Chapter 118

Chapter 118<~> Chapter 118

My eyes darted to the corners and to the ceiling. I remembered the shadow horrors that liked to blend into hard-to-see areas. Actually, I'll do one better. I cast a [Light Orb] that glowed bright enough to light up the corners of the room. It was still broad daylight outside but the difference in light levels made it hard to see all the dark spots a monster could be hiding in. The loud thumping from upstairs continued. Walking through the house made my palm feel sweaty on my sword grip.

Once I was sure that nothing was going to surprise us from behind, I walked further into the house. It was a rather spacious house with multiple rooms on the first floor. It wasn't some kind of apartment building like I had been expecting from the size of the place, it must have been a house for someone pretty affluent and their family. We walked through the kitchen but there wasn't anything useful there from a glance. There were some vegetables but they had been left out and were wilted now. They weren't as rotten as this building was starting to look but also not something anyone would want to eat either.

After a few minutes of searching, we found the stairs. Like the rotting wood of the walls, they also looked like they were decrepit and falling apart. Not very reassuring for something that needed to hold your weight. The continuous heavy thumping of whatever was upstairs and the sturdy-looking stone supports built into the walls gave me enough confidence they wouldn't completely fall apart when I climbed up them.

I peeked up the stairs and into the second-floor passage. There was light up there, probably from windows, but I couldn't see much else from where I was standing. I glanced at my two party members. Morrigan had small pearls of fire floating around her staff and Bella was tightly holding her scepter in front of her like a mace, ready to defend herself.CHeCk for new stories on no/v/el/bin(.)c0m

I crept up the stairs, careful to keep my sword in front of me and my hand against the wall to brace myself in the event something decided to run down the stairs just as we were going up. When I reached the top of the stairs I peeked around the corner and saw what looked like a hugely fat monster with bloated rotten flesh, making the disgusting creature look more like a zombie than a demon. It was obvious at a glance that it was a demon though, it had large twisted horns and its body exuded the same kind of miasma demons carried.

I frowned, I wish I had a shield right now. This monster looked like it would be challenging to fight. It was heavy, I didn't want to try to block its attacks head-on but that would make it hard to control the fight without leaving the other girls open. I backed off before the monster noticed me and leaned in to whisper to my party members.

"The monster up there is big, I'm not sure I can hold it in place. Could either of you stop it from moving?" I asked.

Morrigan looked around, likely looking for what mana was available. Bella examined the wood for a few moments before looking disappointed.

Morrigan was the first to whisper a reply, "The only mana that's around right now is fire and I don't think I would be able to do much with earth on these floors. I could maybe try to pin the monster in place with earth spikes. It's not something I've practiced much but it shouldn't be all that different from using ice for the same purpose."

I looked at Bella next who shook her head. "There's nothing here for my magic to latch on to. Short of throwing poison at it, I don't think I could do much either. Should we wait for the others?"

I considered it for a moment. It seems none of us were well suited to fighting inside these buildings but the monster didn't actually seem that strong to me. Maybe there was merit in the stone spikes idea, the floor seemed sturdy enough to take it despite how aged the wood was looking.

"I can help!" Mimi's voice was enthusiastic but thankfully quiet enough not to carry. "I can help you stop it from moving while we fight it, we can attack it from both sides!"

I wasn't too worried about Mimi but we hadn't practiced fighting in a group before. I had to admit the confidence I was feeling from her through our bond was infectious though.

I decided to trust her. "Okay, let's do it. I'll go in first and try to grab its attention. After that, you try and disable it from behind."

Bella took a step away from me and Mimi flowed out from her place around my neck. A moment later her eyes hardened into the faceted gems they once were and her arms formed dangerous-looking downward-pointed blades that connected directly to her hands. She reminded me somewhat of a praying mantis, pretty cool but I could tell that it would be really unnerving to someone who wasn't as familiar with her. Maybe it was a good thing Silva wasn't here with us right now.

Once everyone was ready I stepped through the door. I wasn't making much noise but once I got a certain distance from it the monster turned right towards me like it could suddenly sense my presence.

"What's wrong Bella?"

She paused but shook her head after a few moments. "I don't know, I think I heard something here. I think there's someone on the other side of this wall."

Morrigan walked over and put her ear to the wall before gently knocking on it. "It is hollow. There could be something back there. Do you think it's an enemy?"

Bella hesitated before shaking her head. "No, I'm not sure why but I think whoever is in there is hurt and needs help."

I nodded. "Okay, let's look around and see if there's a passage or something."

The three of us split up and started searching for a secret door or a hole or something. There wasn't anything obvious like bookshelves or cabinets around but I traced the edge of the wall in one direction while the girls looked around the other way.

"Lilith! I think I found something," Morrigan called from the other room.

Her finger traced a thin line in the wall that was behind a couch. We pulled it aside but didn't see anything that looked like a lever or button. Pushing against it didn't seem to do anything either.

I turned to Mimi. "Do you think you could tear through this wall? Maybe by eating through it?"

Mimi tilted her head and smiled but before she could reply Morrigan appeared from around a corner. "Hey look!"

I walked over and saw her holding a thin sheet of wood with writing on it. There was a diagram with a caption that described the order you traced magic along the door.

"It looks like it's written in some kind of code. Do you think this could be related to the door?" Morrigan asked me.

I froze. "Wait, you can't read this?"

Morrigan's brows furrowed. "You can?"

I took the thin piece of wood and focused on it. Just like when [Sightspeak] translated languages for me, I could read both versions of the caption. The cipher as well as the intended meaning.

"Well shit..." Looks like I'm a codebreaker now.