SML Ch 98

Chapter 98

“No matter how you look at it… it seems the people who go up to the third level have to keep pressing their assigned switches for the first-level door to stay open. If they lift their hands, the door shuts immediately?”

[O]

“Then we have to split into two teams: one to go up to the third level and hold the switches, and one to go down to the first level to retrieve the Illusiongrass.”

[O]

The map included a clear instruction: “One person/one entity required per switch on the third level.” The vague phrasing “one entity” likely anticipated cases where a non-human—like a monster—was selected. Sending only the doll up to press all switches alone was clearly impossible.

“Is there anything on the third level—monsters, traps, anything—that could threaten us, even a little?”

[X]

“None at all? Then what about the first level? Is there danger there?”

[O]

“It’s just a feeling, but it looks like the team going down to the first level bears all the risk.”

[O!]

Given how emphatic that last answer was, the danger was no small matter. The most practical plan, then, was four people up to the third level, with the remaining one taking the doll down to the first.

Reynald resolved to be the one to descend, as he alone had firsthand experience handling and harvesting Illusiongrass. Moreover…

“And one more thing: this lift doesn’t seem to go down to the first level. There’s another route, isn’t there?”

[O]

“Do you know how to reach it?”

[O]

“Is it easy to find?”

[O]

“Can we get there safely, without getting hurt?”

[…O?]

The doll traced a circle, but with a dubious air drifted up and started making strange motions—peering around in all directions, looking down at the floor, flapping its arms up and down while spinning in place. There was no telling what it meant to convey.

What on earth was it trying to say? As Reynald wondered, Arun, watching closely, suddenly stiffened.

“Could the doll be issuing a warning?”

“A warning?”

“Before leaving, Sir Reynald told the doll to warn us if a threat approached. No other explanation comes to mind for this behavior.”

[O!]

At the word “warning,” the doll immediately drew a circle. Reynald, seeing this, untied the rope linking him to the doll. The others stared wide-eyed, but instead of explaining further, he threw open the lift gate and bundled the princes and young men inside.

“S-Sir Reynald?”

“Go up and activate the switches. I’ll find a way down from here!”

The doll claimed to know the path to the first level, so Reynald decided to entrust it with guiding him. Just then, a pounding vibration approached from deeper in the cave.

Not one or two—dozens, at least, and large ones at that. Which meant—

“Yetis, Sir Reynald!”

Serna’s cry echoed through the plaza as points of light—presumably torches—began to appear one by one from the far side.

White and shaggy, giants at least four meters tall advanced toward them, candles in hand. They did look, as Volant had said, fluffy and cute—but their nature was hardly cloud-soft and peaceful.

“Hrrr—aaauugh!”

Having spotted the intruders, the scores of yetis gaped their mouths and unleashed shrill roars with plumes of white breath from within their blood-red maws—a cry packed with such hostile force it seemed it could bring the cave down.

“We have to move now. They’re coming!”

Thankfully, the yetis were still distant. If they got the lift moving before the horde arrived, the four youths would be safe. The youths themselves, unlike Reynald, were far from reassured.

“It’s too dangerous, Sir Reynald! We can’t leave you behind!”

“I’ll find a way down. The rest going up to press the switches is our best option right now!”

Shouting this, Reynald scanned the lift interior for operating controls. In a normal lift, the buttons to move up or down would be inside.

Curiously, none were visible. The map plainly said to use this lift to go up, and yet…

“What do you press to make this lift move? It’s not the sort that runs just by closing the door?”

[…]

At his words, the doll tugged his sleeve and pointed to the floor in a tucked-away corner of the lift.

There, a small recess was cut—distinctively shaped, as though a very small person could fit by stretching out face-down. A very small person such as the clockwork doll…

Wait—the clockwork doll?

“Don’t tell me you have to be in that slot for the lift to operate?”

[O!]

“Then you should have told us earlier—this isn’t a joke!”

With a huff, the doll thumped Reynald’s arm as if to insist it was “telling him quickly.” Absurd as it was that the doll would be the key to the lift, it wasn’t incomprehensible. Those from a hundred years ago would have wanted to keep non-descendants from stealing Illusiongrass; and nothing would prove a selected descendant’s legitimacy more surely than the doll. Making the lift dependent on it was only logical.

The map’s “one entity” might even have meant the doll all along—effectively three people plus one doll going up, leaving only two to descend to the first level.

“Should someone else go down with me? No—better I go alone. The first level holds too many hazards; a companion could be badly hurt.”

While Reynald wrestled with this sudden turn, the doll, after a quick glance around, slipped over to Alex and deftly snatched a small emergency pocket-knife meant for cutting cord.

“What are you doing?”

Alex lunged to reclaim it, but the doll dodged nimbly, slashed the rope linking Volant, and—

Body-slammed him out of the lift with its tiny frame. Despite the size difference, Volant tumbled helplessly across the cave floor, as if struck by some invisible mass.

“U-ugh?!”

“Volant! You little—what do you think you’re—”

Before anyone could intervene, the doll shoved Reynald out of the lift as well, then popped itself into the fitted recess. The lift doors slid shut on their own, and with a sharp clank a lock engaged that none of them had noticed.

“My lord? Uh—uh?”

Volant gaped between Reynald and the closing doors. Slipping out of the slot for a moment, the doll waved to the two outside, as if to say, “Do your best.” With a heavy hum, the lift began to rise, leaving the pair behind.

—

“Volant, are you all right?”

“I only rolled a bit. Ow…”

Supporting Volant to his feet, Reynald scanned the surroundings. The dozen upon dozen yetis still advanced with menacing cries, but a closer look showed their own confusion, as if they couldn’t quite make sense of what they were seeing.

Perhaps the yetis took Reynald and Volant for stragglers abandoned by their own kind. Not that they would spare them for it.

“That clockwork sack of trouble—I knew it would pull something. It kept giving me that weird shiny-eyed look!”

“You could have mentioned that earlier!”

“I knew it was suspicious but not how! And even if I asked, all it can do is circle or cross! And then thinking about that masked killer—my head got a bit… scattered!”

Volant fumed, aggrieved, and Reynald quickly realized arguing further was pointless. One way or another, they had to find the route to the first level—while evading the looming yetis.

As Reynald edged back, studying the wall, Volant sighed, as if arriving at a similar thought.

“Actually, this might be for the best!”

“Hm? Best? That clockwork fool just put you in danger.”

“But you would have gone alone otherwise, wouldn’t you, my lord? Two is better than one.”

He grinned, and Reynald could neither agree nor disagree—only shrug. The feeling was familiar. Different from when he’d been about to dash alone into Swine Forest, yes, but he lacked the will to explain that now.

“You do have a habit of charging off alone in a crisis, my lord. Maybe the doll picked up on that.”

“Even so, shoving people is unacceptable. A warning, at least.”

Awkwardness pricked Reynald’s words. He didn’t truly believe a nineteen-year-old could help much. With dozens of yetis bearing down, it wouldn’t be surprising if the only outcome was two meals instead of one.

And yet, seeing Volant’s buoyant grin, some corner of Reynald’s heart eased. He expected no great feat or aid—sometimes having someone at one’s side was its own relief.

But that relief didn’t last.

“Wait—what’s that sound?”

“Sound, my lord? …Huh?”

Craaaack. Something split beneath their feet.

It was the sound of a lake’s ice breaking.