YM778.TV Chapter 145 - Hood
In a sudden hand gesture, Shioko ordered her teammates to be silent. Without making the slightest noise, Nobu got up in the air, moving away from the dormant boss not to wake it up.
The next moment, the archer gently pulled out her bow. When the bow was tightened in Shioko\'s right hand, the other arm folded, and the forehand and middle of her hand slipped vertically into the quiver.
Tiny bright particles joined frantically, forming a thin rod in seconds. As the light object was pulled out of its magical container, the arrowhead took shape, ready to cut through the air.
Shioko intended to hit the dungeon boss before he could wake up to worsen its physical condition significantly.
Just as the archer began approaching the arrow to the bowstring, Kenji started to growl silently. Yoichi, trying not to panic, put his hand on the little dragon\'s head, trying to calm it down.
"Grrr!" Kenji continued, looking with its red eyes at the giant demon who slept blissfully in front of them. "Kenji! What\'s wrong? Be quiet, or you will wake it up! Kenji!" Yoichi mumbled in a low voice, lowering his head towards his Oracle, clinging to the leather pouch.
During her companion\'s words, Shioko sensed something change in the boss\'s breath. The huge rhino demon had stopped snoring, hearing the noises around it. The steam leaking from its large nostrils, swaying the liquid surface of the mud, was now motionless.
"Fuck!" the archer complained, unable to hold back the irritation. Kenji\'s sudden growl was about to wake up the sleeping boss, blowing their cover and causing the three tamers to miss a precious chance to strike a surprise blow.
"I wouldn\'t do that, if I were you!" – suddenly, a male voiceover echoed into the cave. Those words were so sudden, shioko pulled the arrow on the bowstring and shot it wildly, missing the target.
*stang* – The arrow of light hit the wall behind the four-eyed demon, sticking into the rocks and disappearing moments later. Taking advantage of those seconds of general chaos, Kenji jumped to the ground, ready to distance itself from its tamer and activate its power.
At the same time, Rokuro stopped under Enatsu\'s legs, waiting for the merchant\'s orders. Enatsu was as scared as usual and, after listening to those foreign words, he was frozen in the same position.
"Who said that?! Who\'s there?!" Shioko yelled, frightened, looking around without ever diverting attention from the boss. Yoichi monitored his friend\'s movements, making sure to look towards the spots hidden from Shioko\'s eyesight.
Whoever spoke had no way of hiding: the elementary geometry of that room offered no hiding place other than behind the massive body of the rhino demon. Just as Yoichi imagined, the stranger\'s voice seemed to come right from there.
Shioko\'s words received no answer. A sound of footsteps trampling the sticky mud caused blood to freeze in the veins of the tamers. The dim light of the torches on the cave\'s walls illuminated an ambiguous figure.
A man slowly walked out of his hiding place, coming out of the dungeon boss\'s back. "Screek! Graargh!" Kenji kept on growling against the stranger, alerting its teammates of the imminent danger.
Yoichi and Enatsu, motionless behind Shioko, simply waited for the mysterious man to speak again. Although he was not armed and did not seem very dangerous, the young tamer was ready to activate Kenji\'s draconic power.
The man wore a long cloak of black fabric, torn down at the ankles and on his wrists, looking like an old rag. A large hood totally covered his face, hidden in the shadow.
One of the details that immediately struck the three tamers was that the mysterious individual was barefoot: his bare feet plunged into the sticky mud. His hands were covered entirely with black tribal tattoos, which extended beyond his wrists, entering the torn sleeves of the cloak.
"I said that if I were you, I would avoid hitting my creature with one of your weak light arrows. It wouldn\'t suffer any damage and you and your fellow men would die instantly," the hooded man spoke. His voice was calm and mild-mannered. The way he had uttered that phrase sounded almost kind.
"What did he say? My creature? Who the fuck is this guy? What is he doing in the boss\'s room? How did he get in here?" Enatsu compulsively began asking questions to Yoichi as if he knew all the answers.
The merchant\'s words rumbled into the heads of his comrades like church bells, and Shioko and Yoichi were forced to stop listening to him so as not to lose their lucidity.
Before responding to that statement, Shioko pulled another arrow from the quiver. This time, the tip of the light arrow was pointed at the hooded man. "You have a few seconds to tell me who you are and what are you doing here. Soon after, you will see the room spinning before your eyes", the Nightblades archer threatened angrily, ready to strike the enemy.
From a distance of about ten meters, Shioko would undoubtedly have hit the target, and a single arrow shot at the right spot would have been enough to sever the head from that man\'s neck.
"Uhuhuh... how much anger. You\'re right, girl. I was very rude and didn\'t show up. The thing is, I didn\'t think you\'d get to the last room of the dungeon so soon," the man anwered. His face was still hidden in the darkness of the hood.
"My name is Ogai, and I am a Void Summoner. I was waiting for you," the hooded man chuckled. One of his tattooed hands rose slowly forward. With his palm pointing upwards, also tattooed, the man pointed to the three adventurers in front of him as if introducing them to an invisible audience.
Trying to concentrate on the tattoos of that mysterious figure, Yoichi tried to focus on the symbols they portrayed. He failed because of the distance, yet, he perceived that those were strange letters belonging to some ancient runic alphabet.