Smoke (part 2)

"What is this place?"

I asked Nico while keeping my eyes on the machines, and Nico answered while leaning his shoulder to the wall by the entrance.

"It's an abandoned clothing factory. Just a year ago, this place was fully functioning as a local clothing factory, creating cheap clothes for the locals. But, it was closed down almost in an instant."

"W-Why?"

"Why else? Someone died."

Ah… the same old reasoning.

"The news reporter says that the hired sewer died due to a heart attack while sewing, which sounded very absurd because it was way too sudden of a death. Plus, a single person's death shouldn't be the cause of an entire factory to be shut down.

An internet detective… or should I say, a geek with a lot of free time on their hands, went through all the articles about the death of the sewer and managed to find one crucial detail that seemed very out of place. One news reporter wrote down about the health progression of the sewer and mentioned that he was very healthy. Not only was he not that old, but he also had no record of health deficiency."

"The heart attack genuinely came out of nowhere."

"Exactly. Now, I might believe it if it was actually a natural occurrence. But, for the factory to be shut down, just the day after? Something tells me the manager of this factory saw something that day and ended up shutting down the place."

Yeah… everything about the shutting down of the factory seemed very suspicious.

"Now that we have all the theories out of the way, what's the plan, chief?"

Nico asked while aiming his gun forward towards the entrance, and I began pondering. We don't know what kind of demon we are facing here. But, hopefully it is similar to the one we fought two days ago.

In case it was any different, however…

"We have longer ranged guns, so… let's just stick close to each other and shoot whatever is coming at us. You take care of the left, and I'll shoot towards the right. I'll keep a watch on all our surroundings, so I'll call out the directions for you again."

"Yes, ma'am! And, the call outs? Same like last time?"

"Yes. Using clock directions. I might even include the minutes, like point thirty or something."

"That's even better! The more accurate it is, the better."

"All right. Should we go?"

I asked, and Nico began walking inside. I followed behind him and kept an eye out for the entire area, and changes began to happen as soon as we were deep inside.

Just like before, an invisible green wall suddenly appeared behind us covering the entrance. I quickly touched the green wall and noticed that it was as hard as concrete, so it really was meant to block us from escaping.

"We're trapped again."

I said to Nico and turned my eyes back to the middle, and changes began to occur around the sewing machines. A large amount of smoke began to appear from the machines, but it only grew until it covered the other half of the room.

"Smoke!?"

Huh? Nico can see that?

I turned to Nico, and he looked very surprised seeing the smoke. Which means whatever is causing the smoke should be viewable by Nico's eyes.

Beforelong, multiple shadows appeared exiting from the smoke, revealing themselves to us. They're the demons, the enemies that we are going to take down today.

They seemed humanoid as well, but their body looks like it was made of smoke instead of black slime. Their bodies are thinner than last time, and they have fingers that look very sharp. Their eyes were bright red, and they stared at us with great hunger for the human soul.

The next thing they did was throw me off guard. Once they had exited the smoke and spotted us, they started running.

"T-They can run!?"

"What?"

Nico asked, and I realized he couldn't see the smoke demons. He can see the smoke, but not the demons?

But, this is no time to be confused over such things.

"Start shooting!"

I immediately aimed the water gun at them and started shooting, and so did Nico. Fortunately, our water gun can reach even beyond twenty meters, so the demons died before they could reach us. The only issue was, they can move very fast, so reaching us will only take them less than ten seconds.

I turned to my left and noticed that Nico was completely missing his shots, so I quickly opened my mouth.

"11 and 10!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Nico turned his gun towards the direction I called, and he started shooting that way. The two demons that were running closer to us were reduced to smoke in an instant by the holy water, and even more are coming from behind them.

"11.30 and 10 again! Far 9.30!"

I shouted while shooting the demons myself, and Nico has been turning his gun back and forth between the three directions I told him. Sometimes he fired more than once because he wasn't sure that he killed them, but that's fine since all we have to do is kill them.

While I was firing, I noticed that the demons were coming from the smoke that is surrounding the machines. I wondered how long these demons are going to keep coming from, and I got worried because we only have a limited amount of holy water.

What if the demons continued coming? What if we ran out of ammo while the demons were still coming out?

Immediately, I began to form a plan. The smoke appeared somewhere from the machine on the left, so that means the source of the demons must've come from there. That is the target that we have to take down.

But, I can't leave Nico here while rushing the smoke by myself. I will have to take him with me.

"Nico, I have a plan. 10.30!"

I called out to Nico, and he turned to me after firing in the direction I told him.

"What is it?"

"I think the demons won't stop coming. We have to take out the source of the smoke."

"O-Okay, but… How are we going to find the source within all that smoke?"

I turned my eyes to the smoke again and realized just how big it was. I realized that it might be impossible for me to see inside the smoke, so it will be difficult for me to find the demons there. Forget giving call outs to Nico, I probably wouldn't be able to see the demons in there.

It's even more mysterious that Nico was able to see the smoke. He still can't see the demons, but he can see the smoke that the demons created. But, even if I know the explanation to that, I still don't know how I can deal with this.

"I… don't know."

"How about this? Can you take over for a sec?"

Nico suddenly asked, and I quickly stepped forward. I held my gun tighter and aimed for any demon that was getting closer to us, both from our right or left. I was doing fine, but it was definitely harder compared to when Nico was helping.

Behind me, Nico is messing around with his bag. I took a quick glance and found that he had taken out the previous water guns from there. The squirt guns of yesterday that can only shoot about three meters.

Ah. I think I get what he is planning.

"It will be difficult to use a long gun like that inside the smoke, so take this."

Nico handed me the squirt gun, but I had no idea how to hold it while still holding the long gun. Then, Nico opened my bag a little bit and placed the squirt gun there.

"You can go inside the smoke with a small gun. I'll take care of the demons outside with the long gun."

"But how are you going to do that if you can't see them?"

"Simple! I just don't need to see them to shoot."

After saying that, Nico began running with his water gun. I turned and spotted him rushing towards the right corner of the room, aiming his gun to the entire ninety degrees area that is in front of him.

"Oh! Smart."

"I'll be fine like this! All I had to do was fire at a ninety degree angle, which should be easy enough!"

Easy as it seems… I'm still worried as to what if he missed. If only one of the demons reached him, then he might get wounded.

"Don't worry about me! I have the artifact, remember?"

Nico suddenly said after seeing me hesitate, and I saw the ring on his left hand. I nodded at him and turned my eyes away towards the smoke. There are about twenty demons coming out of the smoke every five seconds, so there are plenty of them within my path. But, I'm not the least worried about dealing with them.

"Then, here goes nothing!"

And so, I ran forward. Thanks to the water gun's reach, I was able to take down any demon from any direction. I shot them with high precision since I've gotten used to the water gun aiming, and I was able to get close to the smoke very quickly.

"Go, Elizabeth! Don't mind me."

Nico said whole firing the water gun randomly, and he took down the one demon that was running towards him with luck. There were still two more demons going for him, but I think he got them handled.

Now… I just need to think for myself.

I threw the water gun down to my foot and took out the squirt gun from my bag. Then, I started walking into the smoke carefully.

Inside the smoke, I noticed that this is not ordinary smoke. The smell was so much like burnt meat, and I knew immediately that the source must've come from a burning corpse.

I covered my nose with my left hand's sleeves and pointed the squirt gun on my right hand in front of me. As I walked inside the smoke, I could barely see the objects in front of me.

All of a sudden, my body bumped into something. Since I couldn't see what it was, I just assumed that it was a demon, so I shot it with my squirt gun.

To my surprise, it was a chair.

I just cleansed a chair with holy water. This is so embarrassing.

I've been inside the smoke for a few seconds now, and I'm wondering as to why there are no demons attacking me. They can easily kill me right now if they are close, and yet I haven't spotted a single one.

I kept on walking with no sense of direction, hoping that I could stumble upon the source of the smoke quickly. I kept on walking, searching for anything that might move in the middle of this smoke. But, to my surprise, I found nothing.

After about thirty seconds of walking, I suddenly walked out of the super smoke. But, the place I walked out to was not the same place where Nico was at.

This is… the other side of the smoke. This is across the room where Nico was in. This is still the same room, but it felt like the smoke had cut the room in half completely.

The room I just arrived in was quite wide and open with a ton of sewing machines scattered, broken and dusty. But, the sewing machines aren't the only thing inside this half of the room.

There are… hundreds of them.

The smoke demons that Nico and I have been shooting, there are hundreds of them here. The room is quite large, and I can see the other side of the building from here. And ten meters from my position all the way until the end of the room, it was completely covered by an army of smoke demons.

How… are there so many of them?

Wait… this is bad.

On the far end of the room, a single demon seemed to stand out more than the others. The normal smoke demons had humanoid form with thin and long limbs. But, one smoke demon at the far end seemed to be much fatter and taller. It had four arms, with each arm having fingers longer and sharper than a knife. Unlike the other demons, this one had a face. With red eyes and red mouth, it showed me a truly angered expression that it can make with them.

That's him. That's the boss.

From my experience with the last demon, the lady with the sword killed the black slime boss demon and the green invisible walls disappeared. The disappearance of the green walls must've marked the death of the demon, which means the area has been cleansed.

Following that experience… all I have to do is to kill the smoke demon boss, and we'll be freed from this place as well as cleansing it.

But, seeing the amount of minions that guy has, it's not going to be easy.

Damn it… do I have no choice?

Fine. So, be it.

After all, thanks to the pants I'm wearing, I'm feeling like running a lot today.

Seeing me coming out of the smoke, the demons all started screaming at me. And beforelong, they started running towards me with the intention to attack.

Seeing them run, I too started rushing ahead.