Laura brought me to the armoury as I asked her. As I entered the armoury, I found one person checking and arranging the weapon there. She does not realize that we have entered the armoury. As I looked at that person, Laura started to engage her.
"Bang!" Laura surprised her.
"Ah!" She was surprised by Laura. "Huh! Laura, what are you doing here?"
"Oh, I just want to see you. I really miss you. We have not met since we graduated from the military school."
"If I'm not mistaken, you are a lieutenant general now. As expected from the prodigy."
"Prodigy?"
"Don't mind her Hulaif. Ah, I'm going to introduce you to him. Aifa, this is Hulaif. Hulaif, this is Aifa." We shook hands.
"What is your idea, Laura? Bringing someone who is just a mere soldier here." Aifa confused.
"I just brought him here because he wanted to see a weapon here."
"If you're a soldier, what kind of weapon do you use?"
"Bow."
"Bow? We have many firearms here. Why would you use the traditional way?" I looked at Laura. I thought, why did she not intend to introduce me to everything?
"Why do you look at me like that? It's making me feel weird."
"Why don't you tell me about the firearms?"
"Why should I? I don't use it. The firearms have much work to do while the bow has quite less work."
"Hulaif, I am sorry for my friend doing bad things to you."
"Thanks for your concern, but I'm all right."
"Good. Now let me show you the weapon here." Aifa took me to look around the armoury. Aifa explained to me the weapons one by one. They have a rifle, a machine gun, and a shotgun.
"Is this all that we've got?"
"What do you mean?" Aifa asked.
"I think we should have a weapon that can destroy heavy transportation."
"I think that too. But, I don't know how to build it. Also, it will take us a few weeks or months to do a research about that."
"How about we make a grenade launcher?" I gave an idea.
"Don't you think it will cause huge damage to the town?" Aifa worried.
"What, you fought in a town?" I'm a bit surprised to hear that.
"Of course not, Aifa does not even know about the battlefield. She always makes a weapon and does research only. We fight not in towns, but in front of the wall. Remember, they cannot damage a town when a barrier is still intact with the town." Laura explained it to me.
"Now, I understand. Thank you for letting me know."
"What's your idea?" Laura asked.
"I'm going to look inside this armoury and read about a few war reports. If you have anything to do, you can go first." I said to Laura.
"Okay. I have a soldier to train. See you later."
"Yeah. See you later."
"Hey, hey,hey. Don't tell me you two are in love."
"Huh! What makes you think like that?"
"Perhaps it's a female instinct. Hey, tell me how yours progress?"
"Ahahaha... I really don't know what you think. I am kind of busy right now. Do you know where there is a record of before the war?" I changed a topic.
"It is inside the cabinet in the room in front of you. What do you want to know about those records?"
"I just want to know how Sigma won the war before."
"We win because of the five generals. They lead the soldiers in a war and no one dies in the war." I am impressed by hearing what she told me. Are the five generals strong? I kind of doesn't want to meet them.
"I am new in this town. Can you tell me about these five generals?"
"Sure."
"The five generals are the leaders of the Sigma country. Although we have a pharaoh, the generals are the ones who run the country. From the country's diplomatic to development efforts. Every general uses their own curse weapon. Their curse weapon, empowered by making it eat the man-eater..."
"I think I understand right now." I'm not going to waste my time hearing the same story again. "Miss Aifa, I am going to do my research right now."
"Eh, just call me Aifa. If you want anything, just let me know." I nodded. Then, I entered the room and looked at the record. I tried to read the previous records of the war and I know that something is weird here. From technologies to the units in a war. Everything kind of makes no sense to me. The only people mentioned in the previous war are the five generals. They are the only ones who can destroy an army unit. Since they're not here, I am quite worried.
I got to my room to take a rest after reading all the records. I think I have to find the Spinx if I want to stop the war. When I was in prison, I realised that my soul energy was taken by something, and we used a soul arm to move a heavy object there. Why don't I listen to anything about soul energy when I am out of prison? Mia might know about this.
"Hey, Mia."
"Yes, I am. What's wrong? Do you realise something when you are in a prison?"
"Oh, prison. I think the flow of soul energy is much faster there when I kill the prisoner. It feels like there is something terrifying in the depths of the prison."
"Then, tomorrow we are going to visit the prison."
"Wait. But why?"
"It's obvious that we can use that as a weapon to fight the enemies."
"If you say that, I will believe you."
"That's the spirit. Can you tell everyone what they should do?"
"Okay."
Tomorrow. I went to prison by myself. I met the warden there. As they looked at me, they asked me something. "Madam, what do you do here?" Guard A asked me. Maybe because I wear Laura skin they asked me. About Laura's skin, I use Lizark's ability to make it. It is the application that can turn me into someone through a picture I took from them. I have to apologize to her if she knows about this.
"I just want to inspect the area. Can you let me enter?"
"Sure you can." Becoming Laura makes my work easy. I entered the prison and asked Mia to navigate me to that terrifying place. We went through one room. It is like a room that no one uses here.
"Hey, Mia. Are you sure that we are going the correct way?"
"This is the correct way. How about you get out of that woman's skin first?"
"What, are you jealous that I wear her skin?" I teased Mia. "But I can't get off of this skin, because there is a time. When the time ended, the skin wore off."
"Okay. I understand. Just use the search here. There might be a secret passage here." As I used a search ability, Mia said to me that she had found the secret room near us. She said to me that I needed to rearrange the books that were on the table and put them in the bookcase. As I looked at the book, I found that there were around five books. It all comes down to the forbidden weapon and word. Each book's title only has one word. The words are death, ended, obliterate, kill and quietus. As I looked at it, I arranged the book via the word ascending, right to the left.
Suddenly, a passage is opened and leads us to a secret room. We get to the secret basement. When we arrived there, I could not see well here. It is quite dark here. I used my flashlight from the phone to look around. Then, Mia said to me that we were near to that thing. I also feel that the aura is thick. By going deeper, I think that my consciousness will fade and I will die. Fortunately, I didn't take Laura with me. I don't want to see her die in vain.
"How about we return? I don't think we can be safe if we get deeper." Lizark said to me.
"Yeah, I think too." Mia also said. Suddenly, I got an idea.
"Skid, can you give me an Oasis of protection."
"Welp, how can you know that?"
"I am your boss. Who do you think I am?"
"That skill might make us invincible for a few minutes. Just make it in a hurry if you don't want to die."
I use oasis protection from Skid's ability to protect me in this basement. Because I have them, I can use their skills too. Using their skills consumes a lot more energy than using a chesscraft. Since I trained for this, I have nothing to be afraid of. I went deep down into the basement and found a door. It is quite dark here. I found one wooden door around three meters in front of me. When I touched the knob, I could feel an enormous aura behind the door being released. I felt a bit of a goosebump. I took a deep breath and relaxed for a moment. As I calmed down, I opened the door.
I could see that there was only one Anubis statue in front of me. The statue looks like it is alive. For a moment, I could feel that statue looking at me with a fierce look. I tried to look at another angle, but that Anubis still haunted me. As I look back at that Anubis, it was right in front of my eyes. I was surprised by that creature's actions. That was alive. I have to get away from it. But, my body cannot move. I feel heavy and it's hard to move. Did the gravity here suddenly become quite strong or was I just scared?
"Hulaif! What are you doing there? Get away from it." Mia yelled at me.
"I...I can't."
"Huh!" Mia was shocked.
"I have tried it but my leg can't move."
A few moments later, Anubis tried to attack me with its staff. As the staff that Anubis held was going to hit me, the Anubis stop its attack. I do not know what happened but this Anubis gave me a chance.
"Why did you stop hitting me?" Suddenly, that word blurts out of my mouth.
"I have a motto that never hits a woman or child." Anubis sounds like a man. Thanks to Laura's skin that I saved. I have to treat her after this. Right now I should ask him more about making Mia do the setup.
"What are you doing here?"
"Wait, I should ask you that question first?"
"You should answer my first because I asked you."
"I am trapped here. Thanks to that man, Khaleed and his Sphinx, I am here. Curse them."
"Actually, I am curious right now. What brought you here?"
"Hey little lady, I am a bad creature that nobody wants to meet. I am Anubis, the man-eater of the underground. I have slaughtered many people up there. Also, I'm hard to die. I even eat a human soul. I am really a bad " I'm impressed by what he said. He's the kind of honest person I met. I have decided I have to recruit him to my team.
"Oh, that's why the country's energy supply becomes weak." Sorry, I'm not an honest person.
"Seriously! I thought that if I ate the souls of the people here, I would not trouble anyone else."
"That's why I investigated here." I guess he will fall into my trap.
"Oh, I am really sorry."
"You said that you were trapped here because of Khaleed. Do you know how long exactly were you trapped here?"
"I don't remember how long, but I know until you open the door. For the first time, I thought you are him. I guessed I am wrong. I am really sorry and thanks for letting me out of this." He is a living legend and still alive.
"I want to ask you, what are you going to do if you get out of this place?"
"Nice question. I am going to get revenge on him for trapping me here and destroying whoever I see. Of course, I am not going to kill you because you released me."
"I am afraid that I can't let you out of here."
"Why? I thought you were going to save me. You make me have no choice. I will kill you and all the people up there." It seems that he is going to attack me to get out of here. Don't know that he will break his motto.
"To make this interesting, how about we make a deal?"
"Oh, no. Not this time again. Are you his daughter?"
"Nope. If I can kill you, how about you become my friend?"
"Huh, is that all? You have your deal and I am going to kill you now."
Without waiting too long, Anubis attacked me in front of me. He moves fast and hits me. His attacks hurt me so much. I took a few hits from him. Fortunately, I was not knocked out by that attack. I was simply pushed and injured. Maybe I have adapted by involving a brute force attack. It seems I will not get easily knocked out. I have to use Mia's skills now.
"Mia, how about with a setup?"
"About that, I have already setup when you are talking with him."
Because of the less light, my vision is kinda poor here. That's why I used Mia's skill to make me detect the Anubis movement. I can sense that Anubis is trying to hit me from behind. I evade early because I know that when he attacks, I will not have time to evade. He is kinda fast for a big creature. That's what I got from the analysis earlier.
"I missed it! How could you evade my attacks?"
"Huh, beat me first." Then, Anubis attacks me nonstop. Thanks to Mia's skills, which is a web string. That skill is extremely useful in this situation. I can move to different places without making myself move. His attacks were also missed every time he attacked me. It looks like he is tired. I think he can't move faster than me because of this room. It is pretty narrow here.
"How on earth do you move faster in this tight space? You really irritate me, kid. Wargh!!!" I think I should ask him the same question too. It looks like he is charging the soul energy. I have to finish him fast if I don't want to be dead. I used a chesscraft and chose Mia as a weapon, I shot the web arrow at the Anubis to make him trapped in a web.
"Hey, Anubis. Do you want to know what you don't want to see?"
"Fire?"
"Correct." I lit up the lighter I bought off the street to burn the web string.
"Do you think a mere fire is enough to defeat me?"
"Who said that this fire would defeat you? I am gonna defeat you." When the fire from a string web burned him, I snapped my finger. Then, a huge explosion happens on top of him. The gunpowder I put inside the web arrow takes effect. Because I don't want to destroy this prison, I move Anubis and me to the domain to make him explode there. I sincerely apologise to Skid for the damage that occurs there.
As the explosion occurs, I can see he is dying and it is hard to move. It looks like he's defeated. "For a long time, no one has defeated me in a fight. Now I see, you are not a lady. You are a man." It seems that the skill's time has ended.
"Well, it does not matter whoever you fight. When you fight, all are equal. That's my motto."
"So, you tricked me into being that lady?"
"Nope. That is something I do for another reason. It might be because of a coincident."
"Hahaha... you have beat me. Do what you are going to do. I am tired."
"You have your deal. How about settling the deal first?" I hurried to catch him using my abilities. To wake him up might take some time to heal him. Right now, I have to find a sphinx and ask her what she thinks is the best idea to save this country. I return to the prison and get out of there without being seen by the warden there. I went to the armoury and asked Aifa if she knew about the Sphinx.
"Oh, I think I know where it is." Aifa brought me to one secret place inside a pyramid not so far from the town.
"What's inside this pyramid?"
"Follow me." She brought me into that pyramid. Then, she shows me one huge monitor in front of me. "This is what you want to find?"
"Is this a Sphinx?" Aifa nodded.
"Hi. I am a Sphinx. What do you want with me, little human?" Is this a Sphinx, or is it just an AI? Has Sigma civilization advanced into AI? This civilization has a strong chance of winning the war.
"So, what are you want from her?" Aifa asked me again.
"I want to ask you about the aid for a war."