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Chapter 192: (3/1): The Angelic Titan

Camilla had gone back to looking at the walls. Since she was immune to the strange effects, she might as well investigate some more. This time, she was looking for something specific that she never saw in the reliefs: humans. She wanted to find some humans.

Depicted on the reliefs was every race she could think of, a myriad of different mana beasts, so many different kinds of sceneries, but there was just no human to be found. Even if recorded history only stretched back less than a thousand years ago for humans and the reliefs were sculpted more than a thousand years ago, Camilla did not believe that humans sprang out of nowhere.

Humans could not have appeared out of thin air. But where were their progenitors? Why were humans the only race with rounded ears?

She searched a good portion of the eye-level sculptures but ended up with nothing to show for it. The only places remaining were the sculptures that were higher up, but she’d need to fly to see them. Just as she was about to spread her wings, a low, commanding voice sounded behind her. 

“Tear them down…”

Camilla spun around. “Wait!” she cried out, but it was too late. 

The hunters heard her cry too late to stop even if they wanted to. But they didn’t. When the choice came down to following orders and listening to an outsider that they didn’t even like, the answer was quite clear.

Blazing fireballs, cutting jets of water, arrows imbued with elemental magic, and a few small rock spears that had to be conjured instead of ripped out from the ground… dozens of spells flew toward the walls on all four sides of the room with clear intent to destroy and no sign of hesitation.

What Camilla expected to see did not come to be. Instead of the spells overwhelming the preservation magic cast to protect the sculptures from the wear of time, shimmering walls repulsed the magic, scattering the formless fireballs and bouncing back the arrows, water jets, and stone spears.

“Where did that barrier come from?!” Cadaelia demanded, her eyebrows arching in shock.

Even Kagriss gasped. “Those formations that created the barriers appeared out of nowhere. Were they simply hidden before now, or…” She reached toward the wall next to her and tried to touch the sculpture, for her finger to be bounced back by an invisible wall that shimmered at her touch. “Or they were generated by the preservation magic. Magic weaved into another magic… that shouldn’t be possible.”

She shook her head. What was or was not possible wasn’t determined by her knowledge. Anything could be possible, and she simply didn’t know how to do it. Even now, her personal limits were being expanded.

Now that the sculptures were being protected by a barrier, Camilla hoped that Cadaelia would give up, but to her horror, Cadaelia simply ordered her warriors forward. Burdened by heavy armor, the warriors of the Regalius Litha charged toward the walls, each of their steps thundering with monumental weight.

Lifting their shield, they slammed into the walls. Immediately, the barrier shimmered and tried to force them away, but they dug their feet in and pushed back. Although a few of them bounced away from the walls, a few more managed to hold on against the force of the barrier. Those that failed simply slammed their shield into the wall again, and then raised their weapons.

With axes and maces designed to break through the defenses of enemy frontlines, the Litha warriors were excellent destroyers of warriors. With each rise and fall of their weapons, the barrier shimmered, but the light that rippled out became darker and darker.

“Good work. Keep it up. Mages, fire again!”

“Wait!” Camilla shouted, trying to stop her. “This is wrong! This is history. It’s important!”

Cadaelia looked at her and shook her head. “This is a dungeon. Dangerous things must be destroyed.”

“Can’t we just leave it alone and move on? The door’s open!” Camilla pointed at the open gates on the inner side of the hall. The entrance gates were open as well. “We should just move on. It’ll be the same thing.”

“Who knows what these sculptures might do if we move on? It’s already proved that it can hide other formations within itself. What if its next formation is an offensive one while we’re facing an enemy further inside? We’d be stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

Camilla bit her lips, unsure what to say. It didn’t seem possible to convince Cadaelia to cease her attacks, because everything that Cadaelia made sense. However, it hurt her inside to see all those attacks directly toward the sculptures.

While she was trying to think of another reason to get Cadaelia to stop, Kagriss grabbed her arm, squeezing hard in urgency. “Milla, the formations are changing again.”

“What?! What’s it doing? When did this start?” Camilla looked over at Cadaelia again, and sure enough, Cadaelia could also see the formations and she looked annoyed by the changes.

“It started just now. The shimmering is almost gone, so the barrier is about to be broken. Clearly, that’s the trigger for the change. The only question is what the change is about…” Kagriss’s voice trailed off and she knelt down and pressed her palm on the ground and concentrated.

Curious about what Kagriss was doing, Camilla imitated her, and her face paled. There was a slow, rhythmic tremor that rippled through the ground and she clearly felt it on her palm. The frequency of the tremor reminded Camilla of a heart, but it sounded way more like something else: footsteps.

Steady, even footsteps made the ground quake. The ground shook harder and harder as the approaching entity drew near, until even Cadaelia felt the ground shaking. The tremors came from deeper inside the dungeon, and from how hard the ground was shaking, it was obvious that the entity was huge.

Then, from behind them came the sound of metal grinding against stone. Camilla spun around and witnessed the entrance gates that had just been wide open, allowing anyone to freely come and go, close.

Curses rang out from the Trista team as they saw what was happening. They could feel the footsteps of the incoming titan, and none of them wanted to be locked into the same room as that unknown enemy.

“Hey, The door’s closing!”

“We have to get out, now!”

“Please give us the order to retreat, vice-captain! A third of us are out, including the captain. We have to leave!”

“But, the mission…” Cadaelia murmured. She hesitated for a few precious seconds. Although the weight of the doors made the process of closing slow, it was steady enough that those seconds wasted might be the difference of making it through or not. Finally, she gritted her teeth.

Who cares about the mission? At worst, if they run, their reputation will take a hit. But if they stayed, the worst thing that could happen was the deaths of everyone present. She took a deep breath and pointed toward the door. “Run! Grab your comrades two to one person. Get out as fast as you can!”

After giving her command, she knelt down and pulled the arm of a catatonic Beitra onto her shoulder. She might have buckled under the weight of the stone elemental had she not been reinforcing her body. Someone rushed over to help her, and she nodded at him gratefully.

Together with the rest of the Trista team, they staggered toward the slowly closing gates.

As they passed Camilla and Kagriss, Cadaelia looked at them. “Why aren’t you running?”

Camilla shook her head. “We’re not leaving.”

“What?! Why? You don’t know what’s coming. This kind of dungeon is abnormal. It’s not natural, and we’re not prepared to conquer it with just us.”

However, Camilla just shrugged and stepped back, letting her actions speak for her. She had no intentions of leaving in the first place since what they were looking for was deeper inside. Who knows if the doors will ever open again?

Kagriss joined her and Camilla shot her a look that feigned anger. Instead of the desired effect, Kagriss laughed.

The vice-captain became speechless. She turned away. “Whatever. It’s your loss, I suppose. It was nice knowing you.” With the help of her subordinate, they picked up the pace, hobbling toward the closing gates. Their awkward gait made it look like they were participating in a four-legged race with three people.

Already, there were some people who made it out of the room ahead of the closing gate and were waiting outside. Others, like Cadaelia, were still inside. Some of the people outside dropped the comrades that they dragged out and ran back in to help, but there was only so much an extra person could do.

The gap between the doors shrank mercilessly. Although a few hunters tried to hold it open, the magic imbued within the doors made it near impossible to stop. And Camilla didn’t know if she was just imagining it, but the doors seemed to speed up with each person that escaped. If that was the case, then there was no way that everyone would make it out.

“Vice-captain, hurry!”

“It’s going to be too late!”

The cries from outside gave the stragglers new strength, but it wasn’t enough. Before the doors closed completely, a few of the hunters stopped, knowing that there was not enough time or space for three more people to get out. Accepting their fate with dignity, they didn’t make one last desperate charge that would inevitably fail and instead sat down on the spot to recover as much strength as they could before the looming battle.

With the last moments remaining, Cadaelia snapped out her last orders. “See if you can open the door from the outside, but it’s fine if you can. Contact our leader and ask for backup! Be careful!” she shouted. “We’ll definitely make it out!”

The hunters outside nodded.

At the last moment, a few of the hunters charged back in. Cadaelia’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”

They laughed. “Well, you did promise to make it back out, so you’ll need as many hands as you can if we’re going to fight whatever’s coming, right?”

Tears welled up in Cadaelia’s eyes as she nodded. “Thank you…”

Amidst goodbyes and well wishes, the metal doors slammed shut with an echoing thud, cutting off the farewells short. Immediately, countless formations sprang up on its surface. Kagriss took one look at them and shook her head.

There was no way to unravel them from the inside. At least, she couldn’t—not alone.

At the same time, the cause of those earthshaking footsteps arrived at the room at last.

It came into the light from the shadows of the hall beyond the inner gates. Camilla finally saw its form.

The titan’s massive stature was almost as tall as the gate itself, ten meters tall. Elyss’s size paled in comparison. If she were here, she’d look like a barn cat next to the titan.

Camilla summoned her armor, encasing her in a shell of metal that suddenly looked pitifully thin. Her greatsword was like a needle, yet she grasped it anyway in a white-knuckled grip. There was no way around it; she was nervous. Only her physique allowed her to not shake in fear and awe of the titan.

The titan was made of stone, as if it was a moving statue. It was colored gold, the same color as holy light, and from its shoulders spouted massive wings that looked heavier than its body. Armor of stone covered it from head to toe until only sightless eyes peered out from behind the slits in its visors, and in its hands was a massive sword half as long as the titan was tall, and a shield big enough to cover the titan’s torso.

An angelic knight. The moment it arrived in the huge room, the light from above grew brighter and the holy mana in the air grew denser, as if its very presence was holiness itself.

“This is… a stone construct?” Cadaelia whispered in disbelief. “I thought only the stone elementals had the techniques to make one… and what is this holy power I feel…”

For the first time, people other than Camilla could feel the holy magic in the air.

“…It’s been here all along,” Camilla said. “That’s why I chose to come here instead of following Ismelda.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You didn’t ask. Plus, I wanted something from here, and I didn’t want to fight over it,” she said. “Telling you about the holy mana might make you able to find something that you otherwise would have missed.”

“You…” Cadaelia’s face reddened, but she couldn’t say anything. If she was in Camilla’s place, she would’ve done the exact same. Complaining would make her a hypocrite. She could only sigh.

The titan took a step into the room, and then another, and then another. The inner gate began to close behind him. It closed much faster this time, and it confirmed Camilla’s suspicions that whoever designed the dungeon intentionally slowed the outer gate to allow some people to escape.

But not all of them.

“…I wonder if the door will open again if we all die?” she muttered. When she felt eyes on her, Camilla realized that she accidentally spoke her thoughts out loud. “What? It’s possible. Not that I intend on testing it,” she added.

Only then did those angry glances fade. “Don’t say things like that!”

The inner gates slammed shut, sealing the remaining hunters into the slaughterhouse.

As the resting hunters stumbled to their feet and prepared for what might well be their final battle, a deep voice filled the room, causing them all to stiffen.

“Foolish vandals of the Hall of Memories. You will rue the day you raised your sword at our legacy!”

“Who’s speaking?!” a hunter demanded.

An uncertain reply came a second later. “The statue, maybe?”

“It doesn’t matter who. What’s important is that the speaker called us vandals. Perhaps it’s because we…”

This time, all of the eyes were on the person who gave the order to destroy the reliefs. Camilla’s gaze was the smuggest of them all, practically shouting “I told you so” using her eyes.

Cadaelia looked away, trying to avoid meeting any of the glances, but after a moment to calm herself down, she turned back and bowed deeply to everyone.

“I…accept responsibility. But I thought at the time that neutralizing a potential threat was the best decision…” the elf murmured. “I ask for your forgiveness, even if it’s worth nothing now that we’re in this situation. The only thing I can give is all my strength in this coming battle.”

Seeing her so willing to admit her mistake where a lesser person might shift blame, Camilla shrugged and continued preparing for battle. “You’re right. Everything can wait until we survive, right?

“I hope that we all make it out of here alive.”

Of the seventy-two hunters that entered, only twenty-one remained, including Camilla and Kagriss. Of those twenty-one, five of them were still unconscious.

Camilla gripped her sword. It was going to be a hard fight.