Chapter 163 - Fire in the Cave (3)

The commotion in the early morning woke the Mountain Snailfolk.

“What's all this noise!”

“The lion suddenly started barking. Raim.”

“There's an ominous sound coming from the mines...”

Buildings rose like mushrooms throughout the underground city. Snails crawled out through their upper-story windows. Hundreds. Thousands. Tens of thousands. From the lightest sleepers to the deepest, they all emerged. Mountain Snailfolk slime coated the walls.

“Is it a disturbance? A rebellion?”

“A rebellion!”

“Sound the trumpets!”

“Raim! Let us wake the spirits of our ancestors!”

The snails climbed the walls.

SLAP!

They struck their own cheeks with the feelers on their heads. That was how they shook off sleep.

BWOOOO!

The first Mountain Snailfolk to reach the top of a wall blew a trumpet. It was not a horn. It was the shell of a dead snail. Using the shells their kin left behind in death as pipes, the Mountain Snailfolk sounded long, ominous trumpet notes.

BWOOOOO!

Following the first trumpet, more Mountain Snailfolk climbed the walls. Once atop them, they lifted their kin's shells to their mouths. Countless buildings rose throughout the underground city, and a horn sounded from each one.

An organ.

Each building became a pipe, making the Great Cavern resound. Bwooo. Bwooo. The organ chords blown by the Mountain Snailfolk shook the dark underground world. The distant voices of the goblins were buried beneath them.

WOOF! WOOF!

The dogs kept by the Mountain Snailfolk barked. The Mountain Snailfolk considered dogs sacred because they resembled their god. Raised in caves, the dogs had wet noses and gloomy cries. Their savage barking was crushed into the chords of dead snails.

“Grrr.”

I broke the cage.

SLASH!

My aura-reinforced forepaw sliced through the iron bars like tofu. The keepers belatedly crawled out and pointed their feelers at me, but I had already escaped and was running through the streets of the polis.

“A lion!”

“The arena lion has escaped!”

The snails climbing the wallways startled at the sight of me. Some scrambled higher to escape. I pushed off the street with my hind legs and leaped onto the enormous pillar—the very pillar carved with the history of the Mountain Snailfolk.

“Grrr!”

My forepaws dug into the pillar. Red aura surged around them. Like a mountaineer scaling a cliff, I climbed the pillar one step at a time.

“Raim!”

“L-look over there!”

The Mountain Snailfolk were horrified by my appearance. Those climbing the walls of other buildings scattered, trailing slime. Some lost their balance and slid down.

I reached the top of the pillar and looked down over the city.

BWOOOOO!

Trumpet notes still flooded the underground world. Sounds flowing from dead bodies. At their call, the Mountain Snailfolk armed themselves and assembled. Their troops were moving throughout the city. Before long, they would suppress the goblins.

'I won't let them.'

I expanded my chest. No building stood taller than the pillar I had climbed. I drew the highest air in this city into my lungs and slowly opened the lion's maw.

ROOOOOAR!

A resounding cry burst from my mouth.

Like ripples spreading across a pond, the lion's cry pushed back the Mountain Snailfolk's trumpets. As it pushed them back, it spread farther and farther. My lungs were deeper than the hollow insides of dead snails, and my voice was fiercer than their chords.

“Gor!”

At last, I caught sight of the goblins. They were gathered at the mine entrance with stone hammers in their hands.

The fact that I could see them meant that those children could now see me, too.

The goblins shouted.

“Kekereukker!”

That was my name.

Back when the language of the Earth Spiritfolk still wandered among the cries of animals, the goblins had called me Kekereukker.

“Ke” meant water. The goblins called everything transparent and pure in this world “ke.”

“Kereuk” meant sky. The goblins called everything lofty and sacred in this world “kereuk.”

“Ker” meant meat. It also meant beast.

And so my name was...

“Kekereukker!”

The pure-white beast descended from the sky.

In other words, the White Lion.

Standing tall in the heart of the underground world, I roared.

“Guru!”

Seeing me atop the pillar, the Mountain Snailfolk hesitated, while the goblins stamped their feet. The goblins formed ranks. It was the hunting formation I had taught them long ago, while hunting bison.

The goblins had preserved the time they shared with me two hundred years ago to this very day. Just as a parent's casually spoken word can leave a lifelong mark on a child.

Looking at their formation, I felt a sense of responsibility.

“Guru!”

Very well.

My youngest others.

I will take you to the homeland you long for.

“Grrr.”

I tensed my forepaws. Aura surged from my heart and flowed down through the lion's forelegs, into its paws, and into its claws.

CRAAACK!

Cracks spread from the gaps my claws had gouged. Red aura followed the spiderweb of cracks and seeped into the pillar in an instant.

Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven—Revised.

First Form.

Blazing Children’s Sword.

The enormous pillar shattered like a windowpane. The snails screamed. The carvings upon the pillar—the stone carvings that held the myths of the Mountain Snailfolk—had broken apart.

I descended, springing from fragment to falling fragment. By the time I landed on the ground, the entire pillar had collapsed. Thick clouds of dust rose around me.

'That should have thoroughly broken the Mountain Snailfolk's fighting spirit.'

The people of this age lived within myths. The collapse of the pillar was on an entirely different scale from the fall of a mere building. The pillar was the Mountain Snailfolk's history and religion. Its collapse therefore meant catastrophe.

A god had descended.

'The goblins, on the other hand, will be brimming with confidence.'

But I was not the only god walking the underground world.

An oracle I had never delivered reached me.

[The Inquisitor admires your swift stratagem.]

Then a hunting dog burst through the cloud of dust.

“Kaaah!”

Howling, it raked my flank. A surprise attack. I cried out and swung my forepaw.

WHOOSH!

But my claws swept through empty air instead of the hunting dog's head. The dog that had been right before my eyes had suddenly vanished.

'Divine Art!'

I immediately realized who the hunting dog was.

'The Inquisitor possessed an animal, too!'

The Inquisitor had instantly grasped my objective. To topple the pillar symbolizing the Mountain Snailfolk's religion. To throw them into a panic.

I had tried to seize a swift victory by staging a scene from myth. The more confused the Mountain Snailfolk became, the easier it would be for the Earth Spiritfolk to escape. In response, the Inquisitor had possessed a divine beast to oppose me.

'Where are you?'

My flank throbbed. Blood flowed from the wound the hunting dog had torn open. I kept watch in every direction, but the Inquisitor was nowhere to be seen. Clouds of dust still surrounded me, obstructing my vision.

'Where will you appear, Inquisitor!'

That was when the smell of oil reached my nose.

“Grr!”

The instant I smelled it, I rolled sideways.

THUD!

The hunting dog leaped down from the air, striking the ground where I had been a moment before. It flicked out its tongue, as if disappointed.

The hunting dog had golden fur.

Clearly, the Mountain Snailfolk priests had been tending to it regularly. Small jewels were set into its teeth. Wave patterns swirled across its closely trimmed coat.

Above all, its entire body smelled of perfumed oil, something like olive oil.

'You must have chosen a divine beast to fight back with a myth of your own.'

I let out an animal growl.

'But that was your losing move, Inquisitor. Your body reeks of perfumed oil. You caught me off guard once, but don't think a second surprise attack will work while you're giving off [that smell]!'

In this body, I could make only a lion's cries. Yet the Inquisitor seemed to understand my growl. Realizing that his tactic had become useless, he abandoned surprise attacks.

We stared at one another, advancing a step at a time.

“Krrr.”

“Grr...”

The hunting dog's and the lion's voices mingled in the dust.

I circled slowly, trying to get behind the hunting dog.

'A group battle might be another story, but you can't beat me one-on-one. Your Divine Arts have formidable power, but they're ultimately closer to support skills. Without companions to fight beside you, they're only half as effective.'

The golden hunting dog growled.

To me, it sounded like the Inquisitor's laughter.

[The Inquisitor says he is happy to fight you.]

'Happy?'

[The Inquisitor wants you to prove that you are more capable than he is.]

I did not immediately understand the message.

As though reading my expression, the hunting dog moved its forepaws more slowly.

[The Inquisitor says:]

[He acts only to achieve the best possible result.]

The cloud of dust slowly settled.

[Each person has different abilities.]

[The best a capable person can do is more right than the best an incapable person can do.]

[If you prove yourself more capable than he is, the Inquisitor is prepared to submit to you willingly.]

Beyond the settling dust, the Earth Spiritfolk and Mountain Snailfolk came into view.

The two races faced off with us between them.

[He has shown you his best over the course of 200 years.]

[The Inquisitor now asks to see your best.]

The hunting dog lunged.

I, too, unleashed a lion's roar and extended my claws.

At the same instant we collided, the citizens charged the slaves, and the slaves charged the citizens.

“Raim!”

“Kekereukker!”

Clad in leather armor, the Mountain Snailfolk swung blades with their tentacles. Without even proper clothing, the bare-bodied goblins brought down their stone hammers. In equipment, the citizens held an overwhelming advantage. But the snails were shaken by the sight of the fallen pillar, and in morale, they trailed the slaves.

“Grrr!”

My claws tore into the Inquisitor's hind leg. With a howl, the hunting dog twisted its neck and screamed. But my attack failed to deal a critical blow.

Whenever I tried to land a decisive strike, the Inquisitor deftly used a Divine Art to evade it. His Divine Arts had only become useless for surprise attacks; they were still effective for evasion.

The purpose of his tactics was clear.

'Stalling for time?'

The hunting dog growled softly. I could not understand its cries, but I could easily imagine what the Inquisitor meant.

He was saying this:

'The Mountain Snailfolk are confused for now, but they'll gradually regain their composure. More troops will converge here. All I need to do is stall, and my victory is inevitable.'

A delaying battle.

That was the Inquisitor's tactic.

“Grrr.”

Bleeding from my flank, I glared at the hunting dog. Limping on its hind leg, it met my gaze. We had both become wounded beasts.

'Not a bad tactic, but...'

I growled.

'It only works if I'm the only one you have to deal with. In this situation, it's a foolish move.'

Time was certainly not on the Inquisitor's side.

More precisely, it could not be on the Mountain Snailfolk's side.

All the years the snails had spent ruling were now turning against them, strangling them.

[A rebellion has broken out in Slimepolis!]

Something suddenly appeared in midair.

A black swan.

The black bird spread its wings and let out a long cry.

[The Bloodsucking Race has risen against the Mountain Snailfolk!]

The Black Dragon leader's divine beast had appeared through spatial teleportation.

The bats hanging from the cavern ceiling beat their wings. They swooped down on the snails heading toward the salt mine. The Mountain Snailfolk screamed and flailed their tentacles, but the Bloodsucking Race bared their teeth all the more fiercely.

'I'm the one who was stalling for time, not you, Inquisitor.'

The beasts' roars echoing through the underground world did not end there. From the wharves along the river, from the harbor piled with sacks of salt, from the western edge of the cavern to its eastern edge, roars burst forth from four directions.

[The Gillfin Folk have risen against the Mountain Snailfolk!]

[The Demonfolk have risen against the Mountain Snailfolk!]

[The fairy race has risen against the Mountain Snailfolk!]

[The Conforming Humans have risen against the Mountain Snailfolk!]

It was the sound of an empire collapsing.