CH 130.2

Chapter 130.2 : Goma’s Castle

「But still, how can it connect just like that?」

「Yuuto-kun, could it be that you’re referring that there might be electromagnetic waves inside this dungeon?」

But of course, when we’re speaking about communication via mail or phone with a mobile phone, it wouldn’t be connected unless both phones were connected to the terminal via electromagnetic waves. For example, even if I were calling a person who stood right in front of me, my phone would’ve to connect to the closest terminal with electro-magnetic waves first, and only after doing that would my phone call be connected to the other party’s phone. Distance had nothing to do with it.

So making a phone call was basically an indirect connection via the terminal, the one that directly connected with my phone was the transceiver in the terminal.

「Well, let’s just call it Sage’s magic.」

「Yeah, it’s just as Kotori says, let’s not treat it like how the phone in our world operates. Otherwise, it won’t look like magic anymore.」

Anyway, we agreed to not dig any further.

「This is so amazing, Kotori-san! Now everyone can get in touch with each other! Let’s quickly charge everyone’s smartphone as well.」

「Okay, leave it to this 『Sage』, Takanashi Kotori!」

Thus, we obtained smartphone magic.

Kotori-san then proceeded to charge everyone’s smartphone with 『Magic Alchemy Formation』. Maybe, it was the person herself who wished to be able to make a call once the smartphone has fully charged. And that strong feeling, bordering on a wish, was the main reason she turned the smartphone into a magic tool.

Maybe because we really could use our phones, even though most of us were still half in doubt, almost all of us were checking the mail, SNS, and phone calls to find out that it was functioning normally.

「But still, we can’t make a phone call to the others unless we’re connected to the internet.」

「Well, this is another world, after all, we’re completely detached from our world. But still, we’ll be able to contact the nearby people as soon as the electromagnetic waves connect to their phones.」

「I see now! You’re right!」

Kotori completely misunderstood the explanation about the transceiver from the class rep. Sadly enough, her understanding of communication technology was even lower than a junior high school student but still, we might’ve to thank such a low level of understanding for allowing us to use our phone in this labyrinth.

For example, assuming that Kotori-san understood the meaning of transceiver, meaning that we’re limited to short-distance communication, that’s why her act of erasing the need for a transceiver in the phone communication had enabled us to contact someone from a faraway place. The combination of her vocation, 『Sage』, and her magic formation were the factors behind the creation of the smartphone’s magic.

In fact, everyone was really happy about this. Except for Futaba-san who grasped tightly on her smartphone.

「It’ll be even better… if I can exchange my email address with Kotaro-kun.」

She was looking down as she murmured to herself.

===

After Kotori-san developed her 『Ignition Ring』 and smartphone magic, she kept on developing accessories-type magic items with a small magic stone. The effect of those accessories was negligible but that was mainly because of Kotori’s low-level mastery. The quality of her magic tools would continue to improve along with her mastery.

We continued to advance towards the gomas castle where the next transfer magic circle was located as Takanashi-san continued her experiment.

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「――UWAA, I FOUND IT! IT REALLY IS GOMA’S NEST!!」

Natsukawa-san who always scouting ahead due to her 『Thief』’s vocation had finally discovered the gomas’ den. Thus, we were following her and then, found the said goma’s den ahead of us.

Maybe a hamlet was a closer description for that place rather than a den, and it didn’t seem like the castle we’re looking for.

Gomas weren’t the kind of monsters that sprung up from the dungeons like skeletons. It seems they built their own community somewhere, and the gomas’ hamlet in front of us was the first goma’s community I’d ever seen.

「It’s more like a hamlet rather than a nest.」

「Indeed. At least, they seem to be smart enough to have construction technology.」

The trees growing in the village had been cut down to make an open space for the village. Their houses were similar to a tent, made from coarse and slightly dirty clothes, and densely packed.

In addition, even though the construction was rather clumsy, they did make a wall around the hamlet by stabbing wooden stakes on the ground and tying them together with ivy-like rope.

「What are we going to do, Nii-san?」

「They have yet to discover our presence, surprise attack works better in this kind of situation.」

Gomas weren’t strong monsters by all means, but they’re troublesome existence since they fought in a group using their number as their advantage to exhaust their opponent. And the class rep was right, the current us could wipe them out with blitzkrieg.

But still, no matter how much of a monster they were, when I saw them live their life with their children in their village like normal humans…

「No, let’s pass on this one.」

「Indeed, no need to fight needlessly.」

「Yeah. They don’t seem like a threat even if we leave them alone.」

Maybe I was only playing safe to avoid feeling guilty over this matter. Anyhow, with Sakura and Class Rep supporting my opinion, we left that place quietly to avoid being noticed by them.

This hamlet wouldn’t become a problem even if we ignored it.

The one who stood in our way was only that castle with a transfer circle. Once we arrived there, it seemed impossible to avoid a huge battle.

「That’s… gomas’ castle huh.」

And then, we’d finally arrived at our destination after walking in the jungle for almost one week.

The thing that was towering like a mountain in the middle of the jungle was a giant pyramid. It closely resembled the Mayan Civilization’s ruin.

No matter how much I thought about it, this ancient, giant stone structure was clearly beyond gomas’ ability. The top of this pyramid was the place pointed by our compass―― and then, it was guarded by numerous gomas.

With the pyramid as its center, its base was surrounded by numerous tent-like structures similar to the one we saw on the way to this place.

「… What are we going to do, Nii-san?」

「Capturing that pyramid with frontal attack seems to be impossible even with our current strength.」

As expected, even Sakura and Class Rep’s face became gloomy upon seeing the sheer size of gomas’ city, or rather gomas’ metropolis. The scale was completely different from the encounter battle we’d experienced up until this point. The scale has increased from battle to war.

「But we’ve no choice but to keep going on. Since this place is located outside of the jungle, we can’t expect to look for a detour.」

「Right! The transfer circle that I saw from the pedestal of that tower can’t be in anywhere but this place.」

Takanashi-san declared so.

Though it didn’t mean that I’d never considered such possibilities, at least we’re not getting too caught up with the map function of that pedestal since we couldn’t find another transfer circle towards the next area around this area.

Or else, the location might just happen to be outside of the map. And there was no guarantee that we could find the next transfer magic circle.

「But that place is a bit, you know…」

「Yeah, they’ve completely outnumbered us.」

Both Natsukawa and Asuna didn’t seem to be too eager to fight an opponent who completely outnumbered us.

「Uhm, aren’t just small fry?」

But Futaba-san was the only one who muttered those words with a usual calm voice.

「Futaba-san, such rash judgement is――」

「I mean it’s just the same as before, it’ll be okay as long as we use the transfer magic circle as soon as we defeat the boss, right? There’s no need to defeat all of the gomas, we just need to defeat their boss as fast as possible and escape from this area with transfer magic circle, right?」

「That’s easier….」

Sakura stopped halfway after she realized that Futaba-san was right.

「In the end, we’ve no other way than to do that. We’ve to infiltrate the castle in secret, defeat the boss as fast as possible, and then extract its core. After that, we only need to escape.」

「You’re right… that’s the best option for us, let’s do that.」

Though I was not too keen on doing that, everything was decided very quickly after we agreed to use the most reasonable strategy. Everybody might be still anxious about this matter, but they raised their weapon to hide their anxiety.

Nevertheless, we’re not going to infiltrate the castle so boldly. We had to make as much preparation as possible.