The airship drifted down until it hovered directly above the building.
“Ready?”
“““Yeah!”””
The soldiers’ voices rang with eagerness.
Up until now, they had done nothing but endure ambush after ambush from that elusive group of ninjas. Each time they had suffered painful losses, they were forced to grind their teeth in frustration. But now the tables had turned. This time, they are storming the enemy’s stronghold, wiping out the organization at its very roots. It’s no wonder that their morale was sky-high.
Using the ship’s lift mechanism, one after another, a hundred soldiers were lowered to the ground. They spread out across the compound’s perimeter, others landing directly on the rooftop, carefully scattering to various attack locations.
Inside the stronghold, the ninjas were caught off guard. Of course, they couldn’t remain in their black garb all day long. Most of them were in casual clothes, relaxing—until intruders came crashing down on them from above. Panic broke out as they scrambled in confusion.
“We’re going in too.”
We descended to the ground using the lift mechanism, then we slipped in through a nearby window to infiltrate the building.
“A quick sweep with detection magic tells me this place has a much larger chamber beneath it. Most likely, that’s the real stronghold.”
I informed the others.
Thanks to Edo’s soldiers wreaking havoc outside, we reached the stairway leading down without much trouble. But, of course, they weren’t going to let us pass so easily from there.
“Hm. Something big’s up ahead.”
“Those are… by the looks of them, they are guardian statues.”
The two two-meter-tall statues standing on both side of the corridor slowly stirred to life.
“Karakuri soldiers? They certainly look impressive!”
The two huge karakuri soldiers leaped towards us, each holding a special weapon that was a pole with spear-like blades on both sides.
But in truth, they were no match for us.
Fana’s slash easily cut one of them in half through the torso, and Anje’s kick sent the other one flying, embedding it into the wall.
Both of the karakuri self-destructed immediately afterwards, but I deployed a barrier that completely blocked the heat and blast.
“Let’s keep moving.”
When we went down the stairs, we found ourselves surrounded by a parade of contraptions and mechanisms.
What appeared to be a dead end turned out to be a rotating wall, there are floors that shifted and returned us to the same place and traps that thwart intruders were installed everywhere.
There is also a mechanism where the room itself would rotate in a circle when you entered, blocking the entrance and exit.
Rrrrmmm…
“The ceiling is dropping!”
“So they mean to crush us flat, huh?”
“Leave this to me.”
With our escape cut off and the ceiling grinding steadily lower, Karen raised her sword.
“Yagyu Shinnen-ryu —Full Moon!”
The strike traced a flawless circle through the wall. The wall was cut into a clean circle.
“With this, we can pass through.”
Karen beamed.
She gave the cut-out section a sharp kick, sending it tumbling to the other side. Beyond the opening lay another chamber.
From there we pressed on, encountering all manner of contraptions—pressure plates that loosed volleys of arrows, hidden pits ready to drop us onto a bed of spikes. They were the sort of traps one might expect in a dungeon, and yet we pushed forward all the same.
At last, we arrived at a vast chamber.
Tatami mats—hundreds of them, perhaps even two hundred—covered the entire floor area. And at the far end of the room, a lone figure awaited us.
“Kukuku… I never thought that someone would make it this far. And we didn’t even notice it until we were attacked. I’m really curious how you guys managed to cross the sea and get over those sheer cliffs… Never mind. I’ll have you guys captured alive so you can tell me in about that in exquisite detail.”
He looked to be in his late twenties. Tall and sickly thin, his eyes bulged with a praying mantis–like intensity.
“Who are you?”
I asked.
“I am Kunitomo Ittosai. A genius on karakuri making, the man who will bring about a karakuri revolution to the world.”
The name rang a bell.
“Wait…weren’t you the one Hiraga Genko warned us about? The researcher driven out for dangerous ideas?”
Ittosai laughed, brittle and scornful.
“Kukuku—that brat? She may be hailed as the pinnacle of the Hiraga clan’s karakuri work, but she is utterly beneath my feet. Bound by that foolish chain called ‘ethics,’ she strangles her own potential.”
Immediately afterwards, the doors called fusuma that surrounded the room on all four sides all slid open at once. Arrayed behind them were rows and rows of ninjas—all transformed into karakuri soldiers.
Ittosai declared,
“Now, taste for yourselves the very essence of my karakuri!”
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeineijiworks.wordpress.com.
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