Advance! 5: Ancient Fate and The Tragedy

Mizuki glanced around, the metallic terrain was unlike anything she had ever seen before, she could feel that something was wrong but couldn't figure out what. Then she saw it.

Corpses, LOTS of corpses on the ground. She panicked before noticing a man standing next to the corpses, he slowly looked at her.

"...You saw…" Before Mizuki could react, she felt her body get torn to shreds with a sickening tear sound.

She screamed as she woke up from the nightmare. "W-WHAT? W-What the… I-I'm alive? I-I can't…" Sli-Mai and Noburo woke up after hearing Mizuki's panicked cries.

"M-Mizuki?! A-Are you oka-" Before Sli-Mai could finish, Mizuki quickly ran into the bathroom and threw up.

"...I'm going to say she's not good, Sli-Mai, but maybe vomiting is a good thing for slimes." Noburo told her. Sli-Mai glared at him for a moment before Mizuki walked out of the bathroom.

"I-I'm fine… I-I just had… A horrible nightmare, that's all." Mizuki fell onto her knees, seemingly weak.

"M-Mizuki, maybe we shouldn't go to the Windy Jungle today… We can always go once you recover…" Sli-Mai suggested with concern.

"N-No. We will go today… J-Just give me a minute… In the meantime, hand this to Chiyo so we can complete the fourth quest…" Mizuki pulled the ice cream from her item box and handed it to Sli-Mai.

Sli-Mai hesitantly nodded and went with Noburo to turn in the ice cream, to complete their fourth quest.

Mizuki sat down and began to stare at the wall. "...If… If that happens, what will happen to us? W-Will we…" She paused.

After twenty minutes had passed, Sli-Mai and Noburo came back from the adventurers guild. "M-Mizuki, we turned in the ice cream. A-Also… Chiyo apparently got more info about the disappearances…" Sli-Mai told her.

"Chiyo told us that there is a hidden area within the Windy Jungle, they decided on the name "Ancient Fate" due to… the entire area being covered in some sort of metal-" As Noburo mentioned the hidden area being covered in metal, Mizuki screamed and hid under the covers of the bed.

"M-Mizuki, what's wrong?!" Sli-Mai quickly ran up to her.

"M-Metal… That area, Ancient Fate… We can't go there, under ANY circumstances…" Mizuki shivered with fear under the covers.

"U-Um… Well, since we know that the area is covered in metal, we can avoid it… Probably…" Sli-Mai pointed out.

Mizuki shook her head slowly. "O-Okay… Let's go then…" As they left for Windy Jungle, she sighed.

Now in front of the jungle, Mizuki glanced around. "I-I don't see any metal… T-Thank goodness…" She sighed with relief.

"Hey, look! It's the bananas we're looking for! We can just take them and leave…" Noburo walked toward the bananas.

"Wait, Noburo! There are monkeys lurking around!" Sli-Mai shouted urgently. "Huh? Monkeys?-" Without any warning. Noburo felt himself getting slapped in the face by a monkey's tail. The sheer force sent him flying deeper into the forest.

"...Looks like we have to go further into the forest after all to find Noburo, but first…" Sli-Mai summoned a Rising Goblin, the goblin charged at the monkey, however the monkey quickly punched the goblin, killing it.

"W-What's with the monkeys being super strong…?" Sli-Mai backed away slightly. Mizuki glanced at the monkey and casted the spell "Water Bullet", a small amount of water shot toward the monkey and ripped through the monkey's flesh at lightning speed.

Mizuki quickly grabbed the banana. "L-Let's go find Noburo…" She wanted to get this done quickly, to avoid finding Ancient Fate.

They brushed past the bushes and plants within the jungle. "...He flew in this directio-" Mizuki paused, her eyes wide with fear as she looked in front of her, there was metal. A LOT of metal. It covered quite a bit of the area, resembling silver.

"W-Well… Let's go back, Sli-Mai. I don't think we will find Noburo in there-" Sli-Mai stopped her from finishing that sentence. "M-Mizuki, we can't just leave him in there!" She urged her to reconsider.

Mizuki thought for a brief period, a mixture of fear and struggle coming off of her. "F-Fine…!" They ran into the area known as "Ancient Fate".

"N-Noburo! W-Where are you!" Mizuki yelled out. She suddenly heard a voice in pain. "M-Mizuki…! D-Don't come any closer, go back to Hirano, now!" She recognized the voice, it was Noburo. MIzuki hesitated before frantically running toward Noburo's voice, Sli-Mai following after her.

Upon arriving at where Noburo was, Mizuki eyes widened as she took in the familiar sight, many bodies were laying on the ground. The man she had seen in her dreams was standing in front of Noburo, who had a sword plunged into his arm, blood falling from the wound.

Mizuki panicked, she didn't know what to do. She could only do what she knew she could do. Suddenly, Mizuki ran toward the man while screaming frantically. As soon as the tip of her staff met his chest, she yelled out. "Flames of Arments!".

Flames engulfed the man. Mizuki sighed with relief. "Look, I did it, Sli-Mai-" As Mizuki looked away, dropping her guard for a split second. The flames ceased, the man was unharmed. He glared at her before pointing his own staff at her. "Jet Spikes.".

"M-Mizuki!" Sli-Mai quickly jumped in front of her, As the spikes shot out at the speed of a jet, they hit Sli-Mai, her body turned into slime and covered the ground. Mizuki cried as she could only briefly yell out.

The spikes flew through Mizuki's right arm, tearing it into shreds. She screamed out in pain as blood began pouring out from the wound.

"M-Mizuki…! S-Sli-Mai…!" Noburo could feel his own consciousness fading. Suddenly, the man froze while noticing movement.

An elf and a dwarf ran toward them, "Take this, you murderer!" The dwarf gripped his bow and shot an arrow toward the man. The impact caused an explosion, giving the elf a chance to grab Noburo and Mizuki, she also stored Sli-Mai's slime in a vial before running back toward the dwarf.

"Yoshiro, I'm gonna use that now!" She shouted at him. "Yeah, hurry up! I don't think that man intends on letting us leave!" Once the elf was directly beside the dwarf, she put Mizuki down and grabbed a magic orb. "Emergency Escape!" She gripped the magic orb, causing all of them to disappear in a teleportation circle.

They reappeared at an elf village, who knows how far away from Hirano. They ran into a clinic usually meant for elves. "W-We need you to help these two adventurers!" The elf pointed at Mizuki and Noburo lying on the ground.

The nurse running the clinic looked shocked and held out a magical device at Mizuki's missing arm. "Spatial Elven Healing!" Mizuki's arm suddenly started to regenerate slowly.

Once Mizuki's arm was fully regenerated the nurse treated Noburo's wound and sighed. "T-There… They should be fine if they get a bit of rest." She told the elf.

She let out a sigh of relief, she had made it in time, she grabbed the vial containing Sli-Mai and released her. Once her slime had left the vial she reformed into her human form. "H-Huh…? W-Where am I?- Wait, where is Mizuki…?!" She looked around frantically, concerned before she saw Mizuki lying on the floor.

"U-Um… We got you out of that situation, but that girl lost her arm, thankfully because you jumped in front of her, your body took most of the damage, if you hadn't done that…" The elf paused.

"You're lucky the elves have a magical artifact to regenerate lost body parts…" Yoshiro shrugged.

"T-Thank you so much for saving Mizuki…!" Sli-Mai bowed appreciatively.

"Y-You're welcome… My name is Matsuzaki Toshiko, and this dwarf is called Yoshiro…" She informed her.

"We had heard rumors of something going on from within Windy Jungle, but we had no idea there was a massacre going on in there." Yoshiro explained as Noburo started to wake up.

"I doubt that man knows where we went, considering how big Adventure-Lands is, we are quite far away from Hirano." He pointed out.

"...But just in case, we will be joining your party, because we were looking for a party anyway…" Toshiko explained.

"T-That's fine… A-Also-" Sli-Mai got cut off by a voice in their heads that said "Unique Quest: The Tragedy of Ancient Fate, Completed.".

Noburo in particular got up despite his wounds and glanced around in confusion. "D-Did you three hear that?" He questioned.

"Y-Yeah… I don't know what that was…" Toshiko replied, wondering what a Unique Quest was.

Mizuki started to wake up slightly, Sli-Mai quickly went beside her.