“Hey, what’s going on here?! Uwha—!” Raphtalia quickly suppressed a guard that looked up at the light as she opened the door by knocking him out, binding him, and rolling him into the shadows. Then she proceeded inside the building. She made it look easy, to be honest. I recalled other times when she used her infiltration abilities to save people. All sorts of problems had occurred during those incidents, but we always made it through.

About five minutes into the operation, searchlight-style beams came from the castle. At the same time, the Raph-chan icon appeared in my field of vision. Was Raph-chan asking to be called back?

“C’mon, Raph,” I said.

“Raph!” Raph-chan said, popping out in front of my eyes. “Raph! Raph, raph!”

“Something happened?” I asked.

“Raph!” she confirmed, nodding. Just then, some huge firework-like lights went up in the direction of the dragon hourglass. S’yne was using her ability to watch both Raphtalia and me from a distance, and she was relaying the information to L’Arc. The firework-like magic was the signal they were starting the attack on the dragon hourglass.

I glanced behind me to check on everyone else, then dashed to the entrance to the underground maze and went inside. Itsuki and the others followed behind.

The underground facility was a well-maintained—no, especially “fantasy”-like—concrete building. It looked like it was just corridors.

“Any observation devices . . . have already been destroyed by Raphtalia and the others,” I noted. The remains of magical devices of some sort could be seen scattered about. This was a time for emergency measures, so it didn’t matter if we triggered any such devices anymore. I deployed Shooting Star Wall and we plowed onward, simply ignoring any traps.

We’d only waited for about five minutes, so it hadn’t been that long yet. I was sure we’d catch up with them pretty soon.

Even as I had that thought . . . “Raph!” Raph-chan said, calling us to a stop in a place, presenting us with the choice of going down another level. There was a door in front of us. It was silent.

“Raph, raph!” Raph-chan said. She was telling me not to touch the door, clearly.

“Is there something on the other side?” I asked.

“Raph! Raph!” she said emphatically. Then she pointed at the ground and repeatedly jumped up and down. “Raph! Raph!” This time her intonation was different. Like she was saying . . . “portal shield”?

“A teleportation trap, perhaps?” Itsuki muttered, almost exactly at the same time I thought of the answer myself.

“That’s right. Upon entering this room, they were immediately sent somewhere else,” Ethnobalt said. If you understand what she’s saying, maybe speak up sooner!

“That’s right!” said Filo, adding insult to injury.