Vol. 4 - Chapter 9 - A mysterious group
The man wearing a monocle, Lars, spat on the ground, picked up the fallen monster beside Class G\'s tent, sat down in it, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes.
"Well, well, well. Can you tell us how you got here? It\'s not a place for ordinary humans to come♪"
A brown-haired young man wearing a mask asked in a bouncy voice. But, his question was something that Mia and the others could not answer either.
"How did we... We were sucked in by a strange door on the 4th floor of Kurikala."
"A door..."
The brown-haired young man stroked his chin in contemplation for a while before suddenly clapping his hands.
"Ah~ maybe the door from that time♪ I was wondering where this Tower of Falsehood and Kurikala connect with each other, but I never thought it\'s in the upper layer♪"
He laughed out loud.
"It\'s not a laughing matter, Nero! In the first place, you are the one in charge of controlling the gate, aren\'t you?"
The students wondered since when she\'d been here.
Next to Nero, the brown-haired young man wearing a mask, a blonde-haired woman rebuked while putting her hands on her slim waist. Her blonde hair was a bit frizzy, and the ends of her shoulder-length locks sprang outward. Moreover, in contrast to her mature speech and behaviors, her outward appearance didn\'t look much different from Mia and the others.
"Sry, I will later fix it with a blast♫" (T/N: Sry is written in English in the raw.)
"W-wait, that!!"
As if to contradict Nero\'s unnaturally out-of-place cheerful voice, Cliff\'s shrieks echoed in the night sky. It was a natural reaction. At the tip of Pluto\'s finger, a reptile tens or even hundreds of times the size of the long, thin, black creature appeared. It wasn\'t a metaphor, but it was literally a lizard resembling, no, a lizard the size of a mountain belt was staring at them with its bright red eyes.
Was it even okay for such a giant creature to exist? It didn\'t even matter whether you could win or not. To begin with, humans weren\'t made to fight against such a giant creature.
"Hmm. Well, no matter how many there are, I wonder if it\'s too big for my collection. I don\'t want it. You can deal with it. I\'m protecting those guys."
"Huh? What are you deciding by yourself?! If it\'s your monstrous ability, that giant一一"
"Well, you don\'t need to worry about it♫ I will be responsible for taking them back to Straheim safely♫"
The brown-haired young man interrupted the blonde-haired woman\'s words and turned around to Mia and the others, giving an innocent smile.
"You really are a selfish person. So, what are you going to do, Lars?"
The blonde woman fumed.
In response, Lars only moved his monocle and stood up from his chair while glancing at Nero.
"Nero, you owe me one," he bluntly said.
Only after that, he faced the giant lizard.
"...You guys, somehow you are even more disgusting than usual today."
The blonde woman let out a sigh and took a step back as she showed her rude expression.
"Hey, you guys. There\'s no way we can win against that. We have to hurry up and escape!!"
Pluto shouted hysterically as the supergiant lizard approached while firing something from its huge open mouth.
But, Nero raised his index finger and shook it multiple times in front of his face and said, "Well, just watch♪ I don\'t think this can even spark an interest for that battle-loving kid and pull him out of his boredom♫"
Lars disappeared from their sights with his hands in his pocket, and the next moment, a brilliantly shining sun formed over that giant lizard\'s head. Then, the sun dropped at an ultra-high speed.
The sun swallowed the giant lizard along with the bright red sea and then一一
"......"
Speechless. It might be the best expression to describe Mia\'s and the others\' feelings.
What lay in front of their eyes was a bottomless pit where they couldn\'t even see its depth.
There wasn\'t even a drop of the vast red water left, at least not at this moment.
"See, I told you, right? It\'s not even enough to kill his boredom♫"
"What in the world are you guys?"
Representing everyone, Pluto asked the question that had been bugging everyone from Class G the most right now.
"Hmm, we aren\'t your enemies, at the very least for now," Nero said.
Besides, it seemed these guys knew them from the beginning. Only one person appeared in their minds, who might be acquainted with this absurdly powerful group.
"Do you know Shirabe-sensei?"
"Who knows. But, I have one request for you. I hope you don\'t reveal whatever happens today to anyone."
"Even to Shirabe-sensei?"
"Yeah."
"What if... We spilled it?" Pluto asked fearfully.
Nero smiled mischievously and said, "That\'s why I ask you. This is only a request at best. You don\'t have any obligation to keep silent."
That was all he said arbitrarily before giving a glance to his back in confirmation.
"It seems like the person waiting for you has also arrived, so let\'s head back to Straheim, shall we? Blast, escort these kids to the first floor of Kurikala with the gate!" he instructed the beautiful blonde man standing behind him, almost looking like a woman with a black headband and a cloth covering his mouth.
"It\'s not a problem, but if you force the gate in the safety point of this dungeon, the punishment will come back to bite you again. Are you fine with it?"
"Yeah, do it."
To the question raised by the young man wearing a black cloth and a headband, Nero replied instantly.
"Really. You\'re seriously too disgusting today."
The blonde woman with a bob-cut hairstyle shrugged her shoulders in exasperation, while the young man with headband turned the palm of his right hand towards Mia and the others.
Suddenly, the scenery distorted, and Mia and her friends were standing in a space surrounded by blue stones.
It happened so suddenly that their minds couldn\'t even catch up with that, and they stood there in a daze.
"This is the first floor, right? Look at this place. You remember it, right?"
Eight, the first to wake up, gave his precise impression while looking around.
"Really?! Then ahead are the stairs to the outside!"
All of them felt a sense of relief as if they had awoken from a nightmare. With a desire to get out of the labyrinth as soon as possible, Mia started running outside.
After that, they were soon escorted by the staff of Sagami Co. Apparently, they had made them worry with their disappearance. The students, including Dorahachi, were subjected to several hours of intense lecture from the infuriated Shirabe-sensei and the other adults from Sagami Co.
"Is it really okay not to tell Sensei about those guys?"
As they had their slightly delayed dinner in Class G\'s dormitory, Cliff asked what Mia was most worried about while poking at the vegetables with his fork.
"They did request us. Besides, it would be too ungrateful to talk about them after being saved. And above all, it\'s not a smart choice."
"Yeah, I\'m sure Sensei would not talk about this either if he were in our shoes."
"Mia also think so."
"Same here!"
"That\'s true. And they didn\'t seem to be Sensei\'s enemies either. Well, I\'m tired from all of this, so excuse me."
Cliff shrugged.
He put the last piece of vegetables into his mouth, put down the plate in the kitchen, and returned to his room.
"Let us wrap up here too."
Mia nodded, returned to her room, and laid down on her bed. She had multiple things to think about.
First, that mysterious place. Nero had mentioned the place as "this Tower of Falsehood." It was natural to think that the Tower of Falsehood was that shining tower in Straheim. However, if that was the case, it meant that the ridiculous place was inside the building.
She really didn\'t expect such a huge place to be inside the tower. First of all, that would make it difficult to explain the sun, moon, and stars.
In short, that tower was connected somewhere from the Arteria Continent, and this time, the upper layer of Kurikala was directly linked to a specific place on the Arteria Continent.. That was the only way to explain it.
Second, that mysterious group of Nero and the others.
They were amazing...
The tremendous power had not only burned up the monster, which was as big as a mountain belt, but also changed the topography. She still found herself thinking that it had been a dream or something. That was how much that scene was disconnected from reality.
"I wonder if they are Sensei\'s acquaintances?"
Mia thought out loud, but she was sure of it. Moreover, their powers were so unreasonable that it was hard not to think that they strikingly resembled Shirabe-sensei somehow.
Anyway, it was just as Cliff had said. She hadn\'t felt a shred of hostility from Nero\'s group against Sensei or them.
She wondered if she should look for the right opportunity to ask about their relationship with Sensei.
I\'m really sleepy.
It seemed like that was the limit to keeping herself awake. The heavy eyelids closed, and Mia\'s consciousness fell into sleep.