The witch's Relic [Widow Suhard] was a widow absolutely brimming with attributes.
No, the widow form was just a lure — the real body was a shadow slime.
For a moment, I lost track of what I was saying.
For starters, what exactly was this [Widow Suhard] type of Relic?
Anyway, we were on basement floor two.
In the torch-lit corridor, there were doors on both sides.
The corridor dead-ended ahead, with only a staircase leading down to basement floor three.
"Oh my. These torches. They're Legacy, aren't they."
"Are they?"
Come to think of it, they were burning last time I came through here too.
"Oh? What kind of Legacy?"
"Well now, this one's called 'Distant Flame.' It's a Legacy found in the deeper layers of the dungeon — all it does is burn forever. And the flame isn't hot at all. It simply stays bright."
"So it's for lighting?"
"Right. I wonder if this fire can't be put out."
"No, no, pour water on it and it goes out. And it can never be lit again."
"Ah, that's why it's a Legacy."
Legacy. Single-use items.
Like fire stones, water stones, and wind stones — once you use them, they can never be used again.
"Well then, better to leave them as they are."
"There are also light orbs."
Those aren't from the Hyarn trading company either.
They're Riv's originals.
We open up from the previous room. There's no lock, so the door swings open easily.
Wooden boxes. The room is piled high with them. Quite the sight.
"Hmm, hmm. Looks like they stored them all without ever opening them, huh."
"I get the feeling they were handled carelessly."
Nekia lets out a sigh.
It's the kind of mess that comes from never being organized at all—just set down wherever.
There aren't just wooden boxes, either. Jars too.
"Well then, young Wof. Are there any phantom units in here?"
"There are."
Three red dots in a single wooden box, no less. Getting Nekia's permission, I break the box open.
I place the contents into the shadow of Widow's Hardu.
That's all for this room. On to the next.
Same thing here—wooden boxes strewn about everywhere... And sure enough, some have tipped over with their contents spilled out.
"This is terrible."
"Oh my, oh my. This figurine is cracked."
"There's nothing in that one. The phantom units are in that box over there—two of them."
I smash the box and collect them. Nothing else... No, that's it.
On to the final room. And we were stunned.
The final room had the same door, but inside it was enormous.
An overwhelming space worthy of being called a warehouse, piled high with wooden crates.
You could tell without even counting roughly.
One glance was enough.
There were several hundred, easily.
"Whoa, you've got to be kidding me…"
"…There were this many?"
"Oh my, oh my. What a spectacle."
And among the crates, countless red dots glowed eerily.
This was where the greatest concentration of phantom units had been stored in the treasury.
So this was the great prison of phantom units.
"Haa. No choice but to get to it."
"I'll help too!"
But still, this quantity—one day would absolutely not be enough.
How many days would it even take… Huh? The witch stood before us.
"Well, well. What a waste, but I'm afraid this can't be helped."
"Witch?"
"Are you going to do something?"
"Hehe, hehe. Would you two step back a little?"
She looked like she was about to do something.
True to her word, the witch pulled a staff from her pouch.
A decrepit, rusted metal rod, slickly wrapped in veins of livid reddish-black ivy that seemed to pulse with a sickly life of its own.
It was... deeply unsettling, the kind of staff that made your skin crawl.
Was that the witch's OOPArt? I felt like I'd seen it somewhere before.
Then the witch shrugged off the robe she'd been wearing and tossed it aside.
"Well now, it's been quite a while, hasn't it? <Rin>"
Chanting the word, she struck the ground three times with the butt of the staff.
She swung the staff sideways, spun it, stamped her feet, and with a flourish of the staff drew a circle in the air.
It was like baton-twirling. At the same time she swayed her body left and right as she turned.
"———<Shara. Jara. Shara-ra-shara-ra. Jara-ra-jara-ra. Sing. Chant. Recite. Sleep. Sleep. Source of the far-reaching great river. Bottom of the abyss. Dark and deep, sea of darkness. Shara-shara. Shara-ra. Shara-ra. Shara-shara. Jara-jara. Jara-ra-jara-ra. Shara-ra. Shara-ra. Jara. Shara. Jara. Jara. Jara-ra-jara-ra>"
The witch sang. And danced.
Her feet struck the ground in an elegant display as she perked her fox ears straight up, alert and sharp.
Her tousled silver hair glittered and sparkled, shimmering like scattered particles of light.
Her three tails and hips turned with graceful boldness as she swept them wildly, drawing characters in the air with her staff.
Then there was the bouncing, jiggling of her ample chest. Without an outer garment on, nothing restrained its spirited movement.
Sweat flew in every direction. The witch laughed through the strain, looking like she was having the time of her life.
Entranced by her bewitching, intoxicating dance and song of manic ecstasy, I couldn't take my eyes off her for a single moment.
I remembered. That's right. This was the witch's binding Relic.
I was almost certain I'd seen it before... in a dungeon.
"＜Sing. Chant. Sleep. Sleep. Bottom of the abyss. Source of the far-reaching great river. The black, deep sea of darkness. Shara-jara. Shara-ra-jara-ra. Shara-ra-jara-ra. Shara-ra-jara-ra. Sha-ra-sha-ra. Ja-ra-ja-ra. Sha-ra. Ja-ra. Sha-ra-jara. Shara-ra-jara-ra. The black, deep sea of darkness. Fill the depths, won't you＞— — — [The Hidden Lord of Ginnungagap]!"
The witch chanted, danced, and then abruptly stopped.
The scene and the air fell completely silent.
But it was the calm before the storm.
Here it comes.
This is when the binding Relic begins.
Right after, a deep booming sound came from somewhere.
Nekia spoke.
"Something's coming."
"..."
As I felt it too, only the ground where the wooden crates were piled turned pitch-black in an instant.
"It's here."
"That's..."
It was something like a black swamp. It was spreading across the floor.
And the mountain of wooden crates slowly sank into it with a squelch.
"Ah, it's raining."
"Black rain..."
Something laden with black weight was falling from the ceiling like rain, all around the wooden crates.
It painted the crates black and dragged them down into the dark ground.
Gazing at the sight—like having wandered into the witch's herbal tea—I remembered.
I was starting to remember, little by little.
The one who used this... was that guy.
Hagen. No, wait—Gan. Hagan. The former Wind Death King.
He was such a small-time undead, you'd never have guessed it.
I used it in the deepest part of that dungeon—the one in the forest where he was.
If I remember right, it was Hagan, not Hagen, who swallowed the army he'd summoned.
"The wooden crates are disappearing."
"Yeah..."
All those wooden crates that had been piled up—gone.
The ground had returned to normal too. It felt like there had been nothing there from the start.
"My, my, oh my—[Widow Sthardhu]. You've got a grim look on your face."
The witch speaks to the decoy widow portion standing beside her.
Then she takes her robe from the semi-transparent black tentacles and wraps it around herself.
Of course. The widow portion says nothing. It's a decoy, after all.
But the widow portion of [Widow Sthardhu] rotated the sun umbrella with what seemed like dissatisfaction.
And then we headed down to the third basement floor.
A one-way path and a grand door. Beyond it lay a dome-shaped space.
About the same size as the previous room, I'd say. Nothing in sight.
I checked just to be sure, but there really was nothing there.
Not a single fragment of the mirror that had shattered back then.
"Hmm, hmm. Looks like that's all the recovery done, I'd say."
"Seems so."
Phew, I'm tired. Finally done.
All we had to do was collect the stuff, and yet it ended up being way more eventful than I'd expected. I'm beat.
But now that it's over, next up was… first, take a break — when Nechia suddenly tilted her head.
"Hey, I've been thinking about something. Is that okay?"
"What is it?"
"My, my, what could it be?"
"I was wondering — are Phantom Units only found in this treasury?"
"Huh…"
"Ho, ho. Indeed, we can't say for certain it's only the treasury. Hmm, hmm. Even Kon missed this one, didn't he."
"Huh."
"Hey, Wof. Have you actually investigated the entire Forbidden Zone?"
"………………No, I haven't."
"Then it's not over yet."
"Huh?"
"Not over yet, Wof."
Nechia said that with an innocent smile.
Ahaha. Right. Sure.
Ha.
Hahaha.
Ugh.
Meanwhile. The trade city of Heisen.
Along the shore of Lake Rieve. At the pier.
A red-haired, rough-looking man with an eye patch and... a land catfish wearing a sedge hat made landfall.
"Finally made it... thought I was gonna die out there..."
"You're weak on boats, aren't ya."
"I dunno, I just get queasy somehow."
Grumbling, he reached for the flask at his hip and took a swig.
Looking up at Agaro from beneath his sedge hat, Alexander let out a sigh.
"I still don't approve of drinking yourself into a stupor, though."
"If I'm gonna get queasy either way, this is way better. So anyway — where's Wof's dungeon at, sensei?"
Agaro cheerfully tapped his flask.