Mage? Magic Engineer!-Chapter 134 - 131: The Bell of Order and the Alchemy Department’s Test
"There are more heartbeats! Something’s wrong in the cellar!" There was no fighting on the second floor; the bar’s staff and the rotten-nosed potion seller had all been "packaged up" and sent away. The captain hurriedly led the others toward the cellar.
Two of the Mages, who were exceptionally tall, smashed right through the wooden floorboards of the second story and plummeted to the first. A metallic hum rang out as their bodies struck the ground.
"You’re wearing Heavy Armor, too?" one of the Gray Robe Knights asked, surprised. The two already stood two heads taller than anyone else, with incredibly broad frames. Beneath their cloaks, they looked like a pair of walking wardrobes.
"Why not?" the Mages retorted, leaping down through the hole they’d just made. The two silent "Giants" then each produced a Great Sword from beneath their robes. They plunged the blades into the ground, shattering the floor between the first story and the cellar, including the cellar’s stone-arched ceiling.
RUMBLE! With a single piece of the arched ceiling gone, the rest began to collapse in a chain reaction. Bricks, stone, and earth rained down, and the shattered wine casks filled the air with a distinct, aromatic scent.
"Are you trying to get us killed?" The team in the cellar had nearly been buried by the collapse caused by their own allies before the target had even attacked. Once everyone regrouped, the thing from the well finally crawled out. It shrugged off the dust and debris covering it and let out a furious roar.
"You... the wine cellar! My... bar... my house... You’ll all die!"
"You’ll all die!"
If Rorschach had been part of this operation, he would have found this boss’s opening lines and appearance... so damn classic. The arms the team had seen earlier—belonging to men and women, children, the young, and the elderly—were now all melted and kneaded together with their torsos, forming a monster known as the "Mouse King."
The dripping mass of flesh crawled out of the well, its still-recognizable human parts writhing continuously. It had no clear means of support and lay half-sprawled across the rubble pile. The flesh trapped beneath it let out pained groans. Parts that had been submerged for a long time were pale and bloated, covered in large patches of tender, pinkish flesh-buds and rotting sores.
A sour, putrid stench now tainted the aroma of the wine.
The dominant consciousness, Old Red, was positioned at the monster’s apex. After receiving Mother Earth’s "salvation," not only had he regrown the feet he’d fed to the fish at sea, but he now sat upon a throne composed of "rats." He was a king looking down from on high, his furious and contemptuous gaze sweeping across the rebellious subjects in his shattered "palace."
"What blasphemous evil is this!" The members of the Church were the first to act. One of the gray-robed men charged the monster, swinging a Sharp Sword coated in a thick ointment, which made his companion frown.
"Brother Odysseus is as reckless as ever." Although the Gray Robe Knight leader was critical, he still led the two remaining Cultivators to bestow a "Blessing" on the vanguard. Amidst their chanting, Odysseus’s gray robes began to shine with a holy golden light. The blessed Holy Oil on his sword ignited into a blazing flame. He slashed at the Mouse King’s flesh, leaving a stinking, scorched wound and drawing a pained shriek from the monster.
The Mages’ attacks followed swiftly. This time, the target was too massive to dodge. Blazing fire, Frozen spells, and invisible slicing attacks were unleashed upon its molten flesh.
"You... how dare you!" Writhing in agony, Red began to retaliate. Every head that hadn’t completely melted into the fleshy mass started spewing a thick, green fog in all directions.
Odysseus bore the brunt of the attack. The protective golden light around him dimmed, and his movements grew sluggish. Within the thick fog, both Ray and Projectile Magic seemed to lose all effect.
Viscous, foul pus began to well up from the wine-soaked ground.
The Mages instinctively fell back, coughing in the green fog. They hurriedly activated their Protective Talismans or Protective Magic, trying to dispel the negative status effects. The Gray Robe Knights began chanting again, and a golden light attempted to disperse the fog. It failed to eliminate it, but at least halted its spread, bringing their temporary allies a sense of warmth and security.
"Odysseus!" At some unknown point, one of the Mouse King’s thick arms had grabbed a harpoon and was now thrusting it toward him. By now, the Holy Oil on Odysseus’s Great Sword had completely burned away. His mind began to wander... ’He saw many visions, as if guided by a god, his consciousness drifting.’
"This fog is poisonous and hallucinogenic," a Mage said, attempting a Fire Purification spell. The two hulking figures who had smashed through the floor earlier strode to the monster’s front. One swung his Giant Sword in an upward arc, knocking the harpoon away. The other grabbed the dazed Odysseus by the collar of his robe and hurled him back toward his allies.
Now, two tall Warriors stood in the fog, confronting the monster. The blades of their Great Swords glowed with a blue light, allowing the others to trace the arcs of their swings through the mist as they relentlessly carved into the mass of flesh.
"We have to stop this poison fog from spreading!" The flames scorching the green mist were actually causing it to spread further. A new spell was cast. A whirlwind rose, pulling the flames and toxic fog up into a vortex and confining the battlefield to the eye of the storm.
The monster was still regenerating at an incredible rate, the new flesh growing back in even more grotesque shapes. The Holy Artifact was finally ready. It was a broken spearhead, mounted upright on a platter. A Cultivator removed its cloth covering and poured four cups of Holy Water from the platter’s corners onto the spearhead in a counter-clockwise sequence. With each pour, its golden glow intensified.
Once finished, the Cultivator made the spearhead float telekinetically and lock onto the Mouse King. By this point, one side of Old Red’s form had been carved away. Though it had regenerated, he had lost the ability to speak and could only groan in pain. When the lance of golden light struck him, he let out an even more heart-rending wail.
It finally stopped spewing the toxic fog. The wound, now glowing gold, could not heal. The monster staggered backward, collapsing over the mouth of the well and sliding limply to the bottom.
"So... your Holy Artifact is gone." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦
"It’s single-use. The Church has plenty more in stock," the Cultivator replied calmly.
"Impressive. Very impressive."
The two tall Star-Robe Warriors shouldered their Great Swords and approached the well to inspect the monster. Suddenly, a giant flesh-worm lunged up, and countless arms shot out, trying to drag the two of them into its body. The Warriors’ cloth robes were instantly corroded by the slime, revealing suits of full Plate Armor, their silver surfaces reflecting the Moonlight.
The two hulking figures, completely encased in Plate Armor, swung their swords again, only to have their blades immediately enveloped by the thick flesh.
"Attack again!" The flesh-worm continued to crawl from the well. A dark green luminescence began to shine from within its folds, forming blasphemous patterns. The golden wound was closing, its holy light slowly being corrupted into a murky green.
"It’s defiling the Lord’s Light!" The Cultivator was genuinely panicked now. He threw open a Scripture, unfurling Runes formed from Holy Light, but they were shattered by a roar from the flesh-worm. The roar was accompanied by a psychic shock that pierced everyone’s minds, leaving them momentarily stunned. Only the hulking figures on the front line, physically resisting the creature’s advance, were still trying to swing their swords.
The onlooking Security Team members were chatting while watching the towering fiery vortex. Suddenly, the vortex dissipated, and a strange roar echoed out.
"Gods, what a racket." The Security Team members marveled at how soundly the citizens were sleeping, forgetting that Magic had already isolated the area. The roar, however, seemed to have pierced the barrier, actually waking people up.
"What the hell is that thing!" An emaciated person tackled a Security Team member and tried to bite them. Outside the cordon, a large crowd of mindless people charged the blockade, brawling with the Security Team. "Fire!" The pellets from the Short Guns hit them, but they seemed to feel nothing, continuing to drag their mangled bodies toward the former site of the bar unless their heads were blown off.
More people flooded the streets. Some jumped straight from their windows, hitting the ground only to twist back to their feet and shamble onward. They were all users of the "Rat Poison." Old Red’s captured men were the same; Rotten-Nose was struggling the most violently.
A dark green mist began to rise from the streets.
Suddenly, the deep, distant toll of a bell rang out. DONG—DONG—DONG...
Amidst the majestic tolling of the bell, it was as if everything had been put on pause. The newly risen mist was dispersed. The monster’s summoned "rat" kin reverted to a listless, normal state. Those who were severely injured collapsed on the spot. Others panicked—some vomited uncontrollably, while some clawed at their own skin, not stopping even as it festered and bled.
"Praise the God of Light!" The surviving team members breathed a sigh of relief.
The battle inside the bar also progressed. The tolling of the bell was like a fatal poison to the monster. The Divine Patterns on its body shattered, and its grip on the Full-Armor Warriors loosened. The two swung their swords toward each other simultaneously, their blades carving through most of the monster’s body before colliding.
They raised their Great Swords high. A beam of white light, thicker than the mouth of the well, descended from the heavens. It pierced vertically through the monster, completely engulfing its body amidst its shrieks and giving it no chance to regenerate.
"You two are quite impressive yourselves," the Cultivator who had wielded the Holy Artifact commented, observing the pillar of light with a thoughtful expression.
...
「On a spire.」
Joseph, the Gray-robed Bishop, brought the Holy Wood Needle to a halt. He steadied the Bell of Order, which glowed with a golden radiance, silencing its lingering vibrations. His own eyes blazed with the same holy, sublime light, which was now slowly fading.
"It is over. There is no need to disturb Lord Dipresy’s rest."
"Yes, sir." The attendant Cultivator helped the Priest down from the bell tower.
...
「At the base of the Starlight Torch Tower.」
The base of the Starlight Torch Tower housed a large hall. A metal rod in the center ran all the way to the top of the tower, serving as both its main support and a kind of antenna.
In the hall, Snow was downing one bottle of Concentrated Energy Potion after another. When he saw a Mage wearing a wire-covered headset awaken in a reclining chair, he rushed over. "How was it?" The other members of the Alchemy Department also watched the awakening Mage nervously.
There was also a massive Crystal Ball in the hall, which showed a view of the Old Red Bar, now burning.
The Mage, now the center of attention, ripped off the metal headset. He leaped up excitedly and performed a sword swing—an action identical to the one performed by the Full-Armor Warrior in the field. "Awesome! Almost no latency!"
Everyone erupted in cheers, with some shouting things like, "My turn next time!"
"How did Unit Two, the one controlled by the Tower Spirit, perform?"
"Perfect synergy! The best teammate a guy could ask for!"
"Excellent, excellent, excellent..." Snow said, then announced to the crowd, "Contact the Star Robe Team to recover Units One and Two. Next time, we test Unit Three, the Magic Cavalry model!"
An even louder cheer erupted. Elsewhere in the hall stood a suit of knight’s Plate Armor leaning on a Knight Lance. Beside it was the Alchemy Horse that Rorschach had once tested.
