The first place Vihera headed was, predictably, the location of the Fleeing Adventurers under attack by tentacles.
That said, in the current Underground Space, several people were moving in small groups, and the pink tentacles extending from the spatial rift were attacking each of them separately.
If Rei had seen this sight, he probably would have been at least a little surprised. When he had fought these tentacles yesterday, they hadn't split off in different directions; instead, every tentacle had converged on a single target.
...Of course, what Rei had actually witnessed was a scene in which the tentacles went straight for the Plain Man, who had been trying to flee among the Red Cloth members that had lost their sense of self. So perhaps—truly perhaps—it had merely been a coincidence that they had behaved that way.
In any case, for Vihera, the fact that her enemies were scattered was not a particularly welcome development. Moreover, with them spread out like this, she had to travel to each location to lend help—a drawback that needlessly consumed time.
Even so, Vihera didn't slow down, launching an attack at the nearest tentacle first.
"Hah!"
As a preliminary test, she simply threw a straightforward punch without doing anything special.
The strike, delivered without even generating magic claws, caught the midsection of a tentacle that had been about to attack a spear-wielding adventurer. Naturally, the tentacle's aim was thrown off, and its tip struck the floor.
Hmm, I heard that merely touching something reduces the target to skin and bones, but nothing happens to the floor, huh.
Momentarily surprised by what she saw, she shifted her body to reposition.
Then, in the next instant, the tip of a tentacle surged straight toward her like a loosed arrow.
It wasn't the tentacle whose aim she had diverted, but an entirely different one launching its own attack.
Vihera dodged the strike with nothing more than a light sway of her body.
Against a tentacle that could steal an opponent's flesh and bodily fluids upon mere contact, it was a bold—no, one might even say recklessly bold—course of action. Just how much nerve did one need to pull off something like that?
The adventurer she had saved could only marvel at her movements.
Having evaded the tentacle's attack by a hair's breadth, Vihera swung her right hand at the tentacle beside her—not at its tip, but at a spot that, on a snake, one might call the torso.
Rather than another punch, she generated magic claws from her Hand Gauntlets and struck with those.
The magic claws, which normally possessed considerable sharpness, met significant resistance, but she still managed to sever partway through.
The severed tentacle, just as she had heard from Rei, immediately crumbled to dust and vanished.
"I see."
She glanced at her magic claws for only a moment before moving again, evading another tentacle attack and swinging her claws once more.
Perhaps because it was her second attempt and she had better gauged the force required, she cut through the tentacle more easily than before. Even so, she still felt greater resistance than Rei had when cutting with Death Scythe.
"Looks like I can fight fairly easily once I get used to it," Vihera muttered, but the adventurer who overheard silently shook his head, as if to say that such a thing could only be done effortlessly by a select few—Vihera included.
The reason he didn't actually voice this was largely because he understood she was saving them, and he strongly didn't want to interfere with her fight.
While the adventurer watched in speechless awe, Vihera's battle entered a new phase.
Having tested the effect of her magic claws, she moved on to her signature skill: Magic Impact Palm.
The tentacles were coated in a viscous fluid that dulled a blade's sharpness. In that case, what would happen if she destroyed them not from the outside, but from within?
With that thought in mind, she reached out her hand while evading a tentacle's attack.
Touching the fluid on its surface was unpleasant for Vihera, but it couldn't be helped if she wanted to confirm Magic Impact Palm's effect.
She would absolutely wash her hands after this battle was over.
Bracing herself, she gathered the magic within her body and activated Magic Impact Palm.
"Hah!"
The Magic Impact Palm, unleashed with a sharp cry, produced results that matched—no, exceeded—Vihera's expectations.
The tentacle's interior burst open, scattering chunks of flesh in all directions. But that wasn't all; the shock somehow traveled along the unruptured tentacles toward the spatial rift...
"Gyoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
From the rift came a strange cry—no, a scream—that Vihera was hearing for the first time, echoing throughout the Underground Space.
The tentacles that had extended from the spatial rift, each attacking the adventurers and Guards, also stopped moving at that scream. But even with the tentacles' movements halted, the adventurers who had been fighting and the Guards under their protection couldn't flee the Underground Space.
Normally, this very moment would have been the perfect chance to escape. So why weren't they running? Not because they chose not to, but because they couldn't.
The adventurers and Guards were desperately trying to move their bodies, but they wouldn't obey. From the instant they heard that cry—no, that roar—their bodies had simply stopped responding.
The only one who could still move amidst all of this was Vihera.
It wasn't that she could move as she normally did, but the mere fact that she could move at all put her in a better position than everyone else.
Set had a skill like this too... I wonder if it's something similar.
Moving as though she were carrying a massive load of weights, Vihera pressed forward.
Her destination was the spatial rift from which the cry had emanated.
Since the roar coming from the rift had stopped everyone's movements, she judged it best to sever the problem at its source.
Additionally, since Magic Impact Palm had proven more effective against the tentacles than expected, she likely reasoned that rather than using it on the tentacles—the opponent's extremities—she should apply it directly at their base.
However, there was no denying that this was a recklessly foolish move on Vihera's part.
In perfect condition, she might have been able to handle it even if dozens of tentacles came pouring out of the rift. But right now, her movements were clearly dulled by the tentacle master's roar, and she was by no means operating at her usual level.
That was precisely why her response to the tentacles bursting forth all at once from the rift was delayed by a critical moment.
She tried to deflect the tentacle rushing toward her at a speed that would have posed no problem under normal circumstances, but her reaction was a beat too slow.
...What was truly unfortunate for Vihera was that by closing the distance to the spatial rift, the roar's effect on her had grown stronger than when she had first heard it.
Had she remained at her original distance, she might have handled the tentacles more successfully.
"!?"
Her body was more sluggish than she had anticipated, yet she still managed to deflect one of the tentacle's strikes with her Hand Gauntlets. But it wasn't the composed movement she had envisioned—it was a desperate, last-second deflection that barely made it in time.
Fighting at her current state, at this range, against a swarm of tentacles whose mere touch could inflict a fatal wound, was nothing short of suicide.
And as a massive number of tentacles extended from the rift, surging straight toward her... even then, Vihera refused to give up, desperately trying to contend with them at her reduced capacity...
"Fall back, Vihera!"
A sharp cry rang out across the Underground Space—one impossible to miss even amid the roars still echoing from the rift. Vihera responded half-reflexively.
Her feet, which had been pressing forward to engage the tentacles, kicked off the floor and leapt backward.
Into the gap that opened between Vihera and the tentacles, something flew in the next instant, slicing clean through the entire cluster of tentacles that had been about to swarm her.
These were tentacles that even Rei's Death Scythe met with slight resistance, yet the weapon that annihilated dozens of them at once vanished the very next moment.
The tentacle master beyond the spatial rift clearly hadn't expected its tentacles to be destroyed all at once. It ceased its pursuit of Vihera—and even the roar that had been paralyzing everyone in the Underground Space fell silent.
"Well now. I come here and find the situation is more troublesome than expected."
Rei had used the Twilight Spear's special ability—the power to return to its wielder's hand at a mental command. Gripping the spear he had just recalled, he surveyed the Underground Space and muttered.
The reason Javis, whom he had been carrying over his shoulder, was nowhere to be seen was because he had left the unconscious man by the stairs before entering.
"For starters, why are there this many Guards here? I thought they were originally told to avoid entering the Underground Space as much as possible."
No one answered Rei's question. Given the sheer size of the Underground Space, it wouldn't have been surprising if his muttering hadn't reached the adventurers and Guards scattered throughout.
Then again, Rei hadn't been expecting a clear answer from anyone in particular.
"Anyway... I suppose we need to do something about this situation."
"Be careful! The closer you get to the spatial rift, the more your movements slow down!"
Vihera, saved in the nick of time by the Twilight Spear, shouted while making her way toward Rei.
Of course, approaching him didn't mean she turned and ran. She clearly understood that doing so would leave her exposed to attacks from behind.
Instead, she kept her eyes on the rift and retreated step by careful step.
Whether her vigilance paid off, or simply because the blow from the Twilight Spear had hurt, no new tentacles were launched toward her from the rift.
"Understood. Then fall back toward me carefully—make sure you don't take any hits."
Rei answered Vihera without any particular agitation.
For Rei, who had means of attacking at range, an effect that intensified the closer one got wasn't that great a threat.
"...Though using the Twilight Spear is a bit wasteful."
He had thrown it because he happened to have it in hand and because he had judged Vihera to be in danger. But the enemy was an entity on the other side of the spatial rift.
The Twilight Spear could return to Rei's hand at his command, but whether that ability would work after striking a being beyond the rift—in other words, an entity in an entirely different dimension from the world Rei currently occupied—was an open question.
If so, it was only sensible to use a different spear.
Inside the Misty Ring were stored a large quantity of battered spears that he had stocked up on before obtaining the Twilight Spear—and continued to replenish even after. Since those were spears originally acquired as disposables, losing one to the spatial rift wouldn't be a problem.
Making that call, he stored the Twilight Spear in his Misty Ring and drew out a disposable spear in its place.
Perhaps reacting to Rei's movement, the tentacles extending from the rift gathered together, coiled and ready to strike.
And then... which one moved first?
Was it Rei who threw his spear, or the tentacles that surged toward him all at once?
The results of those near-simultaneous actions played out in the space between the rift and Rei.
The tentacles were fast, but the spear Rei hurled was faster still.
Positionally, the spear and tentacles collided at a point fairly close to the rift—but the spear was a battered thing to begin with, nowhere near the Twilight Spear, let alone anything that could be called a famed weapon.
Though it nicked the tentacles, the impact snapped the spearhead clean off.
And yet, rather than ricocheting off into the distance, the broken shaft forced its way forward as if prying open a gap between the tentacles... and when its momentum finally died and it clattered to the floor, the next spear Rei threw was already in flight, passing clean through the gap its predecessor had carved and diving straight into the spatial rift.