Before the Golem could start lumbering toward us, Ursa Major materialized and barreled right into it. The two titans crashed into the ground, wrestling ferociously with each other. However, Ursa Major seemed to have the edge despite being made of flesh and blood instead of rock. His claws gouged out huge chunks of stone, causing the Golem to bellow in pain.
"Back, back!" I told Anastasia frantically, but my instructions were useless. Unlike a certain anime heroine, she knew how to take care of herself. What, did you think she was suddenly going to forget all the skills of her previous professionalism just so she could play the damsel in distress for me to save? This wasn't a wish-fulfilment story designed to inflate the egos of males. Girls could kick ass as well as any guy.
She was already hopping backward, gracefully avoiding the debris of concrete and rock that were hurled about as Ursa Major and the Golem slugged each other. Even though Ursa Major's claws left huge rents in the Golem's stony hide, the Golem itself didn't seem to have taken much damage. Growling, it charged into Ursa Major and knocked him aside. The huge bear found himself sprawled on the ground, and the Golem seized the opportunity to clasp its massive hands and smash down on him.
However, Ursa Major quickly rolled to the side. The Golem's combined hands left a crater in the ground, but otherwise didn't hit my Constellation spirit.
And I had someone else waiting for him.
"…?"
Grunting, the Golem straightened up, only to find Canis Major waiting in front of it.
"Canis Major, Sirius attack!" I commanded. The huge hunting hound's jaws yawned and an intense blast of mana rushed onward, engulfing the Golem. The Golem bellowed in rage and pain, but then vanished under the overwhelming onslaught of destruction before exploding.
Boom!
Shards of rock rained down on the scorched crater. There wasn't much left of the poor Golem, except maybe charred boulders here and there.
"Richard…"
Anastasia was shaking her head in amazement. She folded her arms under her big breasts and giggled.
"I thought you would just punch the Golem and destroy it with brute force."
"Who do you think I am? I'm a summoner. Since when do summoners go around fighting with raw strength?" I rolled my eyes. "I'm not a summoner just because I have a tiny wind spirit following me around to allow me to cast wind magic or because I can physically reinforce myself. I mean, I know physical reinforcement spells, but that's not the point. I'm a summoner because I can summon a variety of Soul Beasts."
"Yeah, yeah…" Anastasia shrugged nonchalantly and clapped. "Good job. You want a reward?"
"Depends on what kind of reward," I replied cheekily. Ana rolled her eyes and then pointed toward the front.
"I'll consider throwing in a little bonus after you complete the job, but for now let's focus on it. Look at that."
I followed the direction she was pointing her finger at and saw that the massive doors were now open, as if inviting us to enter.
"Since they've taken the trouble to open the doors for us, shall we take them up on their offer?" Anastasia's tone was light, considering we had just fought a Golem.
"It might be a trap," I warned, holding back both Ursa Major and Canis Major. My two Constellation spirits were bristling, revealing their gritted fangs and growling at the space beyond the open doors.
There was definitely something sinister within, all right. That sense of foreboding increased as the doors opened wider.
"Wow…you really are strong."
A young, feminine voice came from within. A…child? Are you kidding me? What the hell was a child doing in a place like this?
Then again, appearances could be deceiving. With magic, or the Deceivum techniques, anyone can alter their physical appearances or voices. It was but a simple task to conceal your identity with any shapeshifting spell.
So I merely snorted and retorted.
"It's your Golem that's weak."
"…so big brother, you're Richard?"
A second young, female voice joined in. I frowned, trying to probe into the darkness with my glasses, but there were way too many heat signatures crowding the screen on my lenses for me to pinpoint the exact location of the speakers.
"If I say no, would you believe me?" I asked dryly. If they already knew my name, then they must have done some research on me. Damn, after all those attacks on the Dark Church, I had become pretty much a celebrity within their circle.
As both Anastasia and I cautiously stepped inside, the view of the chamber came clearly into view. There were dozens of green, glowing things in the vast space, all of them looking like…enormous eggs.
Suddenly I was reminded of the Crastrates.
"I told they were supposed to be Goblins," I muttered with a frown. "Why are all of them inside eggs?"
"Genetic engineering…" Anastasia whispered. "Similar to the magic technology the Frenzor Sect uses to surgically enhance their Assassins. They are experimenting on monsters!"
"Oh…this big sister knows a lot, doesn't she?"
"Of course she does…she's an Assassin that we hired."
Both Anastasia and I glanced up and finally tracked the source of the voices. Two little girls, about eight or nine, were standing near the top, in the middle of all those eggs. They looked like twins, with identical hairstyles, except that one wore her short ponytail to the right and the other wore her short ponytail to the left.
"You know them?" I asked Ana, who shrugged. "Your employers?"
"It is my sect master and superiors who had most contact with the employers and the signing of the contact. We subordinates just go and execute whatever orders we're given." Anastasia then paused. "And I'm no longer an Assassin."
"Heh…you aren't?"
"That's strange. Our info told you were one."
"Ah! I know! She decided to elope with that big brother over there!"
"I see! How romantic!"
Both the girls were practically dancing in glee, clasping their hands together as they spun about atop the hideous green network of pulsing material.
Yeah, this looked like a hive to me, no matter how you spun it. Any time now I half-expected a queen monster to come bursting out along with her praetorian guards. Sucked that I didn't have an automatic rifle, an underslung grenade launcher and a flamethrower, though.
What I did have was my Constellation spirits. Ursa Major and Canis Major followed me warily, their snouts sniffing the putrid air and wrinkling.
"Oh, how cute!"
"Look, we have more guests!"
"Then let's welcome them!"
"Good idea!"
The two girls danced about and did a curtesy.
"Welcome to Mell…"
"…and Nell's room!"
With that, the two girls began giggling creepily and in an annoying manner that made me want to slap them.
"So you sleep here?" I asked dryly, looking around at the revolting place. "And I thought the cheap basement room I rented out in my previous life was bad…"
"Huh? Why would we sleep here?"
"This is our room, but not our bedroom!"
"Why are you even answering his question seriously…?" Anastasia was resting a hand on her forehead and sighing in exasperation.
"So, Mell and Nell, right?" I asked, and the two girls perked up when I called their names. I gestured at the eggs. "So I'm guessing you've been left in charge of taking care of all these eggs and Goblins?"
"That's right! We were the one who triggered the Emergence event and gathered as many Goblins as possible! Then we put them in all these eggs as Uncle Solomon requested!"
"Using our earth magic! That Golem you saw earlier is a Soul Beast summoned by us too!"
The two girls were sure loose-lipped, but I could use that to my advantage. Especially since one of their revelations caught my attention.
"Who is this Solomon? Is he the leader of the Dark Church?"
"Uncle Solomon is Uncle Solomon!"
"Uncle Solomon takes good care of us!"
I wasn't sure how giving goblins to a couple of young children and asking them to watch over them was "taking good care of them" but whatever. I hadn't become a parent or guardian yet, and was thus in no position to criticize one.
"I haven't heard of this Solomon either," Anastasia revealed uneasily, chewing her lip as she glanced around. "Actually, I didn't know the Dark Church's schemes have progressed this much. And those girls…even though they're so young, they already know summoning magic?"
"Not just summoning magic, breeding and grooming magic too!"
"We've been designed and raised to enhance the power of monsters!"
The two girls were puffing out their chests proudly before turning to each other and slapping a double high-five.
"Okay, cool." As a summoner, that actually sounded like the perfect set of skills to have. Not only could they summon Soul Beasts, they could also enhance their capabilities. I would love to do that with my Constellation spirits, but I had never heard of grooming or breeding magic before. It was possible the girls made them up…or they were different from what I was currently assuming them to be. In any case, I decided to address the predicament at present. "So what do you intend to do with all these Goblins that you've bred and groomed?
"We'll awake the Goblins!"
"And set them upon the city!"
Behind me, Anastasia gasped in shock. She probably couldn't reconcile such malicious actions with the incongruously innocent and playful tone. As for me, this was turning out to be a cliché scene from some anime, so I merely raised an eyebrow.
I can't say I didn't expect that answer. This Solomon wouldn't have assigned the Goblins to these children if he didn't think they would do what he asked of them.
"…I knew it…"
However, Anastasia was far from convinced. Outraged, she glared at the two children.
"Do you know what will happen if you do that?!"
"Of course we know!" Mell replied cheerfully. "The Goblins have been commanded to rape the women until they break!"
"And the Goblins have been ordered to kill all the men and children and eat them!" Nell added, joining her twin sister in some weird dance of delight.
"Wait, you can order the Goblins?" I asked skeptically. "I'm pretty sure they still haven't found a way to control the monsters yet, even rank F ones."
"Hah! You're just an idiot for not knowing who we are!" Mell puffed out her chest proudly.
"We are to be future Apostles!" Nell also looked pretty arrogant.
Anastasia and I exchanged bemused glances. "Apostles?" I asked uncertainly.
"The top twelve mages of the Dark Church!"
"We're being groomed to be their successors one day!"
"That's why they're leaving such an important mission to us!"
"We will never let them down!"
The two girls seemed pretty certain of their status in the Dark Church. I sort of could understand a little why they were here. It was entirely possible that the higher-ups in the Dark Church saw this as a trial, a test for the children they were raising to be their organization's elite mages. No wonder they had all sort of fancy magic.
"Besides…!" Mell produced a weird crystal ball. "We have this!"
"That's right!" Nell took the crystal ball and played with it, passing it back to her sister and taking it again several times. "We can use this to give orders to the Goblins!"
…that looked like an ordinary crystal ball with no functions to me, but I wasn't one to shatter the innocent dreams of cruel children.
"The poor kids." I shook my head and said to a horrified Anastasia. "They've been deceived. This isn't going to end well for them."
Well, they reaped what the sowed.
"You're just jealous that we can control Goblins and you can't!" Mell shouted. Ha ha ha ha! Little lady, did you actually think I would be jealous of you for being able to control Goblins? Why would I need Goblins when I already have an army of Constellation spirits at my beck and call?
"It doesn't matter. Both the big brother and big sister will die here!" Nell crowed.
"That's right! Let's do it!"
"Yeah!"
The two girls held the crystal ball together and raised it high into the air. I watched as it began glowing an ominous verdant.
""Awaken!"" both girls cried out in a shrill but cheerful and playful voice that echoed across the chamber. ""Everyone, wake up!""
"Ugh…" I buried my face in my forehead. "Those idiots actually went and did it."
Then I frowned. Actually, why did they wait for me and Anastasia to arrive before they awakened the Goblins? If they had the ability to do so, they could have done it any time before Anastasia and I got here. Why wait dramatically for us to arrive before deliberately pulling such a comical performance in front of us?
Perhaps this Solomon wanted to make fun of us, to show us despair or some bullshit or that. If so, he was going to kick himself for wanting to get all dramatic when his plan failed. I mean, he could have awakened the Goblins a while ago and set them on the city, and it would be extremely difficult for both me and Anastasia to stem the tide and stop them from reaching the surface.
But no, he decided to show off, and conveniently had all the Goblins gathered in one spot for me and Ana to deal with. I didn't know whether to be grateful or amused. Perhaps both.
Maybe that wasn't his plan, but the kids being willful and stupid. If that was the case, then Solomon was still an idiot for leaving such an important plan to kids.