đźź Chapter 40 :
After hours of travel, we began to draw near Ferenta, the capital of the Azmirin Kingdom. From above the city looked larger and more crowded than Valoris or Osmara. Streets teemed with people and moving carts, all of them like a mass of ants when seen from the sky. The Ilan River ran beside the city, adding a touch of life and calm to the bustling scene.
We decided to enter the city through a nearly deserted corner, with almost no guards. That was necessary so the palace wouldn't discover that Ryo had lost the prince.
As we neared the city limits, I noticed something strange: a giant bird the size of Ryo was circling above us. Suddenly, someone in attire similar to the gang member's we had encountered earlier came down from it.
Was it the same man… or someone else?
"You idiots… the prince Elithius's royal necklace is with you, right?"
His voice was different from the one we'd heard in the southern province.
I paused, then remembered Ryo had told me earlier about the royal necklace: with it we could tell whether Elithius was in a given city. It seemed he had either forgotten the necklace or deliberately left it with us, but in any case, as soon as they learned we had it, they'd made preparations on the capital's outskirts to try to retrieve it.
Haizen didn't bother much trying to confirm whether this man was the same one we'd faced before. He drew his new sword from its sheath, ready to face him without hesitation.
"I don't know if you're the same man or not, but I'll carve you to pieces."
Haizen lunged at him fast, but before he could close the distance something unexpected happened. The enemy stretched a hand toward us and spoke in a cold, calm voice:
"overwhelming gravity."
Suddenly we were crushed by an immense weight pulling us downward; even Ryo began to falter and hang as if his wings had lost their strength. We became unable to move, and we all fell down-into the forest outside the city walls.
Lying on the ground, each of us trying to collect ourselves, we saw the enemy approaching quickly and begin searching for the necklace. Haizen fumed with rage.
He spat out in a glowing voice, "You coward… are you that afraid to face me head-on?"
The enemy answered with a cold, unnerving confidence, "Afraid? Oh no no… I just don't want to waste my time with scum like you."
Ryo pushed himself up with everything he had; his drive to protect the prince pushed him beyond his limits, but unfortunately it wasn't enough. Clinging to the last of his strength, Ryo shouted with a mix of anger and determination, "You vermin… I'll make you regret kidnapping the prince! You'll gnaw your fingers in remorse!"
But the enemy didn't care. He finally found the necklace that had been hidden in the extraction stone—the little retrieval stone that can pull out items stored inside a storage stone. The extraction stone had been in Ryo's hands and the enemy was taking things out of it; at first he pulled out silly items the prince had put in the stone.
"What's this… a golden hairbrush, and old soup? Doesn't he like soup and lots of sweets? A small statue of himself? Oh wow… this prince is obsessed with himself! And only one shoe! Where's the other one?"
"How strange... all this junk the prince hides in this stone!" Haizen said, staring at what came out of the stone in disbelief.
Ryo sighed, visibly embarrassed as the pile of junk the prince hid in the stone grew: "Oh… please stop… I can't look at any more of this."
After the enemy had emptied out all that worthless junk, the necklace finally appeared.
"Finally — the necklace. Well, my work here is done. Come on, Savo." He called to his giant bird and began to mount it, leaving us exhausted and crushed under the gravity effect. But as soon as he put some distance between us, the ability suddenly disappeared.
Haizen snapped sharply, "Is this crushing gravity over?"
It seemed the power worked within a limited range. Without hesitation, Haizen and I climbed onto Ryo's back to pursue the gang member, but Ryo hesitated for a moment.
"Wait a bit… let's grab the prince's things first."
Haizen replied with obvious irritation, "Come back later for the prince's junk! It's not like anyone cares about this stuff… maybe you can at least take the golden hairbrush."
Ryo looked at the mess around him, then said firmly as he composed himself, "Maybe you're right… okay, let's go after him."
Ryo shot off at great speed to chase the enemy. I decided to use my pistol to hit him, but my attempt failed. Haizen took the pistol from my hand to try.
"Let me try — maybe I can hit him… Okay, I press here, right?" he said hesitantly as he aimed.
He fired, but the bullet whizzed just past Ryo's head. Ryo shouted angrily, "You idiot! Do you want to kill us or what?"
Haizen stepped back, a little calmer in countenance, and said, "I guess this thing isn't for me after all… here." He handed the pistol back to me.
As we advanced over the city, we were directly above the capital and closing in on the enemy. Ryo was much faster than that giant bird; the enemy noticed we were catching up and suddenly, he changed course and dove toward the crowded city streets, as if trying to use the people as obstacles in our path.
As we approached the rooftops, people screamed and scattered in all directions trying to avoid colliding with us. "Get out of the way! A flying lizard and a giant vulture!"
Ryo bristled with anger at the townsfolk's shouts: "Who are you calling a lizard, you idiots?!"
I told him to ignore them and focus on the target. "Forget them — let's focus on the objective."
Ryo accelerated more and more, and the necklace could be seen peeking from a small bag the enemy carried. I focused my pistol on the bag and fired… and the bag did indeed fall.
Although I had aimed for the necklace directly, the bullet hit the bag's straps. Well, it fell in the end, just like I wanted.
Ryo immediately praised my shot, "Nice one, Takeru! Hitting the bag's straps to drop the necklace was brilliant."
I smiled and replied calmly, "Of course… it went as I expected."
I couldn't tell him I hadn't even intended to aim there. The enemy noticed the falling bag at once and began trying to catch it. Since we were over civilians, a collision with people would be catastrophic.
"I have an idea to grab the necklace," Haizen said, stroking his chin as he thought.
I asked skeptically what the idea was, "Care to share your brilliant plan?"
Without preamble he grabbed me and hoisted me up in his hands, as if he intended to throw me straight toward the spot where the necklace had fallen.
"Haizen… um, what are you doing?"
He replied coldly, "I'll throw you to the necklace. You dropped it, so you have to fetch it."
A bunch of objections—and a little, childish fear that he'd actually throw me—gathered in my head, so I quickly said, "Hey, Haizen! Wait—!"
He didn't care. He began to count in a quiet but firm voice: "One… two… go!"
Haizen wasn't listening to my protests; he hurled me without hesitation. What a foolish swordsman! But since things were as they were, there was nothing to do. On the other hand, the enemy's bird was closer to the necklace.
"Argh… I can't reach it… unless—"
An idea hit me. The distance between me and the necklace was less than ten meters, so I used one of the Factory Skill's perks: the ability to pull items toward me within a limited range.
Just as the enemy was about to grab the necklace, it suddenly vanished from his hand and appeared in mine.
I smiled to myself, "Great… I managed to catch it!"
While I was rejoicing over grabbing the necklace, I didn't notice what I slammed into when I hit the ground.
"Ugh… my head… what is this place?" I mumbled, trying to regain my senses.
Slowly, I realized what I'd collided with looked like an awards ceremony, or maybe an exhibition… I wasn't sure. People there were terrified by my sudden fall. Before I could make sense of it, I noticed a broken wooden crate under my feet and a girl staring at it in shock.
I tried to play it down to ease the situation, "It's okay… it's just a crate, right?"
The girl never answered, and I didn't have time to stay. I shrugged and said quickly, "Alright, sorry to bother you… please continue your exhibition or whatever this is."
I ran to see Haizen and Ryo above me. I looked up and heard Haizen sharply warn, "Takeru… watch out, behind you!"
I was taken aback—the enemy had snatched the necklace from my hand before his annoying gravity took effect. I pulled out my pistol; the enemy smiled coldly and joked, "Ooo… you'll use that strange weapon?"
I replied defiantly, with a mocking tone, "Fine… let's see which falls first — your gravity or my bullet?"
He answered with a teasing smile, "Ooo… a challenge then."
This was the decisive moment—the finale of the little play that had begun since our arrival. I was close to him—about three meters between us. I squeezed the trigger. At the same instant, I felt the gravity crushing down from above and I lost my balance, but the bullet fired without hesitation toward the necklace.
The moment it hit, the necklace exploded.