All that's left is to fall

Inside the royal castle. In Everis's workshop, where a large number of junk-like objects were placed as usual.

"Huh?"

Everis, who was lying on the sofa reading a reference material, awoke when she felt something shining outside the window. At the same time, she also felt a slight surge of magic power.

"Strange... something is making a trap move? The prototype heat source sensing triggered trap, I thought I set it up so it only works if it senses two or more heat sources."

Everis nodded.

Tonight, René would attack Terra Kaine. Everis was going to do a trial run of the traps tonight, thinking that no army would suddenly attack the capital on a day like that. Most of the traps were filled with magic power and were operational.

The "Heat Source Detection / Party Splitting Trap" set up near the city wall was one such trap. Heat source detection was usually not used as a trigger for traps, since it often malfunctioned and it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe, but since most of their allies did not have body heat, they decided to try it out. To be honest, the majority of the reason was that she wanted to test out the idea.

"I hope it's a malfunction,... no, it's not good,... but no way is that an intruder? Ew... sensors and cameras should have been put in first."

It was a situation that forced her to wrap her head around.

The teleportation trap took anyone to the outer edge of the dungeon, a fortress-like structure built into the perimeter of the city walls.

The concept of that stronghold, which was still under construction, was "a single battle golem". It would intercept any attackers with automatic turrets, etc., and if any invaded to attack the royal castle ... or the fortress itself, it would take them in its belly and kill them.

For this reason, a magical defense structure had to be adopted as part of the castle walls, making it difficult to magically probe the inside from the outside. And yet, they had not yet installed any sensor devices or alarms to observe the state of intruders.

Well, if the supply of magic power was stopped, the magical defense would cease to exist, so it would be possible to see through it, but considering that there might be intruders inside, the trap would have to be operated.

Everis pulled off a piece from the stack of unfinished call marks piled up on the desk, wrote down a formula to specify the destination of communication on the spot, and activated it.

"Ah, hello? Everyone, who is waiting in the castle. This is Everis, Chief of Staff and Technical Advisor. There may be some intruders in the dungeon, so please go check out the walls of the dungeon using the human-zone warfare method. Be careful, the traps are working. Please lead the way with those who are not afraid to be destroyed."

The undead, who had retreated into the castle for the trial run of the traps, began to act.

*

Etre was inside a stone room as square as a dice.

However, the room was shaped like a dice only at first, though now it was becoming as thin as a book.

"Damn, the walls are ...!"

There was a gurgling sound like heavy gears turning, and the walls in front and behind were closing in.

It was a "press-trap room", which was often talked about but surprisingly rarely seen in real life. It was a simple but terrifying trap in which the ceiling and walls close in, eventually flattening anyone inside.

The best way to deal with this was to identify the room with such a trap and "not enter" or "not get locked in". However, since they were tossed into the trap by the teleportation, it was no longer possible.

Naturally, there was no escape route to be found. In that case, the most effective way would be to destroy the trap. If there was a trap, it meant that there was a cavity for it, and it would certainly be more fragile than an ordinary wall.

However, even when slashing at the approaching wall, only a hard response was returned. His hand went numb.

Magic... probably wouldn't work. As a holy knight, Etre was well versed in holy magic, but holy magic was not good at destruction. In the first place, this building seemed to have a magic defense technique applied to its entirety, and ordinary magic would not be able to damage it.

"Then take this ...!"

Etre took out a silver sugar cube-like object attached to his waist belt.

It flapped and unfurled itself as if it had been folded into multiple layers. It expanded to several times its original size and took on the shape of a shield.

"Additional Armor of the White Silver Giant". It was a magic item created in the past, before the world was nearly destroyed by demons, when the human race was said to have more advanced technology than today.

It was a barrier that could be attached to armor or held by hand, but Etre turned it into a stick. The armor, which was supposed to be sturdy, made a creaking sound.

Etre deployed three more armor plates in rapid succession, placing them on the floor and pinning them between the walls. Still seeing the armor plates crumple little by little, he pulled out his beloved sword and used it as a support as well.

Equipment to protect Erminio. It was a superb piece of equipment that was made with the full use of the Drolet family's financial resources. He had no choice but to bet on the sturdiness of this magic item.

The gears creaked irritably, and finally the walls stopped.

"I'm saved..."

Etre was relieved.

The room had already been compressed to about the width of an adult's shoulder.

But the relief was short-lived.

"...Uh, I can't move..."

Etre could no longer even turn around. He could barely move around the narrow room like a crab.

How could he be saved from this situation? It was pathetic, but the only thing he could think of was to wait for his allies to save him from the outside.

But this situation. What were the other four doing? He had the feeling that the other three, except for Edgar, who had been swallowed up by the magic circle together, were also being attacked by a trap somewhere.

He couldn't help but worry about Alfonso, his colleague.

Loretta herself was of no great concern, but the magic items she was being made to carry should be useful in their escape. He hoped that she would be safe.

And above all, Erminio. He bore no resemblance to his father, Lord Drolet, except for his face, and although he was a fool enough to want to ask the gods why such an idiot was born from his seed, protecting Erminio was a task entrusted to him directly by Lord Drolet. He could not fall into the hands of the undead.

Etre had no choice but to remain still while he worried, but he suddenly thought he heard a strange sound and looked down at his feet.

The floor was wavy and transparent.

Water was beginning to flow into the room, which had been flattened vertically.

"No....."

*

The silver blade approached, making engine sounds like roars.

"What's this, what's this, what's this!? Oh no, no, no!"

Tracking Loretta as she sprinted down a long, narrow passageway was a silver disc-like circular saw. The blade, with only half of its surface sticking out, was coming at Loretta as it spun and spun, crashing through walls, floors, and ceilings, sending sparks flying. The next moment she stopped, she would be dismembered into five pieces and die a horrible death.

"Something, an item that I can use...!"

Loretta frantically dug through the inventory in her brain of the items she had been given by Erminio.

Loretta's main job was to carry luggage using storage-type magic. She devoted her own magical power to Erminio's desire to carry around a large number of magic items.

However, Loretta was made to carry only "large items". "items that are not used very often", and "items that are in large quantities". Items with simple destructive power were often carried by Erminio himself or Edgar.

Therefore, storage magic was more of a hindrance in this situation.

"It's already so heavy! «Storage Box»!"

A large number of items were strewn down the passageway.

A coffin-like object, a rolled-up carpet, a metal box of unknown origin, a bag containing small items, such items were scattered about and chopped up by the rotating saw.

She was not so naive as to think this would stop it.

However, having abandoned storage magic, Loretta could now use magic freely.

She drank down a mana potion from her storage to recover the magic power that had been continuously sucked up by the storage magic.

Loretta chanted as she ran backwards.

A revolving saw loomed over her as if squeezing up the passageway.

But what Loretta saw was the other side of the gap between the saws.

"≪Short Teleport≫! "

Loretta had jumped over a swarm of spinning saws and landed on the pathway she had just run through.

“Baka. I'm not going to risk my life on a stupid bong-bong's pleasure adventure...!"

Loretta wiped her sweat as she looked away from the saw, which flew away with sparks shooting out of it.

But.

"Eh, it's a lie, no."

As if hearing that snide remark, the swarm of saws braked suddenly and began to reverse, spinning in the opposite direction and heading backward. That was, toward Loretta.

"Don't come here!"

Overcoming the pile of magic items that had been reduced to wreckage, Loretta began to run like a maniac.

Her lungs felt like they were going to burst.

A half-hearted magic attack would not work against those saws. Even if she wanted to attack physically, Loretta could only use simple earth elemental magic for physical attacks, and for that she needed earth lumps and stones.

If the building had been just a pile of stones, she could have extracted the walls and floors and used them for magic, but instead, like the city walls and castle walls, it was equipped with magical defenses by drawing on the magical power of the ground veins.

"No more! God help me! I'm going to live seriously this time!!"

Loretta ran away, screaming half-crying. Behind her, the sound of entanglement loomed. Gradually, louder.

"Miss! Get down!"

A voice called out from the front, and Loretta obeyed before she had time to judge its validity.

Her strength to continue running was at its limit, and she fell to the ground in a crouching position.

The one who appeared was the bearded Thief. Edgar.

Edgar was holding what looked like glass balls filled with liquid between his fingers, three in each hand.

Then he sharply threw them.

She heard sounds, like burning tongs being plunged into water.

She turned around to see the rotating saws, the beads that had hit them cracked open, and the liquid that had been inside was pouring out.

The silvery blades of death slowed to a crawl and then stopped moving.

Loretta breathed hard to catch her breath as she fell. She found herself drenched in sweat. Her throat was sticking and she seemed to be bleeding.

"I got it in the nick of time."

Edgar exhaled a long, thin breath, like he was letting out a fearful gasp.

"Edgar. What's this?"

"It's called 'Acrolocl Acid Liquid'. If you put it in a medicine bead and smash it, it will destroy this kind of trap more easily than you think."

"You're good. You are the best person in the party."

"Hehehe, you should spend a night with me sometime."

"Hii. I only sleep with guys with good looks. And if they have money, that would be great."

Incidentally, Loretta had already forgotten the oath she had sworn to God while on the run.

When Loretta finally got up, she looked around carefully to see if the rotary saws were really broken.

"This is it, isn't it? Those strange buildings around the city walls."

"That's right. It looks like we were teleported into it."

"So what are we going to do now?"

"What are we going to do? We have to run away..."

The two fell silent and held their breath.

The sound of someone's footsteps was approaching.

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