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The passage through to the next room had even more traps than the last one, including flamethrowers. Flamethrowers that packed one hell of a punch with their green fire. And the spike traps. And the one blade trap that would have taken Kiba's foot off had he been a second slower.
"I am beginning to hate whoever designed this infernal passageway." The blond boy growled as he shook his leg slightly, making sure that he hadn't lost anything.
"I'm not exactly happy with them either." Akeno eyed the end of her long ponytail, which had been singed by a sudden burst of green fire from the last fire trap. Evidently it had somehow refilled its reserves since it was last used, because it had belched fire as soon as Kiba had passed by it, aimed straight at Akeno. She had shielded in time, but the tip of her hair had been caught by the fire.
"These brutes are almost as large as that ratman we found at the end of the first burrow!" Rias exclaimed sharply when they came across the sprawled forms of the Stormvermin in the third room.
"Look here." Kiba said with a frown as he knelt next to two familiar-looking hilts, "This makes six of these knock-off swords he's gone through. He used them until they broke with this pair."
"He had a better sword with him when we last saw him." Rias frowned, "That short sword with a straight edge on one side and a wavy one on the other. It didn't look magical, so…maybe he knows or suspects about the environment here and is using these throwaway swords instead of risking his best sword until it is necessary to use it?"
"Makes sense." Sona agreed.
"But…when we saw him last, he didn't have any sheaths on him." Kiba said slowly, "It was as if he were pulling the swords out of thin air. A minor dimensional Sacred Gear, perhaps? [Bag of Carrying] or the [Pocket Dimension], maybe?"
"I didn't sense the activation of a Sacred Gear from him." Rias shook her head before reconsidering, "There again, that damn magic barrier between us was strong enough to block a blast of my Power of Destruction and a punch from Koneko, so maybe that interfered with my ability to sense things? We'll find out when we find him. How long ago was he here, Kiba?"
"Less than five minutes." The [Knight] replied instantly, barely glancing at the massacre scene around him.
"Good. It's time we found him." Rias said briskly. Over with Saji, she could see Sona succinctly filling him in on what had been happening in Kuō over the last few weeks as they walked.
The passage was, as expected, full of traps. Their quarry had clearly been through here, setting off some of the more tricky traps, but leaving the more obvious ones untouched. Clearly, he was learning some of the signs of the more commonly used traps that these ratmen used.
"Buchou." Kiba said after a minute or so of walking, "It's one of those forcefields again."
Rias walked over to stand next to her servant and scowled. The path branched in two ahead, with one entrance blocked off by that jade green forcefield, which was presumably where their mystery man was.
Sona also came up and peered at the forcefield. "Well, I think I might have an explanation as to why it resisted your magic, Rias. Have a look at the corners of the doorway."
Looking, the Crimson-Haired Ruin Princess saw bronze spikes jutting out of them, evidently a focus for the barrier.
"Those spikes are linked, in all likelihood, to whatever mystical power source that powers the entire base." Sona theorised, "I suspect that the one you encountered before was the same. If it has an entire base's worth of magic power reserves to draw upon, then even the vaunted Power of Destruction would fail if you only put in enough power as you thought necessary to break it."
"And even if I didn't hold back here, the explosion and backlash from it could bring the ceiling down on us." Rias finished, "Just…wonderful. Well, we seem to be being herded, so let us enter the lion's den and find out what is there."
"Is that…a good idea?" Saji asked hesitantly, "I mean, whoever these ratmen are, they obviously do not want anyone to enter their base here. Shouldn't we call for reinforcements or something?"
"No." both [Kings] said immediately, making the blond boy wither and fall silent, much to the amusement of Akeno and Kiba.
'I will not ask Onii-sama/Onee-sama for help!' the two High-Class Devils thought in unison. Images of possible mass-scale destruction from an angry crimson devil and an enraged 'Mahō Shōjo' danced through their minds and firmed their resolve further.
Without another word, the group headed up the open passage. It completely failed to surprise them when another forcefield crackled into existence once Saji cautiously stepped over the threshold.
The passage was, surprisingly, not trapped, and led to a staircase that twisted around to another level. That was…
"An observation booth?" Sona said in bemusement. The room was about twice the length of a classroom at Kuō Academy, with numerous small seats that were just the right size for ratmen to sit at dotted all over the place on raised platforms, thirteen of them all told. All were empty. They faced a large window looking down over a largish arena that resembled the two Rias' Peerage had seen before.
Standing in it were five of the most disgusting monsters they had ever seen, rats the size of ogres, with drooling maws full of sharp teeth and long claws the length of short swords on their arms. Long tails capped with blades of metal lashed out behind them.
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