I had to give some credit to Hardul. He basically sacrificed himself for the next attack to succeed. With the noble’s champion defeated it was time for the assassins to act. Maybe the High Nobility felt that if they were already doomed they might as well ruin everything… unless.
As the assassins began to reveal themselves Azar sprang into action. Nikias’ armor was broken so he wasn’t well protected against poisoned arrows. A single swing of her sword knocked the arrows from the air using just the strength of the wind from the swing. She was protecting her father from the assault.
“Alice, do you feel that?”
“Like my hairs are all standing on end? Yeah, I feel that. Do you think something big is coming?” She began to sound excite.
While Azar was protecting Nikias from the assassins I stepped forward. There was something important I needed to do before anything else happened.
I raised my hand and said, “I declare King Nikias the victor. His strength is beyond question. The High Nobility are no more. Thus I declare it to be true.”
Azar was still fighting off assassins at this point. Nikias had joined in showing that even without armor he wasn’t afraid of them.
“Jack, I don’t think the High Nobility care.” Said Alice as she was looking up into the sky.
I turned my gaze upward. We were in the center of the towers in the city and in the sky, between the towers, was a giant magic circle. At least I assumed it was a magical circle. There could really not be anything else that it could be.
“That could be a big problem.” I made my voice as load as possible, “As you can see, the High Nobility do not care at all for you, the common folk. Flee for your lives while you still can.”
There was panic however it wasn’t until another booming voice joined my that the people actually began to listen. “Be orderly!” It was the voice of Nikias. While he was only wearing the padding that you wore under armor he still seemed to have control of himself. The assassins had realized that even they were sacrifices and they were beginning to flee.
“Follow me, I will lead you to safety!” Then him and Azar leaped out to lead the panicking populous. I was surprised about how well it worked. Was there something about being higher level that gave people charisma bonuses, I supposed there must have been since there were stats related to that.
As the crowd flee, more organized now, Alice continued to stare up at the magical circle. She said, “So do you think it is summoning magic or more boom destroy everything.”
“Don’t know, although it is insane to do the second inside your own city. But I don’t know if the High Nobility care at this point.”
“Should we also flee then?”
“Probably not. The magic seems to be targeted on top of us. If it followed us when we ran then that would be terrible for anybody else. Besides we can probably dodge any offensive magic at the last moment.”
There was a moment of waiting then, “Also it seemed to be a summoning circle.”
“Wow, that is a really really big claw.”
It was true. Several big, scaled, arms began emerging from the magical circle.
“I hope that thing doesn’t disappear after we kill it. I would really like to see what kind of weapons I can make using claws that big.
“Come on… Be high level… be high level… be high level.” Chanted Alice. It had been a while since her last real fight against a foe she didn’t know she could beat. If there were two things I could count on for Alice it was her desire to eat and the one to fight tough foes.
“It looks like a dragon. Normally I would say demons are what you are supposed to summon but considering I’m the demon that would just feel weird.” The head was breaking through the portal and it was pulling itself free from the magical circle with its arms and its wings were beginning to become visible. Definitely a dragon.
As the giant form finally freed itself from the summoning circle the circle cracked and broke, dissolving into the air. The dragon crashed onto the ground roared a giant epic bellow.
Red Tyrant, Level 100 Dragon
Alice grinned by a little girl, a psychotic little girl, and leaped at the dragon. She connected on punching the dragon that was at least a hundred times bigger then her. The dragon stumbled a couple of steps before turning to notice Alice. It roared attack and then began to attack her.
Alice managed to leap off the dragon and dodge the bite that was aimed at her but she wasn’t able to adequately reposition in mid-air fast enough to avoid the claw that came after it. She did however block it but it still sent her flying through the air as she crashing into a nearby building.
With that obstacle dealt with the dragon turned to the fleeing crowds. However I was standing there in its path. I was holding an axe in one hand and a sword in the other.
“Come on Dragon, don’t think you have one just yet.” I said as there was some crumbling from the building that Alice was thrown into as she stood up out of the rumble, “And please be a bit more difficult than a Demon King, I’m counting on you to entertain Alice.”
——
Azar watched the battle between the demons and the dragon from a distance. It her mind is seemed like a battle between gods. The city crashed down around the combatants. It was a battle the like of that nobody had yet seen in the world before.
The dragon breath gouts of fire but Jack had managed to deflect it with nothing but a buckler. Alice had broken one of the dragon’s legs with a punch had had also knocked down building. They the dragon had been no weakling.
The two demon had become covered in blood and burns yet that just seemed to inflame them. Like this battle had been what they were living for. True monsters.
The battle inspired fear and awe in the many people that watch it but to Azar and some others it sparked envy. The thought that the limits they previously thought existed do not and that they could become that powerful too.
At the end it was a blade of black energy that extended to the sky. Held aloft by Jack. The dragon struggled but was held by Alice. Then the blade sliced the dragon’s head off and the demons were the victor.
Then they sat atop the corpse of the dragon and watched the sun set. One spoke to the other and said, “So what do you think a dragon will taste like?”
“Delicious.” Was all the other one said.
Chapter Break
It was a giant wall carved with writing.
It had taken a day for Sterling and Chisomo to regain their hearing. Once that had happened we were able toe resume exploring the jungle ruins. The dungeon that we had been trapped in had multiple layers and we had only seen the first one on our initial visit.
This time we made sure to avoid traps like last time and progressed our way though the floors until we reached the bottom. That was where we had found the wall.
There were ruined murals on either side of the writing which seemed to show glowing figures.
Chisomo was practically giddy with excitement. It was an undiscovered treasure, not gold or magic but knowledge. After ensuring the there were no traps in the room we approached the wall.
“Amazing. This must be precursor writing.” Chisomo had pulled out a notebook and was writing stuff down. They were probably also taking notes in the menu but keeping was physical record was important to Chisomo in case something happened to them.
Lanette was examining the worn murals on either side. She said, “What do you think it means?”
Chisomo spoke excitedly, “No, not yet. These precursor writing had been found in several other places. And those places were only found after menu magic appeared. However they hadn’t yet been completely translated. I don’t think such a large piece of text has ever been found. With this who knows how well the study will go.”
I raised my hand interrupting. Something had been bugging me since they had started talking, it was very simple. “Uhhh… are you all saying that you can’t read this writing?”
Their heads all swiveled to me. I looked between then and they back at the writing on the wall, “I mean I can read it just fine.”
“Whaat?” Chisomo rushed over to me and stared my in the eyes. Then I was dragged toward the wall with excitement. “You really can read it? Really? Why?”
“I… um…” I was trying to sort my thoughts. I could read the writing but now of the others could. I was trying to figure out why. Then it hit me, something so simple. A passing interesting note that I noticed way back when I first entered this world. Something that I glossed over immediately as being obvious if this world was like a game.
“Chisomo, I’ve already told you that I have the hero job but there is more too it.”
“I figured out that much but you didn’t seem to want to talk about it so I hadn’t pressed. Did you now want to reveal everything to me?” Chisomo had taken out a notepad, apparently to record what I planned on saying.
“I’m not actually from this world. I somehow ended up in this world with the hero job.”
“Another world? You need to tell me all about it… wait, first things is first. What does this have to do with your ability to read this characters?”
“Well, I think it has to do with my being from another world. You see the language I know from my world isn’t the same as the language from this world. Something about my arrive here or maybe my hero job gave me the ability to understand your language and your writing. In fact I hadn’t even noticed it immediately. It was only when I reached a town and noticed that your characters were different from the ones I remember. But I still understood them.”
“Are you saying that you can read any language?”
“Umm… maybe? I can understand yours and the one written here but I don’t know about any others.”
Chisomo nodded, “Alright, we will have to test this when we get back. Does this mean you can understand any spoken language too? From my understanding menu magic lets you read any language you can understand so if that applies to you then…” They were contemplating. “Actually before that can you read what it says?”
“Let’s see.” I looked over the wall.
“Once the ancient lords of under rules the world. Theirs was a rule of blood and terror. Yet the spirit of those ruled could not be completely crushed. The nine stood up to face the ancient lords of under. The nine however were not strong enough to fully defeat the impossible. The nine placed them into a great sleep, one that would last until the nine found a way to truly stop them. The nine then left, gone to find a future that would truly defeat the ancient lords of under. May these nine be forever known as the great sages.”
There was a long silence as everybody absorbed what I had said.
“The Ancient Lords of Under? Great Sages? I feel like things are almost beginning to connect.” Said Lanette.
Chisomo was contemplating, “Does that mean that I was wrong? Maybe these places were just hidden not created. Either way I have a new line of research. I need to look into my notes and find out if there are any references to these Ancient Lords of Under.”
“These sleeping forms.” Said Lanette who was brushing dirt away from the bottom of the murals. “Do you think these are supposed to represent those Ancient Lords? They look rather sinister.”
They were painted in dark purples and were in contorted forms. They certainly did look sinister.
“I’ll let you record that Chisomo. I’m going to look around some more and see if that is anything else.” I said.
We looked around on this bottom floor but that was the last thing. And so our expedition into the ruined jungle city ended. We had gathered a lot of valuable materials and learned things could be dangerous in the future. If what was recorded was true then the Great Sages had probably brought me to this world as a hero to fight against the Ancient Lords of Under.
However at this point I could never have predicted what would become of me.