The Unwanted Undead Adventurer: Volume 11, page 11
“This is it.”
Guided by Spriggan, our walk through the city had ended with us in front of a building—one that was pretty conspicuous, even by the capital’s standards.
Lorraine stared at it, looking astonished. “Are you sure? Isn’t your organization a gathering of ability wielders with unique powers who take on underworld contract work? You can’t expect us to believe that this is your base of operations...”
“I understand how you feel, but think about it: who’d ever expect us to be here? People don’t often pay attention to what’s in plain sight. I’d wager it had never crossed either of your minds that a place like this was actually hiding such a shadowy secret.”
“Of course it hadn’t,” Lorraine said. “You were right about it being in plain sight. Landwise, it must be larger than the church or the royal palace.”
She was right, though the palace and the church would win out when it came to height. Still, this place definitely took up a larger square area of the city. I wondered which had cost more. Given this building’s purpose, its distance from the palace, and its location in the outskirts of the city rather than the center, it was safe to assume that the palace cost the most, followed by the church, followed by this place.
“A colosseum, huh?” I muttered. “Always wanted to visit one, but I never thought it’d happen like this...”
Yep, we were looking at one of the largest buildings in the entire capital, the Vistelya Grand Colosseum.
Several cities in the Kingdom of Yaaran had fighting arenas, but this one stood proud as the largest of them all. It was one of the main attractions of the city. Here, countless mighty warriors and mages had fought countless battles, creating a long history of exhilarating entertainment for Yaaran’s citizens.
Tickets—which were tags made of wood—were cheap enough for any common villager to afford, but that didn’t mean they were always easy to get. The once-a-year grand tournament, which saw the attendance of fearless competitors from all over Yaaran, was so hard to get tickets for that it was well-known for desperate would-be spectators to be willing to drop tremendous amounts of coin to secure themselves one. The fact that most people wouldn’t sell despite that just went to show how popular the tournament was.
Oh, me? Sure, I wanted to see it too, but more than that, I wanted to participate. If you wanted to do that, you needed the skill to cut it, obviously, but you also needed to win your way through the preliminaries held across Yaaran. Not everybody had to do that though—some competitors could get in via recommendation. It could be from the adventurer’s guild, a noble, a big-name merchant, or even a famous combatant.
It was easy to guess that I never caught the eye of anyone like that. What’s more, I hated the idea of paying to see a tournament that I wanted to join but knew I had no chance to. I’d always wanted—and I mean really wanted—my first visit to be as a competitor. That said, if this was how that first visit was actually going to happen, I should have just swallowed my pride and gone as a spectator.
Becoming a competitor was a pretty far-fetched idea for me these days anyway. Some random competitor hits me with a strange technique, and oh, look, he’s a vampire! I’d get people like Nive stalking me, and I very much did not want people like Nive stalking me. One of her was already enough, thank you very much.
“What, you’ve never signed up as a competitor?” the old man asked in a low voice. “I think you’d make it far with skills like yours...but then, you only awakened your ability recently. I suppose that explains it.”
He headed for the entrance, where two people who looked like gatekeepers were standing. At a glance, you might think they were like the guards stationed at the city gates, but their armor didn’t bear the crest of the kingdom’s knights. In fact, their armor’s design was considerably different. I’d assumed the kingdom managed the colosseum, but maybe that wasn’t the case after all. Maybe the old man’s organization ran it and loaned it out to the kingdom when needed? That would mean the organization had some serious financial pull. It would also make them pretty well integrated into the Kingdom of Yaaran itself.
Perhaps it had been a really bad idea to come here.
Well, I couldn’t do anything about it now. I’d just have to grit my teeth and go with the flow. If worse came to worst, we still had Laura. She could handle a trivial thing like the entirety of Yaaran for sure...so long as she wasn’t asleep for once.
I was kidding, of course, but the scary thing about Laura was that she made you feel like she could do something like that. I doubted she actually would though. She wouldn’t have chosen to hole up way out on the frontier otherwise. That said, chances were high that she had a deeper motive for doing that.
The old man approached the two gatekeepers. They looked at him doubtfully, but upon getting a better look at his face, they immediately stood at attention.
“O-Oh! Welcome back, sir!”
We knew from what the old man had told us that he was fairly high up in the ranks. A big part of the reason their chief had bought Goblin’s story was likely due to Spriggan’s status and reputation. In most other scenarios, this would’ve ended with their chief saying, “I don’t care. Just kill them already.” Spriggan must have taken those odds into account when he’d sent Goblin out.
Once again, the old man’s cunning impressed me. It was a good thing our interests were currently aligned; he wasn’t the kind of enemy we could afford to let our guards down around. Sure, I liked him, and he did have a certain air that made you want to depend on him, but I knew I had to be rational about these things.
“Mmm, good to be back,” the old man said. “Is the chief in? I’m here to meet him. Did you get the message?”
“Yes, sir! Vaasa instructed us to let you through down below upon your arrival!”
“Vaasa said that? Hmm. All right. Then that’s where I’ll go. Oh, these two are with me. I assume that’s fine?”
“Of course, sir! Please, head on in!”
The old man beckoned to us to follow, so we did. Surprisingly, the two guards weren’t shooting us suspicious looks. In fact, it seemed like they didn’t have much interest in us at all. I took that to mean they weren’t in the know. They didn’t seem to be people Spriggan had scouted, but from the greeting they directed at Goblin with their eyes, they were clearly members of the organization.
◆◇◆◇◆
“Hey, gramps...” Goblin sounded nervous as we walked.
The old man—Spriggan sighed. “I know. The chief won’t be below ground.”
Lorraine and I looked at him inquisitively. We’d come here to meet their chief, after all.
“The two at the entrance,” Spriggan explained. “They mentioned Vaasa.”
“That’s a member of your organization, right?” I asked. “Doesn’t that mean our message got through?”
The old man nodded. “It does. But Vaasa’s...one of the people I personally scouted, and...”
“And he’s the guy who picked a fight with me the other day,” Goblin finished for him.
Lorraine and I both instantly understood the old man and Goblin’s concern.
“So you mean to say...” Lorraine said, “he’s one of the ones who refuse to believe you lost?”
“Apparently so,” the old man said. “Which means...”
“There’s a good chance he’ll try something?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“I don’t think we should be heading straight for him then...”
Lorraine was right; it was best we avoid running headfirst into traps as much as possible. Ignore the fact that this was coming from me, the guy who ran headfirst into a trap and ended up with this body to show for it.
“You’re correct,” the old man said. “But think of it like this: we don’t want him making a surprise interruption during our meeting with the chief, yes? I thought it best for our negotiations if we pacified him first. The choice is, however, yours. We are, after all, your captives.”
He shook the magical bindings that Lorraine had placed on his arms.
You might think that there wasn’t much point in keeping them on since we were already here, but it never hurt to be safe. Even if they only bought us a moment, that was a moment we could use to beat a hasty retreat.
The old man’s tone had been slightly joking, but he was right that we had to make a choice. Lorraine and I looked at each other, contemplative.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think I’ve never had anything good come of walking into dangerous places like this.”
“Your mistake was strolling into those places to begin with. Not that I get to pass judgment, considering I’m walking into one right now. Regardless, I think he’s right.”
“Spriggan?”
“Mmm. Meeting with the chief is all well and good, but no matter how smoothly things go, any kind of unfortunate interruption would bring them to a dead halt. Whereas if we deal with it beforehand, we can go in without worrying about it. That sounds preferable to me.”
“Yeah... I’m just concerned about whatever it is they’re planning to do to us. Do you think we’ll end up in a fight?”
I’d directed that last part at the old man.
“Most likely,” he said. “Vaasa refuses to believe that I lost, so he’ll be raring to pick a fight with you. That’s just who he is. On the other hand, that’s all there is to him. Trounce him, and he should come around. At least, that’s what I do whenever I need to make him listen.”
He’d been so casual about it, but that sounded like a pretty terrifying approach to education.
“I’m not like that with everybody,” the old man said. Maybe he’d seen the scared look I gave him. “I’ve never done that to Goblin or Siren.”
“Really?” I asked, looking at Goblin.
Goblin nodded. “Really. I may not seem like it, but I’m on the peaceful side when it comes to organization members. As for Siren...her skill set just isn’t the offensive type. We know we’d never stand a chance against gramps no matter what we tried, so we never pick fights with him in the first place.”
“So this Vaasa’s not peaceful, is the offensive type, thinks he does have a chance at winning, and that’s why he picks fights?” Lorraine asked half-jokingly.
I mentally rolled my eyes at her flippant summary, but that was just who she was.
The old man nodded, taking it in stride. “That’s him. Though, those traits also make him quite humbled by defeat.”
I considered our options, but this was pretty much a foregone conclusion, wasn’t it? That didn’t mean I wasn’t reluctant though. I figured I’d give myself a push.
“If we fought this ‘Vaasa,’ who do you think would win?” I asked.
“Hmm... I think you’d come out on top, Rentt,” the old man replied. “As for Lorraine, I’m not sure. He might be a bad matchup for her.”
“Really?” Lorraine asked.
“Mmm. I don’t mean to imply that you’re weak. Ranged magic is less effective on him. Even if you used the spells you used on me, he’d like as not get back up.”
What kind of monster was he?
“It’s not that he’s as durable as I am,” the old man continued. “It’s simply that magic is less effective on him. You see people like that from time to time, no? Even without a unique ability to their name. Although, I suppose you could interpret it as an ability in its own right.”
Lorraine nodded. “You do. Some people are just more resistant to magic in general. I hear that some are even completely immune, but I’ve never met anybody like that myself.”
“Yes, Vaasa’s one of those types. Not completely immune, of course, so enough spellpower will take him down, but anything like what you used on me will also damage the building, so in that sense...”
This was the kingdom’s biggest colosseum, so naturally, safety measures were installed all over the place, but it was best to not test those to begin with. That said...
“Magic resistance, huh?” I muttered. “That’d make him a mage’s natural enemy.”
“Indeed,” Lorraine replied. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t have any options. Besides, resisting magic would also include healing magic. Hmm. In which case, I suppose dealing with him first is the best decision after all.”
“Why— Oh, I get it. You’re right.” It clicked pretty quickly for me what she was getting at.
“If we beat him up,” Lorraine said, “he’ll stay down.”
That certainly made perfect sense to me.
◆◇◆◇◆
“Incidentally, is ‘Vaasa’ a code name too?” Lorraine asked.
The old man shook his head. “No. It’s his real name.”
“Is it now? Then if you had to give him a code name, what would it be?”
“You don’t need to ask in such a roundabout way. It’s not as if I’ll suddenly get indignant about informing on my allies now. And besides, you knocking Vaasa around helps us too.”
“I suppose my consideration is unnecessary then. I thought if I asked like that, you could perhaps just barely deny selling your allies out if anyone accuses you afterward.”
The point Lorraine was getting at had to do with the fact that the organization’s internal code names already blatantly described their owners’ abilities. With that in mind, there was maybe a gray area where the old man could get away with saying, “No, no, I only told them his name!”
In fact, I was pretty sure the old man was very much capable of leading a conversation to make it sound like he’d given us nothing more than Vaasa’s name. And Vaasa himself sounded like a straightforward—or simple, if I was feeling uncharitable—kind of guy.
“I appreciate the consideration, but it’s fine,” the old man said. “Now, as for Vaasa’s ability...”
The old man told us all about Vaasa’s ability, including its countermeasures and weaknesses. He was so thorough that I felt as though there could be nothing left, but then again, I couldn’t just fully take him at his word. Part of it was because of who he was, but part of it was because when it came to combat, there was a lot that you couldn’t understand without doing it for yourself. If you got cocky going into a fight because you had all the information, you’d be tripped up when you least expected it.
As a matter of fact, that was exactly what had happened to the old man’s group when they’d tried to deal with us. They couldn’t have known that the Bronze-class adventurer they’d been told was the weakest link was actually an inhuman monster who could get back up after taking any kind of hit.
And while it would be terrifying if that actually happened often, there was no denying that the world was, in the end, made up of those kinds of hair-raising coincidences all stacked up on top of each other. I myself was proof of that; I’d never once imagined I would end up with a body like this. Letting your guard down was just asking for trouble.
Lorraine nodded. “Noted. Thank you for the explanation. Did you get all that, Rentt?”
I was the one who would be fighting Vaasa, so it was me who needed the information the most. Naturally, I’d been paying full attention, so I nodded back.
The old man continued. “Apart from Vaasa, other members should be somewhere in this base. I’ll tell you about their abilities, especially the one who’s likely to pick a fight with you, Lorraine. Goblin, did you tell them that Lorraine hurt me with her magic?”
“I did. I said that while I didn’t really understand it or see it, it seemed like a pretty big deal. Actually, what did you do?”
“I just cast some ancient spells I studied as a hobby,” Lorraine replied. “They came from old manuscripts I found. A lot was missing, but I managed to piece them back together. I plan to eventually collate their methods, compositions, and characteristics into a book to sell to the mage’s guild, but as of now, not many mages know about them, which is not to say none. It’s just that we tend to be rather secretive about the results of our own research.”
That was surprisingly...actually, it wasn’t surprising at all. It was entirely in character for her to go around casting ridiculous spells at the drop of a hat. I thought it was pretty bold of her, but then again, there were more spells than you could shake a stick at in this world. Plenty must have vanished after nobody had inherited them from their creators. Many mages had kept the knowledge to themselves, as Lorraine had mentioned, but sometimes these spells just hadn’t been of any use, so nobody had bothered to learn them.
If they were written down, then future generations could use that as a clue for reviving them as Lorraine had done, but I doubted that happened all too often. It seemed that, unless a spell was particularly useful, its fate was to fade away into obscurity, leaving people to wonder whether it had really existed at all.
Lorraine was kind of obsessive about that sort of thing. If she was curious, it didn’t matter to her whether it was useful or not—she was the type to begin researching it right away, aiming to use it. Maybe it was lucky that she’d been the one to find those ancient manuscripts.
“Ancient magic...” Goblin said. “Well, it’s not like nobody uses it. We’ve got someone who does too, right, gramps?”
“You mean Fuana? I suppose you’re right. But was she always the quick-to-rile-up type?”
“Not usually, but when it comes to magic... This one time, I asked her about a poison spell for a job, and she spent the entire night talking my ear off about it. Not that she was angry, per se. When I tried to tell her to drop it, she wouldn’t take no for an answer because she said that she wasn’t finished and that incomplete knowledge would only hurt me.”
Lorraine looked impressed. “Sounds like we’d get along. Although, I’m not sure I could manage an entire night. I’d prefer to establish a proper study plan to stick to, complete with periodic tests to determine whether you’d achieved the required level of understanding, and I’d only let you go if you had.”
Goblin gave Lorraine a look that was part amazement, part fear. “You know, I think she would get along with Fuana, gramps. Hopefully they don’t get into a fight; I kind of don’t want to see that happen. I mean, I know it’d make things easier for us. It’s just...no.”
