Chapter 210: Two Graves (4)
Actually, it wasn't only Toric who had entered the torture chamber.
As soon as the door Toric kicked with all his might opened, Rine immediately cast 「Time Stop」.
Before Stras could even perceive us, that is.
And when 「Time Stop」 ended, we had already opened and entered the door to the hidden room of the torture chamber using the ‘key’ Ibi had quietly pickpocketed.
Because of that, what Stras saw after regaining his senses was only Toric who had just kicked the door open.
It was called a hidden room, but it was practically no different from another dungeon.
In both size and danger.
Traps that activate unless suppressed by the owner Stras's specialty, necromancy, blocked our way.
But honestly, having come this far, there’s no way such traps could really stop us, right?
Thanks to Ibi's sharp [Intuition] and Rine's [Magic], we passed through the traps easily, and as a result, we were able to reach the altar where a certain small treasure chest was placed without any problems.
Naturally, inside that treasure chest.
“──Found it.”
Was the object we came in here for.
“I feel a very strong aura of necromantic magic.”
Looking inside the open chest, Rine spoke calmly.
An ore harboring a green light, no, a flame.
“It is certain that this is his ‘heart’.”
Even at the moment we literally grasped the bastard's ‘heart’ in our hands like that, Stras was fully distracted by Toric in front of his eyes.
“So, do we just smash it now?”
“We could, but let’s take it up first.”
“What? Why…… Ah.”
Ibi, who questioned my words at first, seemed to quickly realize my intention and didn't argue further.
“Let’s go. Toric will be waiting.”
Because the one who should break this ‘heart’ is someone else.
“Wh, what the…!”
The moment I appeared holding the ‘heart’ in my hand, Stras was greatly flustered and rummaged through his robe pocket.
“Looking for this?”
But the ‘key’ he had put inside was already jingling in Ibi's hand, being shaken as if to show off.
“…The reason I entertained a bastard not worth mixing words with was to avoid repeating the same mistake.”
Saying he could finally stop this tiresome ‘acting’, Toric slowly stood up again, propping himself on the floor with his axe.
“Right, you are correct. I let my precious ones die.”
Then setting the axe upright again, he gripped it tight with both hands.
“But I won't do that anymore.”
『I, I curse thee!』
Stras hurriedly cast 「Death Ray」 at me holding the ‘heart’, but Rine's 「Counter Magic」 ‘erased’ that magic before the ray could even form.
The undead that were focusing their attacks on Toric until just now also changed targets and swarmed toward me, but.
“Haap!”
『Burn, O Hearth!』
Miki and Lily did not allow that approach.
At the same time, Ibi, who kicked off the ground with a pa-bat! sound and stepped with 「Shadow Step」, caught Stras's back.
Swish!
Two black and white daggers cut as if clearing away the thickly risen ‘smoke’.
Stras had barely ‘responded’ to Ibi's raid by casting 「Gaseous Form」 on himself.
That meant he could no longer ‘respond’ to the actions that would follow from now on.
“Toric!”
I threw the ‘heart’ I held in my hand.
At that, Toric raised his axe as if he had been waiting.
To shatter the ‘heart’ flying towards him into pieces.
Kwaang──!
A strong shockwave arose.
Crack, crack!
Then cracks began to form little by little on the ‘heart’ stuck on Toric's axe blade.
“N, no…!”
Stras, who undid 「Gaseous Form」 and regained his original form only after widening a safe distance from Ibi, shouted urgently watching that scene.
“Stop it──!!”
Crack! Crr-rack!
Cracks that started from the outside gradually spread toward the center.
“Stop him! Stop him, I say!”
The undead ignored Miki and Lily, smashing and burning their bodies and tried to rush toward Toric somehow, but their legs were cut by Ibi's two daggers and they were frozen by Rine's 「Blizzard」, so eventually they couldn't move anymore.
“Uryaaaaah──!”
In the meantime, Toric struck down powerfully with the axe embedded with the ‘heart’.
Kwaang!
Once more, a shockwave arose.
And the ‘heart’ that was half stuck on the blade was completely cut in two.
Crr-rack!
As it did, the green flame of necromancy attached to the ‘heart’ began to fade away little by little.
When that flame finally went out completely, the ‘heart’ completely crumbled.
Becoming dust like that, it disappeared as if scattering in the wind.
“No! Nooooo──!!”
Stras screamed, having lost his ‘heart’ right before his eyes.
After all, he also threw away the ‘immortality’ as an undead that the bastard possessed.
Correct.
Now that damn undead bastard cannot revive anymore.
“Unfortunately, we've already killed an immortal long ago, you know?”
I grinned, raising the corner of my mouth towards Stras who was still showing a reaction of being unable to accept that fact.
“So killing one again now is nothing to us.”
At those words, I could see Stras's pale face—fitting for a corpse from the start—becoming even paler as the fear of ‘death’, forgotten very long ago, revived.
“Gu, guards!!”
Eventually, Stras cried out requesting ‘reinforcements’.
But they did not answer Stras's call in the end.
To be precise, I should say they couldn't.
Since they were all sprawled as corpses in the hallway.
“……!”
Perhaps realizing that fact belatedly too, Stras called them in a different way this time.
『A, arise, dead ones…!』
He cast 「Animate Dead」.
Then the corpses of the 「Demon King's Royal Guards」 that had fallen in the hallway began to slowly raise their bodies one by one.
『I curse thee!!』
Not stopping there, he cast 「Death Ray」 again, but it was blocked by the shield Lily cast in time and disappeared futilely.
Since it was magic that ‘cursed’ living beings rather than magic that dealt ‘damage’ in the first place, not even a scratch appeared on the shield.
Actually, if we wanted to stop 「Animate Dead」 itself, we probably could have stopped it sufficiently.
But the reason we didn't bother stopping it was because it poses absolutely no threat to us now.
Right.
Of course, Stras is a master of necromancy, and can reproduce the strength the dead possessed in life intact.
But in the first place, we were the ones who ended those lives.
So while they don't pose a huge threat,
“Leave these guys to us, Toric!”
They serve sufficiently as ‘experience points’.
From the standpoint of going to face the final boss, the Demon King, soon, it could be called the most necessary resource in a way.
The Stras battle was practically no different from a chance to pump experience points massively for the last time before going to fight the Demon King.
Meaning it’s a so-called ‘double event’ where we can receive the experience points of the 「Demon King's Royal Guards」 twice.
And to the extent we could afford such leisure.
“D, damn it…!”
It was a situation where Stras had not a shred of leisure anymore.
“Yo, you useless bastards…!”
Of course, no chance of victory either.
While we dealt with the revived 「Demon King's Royal Guards」, Toric strode toward Stras with big steps.
“──This time, I will cut your neck properly.”
To finally meet the moment he had waited for so long.
“Hiik…!”
Seeing Toric approaching closer and closer toward him like that, Stras swallowed his breath, terrified, his arrogant attitude from before nowhere to be seen.
Crackle!
Current flowed from Toric's axe.
Stras, who was stepping backward, regained his senses belatedly and raised his hand to cast 「Gaseous Form」, but.
『Transfor──』
Toric was faster.
Before he could even finish the chant, the axe swung, cutting through the air with a whoosh! cut off the bastard's both hands.
“──!!”
The two hands that flew off fell far away as if thrown to the floor.
Naturally, something like Stras ‘regaining’ those hands did not happen.
Thud-crash!
Then Stras, kicked by Toric, hit the ‘torture rack’ behind him and fell to the floor together with it.
“W, wait──”
Stras tried to say something as if to urgently stop Toric.
But this time too, the bastard couldn't finish his words.
──Slice!
By Toric, who mercilessly cut off his neck before he could even properly start speaking, as if he had not the slightest interest in whatever the bastard said from the beginning.
Stras's head rolled on the floor with eyes wide open, the expression of urgency remaining intact.
Roll.
The body that lost its head like that soon collapsed powerlessly with a thud.
At that moment, the 「Demon King's Royal Guards」 (precisely, their corpses) we were dealing with also seemed to suddenly stop moving like machines with cut power, then collapsed just like that.
And those corpses moving again never happened anymore.
Before long, they turned to dust one by one, and disappeared as if scattering in the wind.
This was the same for Stras.
Like that, Toric, who quietly watched the appearance of the dust that was once Stras scattering and the bastard's existence completely disappearing right before his eyes.
“…….”
Suddenly sat down powerlessly on the spot, perhaps because strength left his two legs.
Mickey and Lily, surprised to see this, tried to approach hurriedly, but both of them eventually stopped tall in their tracks.
“…!”
They had no choice.
Toric was always the ‘adult’ of our party.
But that adult right now.
“……Sob.”
Was crying endlessly, like a child.
Toric had been calm even until the moment he mercilessly cut the neck and finally achieved revenge.
But starting with a single drop that flowed quietly, he began to pour out tears while trembling his shoulders, as if a dam had burst in the end.
Perhaps the emotions he had held back all this time surged only after seeing Stras completely disappear from this world right before his eyes.
Since we couldn't possibly fathom those emotions, we had no choice but to just watch quietly.
But that sobbing was not long.
Toric, who let out a short sigh with his head bowed deeply and caught his breath once, then slowly stood up from his spot again.
“Mr. Toric……”
Miki, who watched such Toric with worried eyes, approached carefully one step at a time.
At Toric's tears seen for the first time, the other companions also seemed very worried.
“…Oi, are you okay?”
At Ibi's following question, Toric nodded.
“I’m fine now. Thank you for caring.”
“…Really?”
“We still have work to do, don't we. We can't waste time in a place like this.”
Perhaps to reassure the companions who were still looking with worried eyes, Toric continued speaking more refreshingly than usual.
“Don't worry. The reasons I must continue to fight are still many.”
Looking around at us one by one with these words, Toric then smirked, raising the corners of his mouth.
“Let’s go.”
Like that, returning to the appearance of the adult as always, he stood at the vanguard like a warrior.