VERSATILE: ALTERNATE WORLD

To prolong the incapacitation of the soldiers, I asked Tina to sprinkle [Sleeping Powder] on them and keep them asleep for a while. As for the civilians, Queen Tanya and Queen Tori argued about it for a bit before they settled on healing them all up. They still argued about our resources but I just stopped them as I decided to use my Healing Magic instead of using the potions. Potions are better in terms of healing but the injuries the people here sustained are not that bad so healing them with normal healing magic should keep them fine for now.

As for the soldiers, we ended up not healing them. Since they already are suffering from [Moderate] debuffs, it seems we will be wasting a lot of time trying to heal them up. Our main purpose here is not to rescue the soldiers from what was afflicting them but resolve the whole problem once and for all. Instead, we decided to go and prioritize the wounded civilians, gathering them up in one place before healing them. Gathering them up was easy thanks to the shikigamis that Queen Tori controlled and my shikigamis as well.

After healing them, a few woke up while the others remained unconscious for a while. We explained to the people who woke up the situation and they soon understand the situation. We also asked them if they knew something about the relic that was the cause of the wind's erratic behavior and most of them shook their head. Only one of the women got useful info for us.

"I heard before that the relic was actually in the hands of one the current commanders of the soldiers and is currently holding on to it. I am not sure about it much but I saw him use it a few times like a tool. A few of the men who tried to stop him were injured as a result. We don't know where he is right now but if the soldiers are still around, then that means he is just nearby. I don't know where he is right now but my speculation is that they have entered the underground passage right now. Perhaps if you guys hurry, you might still be able to catch up to them."

"Thanks for the info, please go to a safer place before these soldiers wake up. We don't know what they might do if they awaken again."

"Thank you, strangers. Hope you all good luck."

The civilians grab the unconscious people and went with the others to escape.

"You guys heard that?" I asked the two behind me who were listening.

"Sure do. It seems there must be something underground for them to go there straight. As the civilian said, we should hurry up and head there. Retrieve the relic and make sure the relic is still fine. If the relic is used aside from its intended usage, we can expect of destroying the relic instead of letting them have it in the end," Queen Tanya clenches her fist.

And so, we decided to look for the underground entrance. I just pretended I don't know where the entrance is but I made sure that no one notices it. I took a long way to look for the entrance but on the way, Queen Tori noticed one of the notice boards has a map of the Hayate City and one part specifically pointed to the entrance.

"Looks like we just passed by from the entrance. Let's backtrack guys."

Since we got the map, I don't need to behave like I didn't know where to find it and started taking things seriously. Since we got a lead on where the map is and I know the way, it didn't take us long to reach it.

"From the looks of the state of the underground entrance, it seems the civilian was right," Queen Tori grabbed the broken gate and slowly move it out of the way with the help of her shikigami.

The gate that is stopping any unauthorized personnel from entering the underground area of the city has been destroyed and it was no longer capable of blocking anyone from breaching the entrance. Still, it was a sturdy gate which means a lot of force was used just to make a mess with it.

"If they were capable of destroying the sturdy gate like this, it seems we are not just going to face an ordinary guy. Come on, let's go and perhaps we can still catch up to these guys."

I presented myself to enter the entrance first to ensure nothing goes wrong before they follow me in. From the looks of it, there are no traps present and so we proceed to move further and enter the underground tunnel.

[You have discovered a secret location: Hayate City's Underground Caverns]

Although it was said to be a cavern, Hayate City uses this place as a drainage area though it was underutilized, and only half part of this underground cavern is used as one. The rest is looking similar to a dungeon sitting underneath the city. What is worse is that this place spawns monsters as well, making this a little dungeon that is not officially declared as one.

"There are traces of some people moving in this direction. Let's move," I lead the way as I noticed some pattern marks present in the area that shouldn't have been there when I entered this place in the past timeline.

As we continue to follow through the trails, we soon meet up with the "monsters" underneath this place.

"Ratmen corpses..." Queen Tori frowned as a few of them were littered across the area and some are even turned into meat paste and plastered on the walls and ceilings.

"We should hurry. Based on the clues left behind, we are getting close."

I started to run deeper and the two also followed suit. I can tell that someone is close and the smell of blood is very fresh which means the culprit behind these are already just up ahead.

Soon, I saw a silhouette of someone ripping off the limbs of the Ratmen and throwing them on the walls splattering their remains to a mush. I pulled out my Versatile Weapon, changed it to a cannon, and fired a cannonball along the way.

BOOM!

The cannonball caught the perpetrator off guard as he was squarely hit by it. But as expected, it seems this guy doesn't care much about the damage as it shrugged off the cannonball and stood back up like it was nothing. He then pulled out something and waved it to the cannonball which causes it to turn back to us. Queen Tanya immediately steps in and slices the cannonball in pieces, stopping it from going after us.

"Looks like there are some pests who followed me here," the owner of the voice sounded like a gremlin. It's very unnatural that we don't know if the enemy before us is still a human or not.

"Give up the relic. It's not just something anyone can use with ease."

"Is that so? Because this relic felt good to use. I don't think I would like to even give it away from random people who seemed to have no idea what it was."

He then revealed himself and we immediately assumed a battle stance the moment we saw his face. His face was deformed and it no longer resembled that of a human. His helmet seems to have fused to his face and most of his features have been distorted weirdly enough that it was like he intentionally did that to his face or his face has melted and to attempt and fix it, choose it to do it like that. His clothes were still from a soldier but based on the design, it seems to be somewhat of a uniform for higher-ups.

"Wow, what a disgusting bastard," Queen Tanya snickered as she readies her scythe to move.

Queen Tori immediately used a [Kekkai] and tried to immobilize the guy.

"A [Kekkai] huh? Not bad, but unfortunately, this will not be enough to deal with me."

He waves the artifact and all of a sudden, blades of wind suddenly appeared out of nowhere and sliced up the [Kekkai], breaking to pieces and freeing the man.

"Kgh...that attack was too strong for my [Kekkai] to even endure..." Queen Tori grit her teeth.

Queen Tanya frowned before silently attacking the man with her scythe. She quickly swings the scythe in a quick manner, enough to easily cut people to shreds if they are not careful or if they just blinked. But the man before us easily deflected all of the attacks like it was nothing. And the f*cker used only his hand for deflecting them.

"Hmm? Are you all done with these trivialities? It seems you all are not worth my time. My job here is done as well. Later then."

Before we can even proceed to stop him, he waved the artifact once more summoning a strong gust of wind inside the tunnel. We are forced to guard ourselves from the gush of wind. However, when the wind dissipates, the f*cker has escaped.