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IBHJ Chapter 558
🕑 Added 2023-11-06 01:46:20 +0000 UTCShirou and the others convinced a sewer worker to guide them and found an abandoned factory. According to their guide, the factory was a relic from Romania's communist past - with Vâlcea's slow development, it had been left to rot.
His group entered the underground through one of the factory's old drainage pipes.
The tunnels were pitch-black, and reeked of sewage.
But Shirou and Jeanne were veterans - a little darkness and stink didn't faze them. Their expressions remained stoic.
Mash, however, seemed to be experiencing this for the first time. She grimaced at the smell, wrinkling her nose in discomfort, but still endured and followed behind him.
It was clear she was an inexperienced Master, but her courage was endearing.
The underground tunnels were a twisted maze, dark and reeking of decay - awakening an instinctual fear of the dark unknown.
A wave of black mud surged over Shirou's body, encasing him in a black armor of pure evil. He channeled mana into the black mud.
With a sudden whoosh, the armor blazed to life in a flare of light, illuminating the tunnels around him as if he were a giant bulb.
The bats sleeping at the entrance of the pipe couldn't stand such intense light and fled with screeching sounds, while the bugs and rats hidden in the rocks also disappeared due to the brightness.
"Won't this give away our presence?" Jeanne asked, squinting against the glare.
"That's exactly my intention," he replied. "I want to rattle our enemies."
Unlike looking for a needle in a haystack, if he had any inkling of where Caster was, he would notice as soon as Caster made any slight movement.
Of course, the key was Jeanne's [Revelation], which was truly a bug-level skill when it came to finding people.
However...
Shirou glanced at Mash, who was on alert beside him, his eyes flickering with a complex expression.
At this moment, Mash was no longer the harmless, glasses-wearing girl from before. She was clad in somewhat revealing, lacquered silver-gray armor, holding a huge shield and a sword at her waist.
That familiar feeling...
It was undoubtedly Galahad.
No - King Galahad's.
But he had expected this.
Feeling his eyes, she turned. "Is something wrong?"
"It's nothing, Master," he said. "Just that your outfit is rather...alluring. It's a bit distracting for a pure-hearted young man like me."
"Alluring?!" she turned scarlet.
Her fitted armor did hug her delicate curves, accentuating her bust. And with only greaves on her legs, her fair thighs were exposed.
Rather alluring indeed...
Mash felt so embarrassed she wished she could bury herself in the ground.
Jeanne hesitated, eyeing him. "Being so relaxed in this tense situation... you're quite odd, Assassin."
"Tense?" Shirou blinked, then slapped his forehead. "Right, tense! I'm actually very tense now!"
Jeanne: "..."
It didn't show at all!
Leticia whispered, "Mr. Assassin doesn't seem tense to me. I'm scared just being here."
"Well, he is that king," Jeanne said. On second thought, it made sense.
She recalled Shirou stopping Karna and Arjuna's battle, tormenting Atalanta, destroying Achilles... The bolder the hero, the greater their nerve. Rattling him seemed unlikely.
They delved deeper underground.
Periodically Shirou left clumps of black mud, injecting them with mana to illuminate their path.
He needed to conserve mana, but these small lights weren't taxing. Recharging earlier left him with surplus mana.
The twists and turns of the underground were disorienting.
He had Jeanne lead the way, making use of her [Revelation] to guide them forward.
"Tap, tap, tap..."
In the dead silence, only the footsteps of the three of them could be heard.
Suddenly - CRACK!
A strange noise sounded under Mash's feet.
She looked down and couldn't help but recoil in shock. She had stepped on a mangled, bloodied hand! Her face turned pale and she trembled uncontrollably.
When Shirou illuminated their path ahead, the gruesome sight made Jeanne gasp and cover her mouth in horror while his expression tightened.
The sewer tunnel was littered with dismembered corpses strewn about in disarray. Shattered bones, severed limbs, glistening organs, and piles of rotten, moldy flesh and viscera. The walls were smeared with thick, coagulated bloodstains.
"This is too much..." Jeanne muttered through pressed lips, anger simmering within her at the wanton cruelty exhibited here. As a lawful and good Ruler, she sought an orderly progression of the Holy Grail War with minimal harm to innocent civilians. This level of violence violated her very ideals.
Mash's complexion also turned ashen. Senpai had warned her that not all Heroic Spirits were friendly. Some saw mortals as insignificant insects to be crushed underfoot in pursuit of their goals and desires. But witnessing the aftermath in gruesome detail shook her deeply.
Shirou's face was grave and solemn as he wordlessly urged them to press onward. His emanating light pushed back the darkness, but could not fully pierce the shadows that lay ahead.
"Swish, swish, swish..."
The sound of pages turning echoed faintly.
"Splash, splash, splash..."
Something moving through the fetid water.
Picking up his pace, Shirou's eyes narrowed warily. Passing through a narrow corridor, they entered an open space engulfed in endless shadow. Even his illumination could not reach the enclosing darkness around them.
It's so dark! Mash looked around and subconsciously moved closer to him.
Jeanne gripped the flag in her hand tightly.
"Keep moving," Shirou said, though his voice sounded oddly muffled.
He frowned, pressing forward with the two women.
There was only blackness, no matter which way they turned. An impenetrable dark that even his light couldn't pierce.
"This doesn't seem like a sewer," Mash murmured.
"What do you mean, Master?"
"I have a good sense of direction and time," she explained. "We walked ten minutes straight, then turned left for twelve more. But strangely, we haven't hit any walls. It's too open...feels more like a city than sewers."
His brows rose. She was right. Too spacious.
However, Jeanne was leading the way and theoretically, she shouldn't make a mistake.
After thinking, he channeled more mana into his black armor. His glow intensified, wreathing his body in blazing luminosity that pushed back the dark.
The shadows retreated, revealing their surroundings. To his surprise, it wasn't a tunnel at all.
It was a city!
A colossal stone fortress loomed before them.
The cityscape was bizarre - buildings twisted in impossible shapes defying geometry. Jagged towers and asymmetrical structures induced vertigo.
These buildings were constructed from massive blocks of green stone so large they seemed impossible to hail from Earth, along with towering stone carvings that could cause dizziness, grand statues, and elaborate reliefs, all exuding a powerful sense of impurity.
"What is this place?" Mash murmured.
He was also very confused about their whereabouts.
They were supposed to have entered the underground tunnels, so why were they now in such an unpleasant city?
Especially those stone carvings and prayers etched into the rocks were distressing to look at.
Where were they? Some foul Reality Marble?
Brow furrowed, he pondered until Jeanne whispered, "R'lyeh?"
"Hm?" Shirou and Mash turned quizzically.
"Is something wrong?" she asked, confused.
"Ruler, do you recognize this place?" Mash asked.
She shook her head. "I don't know."
"But didn't you mention 'R'lyeh' just now?" Mash asked curiously.
"No," she shook her head, "I only felt that the structure of this city is somewhat similar to the lost city of R'lyeh that François Prelati once spoke of to me."
"R'lyeh? What city is that?"
She recalled for a moment, "François Prelati told me that it was a holy land where his lord lies in slumber. He asked Gilles and me to serve his master and aid in his coming. I refused...that may be why he later betrayed me."
"Cthulhu, huh..." He muttered with a frown.
Jeanne looked at him with surprise, asking, "You... How do you know that François Prelati's lord is called Cthulhu? Do you know about Cthulhu?"
"I have some knowledge," he nodded.
"As expected... truly impressive," she looked at him with admiration.
But internally, Shirou had doubts.
R'lyeh was from the Cthulhu Mythos - the sleeping place of the Great Old One. While it's true that the Cthulhu Mythos has a place within the TYPE-MOON universe, the idea that the Noble Phantasm of Caster could transport them to R'lyeh seemed far-fetched.
Moreover, if Caster could summon outer gods with his Noble Phantasm, why wait until now? He could've done so earlier.
So, how should this materialized R'lyeh be explained?
Could it truly be a Reality Marble?
Shirou's thoughts were interrupted by a sudden rustling within the towering sculptures ahead.
He and the others swiftly moved forward to investigate.
Comments
JeanMartin Freites
Hopefully this gets answered soon.
