arje.

“So, the bodies are scattered around this deepest floor, the limestone cavern.”

Thinking about it, it made sense. The place in a dungeon where you’re most likely to die is the deepest floor. Many ancient ruins have a boss-class guardian at the end, so the risk of death goes up.

“We’ve cleared most of the monsters already, so from here each porter works on his own and collects the bodies.”

The porters’ faces turned tight and serious.

It was a natural reaction. Cliff and I had cleared most of the monsters, but not all of them. The cavern had deep dark spots and shadows. Monsters could be lurking there, and you could walk right into one.

We needed them on their toes, so this reaction was welcome.

“Wait a moment! I have something to say!”

“What is it, Guildmaster?”

“I understand your strength. For everything I’ve said until now… I apologize. It was all my ignorance!”

He was certainly a nag. But there was no need to go as far as apologizing. Cliff’s antics had been outrageous, and the man himself only cared about his people, no ill intent.

“…And? We’re in a hurry, so keep it short.”

“Even so… as guildmaster I can’t keep it to myself. May I speak?”

“Go ahead.”

“You’re looking for the bodies of ancient mages, correct? As you know, I believe there are many in this cavern.”

“Yeah. And?”

“But as you can see, even though it’s a hall, the cavern is a maze in places, with dense pillars and so on. There’s dark and shadow, and monsters will be hiding. And I’m not proud of this, but not one of my people could take a hit from a monster on this floor and survive!”

I glanced at Anastasia. Sure enough, her jaw had dropped. That’s really nothing to be proud of!

Well, anyway, he had a point.

“I get what you’re saying. But we’ve already paid the fee, and you can’t just say you won’t work now.”

“No, we’re not saying we won’t work. We just want safety guaranteed, through coordination.”

“Coordination?”

The guildmaster nodded hard.

“As you said, each of us would work alone. I’d rather we move in groups. And if each of you mages leads a group as an escort, we’ll be safe.”

“I see, alone is the danger. If each of us leads a group, we can respond immediately… and more than anything keep an eye on everyone.”

“Exactly. If you do that, we can work with peace of mind.”

“But… the cavern is huge. We only planned three hours here, and moving by group would take forever. Everyone scattering at once, each on their own, is by far the fastest.”

“So you value efficiency over lives?”

Several veins popped on the guildmaster’s temples. Another one who blows up in an instant… I thought, smiling wryly.

“What do you think my people’s lives are worth!?”

“That’s not the issue.”

“Then what is the issue!?”

“A makeshift group with sloppy coordination, thrown together on the spot, who knows how useful it’d be?”

“It’s still obviously safer than going alone!”

“That’s not the issue. The point is—”

I looked at Isaac and Itam.

“We’ve already got a method with a track record, from a long friendship. I can’t accept a sloppy makeshift setup.”

I’d been thinking about the porters’ safety from the start. Whether it’s a backstab, a sudden long-range spell, or a frontal charge, all we had to do was make sure we protected them, no matter what.

And nobody beats these two at that.

“So it’s your turn. Isaac, Itam.”

⁂

In a dense stand of white pillars within the cavern, Sheryl was walking near a big column rising from the floor.

Seven monsters like two-legged yetis burst out from behind the small pillars.

The yetis were fast, and Sheryl couldn’t react. In an instant she was surrounded.

Judging by speed alone, the gap in strength was obvious. If she faced them straight, the yetis would turn Sheryl into a lump of meat right away.

“Look out!”

The guildmaster practically screamed it.

The yetis all pounced on Sheryl at once, right before his eyes.

The crunch of a yeti’s fist hitting Sheryl’s face.

Then a stomp, the boom of a foot driving her down.

Then the sound of a boulder from nearby being slammed onto her.

Each of the yetis struck at her, and then…

“W-w-whaaaat!? Impossible!”

The guildmaster’s scream echoed through the cavern.

After all those attacks, Sheryl got to her feet and stood there blank. “Hm?”

“U-u-unharmed!?”

“So that’s how it goes.”

I patted the guildmaster’s shoulder lightly.

Then I held up my palm toward Sheryl.

“Level 8: Thor Hammer.”

“You!? You’d catch that girl in it too—”

As the guildmaster feared, the lightning blasted through Sheryl and the yetis alike.

But that was a given. My goal today was a demonstration. If I didn’t show the effect this clearly, the adventurers would keep worrying.

“Hit by Level 8 lightning magic… a child… unharmed…?”

“I caught her in the spell on purpose, but I didn’t hold back.”

The guildmaster’s face got paler and paler. Then, as if he couldn’t believe it, his eyes went as wide as they would go.

“The yetis are decent monsters themselves. Level 8 is barely enough to kill one in a single hit.”

“…Surrounded by monsters that strong, attacked all at once, and the child was unharmed?”

“That’s right. Hey, Sheryl! You can come back!”

Sheryl came trotting over, happy. She stopped in front of me and pointed at her head, so I patted it. Good girl.

Like a dog… I thought, but never mind.

“But Sheryl. Why did you go along with this experiment without even hearing about it? Normally you’d refuse… or ask more.”

“…What Ephthal says is absolute. If Ephthal says it’s safe, then it’s absolutely safe.”

Being trusted this much went past glad… into a little scary.

While I was feeling a faint chill from Sheryl, Anastasia turned wide, bewildered eyes on me.

“But Master, what’s going on? How is Sheryl-chan unharmed?”

“Well, that’s down to… you know.”

“Down to what, exactly?”

“Isaac and Itam are experts in defensive magic.”

“…I see.”

Anastasia nodded easily, but as her teacher I don’t want her to get into the habit of switching her brain off and accepting anything on the Four Emperors’ authority alone.

“It’s a physical barrier of Level 9 ice magic, a physical barrier of Level 9 earth magic, plus a magic barrier of Level 9 ice and earth. And the result is—”

“Sheryl-chan being unharmed?”

“Right. If they wanted, those two could keep Level 10 shields up nonstop.”

“Um, so you mean everyone here gets absolute defense?”

“Absolute is overstating it. But even if a monster attacks, a porter takes zero damage from a hit or two. And the moment an enemy attack is detected, Cliff and I, the attackers, go and deal with it instantly.”

“…A perfect plan.”

I thought so myself: no gaps.

I glanced at the guildmaster, who had a hand on his chin and was thinking hard.

“But… hold on. Those are layered Level 9 barriers, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they are.”

“On all twenty people…? And kept up for three hours?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all along.”

The guildmaster’s voice cracked.

“Impossible. There can’t be anyone in this world who can do that.”

“But you’ve figured out by now that we can, haven’t you, Guildmaster?”

I told him so, but he still muttered, “I can’t believe it…” Finally he shook his head in resignation and gave a gentle, exasperated smile.

“…If a mage of that caliber exists, then isn’t anything possible?”

How should I answer? Telling him we were the original Four Emperors wouldn’t make sense to him…

While I was thinking, Cliff cut in.

“Exactly. That’s why we’re called what we’re called.”

The guildmaster gulped.

“Th-then… who are you? No, forgive me, who might you be, sirs? What are you called?”

Cliff gave a small nod.

“The Emperors of Magic.”

⁂

And so, one way or another…

The guildmaster stood gaping, as if he’d been handed a foreign word. A title like that, thrown at you out of nowhere, means nothing, of course. Cliff really couldn’t read the room, or understand people’s hearts…

Anyway, we finally had the guildmaster’s cooperation for real, and from there things went fast.

The guildmaster took charge, ran his people with perfect discipline, and the bodies they found were gathered in one place in no time.

For the record, we’d had each porter bring a giant coffin-like carrier. Most of the bodies were skeletons, so it looked like one coffin could hold more than ten. If it came to it we’d considered several round trips, so that was a relief.

The monster ambushes we’d worried about stopped within the first thirty minutes or so, and now the three attackers, Cliff, Sasha and I, were at loose ends.

About half the work was done in an hour and a half… We wouldn’t exceed the three hours we’d planned.

“By the way, Ephthal…?”

That was Sasha. He looked anxious.

“So the ancient mages… that is, the lich legion, is settled now.”

“Going smoothly, as planned.”

“But… are you really sure about this?”

“Sure about what?”

“Balthazar. Even if the World Magic Circle weakens him, he’s a being off the charts, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. That’s why we’re doing the grunt work of collecting bodies.”

Sasha fell silent, then knit his brows with worry.

“Frankly, you’re the only one who knows Balthazar’s hand. It’s about time you told me.”

I could see why he was uneasy. We’d come straight here after joining up with everyone and hardly had time to talk. I hadn’t even given them a rough picture of the enemy’s forces. As for the dragon machine soldiers, Balthazar’s troops, Sasha and the rest didn’t even know they existed.

“You look a little nervous for the famous Sasha, strongest mage on earth.”

“I haven’t faced a superior opponent in a long time.”

“What about when we fought Cliff?”

“That time, I did the thinking and you rode along. This time you’ve arranged everything… and I’m terribly uneasy.”

Well, I’d come up with plenty of countermeasures. But I did want Sasha’s opinion once the details were firm.

We’d be swamped with preparations even after collecting bodies, so this slack moment was probably the right time.

“All right. Let’s go over the enemy’s forces. First, Balthazar himself…”

“Hm. He uses Level 12, we hear.”

I shook my head.

“No, apparently… that’s not it.”

“What do you mean?”

“To be exact, it’s Level 12 or above, and we just assumed it was 12.”

“…What? Level 12… or above?”

Sasha’s face fell into despair, but lying wouldn’t help.

“According to the information he disclosed, his magic reaches Level 14.”

Sasha’s temples twitched a few times.

“Now, now, that’s going too far. We never planned for that!”

That’s roughly the gap between Isaac and Anastasia. Formula-building speed, how you assemble the magic, other factors too: the level of magic you can use isn’t the whole of fighting ability. But a gap that wide, small tricks can’t cover it.

Sasha went on. “The World Magic Circle is a debuff that forcibly lowers the opponent’s magic level by two. Even if we bring him down to Level 12, our maximum firepower is 11… The math doesn’t work.”

“With our numbers, we have a way to handle Level 12, just barely… I wish I could stop there, but there’s a problem.”

“…A problem? Can it get worse than this?”

“He’s immune to attack magic of Level 13 and below. He carries an artifact that forcibly cancels any attack spell below his own highest level.”

Sasha froze for a while.

After a silence, his face went blank as a Noh mask.

“…Hah?”

“An artifact the Ten Sages entrusted him with. And the effect is, as you heard, laughably huge.”

“That is… surely…”

“He doesn’t see us as enemies, to begin with. He’s looking down on us completely, but there’s a reason he’s so full of himself.”

“No, no, if this is a joke I’d like to be spared. You mean none of our attacks work on him at all?”

I shrugged and sighed.

“I wish it were a joke. Still, relax. Anything other than direct attack magic gets through… which means debuffs work. And the magic it cancels is judged by his level after the debuff is applied, so that part’s all right.”

“…Hmph. But our attacks don’t work on him, do they? Now that we’re here, may I simply run away alone?”

“Ha, as long as there’s a path to victory, master, you’d never run.”

Sasha clicked his tongue in disgust.

“…With that look on your face like you see through everything. Well, if that’s all, it isn’t impossible to break through, I suppose.”

Good. Just as I’d figured.

With the World Magic Circle on our side, Sasha and I, or Cliff, can handle this much, barely.

“But that’s not what’s really bad.”

“Spare me. Is there more?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding slightly.

“The mechanical dolls are the worst.”

“Hm? Mechanical dolls? Didn’t you say you hacked through heaps of them when you went in alone?”

“Well, you see… They’re immune to debuffs… An army of soldiers on the level of the original Four Emperors, a thousand of them. You know how bad that is.”

Sasha smiled.

“Truly, may I run away alone? If it’s alone, I’m confident I can get away.”

So I smiled back, too.

“As long as there’s a path to victory, master, you’d never run.”

“So what is it?”

“We’ve got an hour and a half until the porters finish… Listen up. I’ll only say this once.”