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–––Bandit’s viewpoint

Our plea for help was probably what they least expected coming here, but Lapis’ group happily agreed to help. The natural reaction would have been to get mad and leave, or hurl a few insults and throw stuff around, but they didn’t complain and went to the basement willingly.

We were going to the large caverns hidden below the royal palace in Cusantos. After the Founding King built the country, Behemoth refused to leave this place and stayed down here until now. There were two reasons for that, one was to stay and make the land prosperous as a spirit, and the other and more sinister one was to immediately kill the queen if the royal family tried to evade the old promise. Spirits, including the Four Great Spirits, aren’t fundamentally evil, so even if the royal family failed to uphold their promise Behemoth would not go on a rampage killing everyone in the city, but he would definitely not pardon the Founding King’s descendant, our queen.

The only ones who know about the existence of such a dangerous entity are only Queen Titis and my hero’s party. The royal family kept the existence of a secret passage leading down here through generations. Even I was only told recently. When Behemoth threatened the queen saying the time was almost over, she got terribly worried and decided to confide the secret with me.

As hero, my first thought was to go and fight Behemoth and protect our queen, but a spirit is my worst matchup. All the members in my party are also physical fighters, and the little magic we know is focused on recovery. So fighting the most powerful earth spirit as a group of warriors was way too reckless.

The only solution I could think of was to find someone else to help us. Though if I asked someone who was only half baked it was the same as if I killed them, so I had to find someone who was at least as strong as me, if not stronger.

Luckily I had someone like that in mind, someone who I saw in action during the mock battle in Leble and was able to fend off the crazed Barbaros singlehandedly while casting multiple high level spells chantless, Lapis. I heard many stories about her, not only from spies but also from regular people, and even if half of those were made up, she was still the best option.

Back then I was really worried she would refuse to come. I was still busy with my thoughts when Lapis carelessly spoke to me.

“Fighting against Behemoth will be hard unless you have a demonic or holy sword, or know how to imbue a bit of magic into your blade. Otherwise you won’t be able to damage him at all unless he materializes. Are you sure your group will be fine?”
“Yeah. We might not be as good as y’all, but we also found out how to get magic running on our weapons. We really wanted to replicate what we watched ya do in Leble.”
“Hehh, being able to learn that from seeing it once, I can see why you were chosen as a hero.”

She sounded impressed with that. It felt nice being praised, but it wasn’t like I had no reference at all. I had been watching Luvias very carefully and that gave me a nice starting point.

“And this is a demonic sword too, so even if I run out of mana it should still have some effect on him.”

I pointed at the greatsword hanging on my back. It was the demonic sword Xanthus, feared throughout Barius. According to legend, one swing was enough to control the flow of water, and it sprouted torrents that could form lakes. There are stories of a man who used it to fully submerge an enemy fortress…but in reality it’s nothing that strong.

It was a water element weapon, and its blade is always wet, and by imbuing it with magic it can spit some water, but it’s only the same amount I would get by throwing a bucket full of water. Trying to submerge a fortress with that would take ages…so if one had enough time for that, it was definitely faster to just charge head-on and conquer it that way. Though well, as odd as its properties might be, it was still a better weapon than a regular sword.

“Our weapons are made of mithril, so no worries on our side either.”

My sisters also showed their weapons, a spear and an axe. At first they were afraid that their thin girly arms couldn’t handle heavy weapons like axes, but after meeting Lapis we all changed our opinion. Her arms were even thinner, but she had inhuman strength. Compared to what she could accomplish, swinging an axe was child’s play.

“I’m sorry you all have to do this for me…”
“Don’t worry about that. It’s not like we’re completely sure we have to fight yet. Maybe we can still negotiate somehow.”

Lapis said that in an attempt to console Queen Titis, though from what I heard it was very unlikely Behemoth would change his mind. Apparently, he had already warned her that the time was close many times, but Queen Titis barely managed to convince him to postpone the date little by little. Though the spirit had already been waiting for a hundred years, so I don’t think there’s much patience left there. If I was Behemoth, I would be really pissed hearing that, I had waited for so long, yet the little human kept acting more important than she was. That was the main reason why I was sure we would end up fighting him.

“Lapis, just in case, have ya ever fought a spirit before?”

A Lich was nothing compared to her, so maybe she had fought one of the other Four Great Spirits before. I placed my slight hopes on that question, which made her tilt her head in a cute manner.

“Mmm… Not really. I have fought lesser spirits many times, but none near the class of the Four Great Spirits. It’s not like there are many people who call those into battle after all.”
“I see. So in other words ya also have to wing it.”

As we kept descending, we quickly ran out of things to talk about. There was only a feeble light illuminating our path, so in a way it felt like we were walking down a bottomless and dark cave, which filled our minds with dread. Though that was also combined with the knowledge there was a terrible creature lurking down there.

“We’re getting closer…”

The only spirit magic user in the group, Diaria, said. Though even I who had never contacted a spirit before could feel something here. There was a powerful mass of overwhelming power nearby, an entity that held up one of the corners of reality. It took me some time to realize my body was trembling. I was afraid. Nothing had happened yet, but I was completely overtaken with fear. That was the power of one of the Four Great Spirits…Behemoth.

“We’ve arrived.”