Chapter 17. Surrounded in the Darkness

We had encountered more Dark Beasts and monsters like that, but no other groups of people. Bo’guth had lost some of that joyful attitude that he had carried from the start and had been seriously looking ahead at every nook and cranny we passed by, throwing fire and other spells to illuminate the path as he looked around for anyone while calling out to them.

“Could it just be that this is just an unexplored path that we’re taking?” I asked, since the anxiousness of the demon was starting to get to me as well.

“It could be but…” he trailed off, taking out his large phone again. “These paths had been recorded before, so we should’ve met someone by now.”

I glanced at the side to Bo’guth’s phone, trying to have a better look at what the glowing painting was showing, but I couldn’t really tell exactly what he was looking at.

“Can’t you use that thing to know where they are? I’ve seen people talk with others with it,” I asked, remembering how Salrak communicated with me with one of those.

Bo’guth shook his head. “The Labyrinth doesn’t allow it, and even if it did, we’re so deep inside the mountain that the signal wouldn’t cross. I can only know where we are because the maps have been designed to guess where we’re standing, but nothing else.”

“Hm…” I trailed off while humming. I realized that what he was looking at was indeed a map from that answer.

The cave paths had gotten larger the deeper we went, and according to Bo’guth, we should be reaching a large hall-like zone soon, although he said that some time ago already. I threw another light spell deeper into the cave and noticed something unusual about it. There were large claw marks on the sides of the wall.

“Look there,” I said, rushing ahead to have a better look. “It seems like someone was fighting here.”

“And it seems like they didn’t fare well,” Bo’guth said while pointing at the floor a short distance away, where a few blood marks were left on the floor.

I frowned and made my way to them. After having a closer look at them, I noticed that some of the marks were old, while others were fairly recent. I looked around to see if there was something else to note, but the only thing that stood out—or rather didn’t—was that there was no corpse, either from the victims or the attacker.

“Maybe they’re still alive,” I said, making my way deeper down the cave, and in the same direction that the blood trail was going.

Bo’guth quietly followed after me, but I could feel the urgency in his steps that crept on him the more he went. After a few of those steps, I noticed that the blood trail became lighter, with less blood on the way. Which could either mean that whoever—or whatever—had been bleeding, had healed or… had already lost far too much blood.

Soon after, I heard the sound of fighting. “There’s something fighting nearby. Let's hurry!”

Bo’guth started rushing ahead. We had reached the large hall-like opening that he had mentioned. It was even larger than I had expected, with the ceiling being so high up that in this darkness I couldn’t tell where it was, just as the walls of this place. The only reason I could tell there was something, was because some distance away I could see a group of people currently fighting with the Dark Beasts that were assaulting them from all sides.

The group of people was small. From where I was standing, I could only count four people, three of them in a circle protecting another one in the middle who kept casting spells with a spear in his hands. I could tell from here and from the way he was holding the spear, that he was the wounded one, as he wasn’t moving his right arm. The others weren’t any better, as the wounds were starting to accumulate the more they tried to fight off all the Dark Beasts.

“Ya-hah!” Bo’guth shouted with a strange voice, launching his hammer with as much strength as he could at the large group of Dark Beasts.

It exploded similarly to how it usually would, and he recalled it as always before he started sprinting right to the group of people. The group was surprised by the sudden explosion, turning to see what had happened, only to have their expressions turn to panic when they saw the large demon covered in a black armor rushing their way.

Bo’guth didn’t notice the effect of his charging form as he used both the large shield and the hammer to make a path. While doing so, he half-turned his face to look at me.

“Come on, Hero! We have to help them!” he shouted as he slammed his hammer on top of a small Dark Beast.

I didn’t wait too long to act either, as I started rushing right after him, slashing with the greatsword at any and all kinds of Dark Beasts that approached.

“Wait, I think that that’s Director Azid!” the one with the spear shouted after a moment.

“Bobby huh, and it seems like he’s not alone either,” a young woman followed up, only to quickly be forced to raise her metal shield to stop a dark claw from slashing her.

“Now’s not the time to get ourselves distracted! Come on!” said an older man who carried a similar greatsword to the one I had, cutting in half the beast that attacked the young woman.

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He paid heed his own words and quickly turned to do a horizontal swipe, cutting in half another trio of Dark Beasts that lunged at him from the darkness. The last one of the group didn’t say anything as the young man also blocked with a shield and cut with the sword when the opening presented itself.

Bo’guth didn’t waste time and pressed on even harder by slamming the hammer down, creating a wave of fire that spread forward and into the large group of humanoid Dark Beasts that kept trying to overwhelm the small group.

I wasn’t going to be outmatched by the demon, so I also started combining my swings with magic. In my case, I wasn’t too keen on using fire, since it was too similar to the demonic powers of both Bo’guth and Salrak, so I chose to throw condensed waves of pure mana that cut everything in their path with a blue light.

It would be better to use Holy Power, but I didn’t have it, and trying to reproduce it with mana alone like powerful Holy Knights did would leave me spent in one swing, so I went with doing what would likely help me last the longest with this horde of Dark Beasts.

I would look from time to time at both the group of people and the savagely moving Bo’guth to ensure that everything was fine, and was glad to see that the spirit of the group of people was being bolstered by our presence.

“Come on, we have to hold until the Director gets here!” shouted the one with the spear, launching a lighting strike from his spear that exploded a handful of Dark Beasts.

There was a strange feeling in my chest from hearing that, since so far, and for many years, people would always cry that out when they saw me come, and not for a demon. Regardless, this was a life or death situation, and I couldn’t just stand there worrying about my feelings, so I put that aside and continued wildly swinging in almost every direction while making my way forward right behind Bo’guth. I felt as if this group of Dark Beasts wasn’t getting smaller at all, but at least there was a path being created as we kept pushing deeper and deeper.

After what felt like a long time, we were finally almost at the side of the group of people, in the middle of this Dark Beast horde. With one large swing, Bo’guth batted away the few shadows that were standing in the path. He took a heavy step in between the woman with the shield and the old man with the greatsword and I followed right after, standing between them and creating a larger circle with Bo’guth and the spear wielding mage in the middle.

“What happened here? How did you get yourselves into this mess?” Bo’guth asked, throwing his hammer again into the horde, while me and the others kept cutting down the never ending stream of Dark Beasts.

The man heaved a couple of times before throwing another lighting strike into the horde. “W-we—when we got here, it was an empty room, and”—he suddenly crouched when Bo’guth recalled the hammer—“there was another group of people here, but there was a roar from somewhere deeper and we were all surrounded like this.”

“How long ago—”

Bo’guth was interrupted as a Dark Beast suddenly jumped up from the horde, straight at his demonic face. He wasn’t startled, as he simply grabbed the beast with his hand, crushing it against the floor.

“Argh! These things won’t let us talk!” he complained, throwing his hammer yet again into the horde.

I also realized that we couldn’t just stay here and fight forever, which meant that we needed some room to breathe and think about what to do. Fighting our way back would be a good option, but I’m not sure this group could both move and fight, so I decided to give them an opening as I clutched my left hand, condensing as much mana as I could into it, before pushing my hand forward, creating a Mana Barrier big enough to fit even the large Bo’guth into it while keeping all the Dark Beasts away.

“I won’t be able to hold it for too long, so take a breather before we fight our way back out of here,” I said, glaring fiercely at the Dark Beasts that were clawing and throwing themselves into the large Mana Barrier.

Bo’guth chuckled and the other people were momentarily stunned before sighing in relief before taking a couple of bottles from their belts. They only had a couple, so the one with the spear drank half of it before passing the rest to the woman, while the old man did the same with the other shield bearer.

“What is that?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Huh?” the other young man with the shield exclaimed. “What do you mean? These are Mana Energizers. Didn’t you guys come with those?”

I had heard of alchemic products that were supposed to replenish people’s mana, but they were extremely rare in my world, so usually people would just recover by eating and resting.

“I didn’t think we would need them when we came in here,” Bo’guth said, smirking in my direction. “But that doesn’t matter—we have to get you out of here.”

“Hold on, with you guys here, we might just be able to go deeper than anyone else and—”

“I’m sorry, son,” the old man with the greatsword interrupted the spear mage. “We’ve already lost enough, and we’re clearly not prepared to lose more. I agree with Director Azid that we should go back.”

“But—”

“Do you want to get the Director killed too?!” shouted the woman.

“Think of the things that we’ll find if we go deeper! We should try to go further,” the other young man with a shield said before turning to look up at Bo’guth. “Will you join us, Bobby?”

There was a moment of silence, and I noticed that the Dark Beasts were piling themselves up on the Mana Barrier. “We don’t have much time left.”

“It is difficult to deny such an earnest request but… your safety comes first, so I must take you back,” Bo’guth said, his voice somewhat strained in the decision.

The young man with the shield didn’t seem to want to give up, however, as he turned to look at me. “What about you? You seem to be powerful enough, if we go deeper you can get a great deal of rewards!”

I shook my head, and found myself conflicted at the fact that I was agreeing with a demon, since he said almost the exact same thing I was thinking. “None of you are fit to go deeper. Once the Barrier comes down, we go back.” I looked at Bo’guth. “You’ll take the front and I’ll keep everything back.”

Bo’guth smiled, and the other couple of young men tightened their lips in disappointment, while the rest seemed relieved at my answer. I looked up at the barrier which by now was nothing more than Darkness and red eyes, clawing and piling more and more at it. I wouldn’t be able to hold on to it much longer without losing the strength to fight more once it came down, so I had to let it down now.

“Get ready, it’s coming down,” I warned, and the Barrier started to disappear, allowing a few of the Dark Beasts to start falling into the group.

Bo’guth wasted no time, and with a wild swing of his hammer, the few that were mid-air exploded in a mist of darkness. The other people of the group picked up their weapons and readied themselves. Soon after, the Mana Barrier completely fell down, and the Dark Beasts once again started rushing into us.