“Heh heh heh! It is even more fun after such a long time!”
-So you deliberately sent me there without saying a word, just to scare me?
“Exactly! The look on your face was priceless! I enjoyed it immensely!”
Seriously, what expression could a skeleton possibly have?
“Heh heh heh. You really are an astonishingly easy-to-read skeleton.”
With that, my senior picked up something resembling a remote control from the table.
“Her name is Shallonia. You may call her Nia for short. Well, she is the only fool among us who sincerely follows the Goddess, so you can be at ease around her.”
She sincerely follows the Damn Goddess?
That's even scarier than her suddenly appearing yesterday. What on earth did the Goddess do to make someone worship her so sincerely...?
[The ‘Goddess of the Doomed’ angrily protests that you must not speak ill of Shallonia, saying that she is the only good child.]
...Seriously, how did she manage that?
“Well, ask her about herself later. Are you ready?”
As he spoke, my senior raised the remote control toward me.
That's right. What he'd been preparing while we talked was my training.
CRACK.
“Well, I shall take that as a yes. Come forth, Alpha-23414!”
When I summoned my bow to signal that I was ready, my senior pressed the remote control.
WHIRRR... CLANK!
A transparent barrier descended around us, and a wooden puppet resembling a knight appeared at the same time.
CRASH—!
“CLICK!”
Once again, the Sacred Site rang with thunderous crashes and the clattering of bones.
Behind the right-hand door of the Sacred Site lay a space that was part forge and part training ground.
A single blossom of dust rose in the place my senior had called the training area.
Emerging through the dust as though brushing aside an annoyance was a robot roughly three meters tall, with my senior riding atop it.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Missiles fired from the robot's shoulders struck the ground.
There was no need to explain what came next.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Naturally, the missiles exploded.
With my ever-reliable rolling technique, I escaped the blast radius and took aim without straightening from my crouch.
Concealed by the dust rising from the explosions, I nocked an arrow, drew my bowstring toward the spot where the robot had been standing, and released it.
The arrow pierced the thick cloud of dust, punching a doughnut-shaped hole through it as it flew.
PING~!
***
But that was all.
The arrow didn't lodge in the robot. It didn't even inflict the slightest damage.
“You are not the only one who can use the rising dust!”
THWACK!
Along with the shout from above came an enormous red fist from the right, sweeping away the dust in its path.
“CLATTER!”
Unable to react to the sudden ambush, I took the full force of the glove.
Would getting hit by a truck feel like this?
It felt as though every bone in my body was crumbling.
Though, in my case, my entire body and my bones were pretty much the same thing.
I can't lose focus now.
If I lose consciousness, it'll be no different from all the other times.
This time, I'm definitely going to wipe that smug look off my damned senior's face.
With that thought, I somehow managed to steady myself without tumbling across the floor, then drew my bowstring.
My target was the robot's knee joint.
After all, no matter how powerful a Hunter might be, an arrow to the knee could turn them into a guard. Joints were always vulnerable.
I swallowed the pain and focused calmly.
Soon, Alpha's silhouette began to emerge through the dust.
WHIRRR....
The robot's movements slowed, and the world itself began to flow more slowly.
The Domain had activated for the second time since that day I fought the wooden puppet.
But that wasn't all.
I can hit it.
That certainty filled my entire body, and I moved as naturally and smoothly as the flow of the wind.
FWOOOSH~!
The arrow of overwhelming power I'd fired in the gray cavern.
Through training with my senior, I'd become capable of firing that arrow every so often.
For now, I was calling it the Power Shot, and that arrow manifested once again, tearing through the air.
A combination of the Domain and the Power Shot.
Both manifested by chance, regardless of my will. This was an opportunity that might never come again.
THWIP!
“Impressive! But do you truly believe that will work against Alpha-29500?”
The strongest attack I could muster struck the robot's knee joint dead center, and the arrow embedded itself there, but....
Just as my senior had said, that was all.
It was nothing more than a tiny fragment of bone stuck in an enormous robot. The robot had no trouble moving whatsoever.
The attack into which I'd poured everything I had, combining the Domain with the Power Shot, ended in such an anticlimactic fashion.
“The victory is mine!”
As I stood there, trying to digest my sense of futility, I was greeted by the enormous fist of the robot wearing a red boxing glove.
CRASH—!
Have you ever seen a skeleton mounted on a wall like a stuffed trophy?
Well, now you have. Me.
There I was, embedded in the training ground wall like a mounted specimen, while my senior struck a victory pose in the distance.
“That makes twenty-three victories for me and Alpha-29500!”
It had already been three months since I'd fallen from the sky and first set foot in this Sacred Site.
Fortunately, I was a skeleton and my senior was a ghost, so neither of us had needed food, clothing, or shelter throughout that long period.
Unfortunately, that also meant I'd had to spend every moment apart from rest being chased around and trained by my senior.
‘CLATTER!’
CRASH—!
‘Ah, that is not how you dodge that.’
I'd fought robots he called Alphas or whatever, all while enduring my senior's constant meddling and criticism.
‘Ha... I honestly think those pointy-eared bastards would be better at hammering than you.’
‘Not bad. A little large for a toothpick, though.’
‘Good grief, you have heated this iron so little that the oil would freeze if you dipped it in.’
I'd practiced hammering iron, carving wood, and attaching feathers to make arrows.
Frankly, working a hammer while listening to my senior insult me was several times harder than fighting.
Still, thanks to being put through the wringer every single day, I'd grown stronger quickly.
So quickly, in fact, that my senior said it was as though I wasn't learning how to fight, but remembering how to fight.
Perhaps that was why I'd managed to defeat most of the other robots—the Alphas, as my senior called them—before fighting them ten times.
...It was just that the Alpha my senior was personally controlling now was so absurdly strong that it felt like finding a vaulting horse in the middle of a marathon course.
Unlike the first Alpha I'd faced, which was like a wooden puppet, this thing was made of some proper metal and was hard as hell. Despite being a machine, it even moved smoothly and flexibly.
“CLICK.”
“All right, all right. I shall get you out.”
I had a strong feeling that I couldn't go on like this.
Twenty-three losses, zero draws, zero wins.
It was such a miserable record that I could practically hear a skeleton somewhere in my head mocking me, saying, ‘You got absolutely wreeeeecked!’
At this rate, I couldn't see any way forward.
My senior, who was pulling my bones out of the wall, and the Alpha standing behind him looked like a gigantic wall.
I'd tried climbing that enormous wall twenty-three times, and every single time, I'd fallen.
Trying to climb it yet again under these circumstances would be nothing but foolish stubbornness.
What I needed now was another way, something like a rope or an anchor to help me get over that gigantic wall.
In other words, I needed a change.
“So you intend to leave the Sacred Site?”
-Yeah. I can't see any way forward like this, so I need to try something else.
What I needed most right now was overwhelming power, enough to penetrate Alpha's armor.
So I'd hunt the surrounding monsters and use [Bone Manipulation] to replace my current fragile bones with bones that had higher Strength stats.
And while I was at it, I'd raise my other stats, too.
“Well... You have already defeated Alpha-29471, so I suppose the other monsters in the area will not kill you, but....”
-Then there's no problem. I'm off.
“Wait, I am still talk—?! Ha... That bastard is damned irritating, too....”
I cheerfully ignored my senior badmouthing me the moment I turned my back. I was about to leave the Sacred Site when I stopped for a moment.
“Are you leaving?”
-Yeah. I don't think I can keep going like this.
There was a woman standing in front of the Sacred Site's door, waiting for me.
Shallonia.
Since my senior and I were both undead, we'd been holed up in the training area twenty-four hours a day. This was the first time I'd seen her since that first day.
Remembering that suddenly made me feel a little guilty, but Shallonia bowed her head as though it didn't bother her at all.
“May blessings be upon your path, Apostle. For the doomed.”
With those words, Shallonia stepped aside from the door.
How should I put it? My senior had described her as foolish, but she seemed a little different to me.
Her attitude was so unnervingly mechanical that she seemed more like a doll than a fool.
The fact that there was something strangely familiar about her eyes only strengthened that impression.
Maybe I should pay her a little attention when I return....
With that thought, I placed my hand on the door.
RUMBLE....
With a tremendous noise, the door opened, and fresh air immediately wrapped around me.
Maybe it was because I hadn't felt the outdoor air in so long, but I already felt stronger for some reason.
People really do need to get outside.
As I walked along thinking that, I soon reached the end of the stairs.
I couldn't have been happier to see the pure-white forest that greeted me beyond them.
“Grrrr?”
No, I take that back.
I wasn't happy in the slightest.
Outside the Sacred Site, among the trees of the White Forest, an enormous, pure-white wolf stared at me as though bewildered.
It was so huge that it seemed to defy perspective, boasting a size comparable to an ordinary detached house. Anyone could tell at a glance that this was an enemy I couldn't handle.
SWISH—
Damn it.
The moment that thought occurred to me, I turned around, but the entrance to the Sacred Site had already closed.
Damn, they're thorough about locking the doors.
Haah. Can't be helped. Now that it's come to this, I might as well struggle until the end....
CRACK—
“...?”
I summoned my bow and turned around to at least put up a fight, only to find that the wolf had vanished without a trace.
The wolf had disappeared as though it had been a mirage.
Was I seeing things?
There's no reason a wolf that's clearly stronger than me would run away....
[The ‘Goddess of the Doomed’ says it was thanks to her.]
What's that supposed to mean?
[The ‘Goddess of the Doomed’ explains that this place is her domain. As the creatures living in this forest are practically her vassals, it is only natural for them to avoid her Apostle.]
Uh, I don't understand that at all.
[The ‘Goddess of the Doomed’ sighs and explains that if her Apostle were the company chairman's son parachuted into a job, that wolf would be something like a department head.]
Aha! So even if I'm weaker than that thing, it can't touch me because I've got the Damn Goddess backing me up?
[The ‘Goddess of the Doomed’ nods, saying that while they would fight back to survive if attacked, that is correct.]
An image of a skeleton commanding countless wolves flashed through my mind.
[The ‘Goddess of the Doomed’ firmly states that they are her vassals, not her Apostle's, so nothing of the sort will happen.]
Tch. And here I thought the Damn Goddess was finally going to be useful for once.
[The ‘Goddess of the Doomed’ asks whether this much is not already a considerable advantage.]
Ah, whatever.
At least the wolf problem is solved. Now the question is where I should go....
[The ‘Goddess of the Doomed’ sighs, wondering how she ended up making someone like you her Apostle....]
All I could see around me was white: white trees, white ground, and a white sky.
If I wandered off without thinking, I was bound to get lost.
JINGLE~
No, wait. Thanks to the pendant, I can return to the Sacred Site whenever I want, so I guess it doesn't matter.
THUMP!
As I looked around for a moment, I heard the sound of a heartbeat that couldn't possibly exist, almost like an auditory hallucination.
I felt just like a Hunter, one of those Awakened who made a profession of hunting monsters inside Gates.
My hands trembled slightly, caught between a pounding excitement and a touch of fear.
And I didn't entirely dislike that restless mixture of emotions.
Considering that I'd taken a dangerous part-time job entering Gates in the first place, and how excited I felt now, perhaps the person I'd once been had dreamed of becoming a Hunter.
In a way, could I say I'd achieved that dream?
Just then, a gentle breeze brushed over my bones.
Hadn't my senior said this forest was the Damn Goddess's territory?
Perhaps that was why the forest itself seemed to regard me with affection and welcome me.
I felt as though I could do anything.
With that unsettled yet refreshing feeling, I simply let my feet carry me wherever my heart desired.