Dark Fantasy’s Extra – Chapter 82

Author: Dawn

“Blue light.”

I walked toward It.

Without rushing, I stopped after walking what felt like an appropriate distance.

“Red light.”

While I remained still, It turned its head to look at me.

Those pitch-black eyes like holes painted with ink stared at me steadily.

“Blue light.”

When It faced the wall again, I moved forward.

I just needed to calmly repeat this pattern.

“Red light.”

When I had covered about half the corridor, more Its appeared from around the corner right as It called red light.

In Blue Paper Moon’s easy mode there was only one It, but on hard mode the number increased to five.

The Its walked to their positions and stood facing the walls.

Each It called red light at different timings in random order, making it difficult to even escape now.

“Blue light.”

The first blue light after their group appearance is always called simultaneously.

This moment is the key point for clearing this.

I drew my silver dagger and used [Acceleration] to slash the two nearest Its in succession.

“Kyahaha!”

“Ahaha!”

Though the dagger barely grazed them, the Its disappeared like dust while laughing hysterically.

But something seems odd.

Originally the Its were supposed to scream when killed?

Is this different in Hilde’s story?

Was there really a need to change this?

“Red light.”

As if erasing my doubts, red light was called from one direction.

“Red light.”

They called red light one after another shortly after.

Though it was a very brief [Acceleration], the magical power consumption was still significant.

But the burden wasn’t too bad since I only needed to take out the first two at once.

I slowly walked forward again, dealing with the Its one by one.

While the red light timing is random, the intervals seem to get shorter the faster you move.

I’ve never precisely timed it, but that’s how it felt.

However, now I just need to advance slowly without getting greedy.

“Blue light.”

“Ahahaha!”

Taking them out one by one as I advanced, soon only one It remained at the end of the corridor.

I stopped right behind it with a knife at its neck.

“Don’t forget…”

The last remaining It spoke.

“…?”

It can speak?

“Must not forget…”

Was there dialogue like this?

Is this also unique to Hilde’s version?

“Such a… pretty blue…”

Then Its head fell off.

I hadn’t even touched it…

“…”

I silently watched Its head scatter and disappear.

“Pretty blue, it says?”

Though there were many concerning points, I had cleared the initial part of the moonstone lab at least.

I returned to where Sephira and Oscar were.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

Sephira asked.

“No injuries. I dealt with It too.”

“You dealt with it? When Lady Sephira attacked earlier it didn’t even get scratched.”

Oscar said.

“It died easily when attacked directly. Guess it’s just exceptionally good at blocking ranged attacks.”

“I didn’t know such things existed…”

“More importantly, how are you feeling?”

“The slowness has improved. Seems it was a curse that only lasted temporarily. But my body feels strangely heavy and weak.”

“I feel the same. Rather than wounds, it seemed to be a unique technique that directly cuts away life force itself. Though I can’t be certain since I’ve never experienced anything like this before.”

They both hit the nail on the head.

“I felt better after taking the medicinal herbs Sir Ozwald provided and resting. But Mr. Oscar…”

“I can move well enough.”

Though Sephira must have lost far more life force, her recovery ability was also much higher so she appeared to be in better condition.

Even in Blue Paper Moon, warrior characters had higher natural recovery than mages.

In exchange, mages had the fastest magical power recovery.

“Let’s continue then.”

We passed through the long corridor where It had vanished and turned the corner.

What appeared was a wide space similar in size to where the failed experiments were in the bloodstone lab.

However, unlike there, the floor was completely covered in red carpet, and the doors lining both sides were decorated with fancy woodwork rather than iron bars.

Even the walls were wallpapered with subtle white backgrounds featuring blue patterns.

The patterns on the wallpaper were all various moons drawn in blue.

“Something’s strange about this place.”

Oscar said.

“There’s some indescribable magical power. It feels like it’s weighing down on my chest.”

“Indeed, this is a bizarre place. Though it looks clean, I’ve never seen a space composed of such grotesque magical power before.”

Sephira added, but I couldn’t sense any of that sophisticated magical power stuff and just saw a clean space.

Of course, I knew better than anyone just how bizarre its true nature was.

“Will something come out of these rooms too?”

“I still can’t detect anything. Everyone please be careful.”

Right as they finished speaking, the wooden doors opened simultaneously and black humanoid figures poured out.

“As expected…!”

Oscar moved to cast a spell.

Though his quick reaction was admirable, I stopped him.

“Wait a moment.”

“Why?”

“Watch carefully.”

In Blue Paper Moon, these black figures called ‘Passing Shadows’ didn’t approach us.

They just wandered aimlessly around the large room as if they couldn’t even detect us.

“…Are they blind?”

“What should we do?”

Having realized the Shadows weren’t attacking immediately, they became calmer, perhaps remembering It from earlier.

“Let’s observe them carefully first.”

The solution here is a bit tricky.

To summarize simply, it’s finding the wrong Shadow.

Among the dozens of Shadows here, we need to find and attack the one that looks different.

If you mistakenly attack one that looks the same, it immediately self-destructs and deals curse damage proportional to health that ignores resistances.

Moreover, after the self-destruct a new one enters to replace it, so taking them out one by one doesn’t work.

“Hmm… oh?”

Oscar discovered something less than 3 minutes after we started observing.

“Something weird just passed by.”

“Weird how?”

“Unlike the others, it had 3 arms.”

That must be the one.

But he found it already?

“You have amazing eye for detail. Which way did it go?”

“That way.”

We headed in the direction Oscar pointed, searching for the Shadow with 3 arms.

The Shadows completely ignored us even when we went among them, not reacting even if we bumped into them.

“Found it.”

Sephira spotted a Shadow spinning in circles in a corner.

I brought my hatchet down on its head.

The Shadow melted away and disappeared, and a door-like Shadow appeared on the innermost wall.

Finding the next wrong Shadow wasn’t too difficult either.

While I was alone in the game, now there were 3 of us and Oscar’s ability to spot them was especially remarkable.

“Similar magic circles can have huge differences from just one small stroke. Any mage should be good at this kind of thing.”

I’m not too familiar with that since I never paid attention to magic circle shapes when doing mage builds in the game.

We found all the wrong Shadows without making any mistakes.

Each time we dealt with a Shadow, the door Shadow on the wall became more realistic, and after taking out the 7th and final Shadow, it became a real door.

“How bizarre…”

“I don’t know this kind of magic either. No, I’m not even sure if this could be implemented with magic.”

It must be curses.

I wonder if Maia would recognize it instantly.

Speaking of which, I wonder how she’s doing after I sent her to Spider Castle.

I hope she managed to eliminate Arachne’s minions.

At least I sent her far from the Order, so she shouldn’t transform into the new witch ‘Thumbelina’ after gaining forbidden knowledge.

If the story I know is correct…

* * *

“This… this cannot be!”

A woman with a hairy spider body and smooth human upper body instead of a head shouted.

“Do you have any idea how, how long we’ve been waiting!?”

It’s been 500 years since that hateful White Witch and her hunter followers swept through this sanctuary.

But in those 500 years, Arachne’s minions never abandoned their despair at losing their leader or their hatred for the White Witch.

They remained hidden here, holding their breath, waiting for that glorious moment when their queen would return.

They were able to hold onto that hope because of a promise made long ago by Princess Bari, another of the witches.

She would revive Arachne when the time came, in exchange for their cooperation.

The minions who endured believing in that single promise had all died except one.

Killed by that bizarre green monster.

“Ah, delicious.”

The monster said.

“I love spiders. They taste sweet when grilled.”

“You…!”

“I’ll teach you the island’s recipe. If you tear off the legs of big hairy spiders and grill them wrapped in leaves, they give off a nice aroma.”

“Do you think you’ll get away with this!? The Witch of Death is on our side! When she arrives, she’ll…”

“My, it’s been a while.”

A gloomy woman with black hair and purple eyes appeared behind the monster and greeted them.

“Wi-Witch…! You’ve come to help us! Quick, quick, kill that monster! And revive my kin!”

Arachne’s minion shouted at Princess Bari.

“Even after 500 years, still just mid-tier Beast level. I suppose not all Beasts get stronger just from being old.”

But Princess Bari remained nonchalant without responding.

“What…?”

“Conversely, even Arachne might only be about as strong as before if revived.”

“Th-that’s right! Lady Arachne was strong! If you revive her, she’ll surely be of help…!”

“She should make good food then.”

“…Huh?”

Those were the minion’s last words.

While they were stunned by Princess Bari’s words, the green monster pounced and swallowed them in one bite.

Arms and legs that couldn’t fit in its mouth fell to the floor with a thud.

“Wait a moment. We need to know Arachne’s location. It’s troublesome if you kill them so hastily.”

“I love spiders. They taste sweet when grilled.”

“Sigh, oh dear…”

“I’ll teach you the island’s recipe. If you tear off the legs of big hairy spiders…”

Princess Bari reluctantly picked up the remaining parts of the minion’s corpse and used curse power, causing a ghost identical to the minion to appear.

“Where is Arachne’s corpse?”

[Wh… what’s going on?]

The ghost looked bewildered.

[I just… got eaten by that strange monster… Y-you! You witch! You tricked us!!]

“I command you again. Tell me where Arachne’s corpse is.”

[No! No! I curse you! I curse all witches! Death to the witches! Pain worse than death…!]

“How annoying.”

Princess Bari squeezed the minion’s flesh in her hand.

[Kyaaaak!?]

The minion’s soul screamed in agony.

Even death provides no escape before the ruler of the dead.

“Now, I’ll ask again. Tell me where Arachne’s corpse is.”