Novel Full Chapter 1227: Are You Real?
Chapter 1227: Are You Real?
I mean… I can’t be too careful especially since they already tried to trick me with my fake ’parents’.
Not that I wouldn’t do what I did if it was really them to begin with anyway. If those two appeared in this World as well, I would have also just punched them in the face.
Hmm… Now that might be something I want to do.
Maybe I can ask Drebann if those two were sent to this World or were they sent somewhere else… Since we’re heading to the Trasif territory, it shouldn’t be too hard to find his temple so maybe I should do just that.
Wait, can’t be too distracted now…
I raised my palm to stop the Odeta in front of me, “Wait right there.”
She skidded to a stop, “Eh? Sister Aster? What’s wrong?”
“Prove to me that you are the real Odeta and not some trick that whatever this place is cooked up to stab me in the back.”
Odeta scratched her head, “Eh… Erm… Something that will help Sister Aster know it’s me? Ah… Err… What… What can I do? Err….”
She was obviously panicking from being asked that question and I took the opportunity to try to activate my ring again.
’Odeta? Can you hear me?’
She perked up immediately and nodded while projecting her thoughts to me, ’Yes! Yes! I can hear you, Sister Aster!!’
Ok, that confirms it’s her because they shouldn’t be able to duplicate enchantments so this is definitely proof it’s Odeta.
And I highly doubt they would be able to take the ring from her unless they took it off her dead body and I’m very sure that she’s not dead.
I stretched out my arms to her and she understood what I wanted and immediately rushed up to hug me to her chest.
“Ahhhh! Sister Aster! Are you alright? Did you get hurt? I got so worried when I couldn’t hear you inside my head anymore!”
Without context, that kind of sounds weird but I decided not to point that out.
Instead, I patted her head and soothed her, “I’m alright, Odeta. Are you ok? Did you get hurt anywhere? Do I need to heal you?”
She let go of me and flexed her arms proudly, “Of course I’m alright, Sister Aster! Everything’s just a bunch of weaklings here!”
“What did you see in the previous place? You said you saw a weird wooden hut, right?”
“Ha! It was just something trying to pretend to be Sister Ardiolyta! They’re really stupid if they thought they could trick me into believing it was really her!”
“What did you do?”
“Ha! I just challenged her to a match! She was so weak!! There’s no way someone that weak could be Sister Ardiolyta!”
Right… Should have expected something like that from her.
“Speaking of which… How is Ardiolyta actually? It’s been a while since I’ve seen her. I think it’s been at least ten years right?”
She shrugged, “She’s fine. She’s still doing Mercenary work so she’s travelling around the place. She still sends me letters from time to time.”
That’s nice, I wonder if we might meet her on our way to the Academy on this journey of ours.
Putting that aside…
I looked around the cave, “So… Where are we? Is this another puzzle that we have to solve?”
Odeta followed me and looked around the cave as well, her brows furrowing, “Maybe we just need to break out of here?”
Just as I was about to tell Odeta to go ahead and try punching the wall, the cave suddenly got even darker, plunging the entire place into darkness.
I was still at least able to see a little but I don’t think Odeta could see as well as I could so I reached out and grabbed her hand, entwining her fingers with mine.
She squeezed my hand back to reassure me that she was fine so I squeezed back in response as well.
That was when the ground nearby suddenly started to rumble before it split apart, allowing something to pop out from the ground.
That something turned out to be some kind of snake creature with the face of an old man.
What the hell is even that?
The snake old man slithered up from the ground before curling itself up to stare off into space with his impossibly big eyes that occupied half of his face.
A forked tongue flicked out of his mouth for a moment before his gaze suddenly shifted to us, as though he had just noticed us.
It then started slithering towards us creepily along the cavern floor.
It wasn’t even moving that fast… It’s just really weird seeing a snake with an old man’s face slithering across the ground like that towards you…
“Sister Aster? What’s going on?” Odeta asked, tightening her grip on my hand.
Oh right, she probably couldn’t even see what was happening in front of us because it’s too dark.
“Err… Some weird monster is currently moving towards us and… Well… It looks really creepy.”
“Ha?! Where?!”
“Directly in front of us… It’s still about five metres away I think?”
Odeta suddenly lowered herself into a stance before her body glowed for a moment and she punched forward.
“[Fist Cannon]!!” She roared, her Valour Skill activating and sending a blast of air in front of her.
The blast of air struck the creature in the face and I got to see it explode into a fountain of gore as the force of the blast literally caused its face to explode.
Huh… Since when could she do that? You never told me you had a Valour Skill like that, Odeta…
“Did I get it?!” She asked.
“Yeah… You got it pretty good.”
“Is it dead yet?! Should I punch it again?!”
I eyed the corpse of the monster that was slowly fading away, “Nah… It’s definitely dead… I guess we should be shown the next way forward soon eno– Oh, there’s something else coming.”
I interrupted myself when I spotted something else coming out from the hole, this time it looked like it was a long and thin arm that was currently being used to pull whatever was in the hole out of it.
Taking that chance, I cast [Spotlight] to illuminate the area, but it seems like there’s some kind of magic that is limiting how much light there could be because instead of chasing away the darkness, my light ball only managed to illuminate a small area around us.
Still, that was enough for Odeta to see again and she should just barely be able to make out the figure that was pulling itself out from the hole.
“What is that, Sister Aster? Is that the monster I attacked just now?” She asked, pointing a finger at it.
“No… This is a new one.”
The creature pulled itself out and it was basically a tall and thin man without any shred of hair on his body, his eyes only showing the whites without any irises and his mouth drooping open showing rows of serrated teeth.
His skin was also a deathly grey in colour and you could see the bones through its skin.
I think if this was any other scenario, he would have looked terrifying… But to us who have already faced dragons and other monstrosities… There was only one thing going through our heads.
“He looks weak…” Odeta muttered, mirroring my thoughts.
I nodded in agreement, right as the creature let out a scream at us as though he was offended that we thought he was weak.
He then started running towards us, his arms dragging across the floor and making a metallic scraping sound that hurt my ears.
Odeta clenched her fist again but I stopped her, “Let me~”
I separated from her and took out my Light Sword and lowered myself into a stance.
I waited until he was within range before I activated my sword’s enchantment and slashed my sword down on his right shoulder, cutting diagonally towards his hip.
The blade of light sliced through his body and he continued to run towards me like that had no effect.
But after taking three more steps, he suddenly slowed down to a halt, standing still for a good two seconds, before a line appeared at where I had cut him.
His body separated into half and the top half fell to the left while his bottom half crumpled to the right in a heap.
Both of us watched as the creature then disappeared like an illusion, leaving nothing behind.
I thought another monster or something might crawl out of the hole in the ground but nothing happened.
Are we supposed to jump into the hole then?
Hmm… Wait a minute… I just had a thought…
These creatures kind of seem like the monsters you might find in horror stories or something… Is whatever that’s trapping us here trying to use our fears or something to test us or kill us?
Well… It’s not really doing a good job then because these things are only horrifying when you can’t fight back, you know?
What else is it going to throw at us after this?