novelraw Chapter 116
Chapter 116
Chapter 116
Darkness.
It was one of the rulers of the old world, arriving from an unfathomable beyond.
Even though its glory dates back to the distant ancient past, its immense power still captivates mankind.
The reunion between modern humanity and Darkness occurred within a century.
After the end of World War I, in the United States, a young archaeologist named Aurelio Ortega unearthed a mysterious rock during a dig in Massachusetts.
Its properties were so alien that it quickly came to be called a "meteorite."
The meteorite was about 2 meters in diameter and 1 meter tall.
Its surface was smooth and metallic, dyed in such pitch black that it seemed to absorb even light.
It reacted violently to electromagnetic fields.
When poked with a finger, it had a faint elasticity to it.
The scholars unanimously agreed, "We should collect a sample," and attempted to chip off a piece of the elastic meteorite using chisels and hammers.
Aurelio, still a greenhorn, wasn't too enthusiastic about it.
He had no basis for it, but he felt that doing so would lead to something irreparable.
A black meteorite with a metallic sheen and elasticity.
The esteemed scholars, thrilled by the unknown material, took the sample back with them.
The remaining workers continued to dig around the meteorite with shovels, aiming to expose its full shape. It was to be transported to the university, but unfortunately, a storm was approaching that night.
The operation was suspended, and the workers temporarily withdrew.
The next day, the meteorite had vanished without a trace.
No one claimed to have moved it, and there was no evidence it had been taken.
Even five grown men couldn't budge it, so it was impossible for someone to have carried it off easily.
Someone had seen it the previous night.
In the pouring rain, they saw the meteorite burning fiercely, evaporating the raindrops.
At first, none of the scholars believed it.
They suspected the workers had taken it to sell and hidden it somewhere.
A few days later, six scholars were found dead, their faces peeled off in a bizarre incident.
Only Aurelio knew that the victims were the ones who had chipped the sample from the meteorite.
Aurelio was gripped by an unfathomable dread.
Ever since he first discovered the meteorite, that dread had visited him night after night.
When darkness fell, when the shadows deepened, he could feel it drawing near.
And then, one night, the shadow came to Aurelio.
The young archaeologist was convinced.
It had limbs, a long tail, and a reptilian form.
It had no eyes, and not a single hair grew on its glossy head.
Its mouth, filled with sharp fangs and dripping with slime, bared its savage nature.
Aurelio found the creature beautiful.
The six flayed human skins hanging from its waist were blasphemous, but they embodied a perverse sense of justice.
What Aurelio encountered was the first Dark Apostle.
From that moment on, the power of Darkness steadily matured in the shadows.
Time passed, and the era was inherited by Aurelio's grandchild.
Olivia Ortega took pride in her grandfather, one of the great prophets.
Her father had been martyred for the cause, but she believed she could see it through.
Carrying on her grandfather's will, Olivia proceeded with her preparations, even while being monitored by the Foundation as a member of a high-risk group.
She lacked talent as an explorer, but that didn't mean she lacked resistance to dungeons or superhuman strength.
Among high-risk groups, there were quite a few who possessed technologies and anomalous substances unknown even to the Dungeon Foundation.
The organization built by the great prophet Aurelio Ortega also had its own means of acquiring experience items, allowing talentless humans to absorb experience and gain abilities rivaling that of explorers.
Olivia, the granddaughter of the revered master and a pious believer, was highly anticipated within the organization and was granted the right to become the strongest warrior.
When she learned that in Japan, a group related to "silver," a veritable nemesis, was active and attempting to summon a dungeon, she and her comrades took action, seeking opportunity from within.
Hijack the resources, eliminate the silver agents who are enemies of Darkness, and carry out the ritual.
That was the plan.
Olivia and her group reached the silver dungeon and moved their plan into the execution phase—then they realized it.
The followers of Darkness had been active long before they ever imagined and had already seized the opportunity.
All that remained was to turn the hands of the clock.
————
Olivia gently stroked her sun-kissed slender arm.
The markings burned into her skin wriggled, birthing a black mist from which a black long gun emerged.
It was one of two weapons bestowed upon her by the King of Silver Hunting (Holgrappia).
The ritual gun developed by the organization had now touched true Darkness.
It had transformed, been enhanced, and gained performance that far exceeded the realm of human weaponry.
Olivia used magic bullets.
The organic ammunition forged from Apostle flesh contained the power of Darkness.
These deadly bullets had already gunned down dozens of explorers and would pile up corpses again today.
With a single shot, she pierced the chest of an incoming silver follower and left them on the brink of death.
Olivia wore a look of rapture.
She felt the presence of an entity more powerful than ever before.
When she leveled up using experience and, under the organization's orders, killed her first explorer, Olivia had felt an indescribable thrill.
Explorers... the chosen guardians of the Ark among humanity. They suppress monsters trying to emerge from dungeons with their divinely granted powers, shatter their enemies, turn battlefields into playgrounds, and return to bask in the envy of the ordinary.
Crushing one of them with her own hands made Olivia's blood boil with exhilaration.
But this time was different.
She felt a power on a whole other level from what she had gained through leveling up.
(Now it's clear. Darkness is far more powerful than that fake who pretends to be King aboard the Ark. I could wipe out the Dungeon Foundation's forces all on my own right now.)
"Dance for me, explorer."
Olivia aimed her gun at the explorer and pulled the trigger without mercy.
The deadly bullet tore a hole in the Dark Mist and flew straight through its center.
Within the black thick mist, the explorer didn't react at all.
As far as Olivia was concerned, wearing sunglasses in a place with such poor visibility already said all there was to say about this person's ability.
So, she wasn't surprised by the lack of reaction—and not disappointed, either.
She had asked to be excited, but truthfully, she hadn't expected much.
The deadly bullet closed in on the young man in sunglasses.
Spinning furiously, the bullet would enter through his snout, shatter his nose, tear through flesh and skin, and splatter his brain matter.
That expectation was betrayed in the very next instant.
The young man caught the bullet.
Casually, as if crushing a gnat. Splat.
For a moment, time stopped.
"Huh?"
Olivia had no idea what had just happened.
The plain-faced, vacant explorer had caught a magic bullet fired at point-blank range.
She tried to understand—but stopped herself.
If she accepted it as fact, she feared a terrifying collapse would begin.
Everything she had built up until now would fall apart.
She had been chosen. She had been gifted.
Defeat was not an option.
The young man flicked the bullet he had caught toward Olivia's feet.
Clink—it bounced off the floor of the ruins with a cool ring.
Olivia leapt backward to drown out that sound and pulled the trigger again.
As the black bullets were unleashed, they melted into the darkness.
The next moment, a deadly bullet pierced the young man's temple.
His body flew as if blasted by a cannon, crashing violently into the wall at the end of the ceremonial hall's grand corridor.
A massive network of cracks radiated through the wall, and part of the ceiling collapsed with a rumble.
That's not the level of destruction a single bullet should be capable of.
"A two-point teleportation via Dark Mist. A mystical power so strong you can't even imagine it. And the bullet flies exactly where I will it. The more MP I pour into a dark bullet, the more mass it gains—and the faster it becomes. That last shot weighed about 70 kilograms, I'd say."
Olivia trembled with laughter.
She had nearly lost confidence due to that brief moment of resistance, but in the end, she still believed—there was no way she could lose.
"One Knight of the God-Eater—Systeri Noteria—received the fingers of the King of Silver Hunting... My Darkness transcends time; there's no way I could fall behind to some mere explorer——"
"Hey there! Finger Man here from the Finger Man Channel!"
An insolent voice.
Madness that pierced the silence.
Olivia jolted and turned her gaze.
That voice came from within the rubble.
A mishearing? Normally, one would think so.
But the sight of the young man slowly rising from under the debris left no room for such assumptions.
The young man muttered "Daily Mission" and stared off in a completely unrelated direction.
Olivia couldn't see what he was looking at.
"I see... So just the intro greeting is enough for it to count..."
The young man nodded in understanding, clenching his fist tightly. A victory pose.
When Daily Missions were too harsh, this young man—who had long focused on "how to optimize efficiency" and as a result ended up shouting "Calibur!" repeatedly—apparently had found another loophole.
From an outsider's perspective, he suddenly burst into cheerful antics, then swiftly returned to a deadpan expression—making for an undeniably horrifying experience.
"I'm sure I landed that shot clean into your temple."
"You're not the one who's been sneaking around and hunting the silver machine soldiers in their sleep. That spear's way too big for your build."
"No answer, huh? Fine then. I'll just keep shooting until you die."
(A surprisingly quick-reacting explorer. He must've activated some defense-type skill to avoid a fatal blow.)
Olivia still had many weapons at her disposal.
Taking a positive outlook, she decided to test the power she had received.
Bullets were fired a third time.
As they melted into the black mist, they came at the young man from his blind spot.
He shook his head to dodge.
In response, the bullets melted again and struck his cheek and chest.
The ground beneath the young man's feet caved in.
But he didn't fly backward.
It seemed he had braced himself by planting his feet.
The bullet was crushed and stopped at his chest.
"——O dark flames."
The young man's body, engulfed in black, was burned to an even deeper degree.
A power of the Abyss that rejected all other mysteries.
Even the armor of the silver machine soldiers couldn't stand against its disregard for defense.
If used on an explorer, it would burn away the mystery of the Ark within them, reducing them to ordinary, defenseless people.
"Dance in the darkness."
Magic bullets were fired at the young man burning in the flames.
A certain-death shot imbued with half of Olivia's MP.
It tore through the air and pierced the young man's head as he burned in the darkness.
With a loud pop, the young man's head burst open.
As if he'd taken a clean uppercut.
That reaction should have been impossible.
"......Huh?" Olivia muttered in shock.
Where in this world was there a human who wouldn't be obliterated by a bullet with several times the initial velocity and mass of a tank shell—and hundreds of times the destructive power?
Even if one broadened the candidates to include explorers, there shouldn't be any.
At least, that was Olivia's understanding.
The young man straightened his arched back.
Though he was burning in dark flames, he didn't seem particularly bothered by the pain.
"This is bad... a new door is opening..." he muttered, saying something incomprehensible.
The young man traced the wound on his forehead with a finger.
Confirming the slight bleeding with the blood on his finger, he said "I see," and swiftly turned his face toward Olivia.
He's coming!
Thinking that, she tried to pull the trigger on her long gun.
"——Let's put this away now (squelch)."
The young man wore a devilish grin, serenity laced with madness.
Countless white hands shot out from behind Olivia.
They rapidly restrained her limbs, grabbed her neck, face, and hair with force, and tried to drag her somewhere.
"Don't underestimate me, explorer!"
Olivia shook off the white arms and escaped the restraint.
"Guess capture's impossible after all... What a shame. I wanted to be nice to women."
(What, what, what the hell is with this guy?! What kind of logic is he operating on?!)
"Enough. I'll just blow you and Central away together."
Olivia transformed her black long gun into mist, thereby unveiling her Noble Arm.
It was the black spear she had received from the Knight of the God-Eater—Systeri Noteria.
A relic of ancient mystery said to cost ten years of one's life when used by a mortal. Olivia drew the god-slaying spear and hurled it with a radiant smile.
"——Grace of the Silver Hunting. Perish in the dark, explorer."
"——Excalibur."
Snap.
A sharp, dry, beautiful sound.
Light overflowed. Flames that sought to plunge the world into chaos.
A sound that tore the eardrums.
All destructive energy was guided by the young man's fingertips, projecting the will of a conductor into the world like a symphony performed by an orchestra.
The black spear, like black lightning, evaporated as it approached the young man.
What the young man had guided this time took on the true form of a piercing strike.
A holy spear of light and flame.
Before that overwhelming violent justice that sought to consume everything, no shadowy figure lurking in the night and chanting in darkness could stand a chance.
"That kind of ridiculous power... is impossible..."
Olivia was swallowed by the light of despair.