It wasn't until the cool night wind touched her skin that the pain — that sensation of her very soul being roasted and seared — finally drained out of Nanase Tsubasa's senses.
"Haah… hahh…"
Her legs gave out, and she nearly went down onto the forest floor, thick with dead leaves.
Beside her, Yotsuya Miko and Ryūji Kanzaki looked no better.
Even so, they'd held together well.
After all, that had been a genuine, honest-to-god hell.
Twisted jungles of flesh. Pillars of wailing souls. An abyss of horror beyond anything human imagination could sketch.
Honestly, Nanase Tsubasa had never expected them to come out of it alive.
And the reason they had? Because they'd fought back in that hopeless place without holding a thing in reserve — enough that the Hell Lord took an "interest" in them and decided to cage them separately for deeper, more intimate torture…
It was precisely during that brief pause, while he savored the whim and before the chains of hell had bound them completely, that the Black Sphere system's ruling barely managed to take effect and dragged them bodily out of that godforsaken place.
"We survived…" Ryūji Kanzaki wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his voice a rasp. "The bonus life and the thirty S Points from the Black Sphere have already been credited."
"But now isn't the time to relax."
Nanase Tsubasa straightened fast, pulled in a deep breath, and swept her eyes over their surroundings.
Towering trees blotted out the moonlight. The place was grim and silent, nothing at all like a modern city.
Putting together what Ayase Natsu had said earlier with the voice of Hiyori Shiina that came right after, they worked out quickly enough that they'd landed inside the upper-year exam ground.
Though if they were being strict about it, that wasn't entirely bad news.
Once the revival match settled up, the points from killing monsters plus the Black Sphere's gift came to no small sum.
And now that they were out of the revival match and no longer had a resurrection safety net, tracking down the nearest Mysterious Merchant and converting points into immediate fighting strength was without question the best play available.
S Points you never spend might as well not exist!
But!
According to Hiyori Shiina's warning, their landing spot was on the outer edge of this exam's target stronghold!?
It was only because it was night, and because they'd escaped the range where the Hell Lord's power suppressed them, that the vampire bloodline they'd used earlier was fully unleashed again.
With the monstrous regeneration a vampire's body granted, the fatal wounds on them knitted shut at speed.
Otherwise, with the injuries they'd been carrying, even wanting to run… the fact that they hadn't blacked out on the spot already spoke of a will like forged steel.
"We can't stay here long."
One exchanged glance was all it took to decide.
Following the direction Hiyori Shiina indicated, they began slipping away without a sound.
The trouble was that Hiyori Shiina, for all that she held an absolute god's-eye view, could only fix her attention on the intel from one stretch of terrain at a time.
So neither Nanase Tsubasa nor Hiyori Shiina noticed right away…
The instant they dropped into this forest, the super-tier detection barrier Nazarick had laid around its perimeter had already caught their life signs.
The Great Tomb of Nazarick.
By rights, given how cautious Ainz Ooal Gown was, the moment he sensed intruders in the barrier he would either have annihilated them on reflex or hauled them back to have their memories read.
Fortunately, Demiurge had the longer strategic view.
Going by their panicked faces, and cross-referencing the memories pulled from Tokinari Tsukishiro's mind, he concluded that Nanatsura Tsubasa and her group had come back from the so-called extra instance.
Which meant they were either absurdly strong, or utter garbage…
And almost certainly ignorant of the changes among this batch of examinees, and of the items in the Mysterious Merchant's hands.
In that case, better to cast a long line for a big fish: let them walk, follow the vine to the melon, and find where these testers' true stronghold lay.
Ainz Ooal Gown thought it over and had to agree.
Demiurge really was worthy of being the strategist Ulbert had created. The man was his Han Xin, his Bai Qi, his Zhou Yafu!
So Ainz dispatched the pair with the highest agility of all: the Sixth Floor Guardians, the twins Aura and Mare, each carrying a World Item — the Scenes of Nature and Civilization and Avarice and Generosity respectively — to carry out the tailing mission.
He handed down an ironclad order along with it:
Observe from a distance, nothing more. Safety comes first. The moment you meet a danger you can't resist, withdraw at once.
True, an NPC of the Great Tomb could be brought back with gold in the guild hall even after dying.
But ever since Shalltear Bloodfallen had been mind-controlled by an unknown World Item, Ainz's wariness had peaked, and he refused to allow his guardians so much as another scratch.
Even after handing them World Items, he still felt caution was the wiser road.
So long as nothing went wrong now.
Mm. It should be fine…
Out on the wasteland, on the way to Shalltear Bloodfallen's location.
Miyabi Nagumo bounded forward at speed while listening to Hiyori Shiina's briefing on the survival of Nanase Tsubasa and the others.
"So they won the revival match… heh. Hard little things to kill."
Nagumo narrowed his eyes, considered it a moment, then said coldly:
"Shiina, point them down some out-of-the-way route. Have them find a corner and lie low for now."
"Strictly speaking, them actually joining up with us wouldn't be a good thing…"
After all, they were on their way to Shalltear. There was no guarantee Ainz Ooal Gown hadn't left some tracking item on her and wouldn't come crashing in out of nowhere.
Dragging a pack of freshly revived people who hadn't even had time to trade for Combat Suits into that? What use would they be besides cannon fodder?
Hiyori Shiina had no objection, and soon passed the message along to Chris.
Chris took the news without much reaction. He simply stopped walking and swiped open the three-dimensional holographic map on the Controller at his wrist.
Two flicks of his fingers, and the view stretched and focused.
About two kilometers behind the faint green dots marking Nanase Tsubasa's trio, two enormous red points of light burst into Chris's field of view.
"Oh?"
Chris raised an eyebrow and tapped one of the red dots for details.
Ding.
[Target: Aura Bella Fiora]
[Value: 64 points]
[Traits: Level 100 Dark Elf. Sixth Floor Guardian of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, possessing Ranger and Beast Tamer class abilities. Can command several hundred high-level magical beasts in group combat; ranks first in agility among the Floor Guardians.]
[Currently holds the World Item "Scenes of Nature and Civilization." Forcibly seals an opponent into one of a hundred random alternate dimensions, with an extremely wide area of coverage.]
[Note: If the opponent finds one of forty random escape methods and gets out, the space dissolves and ownership of the item is forcibly transferred to that opponent!]
[Target: Mare Bello Fiore]
[Value: 68 points]
[Traits: Level 100 Dark Elf. Aura's twin brother, likewise a Sixth Floor Guardian. Withdrawn and timid by nature, yet cold and decisive when he strikes. The strongest caster among the Floor Guardians (Gargantua excepted); his area-of-effect destructive power is second only to Shalltear Bloodfallen's.]
[Wields the divine artifact "Shadow of Yggdrasil" and the World Item "Avarice and Generosity." The former amplifies nature magic; the latter forcibly stores experience points with the left hand and draws them back out with the right to pay the experience cost of spells.]
"Sixty-something points… that valuation is a cut above Shalltear's," Hayasaka Ai murmured, pressing her lips together as she leaned in to look. "Looks like it's because they're carrying 'World Items,' doesn't it?"
Kei Karuizawa tilted her head up at Chris. "Chris-kun… are we going to go save them?"
"Without a doubt." Chris pulled his gaze back from the screen. "Of course we are."
"They clawed their way through the revival match to get back here. Before, there was nothing we could do — but we can hardly pretend not to see them now."
"And the timing works. I haven't recouped my costs yet, and these two happen to cover it nicely."
He kept walking, then spoke again as if something had just struck him. "Hiyori, contact them first and tell them to hold as they are. Don't spook the snake."
"We can't teleport, after all. It'll take us a while to get there."
Hiyori Shiina gave a soft "Mm."
"I remember Yotsuya and the others have a Y-GUN."
"They can't read enemy data with it directly…"
"But they haven't tried to double back, so they must still be on their guard. I'll watch how it goes and adapt."
…
And it went exactly as the girl guessed.
In fact, the moment she left them, Nanatsura Tsubasa and the others had already picked up two enemies on the Y-GUN's radar screen, hanging behind them at a steady distance — neither closing in nor falling away.
The Y-GUN had no illustrated-guide function for reading an enemy's exact numbers.
But those dots burned far brighter and redder than ordinary enemies, and the group had just left the area not far outside Nazarick…
Guessing who was back there wasn't hard. The only real question was where their strength stood.
Having just come through the Hell Lord's brand of terror, though, they understood perfectly: when the gap in power was absolute, gambling their lives now would only throw away the second chance they'd just been handed.
So.
They kept their silence and kept threading through the trees.
As long as the other side didn't come offering itself up, they'd act like they'd never noticed a thing.
And on a ridge several kilometers away, Aura and Mare took in every move the trio made through magical detection.
"Sis… do you think they've spotted us?" Mare gripped his staff tight, biting his lip, uneasy.
Aura crouched on a treetop, chin propped on one hand, noncommittal. "Let's keep watching. If there's a trap up ahead, or anything starts smelling wrong, we use the teleport scrolls and go straight back."
"Still… these ones really do look scared of us."
Aura rubbed her nose, eyeing the Y-GUN in Yotsuya Miko's hand with open envy.
"Ugh… if it weren't for Lord Ainz's orders, I'd love to just drop down there and snatch that thing off them so I could study it."
"I'll bet that item is how they found us. Want to bet on it, Mare?"
Mare nodded faintly, his voice thin as a mosquito's whine. "I-it did look that way. After that voice that came out of nowhere disappeared, they checked that item, and that's when they suddenly changed their route."
"B-but, Sis… I-I think I'll set up a defensive formation first. It'd be bad if their allies ambushed us from hiding…"
With that, Mare lifted the divine artifact [Shadow of Yggdrasil] and began layering high-tier resistance shields and physical defense barriers around them both.
Aura didn't stop him. She only tipped her head back, watching the moon behind the clouds, and mused with odd wistfulness:
"Hope it helps. Though Lord Ainz did say that if we ever hit something so dangerous even magic can't defend against it, in the end all we can do is use the [Scenes of Nature and Civilization]…"
She never finished.
Aura, blessed with the terrifying instincts of a top-class beast tamer, felt dread surge up out of nowhere.
"Mare! Get clear—!"
The shout tore out of her on reflex, her body already blasting sideways.
But it was far too late.
In the sky above there was no ripple of magic, no dazzling display. Only an invisible, colorless gravity, heavy as a falling star, crashing straight down.
It ignored the dozens of layers of high-tier magical shields stacked over Mare as if they weren't there.
Splat—!!!
He never got so much as an instant-cast spell off. Right before Aura's eyes, her own twin brother was crushed into a puddle of crimson pulp and blood.
"M-Mare!!!"
Aura's mind all but shut down.
But survival instinct moved her anyway. She blurred into an afterimage, hurling herself backward to tear open distance.
"Impossible! How is that possible?!"
Aura was genuinely terrified now.
'My detection was up the entire time! Why… why didn't I sense even a trace of a magical fluctuation?!'
She jerked her head up, ready to unfurl the [Scenes of Nature and Civilization] as cover and force a teleport scroll to carry her back to the Great Tomb.
But in the instant she raised her hand—
The space ahead of her split like a painted scroll sliced by a blade, opening into a deep blue rift.
And then came a cross-shaped slash that cut even the night sky in two.
Everywhere it passed, the space fractured into visible seams and slipped out of alignment.
'That's… Lord Takemikazuchi's ultimate technique, [World Severance]?!'
Aura's mind went white.
'And… no. This isn't just some skill with a similar name!'
'This is a spatial slash that truly cuts the world open and breaks its laws!'
'Could the enemy be… on the same level as the Supreme Beings?!'
There was no escaping.
The moment she understood that, the horror drained from Aura's eyes, replaced by something manic — by her loyalty to Ainz Ooal Gown.
If flight was nothing but a fantasy before a "Supreme Being" with command over space itself… then so be it.
For Lord Ainz!!!
Aura abandoned the idea of running and unfurled an ancient scroll before her chest.
"Activate! Scenes of Nature and Civilization!"
At her roar, the World Item erupted with blinding light, swallowing every scrap of space for ten li in every direction.
And Aura herself, having given up on dodging, was cleanly cut in two.
She felt no regret.
The way she saw it, this trade was pure profit.
She and Mare were dead, yes — but she had successfully sealed away this terrifying enemy with Supreme-tier combat power inside a World Item.
All she had to do was wait for Lord Ainz to revive them in the guild hall, and she could present it to him at once.
"I did it… Lord Ainz."
"Once you're trapped in the Scenes of Nature and Civilization, even a Supreme-class power can't hope to slip free so easily."
— End of Chapter —