Preparation for the Next Step
1321 Words
"You did it, all right. Allow me to formally introduce myself. My name's Agony. It's a pleasure to be of service, Yukti."
A pale, black-haired woman appeared out of nowhere.
It's the same person I had saved before. It's Agony.
She's still n***d though.
"Oy, don't just stare at her. You're lewding her."
"That's not my fault in the first place", I said at Annie as I averted my gaze. "I don't have anything on me that'll suit her."
Annie shifted her gaze towards Agony and asked.
"I lend you some of my clothes. Where are they?"
"When I materialized into a rune card and became one of his arsenal, I accidentally abandoned those. I apologize for that. I forgot that I'm wearing it."
"I-is that so? Okay then. I don't have any spares now. All that's left in my bag are my junk food."
She never changed. Annie "loves" eating salty potato chips.
"Why are you smirking?" Annie said as she drew closer towards me.
"Oh, did I? Nah, don't worry about it."
"Don't play dumb mentor. I know you remembered how crazy am I when it comes to potato chips."
Man, she's sharp.
"What's wrong with remembering it?"
"I just said not to play dumb! Who pranked me to eat those potato chips that are way too salty than normal!"
Ah.
"Broki, is that true?"
"You're heartless."
The other two were staring at me with their fiery eyes. Please come down.
"Putting that aside—"
"Oy, don't just brush the issue here Broki!"
"But my arms are getting numb—"
"So you're saying that my dear Snow is heavy?"
"What? No. I never said that."
"You need to be educated on how to treat a woman."
"Wait! Not now, please. I swear I'll listen to the lessons but let's look for a better place to do so."
Upon hearing my words, the three flinched.
"I suppose you're right, mentor."
"Hmph, I'll have you excused this time, Broki!"
"It's a sound argument."
Whew.
Luckily, my sister got some spare clothes in her [Receptacle]. Agony wore her plain reddish dress.
Their reaction?
The two seems to be surprised. When they asked my sister of where that rune card could be sold, she just pointed at me and said.
"He made it."
"Eh?"
"I see. Mentor did have a rune card similar to that."
"The dress? He made it?" said by a Michaela with widened eyes.
"Huh? Yes."
"I didn't know you knew how to sew clothes mentor, especially those oriented to females."
"Shut up."
Finally. I could tell them what we should do for now. I put Snow down for now and made her lean on a pillar nearby. I looked at them with my serious gaze and started talking.
"To make things brief, I'm planning to use this facility for our benefit."
"What do you mean by that? You're not following their steps of desecrating the dead, right?"
"Of course not, chairperson. I won't."
"Then why?"
"There's something in this place that concerns me. Let's search this place for now—"
"Yukti."
I turned around to see Agony raising her hand. When I questioned her what's the matter...
"I happen to venture all six floors. Perhaps I could share what I saw in each floors?"
"Yes please."
Agony started telling us about the entire structure of the facility, and the contents of the floors.
According to her, within the first and second floors are just empty rooms, and there's nothing important to discuss about aside from the fact that it served as the living quarters.
As for the third floor, I am surprised to know that she came to be on that floor.
"...and that's also where I'm supposed to be disposed if it weren't for Yukti. Actually, I should've been dead if he didn't use something to heal me completely."
"You're a healer?" Michaela asked as she faced at my direction.
"You remember the time when I almost killed those fellow students? That's the same rune card I used on her. That's the last of it."
"I see. That makes sense. It's a bummer that you don't have a copy of that rune card anymore."
After that short interruption, Agony continued on.
"The third floor was fully of rotten corpses, so I'm glad that Yukti managed to endure such grosteque display of rotten flesh."
"You don't have to be so detailed though?"
"Shh, Yukti. This is my moment to tell everyone as per request. Or you don't want me to finish it?"
"Just continue already."
"Yes, yes. I know. Geez, you're impatient. This floor, the fourth floor, contained a lot of experimented bodies of the dead. After being experimented, the bodies would later be dumped to the third floor and left to rot. I had observed that a lot of bodies were brought here as soon as I gained consciousness."
If what her saying is true, then that confirmed our hypothesis. There's a rat among the higher-ups of the Bureau. I stared at Annie and she nodded. We need to initiate an investigation without them noticing.
"Moving on, the fifth and six floors are swarmed with books."
"Libraries, huh?"
"Precisely. The sixth floor is also where I got captured after gaining my current form. Unlike the first four floors, I wasn't able to stay and observe it completely."
I nodded and asked her to stop now, to which she obliged. I faced the others and stated my reason why I don't want this place to burn to cinders just yet.
"We can't just burn the fourth floor without returning to their families the remains of their loved ones. The fifth and sixth floors might have some books we could use as clues for the enemies' objectives. As for the third floor, we could no longer identify the identities of the dead since they're in a state of decay. We'll have it burned, together with the other lower floors."
"If you put it that way, it would make sense that you stopped my plan to burn this facility this instant. I'll use my [Teleport] rune card to transfer the contents to a safe place then. You said only the fourth to sixth floor are to remain, right?"
"Yes."
"Very well then."
"Before you do that, let me go outside, I'll burn the rest."
"How will you come back to your place then?"
"Leave it to me", Agony replied in my stead.
Maybe she knows something that could bring me back to our location.
"If that's the case, you better get out then."
I nodded.
She used her rune card and channeled for a brief period of time, considering that she'll include the three upper floors. As soon as she was about to activate it, I used my [Nightmare Requiem] and teleported Agony and myself outside.
The upper half of the facility is gone, and the third floor is now exposed, releasing its awful stench it contained. I tried to use the rune card I obtained when I first got to the fourth floor but then Agony stopped me.
"Is something wrong?"
"If it's fine with you, I would like to do the honors. After all, this is where I was born."
"Here."
"What are these?"
"Rune cards to start the fire."
"I don't need that."
"Huh? Why?"
"[Flame of Agony]."
As she chanted it, a tiny speck of a purple orb appeared from the tip of her finger, barely floating. She dropped it to the facility and watched the facility burned as soon as the orb touched one of those decaying heads on the floor.
I turned to look at her and saw her crying. I pat her head to console her and watched the facility burn to ashes.
I'll avenge you all. I promise.
"Let's go."
Agony nodded while covering her face with her hands, and we went to the shore, leaving behind the blazing flame.
- Writer
