Chapter 882: 882: Battle In The Basement

When the door to the basement opened, a dark-skinned man stood at the entrance. Due to the placement of warding stones, we failed to notice someone in the next room over.

But his face was familiar. He had the same face as the men in this room's glass cylinders.

「Numerae?」

「......」

Fran called out to the man, but the doppelganger of Numerae did not respond. I appraised him, but the man's name was "None" and his race was "Human". Was he somehow different from the ones in the cylinders? I don't get it.

In addition, his skills weren't shown. It seems he did not have a single skill.

Maybe he was some kind of clone of the dead Numerae?

After the door closed again, Numerae started walking toward us.

We judged him as an enemy and readied our weapons. But suddenly, the fake Numerae's magic power erupted as he took an unarmed combat stance.

「......!」

「He's coming!」

Numerae moved much faster than expected, so much so that Fran didn't get the chance to strike back.

Moreover, we had misjudged his abilities to be the same as the Numerae we met the other day, which delayed our response.

Fine, I'm busting out the magic!

As soon as Fran blocked Numerae's fist with my blade, I activated several thunder spells.

All of them were aimed at Numerae, but......

「Whoa?」

「Ahh!」

The electricity diverted away from my target, spreading off into the surrounding area.

This must be a ward with the effect of deflecting mana-based attacks, similar to the warding stones. I saw one of the pendants on Numerae's chest shining.

That pendant must be the magic tool deploying this ward.

After being diverted by the ward, my thunder magic ended up hitting the other people here and paralyzing some of them.

It's a good thing I used a spell intended to paralyze, so no one ended up seriously injured.

After using some recovery magic to heal everyone's paralysis, I activated Magic Disruption. Meanwhile, Fran slashed Numerae to prevent his interference.

The blade easily caught Numerae and landed a direct hit――or not?

There's another ward.

It seems he has wards for defending against both physical and magical attacks. Without any attempt to block, Numerae charged at us once again.

He's certainly fast, but his movements were very predictable.

That's a clear waste of his high physical abilities. His techniques also seemed very unrefined, maybe due to lacking any skills for combat.

Even without any skills, he had physical stats on par with Rank B adventurers. Combined with those wards, that made him a bit troublesome.

Indeed a very unbalanced opponent.

He might be a fearsome enemy for the average adventurer, but he wasn't very tough from Fran's point of view.

Fran may have less strength than Numerae, but she was way faster. Moreover, we had experience fighting this type of opponent before.

Back in the Ulmutt Martial Arts Tournament, we fought against Sibylla, the leader of the Red Sword Knights. Her fighting style consisted of launching an all-out assault while leaving her defenses to her resistance skills.

Sibylla had immense power, a sharp intuition, and inexhaustible stamina. The longer the battle dragged on, the greater the advantage she would gain.

Numerae had a similar style of fighting to her, but nowhere near as much power or any sense for combat.

There was no way Fran would have trouble with someone like him.

The only problem was the wards, but it's only a matter of time before they fall to my Magic Disruption skill.

After about a minute of fending off Numerae's attacks, a gap appeared in the ward.

Fran quickly recognized that gap with her mana detection, and delivered a precise strike to the exact point.

「......!」

Numerae's arm got sent flying off, but he continued swinging around his remaining fist with no change in expression. It seems he had no sense of pain.

There's no chance of failure at this point. The ward kept weakening from Magic Disruption, and Numerae's movements got slower as he took on more injuries.

In addition, this monstrous physical strength seemed to put a tremendous burden on the fake Numerae's body. His life force depleted rapidly, even without us doing anything.

After only three minutes of combat, our opponent was already on death's door.

「It's over!」

「......!」

In the end, he was completely stripped of his wards and decapitated by Fran's swing.

But Fran and I had no time to celebrate our victory. We sensed a surge of magical energy coming from the fake Numerae's chest.

This had even more mana than the last time we saw Numerae self-destruct.

『Fran!』

「Nn!」

I quickly covered the fake Numerae with telekinesis and surrounded him with Flame Barrier, a spell made for blocking flame magic.

Meanwhile, Fran activated land magic to separate the space between us and the fake Numerae, and also put up her barrier at maximum power.

Immediately after, a huge explosion and shockwave shook the entire underground room. If we hadn't blocked it in time, some of the adventurers might have lost their lives.

The explosion was just that powerful.

Meanwhile, the blast cracked the four walls of the room, as well as shattering all the glass cylinders. Could this be intended to destroy all evidence?

The Numerae doppelgangers inside the glass didn't escape unharmed either. Some had their limbs torn off, and all of them were bleeding from the countless glass shards.

But they remained motionless, as if they were nothing more than human-shaped dolls. Perhaps there was some step to infuse them with life, similar to a golem, before they could activate?

In contrast to the devastation in the room, the door that the fake Numerae came in from was left unscathed. I bet there's another ward there.

The culprit had completely sealed off the room before blowing it up. I can see how much they wanted us dead.

Psshhh!

『What's that sound......?』

「Up there.」

Fran turned upwards to see a sprinkler-like device attached to the ceiling. Green smoke was billowing out of it.

That's gotta be poison. I immediately covered the adventurers with my wind magic, but several of them were already coughing. They must have inhaled some of it.

『Fran, I'll grab all the poison with Poison Absorption, so you heal everyone with Antidote!』

「Nn!」

『Jeez! One thing after the other!』

This would be so much easier if we could just escape on our own.