Garami's PoV:

"No, we have to find a way around." - Filyn

"You sure? I don't have anything against this route." - Garami

"...sometimes I can't understand your taste in stuff..." - Filyn

We have walked through these rocky islands that act as a safe zone in this underground ocean. We had followed the passage that connected the islands. We've even discovered a few exits and holes in the roof like the one we fell through but we couldn't use any of them due to the strange rules of this place. 

If you ignore the Curse Creatures we've encountered, we had managed to advance without any problems. But today's different. Our path's blocked by a huge and strange church.

How is it strange? Well, the overall structure is close to a church, but the design is closer to a Japanese temple, I guess? Like someone tried to turn a church into a temple without altering the basic architecture? What caught my fancy is the sharp-looking crosses that decorated the temple/church, even though I'm a demon. No, maybe it's because I'm a demon? Filyn seems to dislike it though.

One of the reasons must be that it's in our way. It's placed right in the middle of the road and there is no way to go around it except by taking a dip in that black water of doom. There seem to be drawbridges leading to and from the church. Both are currently up, but the mechanism to lower them should be located inside the church. That's what we can guess from the construction of the bridges, at least.

"No choice. I'll look for some other way around. I'll be back in a few hours." - Filyn

While I was still unsure why she was so against this place, I agreed to her plan and saw her off. That leaves me with helping  Zaria's tamed mouse, Tinkletop, in breathing life back into his master.

"You still alive?" I asked the huffing and wheezing Therianthrope who only gave me a shakey thumbs-up as an answer.

"Th-this-this place i-is g-great t-tr-training." - Zaria

Yeah, but is it worth it? I have to say yes, believe it or not.

During this last week, Filyn has been teaching us in the arts of "how to maximize the time spent in the Demonic Seas".

Stuff like magic is completely unusable due to the sea, but Arts and skills are still working. This place is a magician's worst nightmare, but it's nothing for warriors, except that too close a contact with the Curse Creatures can lead to a horrible end.

However, there are some loopholes. Archers with physical-type attacks (meaning someone other than Noire) are one thing, but the key to gain some earnings in the Sea is; guerilla tactics.

Curse Creatures are horrible to fight with on their home turf, but as long as you can hit them without being hit back, they're just durable targets. As Filyn with her many years' worth of experience can testament, there are no Curse Creatures that are exceptionally fast, meaning we just have to deliver our attacks, then flee in the same second. 

This method of training's stressful enough for me to have never thought of it back on the surface, but down here I had barely any other choice, so I kept on forcing myself until I got used to it.

And boy, there are many Curse Creatures here. One of the most common ones is the humanoid-type that's called a "Pettiness", but that hasn't stopped us from encountering quite the "colorful" characters these last seven days.

We've got, for example, an organic-looking living chain called "Enslavement". It has an evolved E-rank form called "Enslaved Freedom" that looks like a bird with disproportionate limbs, bloody empty eyeholes and is virtually fused with the chain from before. Then there's the one that looked like an unborn fetus called "Unborn Grief", a humanoid that looked like a headless black mantis called "Broken Bonds" and a thin human figure crying tears of blood while carrying a shield with a roaring face on it called "Unthanked Guardian".

And there's a lot of them down here once you first find one, so most of our travels have been defeating the swarms of these guys who were in our way. Worst of all, despite all of us having fought like crazy these last few days, none of us have gotten a single level-up...

On the bright side, my Slasher class grew tremendously. It's already at Lv.47! Would have gotten above that even if I had done it on the surface, but I would prolly never used close-range tactics since I could use magic aboveground. Think I'm gonna make this fighting method my standard tactic. It fits me quite well. Even Filyn praised me for my speed as I ran circles around the Curse Creatures.

Necromancer and Grudge-Weaving Alchemist may have gotten no usage ever since I came crashing down into this place. I did try to see if I could use all the curses in the air for my alchemy, but it felt like trying to empty the Atlantic with a colander. Even Extra Skills and Master-tier classes won't be enough to tame these seas, no.

Zaria hasn't had much progress with Shadow Dancer, as the Curse Creatures are impossible to fool. What do you mean they "search based on feelings"? How are we supposed to hide those!?

Her new class, Genin (Wind), is a different case. The ninjutsu that comes with the class enables her to knead mana in her body before releasing it, making it possible to use magic down here. Apparently, the magic formulas people produce when using magic can't keep themselves together in this curse-filled air, but if the spell's already finished, then it can be used.

Another thing that Zaria's been busy with is the destruction of the drop-items from the Curse Creatures. 

When those things die, they disintegrate into black dust, but some species may leave behind a part of their bodies that can be used as a piece of equipment. Cursed equipment. Of the kind that turns you into a new Curse Creature. 

Yeaaah, I wouldn't wanna use them either. So we let Zaria turn those things to rust as part of her Saboteur class training. She also took care of some special constructs that naturally appeared over time in this place. Those things acted as power-up beacons for Curse Creatures nearby. No reason not to break them.

As I was thinking back on our adventure up to this point, Zaria's face started to look less pale. I'm used to continuous struggles thanks to trying to survive in the Water-Knot, but it may be a little tough for normal people.

"W-what if there are no other paths?" - Zaria

"So you did listen. One way would be to climb on the walls to reach the other side or by flying, but there are more of those barriers from before." - Garami

A thing that had put a wrench in our progress more than the Curse Creatures were the walls of curses that sometimes prevented us from moving through the air. We were lucky with the area where we fought Springwood, but good luck never lasts long.

"...I get a bad feeling from that church." - Zaria

"That, I gotta agree to. It's cool-looking, but it's bad news." - Garami

A place like this looks too much like the home of a final boss for there to be nothing inside. 

"...just looking at the entrance wouldn't hurt..." - Garami

"Huh? Yeah, whatever..." - Zaria

Should I leave this girl alone? Albeit, anywhere Filyn goes will become an empty wasteland, so there shouldn't be any Curse Creatures around here at the moment. And even if they did, Zaria could simply take to the air if needed. 

I told Zaria I would scout ahead in case Filyn didn't find another way, to which she lazily replied "yes". To be sure, I asked Tinkletop to keep an eye on his tired master.

After guaranteeing the tired batwoman would be safe alone, I started to make my way to the church. The large black doors opened up with a noisy screech...

Hey! These are made outta Blackiron! No...an advanced variant?

Around 95% of the items found down here are mostly cursed and more of a threat than profit, but the remaining 5% is worth at least something. Not enough that someone would willingly venture down here, but if you're lucky enough to stumble across something, then you're not completely in the red from the trip. Still not enough to compensate for a trip down here on your own will though.

The high-tier Blackiron would be at least something. I entered the church while trying to stay alert of any Curse Creatures or traps. What I found was various armors and decorations made outta "safe" materials, despite the area we're in.

The armors placed in rows along the walls looked like western full-plate armors, but with an eastern twist added. Same with the decorative weapons. There were colorful gems lodged into the handles of the weapons which gave the black-and-grey church some colors, but since I'm only scouting the place, I held back from taking them for now.

"GM. Get back here." - Garami

With a voice as low as possible, I asked for GM to return. A few seconds later, and the floating black box appeared in front of me.

"Garami~! ...huh? Where are we?" - GM

"In a church located in the Demonic Seas." - Garami

"Okay, the Demon...the Demonic Seas!?!?!?" - GM

"Be quiet! What if someone hears you!?" - Garami

I did use the Silence-part of [Total Presence Concealment] as I'd predicted this reaction, but that's no excuse to attract all the Curse Creatures in the whole... country? Land? Island?

"How can anyone be quiet when they hear they are in the Demonic Seas!? The place is better known as 'Alvatria's Playbox'!!" - GM

"Why am I not surprised..." - Garami

So most of the irrational stuff we've been experiencing is because of that thing? No, it may have been thought of without her involvement. With her reputation, it's not surprising.

"Changing the subject. Can you see if these things are safe to Identify and take away?" I asked GM while showing her the various weapons and armors in the corridor.

"No problems there. Do you still want me around or should I go back to my task?" - GM

"...keep me company. And tell me how long you've progressed with your assignments." - Garami

Before the third event started, I had asked GM to look for something by searching the World System. She has more freedom than my Identification-related abilities, and it's a subject the Kigal-Note refused to talk about.

"Hmm, I'm pretty close to clearing the first one, but there is something huge that is hidden behind several levels of protection. It will take some time to figure that out, but the rest is all known to me." - GM

Oh? That's great news. Never expected to hear such fruitful results already.

"But I'm behind the second one. That information is even heavier guarded than the first one. Or maybe it's that the first one's designed to be easier to discover compared to the more usual information caches?" - GM

Tch, things never are easy. One outta two's not bad, but I'm a greedy demon with greedy needs. Nothing I can do other than wait and see.

"Then we'll go through everything you've learned after this." - Garami

Having decided on our plans of action for the future, the two of us started to investigate the church. And we found a simply ground-breaking truth.

All the equipment used as decorations here have a quality of at least B-. And they are Epic-rarities only. We even saw a few Legendary items! 

We continued further into the church with me in a good mood. Then we came to a large hall. If it was a normal church, this would be the church hall, but it felt closer to a dance hall. There's a large open area that looked like they could host a noble party there, with a stand where musicians would probably play for the guests.

"Nothing suspicious here..." I said while peeking into the room, but right as I had taken a step into it, my body's control was robbed from me. Even GM disappeared! I couldn't do anything except watch my body walk into the middle of the dance hall.

"A trap!?" was my first thought, but a notification dispelled that idea.

It's a Quest. One that's seemingly activated automatically when someone enters the dance hall. And it's a Solo Quest...

Solo Quests are Quests you can only do on your own, and once you're in one, no outside influence can affect the Quest. Meaning I'm trapped in something too suspicious to be good. Several parts of the Quest are concealed from me. While I can agree on the third part of the Quest and the rewards being a secret as I'm just at the second part..."Lonely Songstress: Despair"??

I regained control of my body as I noticed that visible disturbing part of the Quest. Both in the text and reality. From the ceiling descended a huge, pale-grey body. It looked like a spider, but the "neck" was extended like a dragon's, and in place of its head was a woman's upper body. 

The woman was dressed in a ruined ballroom dress, with various stakes lodged into her body. She was wearing a blindfold that covered both her eyes and ears and it looked like it was sewn onto her. The tiara on her head was made of sharp thorns, some lodged into her skull with blood dripping down from the wounds.

Yeah, this is something worthy of being called "Despair".

The Songstress gave a loud wail that did actually manage to sound beautiful. Like a real aria.

Then came several Curse Creatures with thread-like somethings attached to the back of their necks, no, encroached by it. Not pretty at all!!

There are mostly Pettinesses, but there are also other E-ranked Curse Creatures in the mix. And they all have higher stats than normal. Not a fight I wanna buy. 

I used [Lightforce Javelin] with [Shooting] in the hope of forcing the "puppets" back and giving me some space. Some of the weaker puppets were killed in that barrage. What gives?

Oh, the threads. The threads connected to the puppets must also be some kinda lifeline, quite literally. And those attached to weaker puppets have less durability?

While I was analyzing the situation, a puppet Broken Bonds tried to cut off my neck, but it was too slow even with its boosted stats. I dodged it by jumping above it with [Sky Jump] and cut its thread with Carnwennan. Getting [Cutting Reinforcement] was a good idea, if I say so myself.

After I landed, an Enslaved Freedom puppet threw its chain at me, but I used my own [Dark Chain] to stop it in its tracks before blasting off its thread with [Dragon Breath (Darkness)].

Heh-heh. That's right. Garami's gotten a breath weapon! I never took one before because I was unsure which one to chose, but when I experienced the loss of magic over the last week, I decided to gain a Darkness skill that had some real stopping power, Zahhak notwithstanding.

Dodging the Unborn Grief puppets, I threw some more javelins and [Chaotic Bullets] to push back the swarm of puppets...wait a second. These are puppets! I don't need to beat them, just their puppet master!

While acting like I didn't have it in my thoughts, I kept on fighting some of the puppets while discreetly ignoring the puppet master, aka, the Songstress. It kept on singing with that so-nice-it's-creepy voice, trying to apply a Weakening-effect on my stats. Hmph, the nerve. 

Let me show you how it's really done.

While giving a good roundhouse kick to a puppet, I used the momentum to turn around and aim at the Songstress and released my Chaotic Zahhak for the first time in a while. 

Seven two-headed dragons charged at the Songstress on top of her stage, but the cursed woman started to wail in a much louder voice, creating a barrier made of her song. She managed to stop two, three Zahhaks, but the barrier broke with the last one, nothing stopping the remaining four dragons from making the Curse Creature their prey.

The Songstress fell to the ground with a large noise, barely holding onto its life, if it has one. It turned its face towards me with a sneer, which quickly turned into surprise.

"Sorry, but I also know threads." - Garami

Thin threads coming from the Songstress' spider-body had tried to attach themselves to me, but I had noticed them and released threads of my own to cut them. The best way to deal with threads is to entangle them and cut them to pieces.

Not caring if the point got through to it or not, but I ended the Songstress with a new Javelin boosted with [Storm Compression], crushing it to mulch. 

Okay, now the Quest should...tch.

*Bang!*

*Bzz!*

A gunshot rang through the dance hall. I parried it with Carnwennan in its darksaber-mode. Glad [Intuition] and [Thought Super-Acceleration] worked there, or else that would have ended in a headshot!

"Ahahahaha! You blocked that!? F*cking crazy, lady!" 

A male voice came from the shadows, but I couldn't see the gunner. Damn, now we're going into round 2 or something?  

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Kigal-Note/Monster Skills: [Dragon Breath (Darkness)]