Tales of the Wickedly Vicious Underground Empire Chapter 4

Tieres was pleased with his luck.
He had searched for places called underground labyrinths many times, but they all had nearly been explored to depletion and hold nothing that could be called treasure.
However, this underground labyrinth was different.
Since a while ago treasures appeared one after the other.
There were gold coins inside vases and caskets to start, there were colorful gemstones like diamonds, rubies, and sapphires, and the nooks in the pillars were decorated with metal idols that looked like works of art.
He couldn’t imagine what kind of treasures await him beyond here.

“Well well, this is not the time to be chasing after goblins, right.”
“Right, but Tieres, don’t let your guard down. We haven’t seen or fought a monster ever since we came down to this labyrinth.”
“I know I know, but for treasure a little danger can’t be helped.”

Replying with some strong words to Delitte, Tieres looked at his companions.
The 13 members of the “Swords of Faith”, including him, was packing the labyrinth’s treasure to backpacks and jute bags.

“Besides, if we slack off those b.i.t.c.hes might get their hands on the treasure.”

Some time had pa.s.sed since they went down the stairs to the labyrinth and started treasure-hunting in earnest.
This labyrinth likely has a size appropriate to its t.i.tanic entry gate, making them feel as if they were lost inside a large city.
Because they were a large group, they had been avoiding narrow pa.s.sages.
Then since they had no thieves, they avoided rooms with doors as much as possible and looked through big and small rooms along the way. There were lots of rooms with nothing in them but there were also unusually well-decorated rooms, and by examining vases, caskets, and decorations inside those rooms they usually found some kind of treasure.
There still were lots of rooms they hadn’t explored, and their only rivals were the [Iron Warmaidens] they came to the entry gate with.

“If we see them again… we’ll kill them, I guess.”

Hearing what Tieres said, Delitte made a frown.
The only thing on Delitte’s mind is to once more ask for their cooperation. They had no thieves, so their treasure gathering had become inefficient as a result.

“There’s no need for useless fights, is there? In fact, how about we worked together again and split the treasure equally? There’s so much treasure here. We won’t lose much even if we added six people.”
“What~?”

The priest Delitte can’t see his face because of the helmet, but because of the anger in his voice, he could easily imagine his leader’s face turning red with fury.
The slender Delitte looked down so as to avoid receiving his wrath. He narrowed his eyes, brown like his hair, and ignored his leader’s grumbling.

“Don’t screw with me!! Even after only working with them a little while I know I can’t possibly be working with b.i.t.c.hes like those!! I won’t forgive them for treating men like sc.u.m!!”

Afterwards, Tieres hurled insults towards the [Iron Warmaidens].
Delitte wanted to ignore him but because of the overly trivial things he was complaining about he can’t help but sigh inside.

(*sigh*, it could be dangerous to stay with an intolerant guy like him any longer. I probably should leave and find another party once we’re done with this exploration.)

Not knowing what was going on in the priest’s heart, Tieres who recovered his mood started walking happily.
Then, they heard the rattling sound of chains from beyond the pa.s.sage.

“Oi!”

Tieres raised one hand to warn his men who were in the room behind him.

Starting with Delitte, the other companions took up battle stances.

“Who goes there!? The [Iron Warmaidens]!?”

It was possibly because they didn’t encounter a monster even once until this point.
Tieres shouted, thinking it was probably the [Iron Warmaidens] he was talking about just now.

“Answer me, or we’ll treat you as enemy!”

Then as if in answer to him, a knight making a rattling sound with his chains appeared from the pa.s.sage.
He was clad in deep blue armor and helmet and wearing a light green cape. Unlike the armor Tieres and his men were wearing, his didn’t look worn out. Even the longsword hanging from his waist was well decorated no matter what one’s opinion about the taste.

“A knight? No, there can’t be a knight down here!”

After he said that, he recalled that there was a female knight with the “Iron Warmaidens”, but the armor she was wearing was rather shabby compared to the one worn by the thing before him.
Tieres’ skill [Valor] gives him a fearless fighting strength, but fear budded inside his heart.
To dispel the fear he loudly shouted.

“Stop, or we’ll treat you as enemy!!”

He identified the opponent leisurely walking towards him as a strong warrior by his [Strong Enemy Verification] skill, but as adventurers who’d been in scenes of carnage time and time again they elected to fight. They were reluctant to part with treasure, and if they could slay the enemy in front of their eyes they could get their hands on some good armor and a sword.
Using [Battlefield Command] he gave his companions the order to attack all at once but before he could give the order, the knight slid towards them at high speed as if reading his moves.

“S, stop!!”

They prepared their weapon and got ready to fight back.
Four of the [Swords of Faith] stood by Tieres in a line.
By lining up they could use the cooperative skill [Interception Lineup] that raised overall defense.
Behind them, three warriors prepared their weapons to protect the rear guard: the mages and the priests.

“——Attack, Small Lightning”
“——Attack, Acid Spear”

Two mages fired off attack magic from behind.
However, the deep blue knight didn’t show any signs of damage even after receiving the lightning attack and the acid spear.

“——Defense, Protective Shield”
“——Defense, Holy Protection”
“——Support, Body Strengthening”

Three priests including Delitte strengthened the five knights guarding the front.
Together with their own defense, they became strong enough to withstand an ogre attack unperturbed.
Then, the knight swung his sword at the warriors. The vanguard warriors put up their shields, hardening their defense to take the blow and settle the matter with a counterattack.

Then, the two warriors on the right hand side taking the blow were mowed down and died instantly.

Tieres, who was right in the middle, escaped certain death but his armor and shield was broken and he groaned, covered in blood.
Disregarding the vanguard who was looking around not understanding what happened, the knight split one of the middle guard warriors in half. Seeing him easily cut the full body armor like b.u.t.ter, they all lost their fighting spirits.

“W, waaaaaah!!”
“Monster!”
“Run! Run awaaay!!”

They let out screams and darted towards the entrance.
The deep blue knight became a gale and cut down the two middle guard warriors.
The ones remaining were the vanguards Tieres and the two warriors who were late to run, the priests, including Delitte, who were frantically trying to get away, and the two mages.

“Run away! Run if you don’t want to die!!”

Delitte raised his voice.
The next instant, the head of the priest who ran ahead was blown away with a splat.
The knight was suddenly running beside them.
His chains made a rattling sound, Delitte screamed and fell down from fear.
Incidentally, there were a few strange points.
The chains freely made rattling sounds, but he can say he couldn’t hear the clanging sound of the armor at all.
He didn’t know what the knight look like behind the blue helmet.
No, he didn’t need to know.
The knight’s real face was surely that of a disgusting monster even if he saw it.

“Uooooh!”
“AAaah!”

What stopped Delitte’s thoughts were the roars of the two warriors who were late to run.
Perhaps out of desperation, they raised their voices and attacked.
Then, they were cut down with a single stroke of the sword.

“A, aah…”

One of the priests and the two mages probably got away.
The only ones left were Tieres who was writhing in agony and Delitte who was still dumbfounded.
Delitte resolved himself to die and closed his eyes.

However, death did not come even as he waited.
Instead, he heard a low, coa.r.s.e voice.

“…… stand.”

He timidly opened his eyes and saw the monster in the shape of a knight.
It was unfortunately not a nightmare.
However, he saw a ray of hope. By having called out to him it would mean the knight didn’t intend to kill him immediately.
Slowly as to not provoke the enemy, he did as he was told and stood up.
*gulp*, he gulped.
The knight was taller than Delitte, he looked down on him and told him.

“Some goblins will be here. You will do as they command, and should you harm the goblins or try to run away, a fate worse than death shall await you.”
“I, I understand. I wont disobey, so spare my life…”

The knight didn’t reply to him and looked towards the pa.s.sage.
Immediately, he saw goblins carrying weapons and a stretcher coming close.
The goblins skillfully put the writhing Tieres on the worn out stretcher, and tied up Delitte so he couldn’t resist.
They also took the priest’s magic holy seal, taking away all his means of opposition.

“Hurry up and walk!”

The goblins jeered and kicked Delitte from behind.
They took Delitte as prisoner into the depths of the labyrinth.