It was a little more than 7 decades ago when the Elven civilization had to leave their planet ‘Evergarden’ due to the war with the demons engulfing their entire world. Facing such humiliation, the entire race was forced to relocate to a faraway planet.
When the infant Amara escaped her war-stricken planet, she swore that one day she would return to the frontlines and fight for her home. She trained for many years, and was finally able to join The Grey Owls, the knight order of Moonlit Elves, as its youngest member ever.
Her dream was to climb up the ranks in the order and then make a request to be drafted back to Evergarden. For that dream, she had committed all her missions flawlessly.
But seeing the monster in front of her, that flawless record of her seemed to be the least of her worries.
A frighteningly strong Aura was slowly pressuring down on her. The temperature of their surroundings had risen by at least a hundred degrees, and perspiration clung to her chin, afraid to fall off lest it gets evaporated by the fierce heat.
The human, who was wearing strangely loose clothing and wooden sandals, had just moments ago seemed like a joke of an A-rank. But now, he exuded such raw terror, like a volcano ready to explode and those nearby were merely awaiting their fate.
Amara and her companion Elmar could do little than just shiver in their spots.
“Oh my! Did my Aura scare you?” The human slowly moved towards them, a crescent smile curved up his oval-shaped face. “I had children with me before, so I was trying not to scare them.”
With the cheerful smile plastered on his face, he looked like a wolf cutely looking at the sheep who innocently came to be eaten. He gently raised his hand towards her chin and stared deeply into her eyes. An average passer-by would have mistaken it as an act of romance, but her mana-sensitive eyes did not miss the intent behind the action. The human had placed a fire spell on her, likely an explosive one, that could be detonated whenever he wished.
“Be here when I return, or else…” Whispering the threat, he vanished from the spot.
As the intense Aura disappeared, the strength in their knees vanished as well, and the two fell to the ground.
“Wheeze-Wheeze!” Elmar hyperventilated beside her. Her hand immediately went to her forehead. An invisible seal was placed on it, but she could still sense the vast amounts of fire mana compressed in that tiny space. Looks like she had been taken hostage now.
“Haa. It’s over. If the League takes me now, I will never be able to go back to the Forest."
If Lady Nyra or Lord Max had been caught, they could have returned safely, since they both come from influential families among the Forest Folks. But nobody would care about Elmar and her, since they were merely orphaned soldiers. Disposable pawns for the bigger game. Her dream to go back to Evergarden is over now.
‘Let’s just hope Lady Nyra doesn’t have to face that monster.’
Ever since she was young, the older warrior Elves who had encountered humans, always recounted how pathetically weak they were, and could be defeated by even Unawakened Elves.
But, those idiots were so wrong. Humans had gotten strong. Frighteningly fast.
The only thing left was to pray to the Lunar Mother for safety in the near future.
“Glug! Glug!”
Evva and I desperately fought, as the river took us further away from the attacker. Unfortunately, since the river was a part of the Dungeon, it didn’t have any plans to go easy on the two. Every single current of the river was out to drown them, and it took all my strength just to stay afloat.
I don’t clearly remember when it happened, but it looks like at one point I lost consciousness, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in a swamp. I slowly pushed against the muddy ground to sit in an upright position. Beside me, Evva had also passed out, so I lightly shook her awake.
“Where are we?” she asked groggily, still disorientated from her bout with the river currents.
“No idea.” The river had dragged us out of the radius I had scanned with Appraisal.
‘Appraisal Map!’
But something unexpected happened. Usually, when I activated my Skill, a burst of mana would escape my body and spread all over the terrain like dandelion seeds in the wind, analysing the area before returning to me and processing the information into a virtual map. But this time, something was stopping my mana from leaving my body.
‘Appraisal!’
Since whatever it was was just preventing mana from leaving my body, I decided to use Appraisal as this Skill only required me to focus my mana on my eyes.
| Skill ‘Spirit Field’ in Effect! | Spirit Field(A): Impose a Magical Law on a particular region, to be obeyed by anyone in its territory. |
| Magical Law in Effect: "In the balance of yin and yang lies the power to create, to transform, and to achieve true harmony." |
‘Yin and Yang? Was there something like that in the novel?’
“Professor, we should be careful here.” Beside me, Evva was already on high alert, with her gun ready in her hand.
“But are there places where mana doesn't work, Professor?” She asked, quickly noticing her inability to use mana.
“Rather than not working, it’s more like this place is treating us like foreign objects, and suppressing us. We should be careful how we proceed here.”
Although I didn't remember a Mana Suppression field, I did remember Spirit Fields from the novel. They were one of the ultimate Skills that Spiritualists could use, but as far as I remember, the Spirit had to be of a pretty high Rank to set the Field up.
‘Maybe the presence of so many high Ranking Awakened near it forced the Spirit to set it up for defence.’
But this was troublesome. With the Spirit Field in effect, my Appraisal Map Skill was being suppressed.
‘Will I have to search the entire swamp to find the Spirit Egg?’
As I was agonising over how to find the Spirit, Evva and I first decided to get out of the cold water.
Overlooking the swamp was a forest. But whereas the forest we were previously in gave the feeling of a tropical rainforest, this one seemed more gloomy like a haunted jungle. We slowly pushed through the shallow water and tried to find our way to a more solid and dry foundation.
As we transversed across the boggy swamp, Evva tapped on my shoulder, pointing to a tall hill near us. At first, I didn’t realise what the problem was, but when I looked at the pile closely, I realised what Evva was pointing at. What I had previously overlooked as a sludge pile was actually a pile of bones and semi-decomposed monster corpses.
I moved a bit closer to check the mountain. The first thing that came into my view was a human skull. Worms were wriggling inside of the sockets, exploring the space they were occupying. Beside me, Evva made a gagging reflex.
“I think this must be the T-Rex’s dumping ground. Whatever he threw in the river must have floated down and ended up in this swamp.” I commented.
“Eww. Let’s get away from here.” Evva pinched her nose to block the stink of rotting meat.
“I agree- ” But unfortunately my wish didn’t come true. A screen floated in front of me, containing the most spine-chilling words I have ever read.
| ALERT: Taijitu Spirit Egg Rank: E Potential: ??? Status: Unawakened Location: At the bottom of Rexy’s trash pile. Inject your mana to awaken the Spirit. |
Reading the notification screen, my knees buckled and I sunk into the water.
Evva quickly came to my aid. “Oh my god, what happened?”
I weakly looked up at her. “If I ask you to help me dig this, you won’t get mad, would you?”
“When you say ‘this’, you don’t mean…” She hesitantly asked me. I weakly nodded at her.
When I say that the look she gave me made me fear for my life, it sure did. I could see her finger twitching on her gun’s trigger. Finally, an eternity later, she sighed. “Why do you wanna dig this, uh- pile? I doubt it's to hunt for monster material?”
“Well, when I was spying on the Beastman, they were talking about looking for a particular item, but they weren’t able to find it. I am pretty sure if it’s an Artifact important enough for Beastman to come into human territory for, then it must be with the Boss of the Dungeon, right?”
“What if they already found the Artifact they were looking for on that T-Rex monster?”
“I didn’t see the T-Rex carrying anything, so I am pretty sure they are still looking for an item. And if you think about it, no matter how strong an Artifact is, a monster will never keep it with him since they can’t use items in the first place. That means the most likely location of the Artifact will be…”
“The Boss’ trash, where we are at.”Evva reluctantly finished my sentence.
“Ah, I know. Why don’t we just put all the trash into our dimensional space? We won’t have to dig then, right?” Her eyes brightened as she presented a brilliant solution.
“Uh, unfortunately since the dimensional rings operate with mana, we can’t use them.” I crushed her dreams like a hammer on glass.
This time Evva sank into the water in despair. I helped her up. “Don’t worry. Take joy in the fact that you are not alone.”
And thus began our not-so-glamorous job. The trash pile had so many unimaginative things inside, that I had doubts about whether I had transmigrated into a horror genre.
“I swear if whatever that thing is, turns out to be in the possession of some other Boss monster, then I am going to shoot you in between your legs.” Evva thundered in fury, as she scooped up half-rotten intestines with her hands.
I did not doubt that she would actually go through with the threat if nothing was found. Thankfully for me, the Appraisal reassured me that the Spirit Egg was there, by popping up the ‘Alert’ notification screen whenever such threats were made.
After two hours of gruelling work, and being covered in rotten meat and blood, we finally reached the bottom. As we scooped out the final layer of… Man, I wasn’t even sure what part of the body it was, the rot had spread so badly.
Well, anyway, finally presenting itself was a huge egg, the size of a bowling ball. The top half was black, while the bottom half was white, giving it a yin-yang symbol kind of appearance.
“Good for you, Professor! Something really was at the bottom of that pile of trash.” Evva leaned her face close to the Spirit Egg. “By the way, what is this?”
“I have no idea.” I lied to her without batting an eye.
| Warning: Skill ‘Spirit Field’ is currently in effect! Provide reassurance to the Spirit to break the Skill. The most optimal way will be for the Egg to come into contact with a fellow Spirit. |
A notification screen popped up in front of me.
‘Hmm. Guess bringing Deus to it will be the best way for the Spirit Egg to lower its defences.’
Not that it changed much. I was already planning on rescuing Deus.
“Is this some kind of Chinese Artifact? I think I saw something like this in some Chinese dramas on the internet. What was it called? ‘In Young’?”
“I think you meant Yin Yang. Yeah, it was a Chinese concept about how every counter-force is opposed in the natural world to maintain balance and harmony. Kind of like the philosophical version of Newton’s third law.”
“So, it is Chinese!” she exclaimed, proud that she got her facts correct.
“Why don’t we have it examined later at the League? Right now, I really feel like taking a shower.”
“The feeling’s mutual. Now that we found whatever that is, let’s get out. I can’t stay a second longer in this trash heap.” Evva jumped away from the sludge area and began to walk away. I gently picked up the Spirit Egg and began to follow her.
Since mana in the area still wasn’t working, I couldn’t get access to my dimensional ring. Eventually, I had to carry the Egg in my arms.
Since the current in the water channel was gentle, Evva and I were moving downstream to find a connecting less-muddy river. Eventually, after an hour-long hike, we could faintly hear the sound of running water.
Hope burned in Evva and my eyes, as we began to run toward the source of the sound. As we reached the river, I was about to jump into the clean water. But before I could fulfill my small wish, Evva pulled me back into the mud. She gestured to me to keep quiet.
Not understanding what the problem was, I peeked my head out, before immediately hiding it again. Walking a small distance away, were Nyra and Max.
Nyra just stared, as the two humans were swept away by the currents.
Turning her back toward the river, she then faced Max, who was walking out from the forest. There were various claw and bite wounds on his body, sustained during his fight with the Boss monster. In his arms were two Skill Beads, received from the Boss, as well as a monster core. They had been wrapped up in another cocoon to make it easier to carry them.
Monster cores were usually fist-sized, icosahedron-shaped gems with their colour being based on the rainbow spectrum, the weakest E Rank core being of Red colour while the strongest SS Rank core being Purple. Since the core was obtained from a B Rank Boss, it was sparkling green in colour.
Behind Max, his tail swaying, with the Spirit’s cocoon curled up inside.
“Did you not find the Spirit Egg when you killed the monster?” Nyra asked him.
“Nope, I only got Skill Beads and the monster core inside its body.” Max replied. “I don’t think this Boss even had one.”
“Alright! Let’s go kill that insolent human first and then we go back to searching for the Egg.”
Suddenly, a small white bird swiftly perched on her shoulder. It snuggled against her cheeks before melting into her body.
The bird was a form of communication used by the dwellers of Fae Forest by shaping their mana into a small creature, who would then take a message to the recipient. The most advantageous aspect of it was that the messenger can carry intangible things such as memories of the sender, and it didn’t have the threat of being intercepted either.
As the bird’s mana was absorbed, memories started to appear in her mind of the Elves’ encounter.
“Hmm. It seems like the Elves were taken out by some humans, who are with that blue-haired human.”
“The Elves got defeated?”
“Yeah! Apparently, one of the humans was an A+ Rank.”
“Hmm. A+ Rank? That might be a bit troublesome even for the two of us.”
“There is also the possibility that the two of them could be from the League. We better wrap up everything here and go back.”
“But we better kill that human first. I want to pay him back for how he pushed the Boss onto us. Not to mention, capturing this Spirit would be useless without him dead.” Max pointed at the hostage in his tail.
“Alright. But let’s tell the Elves to leave. The two of us will be enough to take care of him.” A single blue butterfly fluttered out of her palm, flying away to its destination.
Once the message was sent, the two decided to split. Nyra scouted from the skies, while Max began to search the banks of the river for any signs. A short while later, a blue butterfly appeared next to Max, carrying the coordinates of a particular location.
When Max reached the destination, Nyra was already waiting. But as he approached her, a huge pressure sank onto his body. He could feel his mana getting blocked by the atmosphere.
“Are we inside a Spirit Field?” He asked in surprise
“We are!” Nyra smiled at the discovery. “Looks like we are going to get our hands on two Spirits.”
In the Elven culture, when one reaches the age of 50 years old, the Elf would choose their object of faith. The object of faith is independent of one’s lineage and depends wholly on the individual’s wishes. Depending on who they choose, the Elf’s powers will vary greatly.
The Sun gives the Suntouched Elves the power of enhanced strength and senses, along with healing.
The Moon gives the Moonlit Elves the power to cast illusions, shape-shift, and telekinesis.
But the Stars. They are considered to be the most powerful of them all. They don’t give their worshipers enhanced strength to fight or use illusions to hide, but instead, the Stargazing Elves were given the power to look into and beyond space and time. They say the Stars listen to all, and the Stargazing Elves listen to the stars. Nigh-Omniscience, Clairvoyance, Precognition. They knew it all.
Sylvia was considered the strongest Stargazer born in centuries. A few months ago, she asked for a secret audience with the Butterfly Princess of the Beastmen. She informed Nyra that in one of the Dungeons on the Human Continent, she will find what she needed.
“You mean, I will find a Spirit there?” Nyra at that time was desperate for one.
Spirits were a high-born species, but unfortunately for her, all the Spirits that the Woodland Races coexisted with already had owners, and she was forbidden from going back to the war-stricken Evergarden, to track down more.
That’s why Nyra took her trusted subordinates and left for the Human Continent without telling anyone, despite it may escalating to a diplomatic issue. That’s how desperate she was to get her hands on a Spirit. But, she couldn’t believe her luck when she found out that there were two Spirits in the prophesied location.
“Let’s search the swamp. The Spirit Egg should be there.”
‘Squelch!’
Suddenly, a sound came from nearby.
The sound was so light that even a passing bat wouldn’t have been able to hear it. But Max had honed all his senses to the extreme and was on high alert. Right now, he could even hear the sound of fine dust settling on the ground.
Slowly he approached muckheap, spotting two people he was not at all expecting.
“H-hi!” The blue-haired Hero waved at him awkwardly.
If it wasn’t for the fact that a 7-foot-tall demi-lion was standing on top of her, Evva could swear that she would have died from the second-hand embarrassment she felt.
‘Hi? I admit that the encounter was quite shocking, but a Hi? Was that the only thing he could say at the moment? Even a cheesy novel won’t have such a cliched line.’
Despite the awkward greeting, the Beastman continued to glare at them. More specifically at the person beside her. If stares could kill, then Ray would have already died a hundred times over and more.
“Look what the cat dragged in? Is the little mouse already tired of playing its little games?” The Lion Beastman’s voice boomed across the swamp.
Unfortunately, his eyes fell on the item in Ray's hand. “Oh, and look, you found the Spirit. Let me kill you and take that treasure off your cold hands.”
“You know, in these types of cases, the villain usually says that he will let me live if I give him my treasure.” Ray retorted.
“Haa.” Max just laughed at his remark. “I don’t think you deserve that mercy-”
Without even completing his sentence, a punch flew through the air toward us. Whether it was our high Stats or just our desperation to survive, Evva and Ray jumped back at the last moment.
The shockwave of the punch instead travelled into the ground, erupting tremors.
‘What the hell! How is the punch so strong? Isn't there some damn force that's preventing us from invoking mana?’
“Evva, run from here. He’s after me.”
“Don’t be stupid. I will take the high ground and shoot from there.”
“No! Just get away from here and find Kazuya-”
“The fact that you two are casually conversing must mean I don’t seem like much of a threat to you.” Max suddenly appeared in between them, landing another punch on the ground. “I am going to make you feel exactly how I felt fighting against that Boss monster.”
Evva didn’t really understand what the Beastman was saying, but she could sense it by looking into his eyes.
The Beastman was furious.
And his rage was directed toward Ray.
Whatever happened between them before they met, must have been something really perilous that could make even a B Ranker angry.
‘Finding Sir Kazuya would be the best course of action right now.’ Although she didn't like the fact that she had to run away to call for help, there was nothing she could do. She was powerless.
She scrambled to get away from the two fighters, desperate to escape the swamp.
“Where do you think you are going?” An attack suddenly appeared from behind, throwing her to the side. Evva flew in the air before hitting a tree. In front of her, the other Beastman slowly descended onto the ground. Her giant wings elegantly folded behind her back.
‘Crap, I forgot about this one!’ She was the one who attacked them when Evva and Ray jumped into the river.
The Beast woman slowly glided towards her, walking elegantly despite standing on a swamp. “My apologies. I am usually not one to get physical but the Spirit’s Field is blocking my mana.”
Evva quickly drew her gun and shot out two bullets. “This is my usual way of fighting. I hope you don’t mind.”
'Spirit? Field?' Although they were unfamiliar terms, Evva could vaguely understand that the woman was talking about the strange phenomenon of the swamp.
“I always knew humans were lowly creatures, but your behaviour is most infuriating.” Nyra criticised, as she sidestepped the bullets.
Evva shot two more bullets but in vain. Once it became apparent that the fight was useless, Evva decided to run.
It was only by one sub-Rank, but Evva could see that the Beastwoman was on the upper end of the B+ Rank spectrum. The fate of their battle was imminent, so there was no use staying here.
But before she could run, another kick threw her away. Although this time she was more prepared, the impact was still significant. “Don’t try to get up again. You will only get hurt.”
‘Whoosh!’
A white fan suddenly lodged itself in between the two. Surprised at the sudden attack, Nyra's eyes began to dart, looking for the hidden attacker.
‘Squish! Squash!’
A human slowly walked in between the two. The human was dressed in a manner quite unlike the ones she had previously met. A loose blue robe was draped over his body, much like the ones worn by the Elven priests during their prayers. Nyra quickly recalled him as the A+ Ranker that the Elves warned her about.
“It took you a while to get here, didn’t it?” Nyra sneered at him.
“My apologies if I kept you waiting, Ojou-san!” Kazuya politely replied. Taking a glance at the injured Evva, his eyebrows furrowed. “But don’t you think, you have something to apologise for as well?”
“Me? Apologise? Whatever do you mean?”
“The Fae Forest and the Human Continent are under the Peace Treaty. What you have done is a major transgression against the law set up by The Five Races.”
“Even if you know about it, what can you do? We will be long gone before anyone can come and capture us, leaving you with no evidence.”
“I currently have one of your Elven warriors in my custody, and I have already placed her under a spell. She won’t be able to leave this Dungeon nor be able to martyr herself unless I want her to.”
On hearing his threat, Nyra gave it some thought.
“It’s tragic but I guess we will have to leave her here. I will declare her as a rogue Elf upon my return. She betrayed the Elven tribe and ran away to the Human Continent all alone. You can’t prove it otherwise.”
“Haa. You Beastman are quite heartless.”
“Nature isn’t merciful. And we, its worshippers, aren’t either.” Nyra answered coldly. “But you know, there is one way I wouldn’t have to sacrifice one of my soldiers. You know what it is?”
Suddenly she vanished, appearing in front of Kazuya, her leg raised to kick him away. “It’s by killing you!”
Despite her extraordinary speed, the attack didn’t go as planned. Evva couldn’t process the movement fully, but suddenly the hand fan that had previously been stuck in the ground, was back in its owner’s hand, blocking the Beastwoman’s attack.
“I hate to break it to you, but the League didn’t dispatch me because they took this investigation as a joke. They sent me because they have trust in my ability to handle the situation with expertise, despite not having any previous knowledge about it.”
“I guess I greatly underestimated you. MAX!!” She called out to her comrade.
The Beastman and Ray, who were playing a lethal game of tag, turned toward the sudden call. Max gave up on his hunt and returned to his friend’s side, leaving an exhausted Ray behind.
“No matter how strong you are, with the two of us here, you have no chance to escape.” Nyra declared.
“Now I seriously am offended. I am one of the strongest mages ever known to mankind, you know.” Kazuya pouted at the enemy’s lack of intel.
“I won’t deny you are strong. Stronger than even me at my current level. But inside this Field, your mana means nothing.”
“Oh, you mean this?” Kazuya slowly motioned his hand, getting a feel of the mana and the strange power that was at work. “This Field, as you called it, is not supposed to block your mana, you know. It is there to balance the opposing mana in the air. Since this area is brimming with water mana, its opposite element is all the more welcome to be used.”
Kazuya's hand fan, which had remained shut throughout this entire time, suddenly opened up.
Suddenly someone tugged at Evva’s shoulder.
She looked back to find Luca.
“Get up. We need to leave. NOW!” He quickly helped her to her feet before dragging her away.
“What about Ray?” she asked, concerned about the professor.
“He’s a professor. He will figure it out.” Luca replied uncaringly, his only concern being to take Evva away from this fight as fast as possible.
Evva couldn’t figure out what was making Luca so desperate.
But when she looked back at Kazuya, all her doubts were cleared.
Spring had arrived Kazuya and the Beastmen. Literally!
Lava-red flowers were blooming around the three, while green whirlwinds plucked their petals, swirling them around.
It looked like they were inside a beautiful tornado made out of flowers.
As Evva looked at the scene before her, she recalled a particular memory. When she learned that Sakura Kazuya would be her mentor during her internship, Evva had asked her mom, a friend of his, how she would describe him.
“Beautiful. And deadly. That’s how I will describe him. He’s like a beautiful rose with thorns coated in the deadliest poison. But even if you know the thorn has poison, he is still a rose you will pick.”
At that time, Evva didn’t truly understand what her mother meant. Although Kazuya’s looks were indeed stunning, and his unique wardrobe gave him a weirdly pleasant charm, it wasn’t strong enough to make her pick a deadly flower.
But looking at the spell her mentor had summoned, Evva finally understood what her mother had told her.
The crimson red and emerald green glowed magnificently around him.
It would be a sin to call it an attack.
Art would have been a more apt way to describe what she was looking at. If something so bewitching was reaching out to her, then she would have definitely reached out for the forbidden fruit.
And it seemed like the two Beastmen shared her thoughts.
The entrancing dance of the flowers in the breeze had left them mesmerised and frozen in their steps. By the time they came back to their senses, the flowers, made out of fire mana, had left several burns on their bodies.
Even the ground was on fire, despite the abundance of moisture in the soil.
Alas, she wasn’t able to see the ending of the brawl for soon the two of them were back in the woods. She didn’t know when, but at one point the lock on her mana seemed to have lifted, and she was able to move it freely again.
“We should go back for them!”, she pleaded to Luca, after she checked that her mana was in perfect condition.
“Did you look at the level of the spell Kazuya was using? At this point, we would only be a burden to him. The best we can do is get away from the attack zone as fast as possible.”
“But there’s two of them. What if he gets into trouble?”
“I don’t think you need to worry about me being in trouble, Evva.” A voice suddenly called out to her from behind.
A silhouette of two people came out from the forest.
“Sir Kazuya!” She ran towards her mentor, who was supporting Professor Ray.
There were a few burns on his body, meaning the Fire Flower spell hadn't him untouched. Thankfully, it seemed that he had taken a Healing Potion since the burns were already repairing themselves.
“Thank god, you two aren’t hurt.” She sighed in relief, seeing that her mentor was unharmed.
“I am honestly more hurt by the fact that you think I would be in trouble.” Kazuya pointed out. “Not to mention, it was dangerous on your part as well. I ordered Luca to take you away because I didn’t want you two to get hurt by my spell.”
“I just thought that since that weird spell that bound our mana was gone, we would be able to help you from somewhere far away.”
“I admire your desire to help, but it would do well for you to remember from next time to prioritise your own survival, lest you become a burden to others, much like Sir Ray here.”
“That’s not fair. The Beastman really did a number on me, so I wasn’t able to escape. And you could have at least reined in that spell of yours!” Ray whined.
“Why would I need to rein in my spell? My students were nowhere near it.” Kazuya just scoffed in reply.
“That’s discrimination. I am much weaker than this student of yours.” He pointed in her direction.
“Where was that reasoning of yours when you decided to anger the Beastmen? Heaven knows how much trouble that caused us.”
“Speaking of the Beastmen, where are they now?” Luca decided to change the subject. Seeing two adults fighting like kids in front of them, made him feel uncomfortable.
“...those two escaped.” The two replied after a small silence.
“What about that thing we found? Below the mountain of corpses!” Evva suddenly remembered the mysterious item they had discovered after that gruelling task.
“Sorry, but it seems the Artifact disappeared while I was distracted by my burns.” Ray apologised to her. For a brief moment, Evva thought she could see a small movement on Ray’s arm, but it quickly disappeared like it never existed. Must have been from exhaustion.
“Sensei, shouldn’t you be going after those Elves from before? If we can capture them now, it would still be beneficial to the League.” Luca reminded Kazuya.
Kazuya shook his head. “It looks like that Beastwoman was true to her promise. Except for the Elf that is under my captivity, it seems that the rest have disappeared. Didn’t you say the Beastman was fighting one of the Boss monsters? A portal should have opened near its corpse.”
“Then let’s go and exit this Dungeon!” Ray pointed in the direction of the Boss’ corpse.
Author's Note:
I apologise for the delay in release. This week was just a hurl of parties at my university, so I had a bit of trouble writing.
Also, I made a small change. The main character, whose name was originally Lector, I have changed it.
It was a little more than 7 decades ago when the Elven civilization had to leave their planet ‘Evergarden’ due to the war with the demons engulfing their entire world. Facing such humiliation, the entire race was forced to relocate to a faraway planet.
When the infant Amara escaped her war-stricken planet, she swore that one day she would return to the frontlines and fight for her home. She trained for many years, and was finally able to join The Grey Owls, the knight order of Moonlit Elves, as its youngest member ever.
Her dream was to climb up the ranks in the order and then make a request to be drafted back to Evergarden. For that dream, she had committed all her missions flawlessly.
But seeing the monster in front of her, that flawless record of her seemed to be the least of her worries.
A frighteningly strong Aura was slowly pressuring down on her. The temperature of their surroundings had risen by at least a hundred degrees, and perspiration clung to her chin, afraid to fall off lest it gets evaporated by the fierce heat.
The human, who was wearing strangely loose clothing and wooden sandals, had just moments ago seemed like a joke of an A-rank. But now, he exuded such raw terror, like a volcano ready to explode and those nearby were merely awaiting their fate.
Amara and her companion Elmar could do little than just shiver in their spots.
“Oh my! Did my Aura scare you?” The human slowly moved towards them, a crescent smile curved up his oval-shaped face. “I had children with me before, so I was trying not to scare them.”
With the cheerful smile plastered on his face, he looked like a wolf cutely looking at the sheep who innocently came to be eaten. He gently raised his hand towards her chin and stared deeply into her eyes. An average passer-by would have mistaken it as an act of romance, but her mana-sensitive eyes did not miss the intent behind the action. The human had placed a fire spell on her, likely an explosive one, that could be detonated whenever he wished.
“Be here when I return, or else…” Whispering the threat, he vanished from the spot.
As the intense Aura disappeared, the strength in their knees vanished as well, and the two fell to the ground.
“Wheeze-Wheeze!” Elmar hyperventilated beside her. Her hand immediately went to her forehead. An invisible seal was placed on it, but she could still sense the vast amounts of fire mana compressed in that tiny space. Looks like she had been taken hostage now.
“Haa. It’s over. If the League takes me now, I will never be able to go back to the Forest."
If Lady Nyra or Lord Max had been caught, they could have returned safely, since they both come from influential families among the Forest Folks. But nobody would care about Elmar and her, since they were merely orphaned soldiers. Disposable pawns for the bigger game. Her dream to go back to Evergarden is over now.
‘Let’s just hope Lady Nyra doesn’t have to face that monster.’
Ever since she was young, the older warrior Elves who had encountered humans, always recounted how pathetically weak they were, and could be defeated by even Unawakened Elves.
But, those idiots were so wrong. Humans had gotten strong. Frighteningly fast.
The only thing left was to pray to the Lunar Mother for safety in the near future.
“Glug! Glug!”
Evva and I desperately fought, as the river took us further away from the attacker. Unfortunately, since the river was a part of the Dungeon, it didn’t have any plans to go easy on the two. Every single current of the river was out to drown them, and it took all my strength just to stay afloat.
I don’t clearly remember when it happened, but it looks like at one point I lost consciousness, and the next thing I knew I was waking up in a swamp. I slowly pushed against the muddy ground to sit in an upright position. Beside me, Evva had also passed out, so I lightly shook her awake.
“Where are we?” she asked groggily, still disorientated from her bout with the river currents.
“No idea.” The river had dragged us out of the radius I had scanned with Appraisal.
‘Appraisal Map!’
But something unexpected happened. Usually, when I activated my Skill, a burst of mana would escape my body and spread all over the terrain like dandelion seeds in the wind, analysing the area before returning to me and processing the information into a virtual map. But this time, something was stopping my mana from leaving my body.
‘Appraisal!’
Since whatever it was was just preventing mana from leaving my body, I decided to use Appraisal as this Skill only required me to focus my mana on my eyes.
| Skill ‘Spirit Field’ in Effect! | Spirit Field(A): Impose a Magical Law on a particular region, to be obeyed by anyone in its territory. |
| Magical Law in Effect: "In the balance of yin and yang lies the power to create, to transform, and to achieve true harmony." |
‘Yin and Yang? Was there something like that in the novel?’
“Professor, we should be careful here.” Beside me, Evva was already on high alert, with her gun ready in her hand.
“But are there places where mana doesn't work, Professor?” She asked, quickly noticing her inability to use mana.
“Rather than not working, it’s more like this place is treating us like foreign objects, and suppressing us. We should be careful how we proceed here.”
Although I didn't remember a Mana Suppression field, I did remember Spirit Fields from the novel. They were one of the ultimate Skills that Spiritualists could use, but as far as I remember, the Spirit had to be of a pretty high Rank to set the Field up.
‘Maybe the presence of so many high Ranking Awakened near it forced the Spirit to set it up for defence.’
But this was troublesome. With the Spirit Field in effect, my Appraisal Map Skill was being suppressed.
‘Will I have to search the entire swamp to find the Spirit Egg?’
As I was agonising over how to find the Spirit, Evva and I first decided to get out of the cold water.
Overlooking the swamp was a forest. But whereas the forest we were previously in gave the feeling of a tropical rainforest, this one seemed more gloomy like a haunted jungle. We slowly pushed through the shallow water and tried to find our way to a more solid and dry foundation.
As we transversed across the boggy swamp, Evva tapped on my shoulder, pointing to a tall hill near us. At first, I didn’t realise what the problem was, but when I looked at the pile closely, I realised what Evva was pointing at. What I had previously overlooked as a sludge pile was actually a pile of bones and semi-decomposed monster corpses.
I moved a bit closer to check the mountain. The first thing that came into my view was a human skull. Worms were wriggling inside of the sockets, exploring the space they were occupying. Beside me, Evva made a gagging reflex.
“I think this must be the T-Rex’s dumping ground. Whatever he threw in the river must have floated down and ended up in this swamp.” I commented.
“Eww. Let’s get away from here.” Evva pinched her nose to block the stink of rotting meat.
“I agree- ” But unfortunately my wish didn’t come true. A screen floated in front of me, containing the most spine-chilling words I have ever read.
| ALERT: Taijitu Spirit Egg Rank: E Potential: ??? Status: Unawakened Location: At the bottom of Rexy’s trash pile. Inject your mana to awaken the Spirit. |
Reading the notification screen, my knees buckled and I sunk into the water.
Evva quickly came to my aid. “Oh my god, what happened?”
I weakly looked up at her. “If I ask you to help me dig this, you won’t get mad, would you?”
“When you say ‘this’, you don’t mean…” She hesitantly asked me. I weakly nodded at her.
When I say that the look she gave me made me fear for my life, it sure did. I could see her finger twitching on her gun’s trigger. Finally, an eternity later, she sighed. “Why do you wanna dig this, uh- pile? I doubt it's to hunt for monster material?”
“Well, when I was spying on the Beastman, they were talking about looking for a particular item, but they weren’t able to find it. I am pretty sure if it’s an Artifact important enough for Beastman to come into human territory for, then it must be with the Boss of the Dungeon, right?”
“What if they already found the Artifact they were looking for on that T-Rex monster?”
“I didn’t see the T-Rex carrying anything, so I am pretty sure they are still looking for an item. And if you think about it, no matter how strong an Artifact is, a monster will never keep it with him since they can’t use items in the first place. That means the most likely location of the Artifact will be…”
“The Boss’ trash, where we are at.”Evva reluctantly finished my sentence.
“Ah, I know. Why don’t we just put all the trash into our dimensional space? We won’t have to dig then, right?” Her eyes brightened as she presented a brilliant solution.
“Uh, unfortunately since the dimensional rings operate with mana, we can’t use them.” I crushed her dreams like a hammer on glass.
This time Evva sank into the water in despair. I helped her up. “Don’t worry. Take joy in the fact that you are not alone.”
And thus began our not-so-glamorous job. The trash pile had so many unimaginative things inside, that I had doubts about whether I had transmigrated into a horror genre.
“I swear if whatever that thing is, turns out to be in the possession of some other Boss monster, then I am going to shoot you in between your legs.” Evva thundered in fury, as she scooped up half-rotten intestines with her hands.
I did not doubt that she would actually go through with the threat if nothing was found. Thankfully for me, the Appraisal reassured me that the Spirit Egg was there, by popping up the ‘Alert’ notification screen whenever such threats were made.
After two hours of gruelling work, and being covered in rotten meat and blood, we finally reached the bottom. As we scooped out the final layer of… Man, I wasn’t even sure what part of the body it was, the rot had spread so badly.
Well, anyway, finally presenting itself was a huge egg, the size of a bowling ball. The top half was black, while the bottom half was white, giving it a yin-yang symbol kind of appearance.
“Good for you, Professor! Something really was at the bottom of that pile of trash.” Evva leaned her face close to the Spirit Egg. “By the way, what is this?”
“I have no idea.” I lied to her without batting an eye.
| Warning: Skill ‘Spirit Field’ is currently in effect! Provide reassurance to the Spirit to break the Skill. The most optimal way will be for the Egg to come into contact with a fellow Spirit. |
A notification screen popped up in front of me.
‘Hmm. Guess bringing Deus to it will be the best way for the Spirit Egg to lower its defences.’
Not that it changed much. I was already planning on rescuing Deus.
“Is this some kind of Chinese Artifact? I think I saw something like this in some Chinese dramas on the internet. What was it called? ‘In Young’?”
“I think you meant Yin Yang. Yeah, it was a Chinese concept about how every counter-force is opposed in the natural world to maintain balance and harmony. Kind of like the philosophical version of Newton’s third law.”
“So, it is Chinese!” she exclaimed, proud that she got her facts correct.
“Why don’t we have it examined later at the League? Right now, I really feel like taking a shower.”
“The feeling’s mutual. Now that we found whatever that is, let’s get out. I can’t stay a second longer in this trash heap.” Evva jumped away from the sludge area and began to walk away. I gently picked up the Spirit Egg and began to follow her.
Since mana in the area still wasn’t working, I couldn’t get access to my dimensional ring. Eventually, I had to carry the Egg in my arms.
Since the current in the water channel was gentle, Evva and I were moving downstream to find a connecting less-muddy river. Eventually, after an hour-long hike, we could faintly hear the sound of running water.
Hope burned in Evva and my eyes, as we began to run toward the source of the sound. As we reached the river, I was about to jump into the clean water. But before I could fulfill my small wish, Evva pulled me back into the mud. She gestured to me to keep quiet.
Not understanding what the problem was, I peeked my head out, before immediately hiding it again. Walking a small distance away, were Nyra and Max.
Nyra just stared, as the two humans were swept away by the currents.
Turning her back toward the river, she then faced Max, who was walking out from the forest. There were various claw and bite wounds on his body, sustained during his fight with the Boss monster. In his arms were two Skill Beads, received from the Boss, as well as a monster core. They had been wrapped up in another cocoon to make it easier to carry them.
Monster cores were usually fist-sized, icosahedron-shaped gems with their colour being based on the rainbow spectrum, the weakest E Rank core being of Red colour while the strongest SS Rank core being Purple. Since the core was obtained from a B Rank Boss, it was sparkling green in colour.
Behind Max, his tail swaying, with the Spirit’s cocoon curled up inside.
“Did you not find the Spirit Egg when you killed the monster?” Nyra asked him.
“Nope, I only got Skill Beads and the monster core inside its body.” Max replied. “I don’t think this Boss even had one.”
“Alright! Let’s go kill that insolent human first and then we go back to searching for the Egg.”
Suddenly, a small white bird swiftly perched on her shoulder. It snuggled against her cheeks before melting into her body.
The bird was a form of communication used by the dwellers of Fae Forest by shaping their mana into a small creature, who would then take a message to the recipient. The most advantageous aspect of it was that the messenger can carry intangible things such as memories of the sender, and it didn’t have the threat of being intercepted either.
As the bird’s mana was absorbed, memories started to appear in her mind of the Elves’ encounter.
“Hmm. It seems like the Elves were taken out by some humans, who are with that blue-haired human.”
“The Elves got defeated?”
“Yeah! Apparently, one of the humans was an A+ Rank.”
“Hmm. A+ Rank? That might be a bit troublesome even for the two of us.”
“There is also the possibility that the two of them could be from the League. We better wrap up everything here and go back.”
“But we better kill that human first. I want to pay him back for how he pushed the Boss onto us. Not to mention, capturing this Spirit would be useless without him dead.” Max pointed at the hostage in his tail.
“Alright. But let’s tell the Elves to leave. The two of us will be enough to take care of him.” A single blue butterfly fluttered out of her palm, flying away to its destination.
Once the message was sent, the two decided to split. Nyra scouted from the skies, while Max began to search the banks of the river for any signs. A short while later, a blue butterfly appeared next to Max, carrying the coordinates of a particular location.
When Max reached the destination, Nyra was already waiting. But as he approached her, a huge pressure sank onto his body. He could feel his mana getting blocked by the atmosphere.
“Are we inside a Spirit Field?” He asked in surprise
“We are!” Nyra smiled at the discovery. “Looks like we are going to get our hands on two Spirits.”
In the Elven culture, when one reaches the age of 50 years old, the Elf would choose their object of faith. The object of faith is independent of one’s lineage and depends wholly on the individual’s wishes. Depending on who they choose, the Elf’s powers will vary greatly.
The Sun gives the Suntouched Elves the power of enhanced strength and senses, along with healing.
The Moon gives the Moonlit Elves the power to cast illusions, shape-shift, and telekinesis.
But the Stars. They are considered to be the most powerful of them all. They don’t give their worshipers enhanced strength to fight or use illusions to hide, but instead, the Stargazing Elves were given the power to look into and beyond space and time. They say the Stars listen to all, and the Stargazing Elves listen to the stars. Nigh-Omniscience, Clairvoyance, Precognition. They knew it all.
Sylvia was considered the strongest Stargazer born in centuries. A few months ago, she asked for a secret audience with the Butterfly Princess of the Beastmen. She informed Nyra that in one of the Dungeons on the Human Continent, she will find what she needed.
“You mean, I will find a Spirit there?” Nyra at that time was desperate for one.
Spirits were a high-born species, but unfortunately for her, all the Spirits that the Woodland Races coexisted with already had owners, and she was forbidden from going back to the war-stricken Evergarden, to track down more.
That’s why Nyra took her trusted subordinates and left for the Human Continent without telling anyone, despite it may escalating to a diplomatic issue. That’s how desperate she was to get her hands on a Spirit. But, she couldn’t believe her luck when she found out that there were two Spirits in the prophesied location.
“Let’s search the swamp. The Spirit Egg should be there.”
‘Squelch!’
Suddenly, a sound came from nearby.
The sound was so light that even a passing bat wouldn’t have been able to hear it. But Max had honed all his senses to the extreme and was on high alert. Right now, he could even hear the sound of fine dust settling on the ground.
Slowly he approached muckheap, spotting two people he was not at all expecting.
“H-hi!” The blue-haired Hero waved at him awkwardly.
If it wasn’t for the fact that a 7-foot-tall demi-lion was standing on top of her, Evva could swear that she would have died from the second-hand embarrassment she felt.
‘Hi? I admit that the encounter was quite shocking, but a Hi? Was that the only thing he could say at the moment? Even a cheesy novel won’t have such a cliched line.’
Despite the awkward greeting, the Beastman continued to glare at them. More specifically at the person beside her. If stares could kill, then Ray would have already died a hundred times over and more.
“Look what the cat dragged in? Is the little mouse already tired of playing its little games?” The Lion Beastman’s voice boomed across the swamp.
Unfortunately, his eyes fell on the item in Ray's hand. “Oh, and look, you found the Spirit. Let me kill you and take that treasure off your cold hands.”
“You know, in these types of cases, the villain usually says that he will let me live if I give him my treasure.” Ray retorted.
“Haa.” Max just laughed at his remark. “I don’t think you deserve that mercy-”
Without even completing his sentence, a punch flew through the air toward us. Whether it was our high Stats or just our desperation to survive, Evva and Ray jumped back at the last moment.
The shockwave of the punch instead travelled into the ground, erupting tremors.
‘What the hell! How is the punch so strong? Isn't there some damn force that's preventing us from invoking mana?’
“Evva, run from here. He’s after me.”
“Don’t be stupid. I will take the high ground and shoot from there.”
“No! Just get away from here and find Kazuya-”
“The fact that you two are casually conversing must mean I don’t seem like much of a threat to you.” Max suddenly appeared in between them, landing another punch on the ground. “I am going to make you feel exactly how I felt fighting against that Boss monster.”
Evva didn’t really understand what the Beastman was saying, but she could sense it by looking into his eyes.
The Beastman was furious.
And his rage was directed toward Ray.
Whatever happened between them before they met, must have been something really perilous that could make even a B Ranker angry.
‘Finding Sir Kazuya would be the best course of action right now.’ Although she didn't like the fact that she had to run away to call for help, there was nothing she could do. She was powerless.
She scrambled to get away from the two fighters, desperate to escape the swamp.
“Where do you think you are going?” An attack suddenly appeared from behind, throwing her to the side. Evva flew in the air before hitting a tree. In front of her, the other Beastman slowly descended onto the ground. Her giant wings elegantly folded behind her back.
‘Crap, I forgot about this one!’ She was the one who attacked them when Evva and Ray jumped into the river.
The Beast woman slowly glided towards her, walking elegantly despite standing on a swamp. “My apologies. I am usually not one to get physical but the Spirit’s Field is blocking my mana.”
Evva quickly drew her gun and shot out two bullets. “This is my usual way of fighting. I hope you don’t mind.”
'Spirit? Field?' Although they were unfamiliar terms, Evva could vaguely understand that the woman was talking about the strange phenomenon of the swamp.
“I always knew humans were lowly creatures, but your behaviour is most infuriating.” Nyra criticised, as she sidestepped the bullets.
Evva shot two more bullets but in vain. Once it became apparent that the fight was useless, Evva decided to run.
It was only by one sub-Rank, but Evva could see that the Beastwoman was on the upper end of the B+ Rank spectrum. The fate of their battle was imminent, so there was no use staying here.
But before she could run, another kick threw her away. Although this time she was more prepared, the impact was still significant. “Don’t try to get up again. You will only get hurt.”
‘Whoosh!’
A white fan suddenly lodged itself in between the two. Surprised at the sudden attack, Nyra's eyes began to dart, looking for the hidden attacker.
‘Squish! Squash!’
A human slowly walked in between the two. The human was dressed in a manner quite unlike the ones she had previously met. A loose blue robe was draped over his body, much like the ones worn by the Elven priests during their prayers. Nyra quickly recalled him as the A+ Ranker that the Elves warned her about.
“It took you a while to get here, didn’t it?” Nyra sneered at him.
“My apologies if I kept you waiting, Ojou-san!” Kazuya politely replied. Taking a glance at the injured Evva, his eyebrows furrowed. “But don’t you think, you have something to apologise for as well?”
“Me? Apologise? Whatever do you mean?”
“The Fae Forest and the Human Continent are under the Peace Treaty. What you have done is a major transgression against the law set up by The Five Races.”
“Even if you know about it, what can you do? We will be long gone before anyone can come and capture us, leaving you with no evidence.”
“I currently have one of your Elven warriors in my custody, and I have already placed her under a spell. She won’t be able to leave this Dungeon nor be able to martyr herself unless I want her to.”
On hearing his threat, Nyra gave it some thought.
“It’s tragic but I guess we will have to leave her here. I will declare her as a rogue Elf upon my return. She betrayed the Elven tribe and ran away to the Human Continent all alone. You can’t prove it otherwise.”
“Haa. You Beastman are quite heartless.”
“Nature isn’t merciful. And we, its worshippers, aren’t either.” Nyra answered coldly. “But you know, there is one way I wouldn’t have to sacrifice one of my soldiers. You know what it is?”
Suddenly she vanished, appearing in front of Kazuya, her leg raised to kick him away. “It’s by killing you!”
Despite her extraordinary speed, the attack didn’t go as planned. Evva couldn’t process the movement fully, but suddenly the hand fan that had previously been stuck in the ground, was back in its owner’s hand, blocking the Beastwoman’s attack.
“I hate to break it to you, but the League didn’t dispatch me because they took this investigation as a joke. They sent me because they have trust in my ability to handle the situation with expertise, despite not having any previous knowledge about it.”
“I guess I greatly underestimated you. MAX!!” She called out to her comrade.
The Beastman and Ray, who were playing a lethal game of tag, turned toward the sudden call. Max gave up on his hunt and returned to his friend’s side, leaving an exhausted Ray behind.
“No matter how strong you are, with the two of us here, you have no chance to escape.” Nyra declared.
“Now I seriously am offended. I am one of the strongest mages ever known to mankind, you know.” Kazuya pouted at the enemy’s lack of intel.
“I won’t deny you are strong. Stronger than even me at my current level. But inside this Field, your mana means nothing.”
“Oh, you mean this?” Kazuya slowly motioned his hand, getting a feel of the mana and the strange power that was at work. “This Field, as you called it, is not supposed to block your mana, you know. It is there to balance the opposing mana in the air. Since this area is brimming with water mana, its opposite element is all the more welcome to be used.”
Kazuya's hand fan, which had remained shut throughout this entire time, suddenly opened up.
Suddenly someone tugged at Evva’s shoulder.
She looked back to find Luca.
“Get up. We need to leave. NOW!” He quickly helped her to her feet before dragging her away.
“What about Ray?” she asked, concerned about the professor.
“He’s a professor. He will figure it out.” Luca replied uncaringly, his only concern being to take Evva away from this fight as fast as possible.
Evva couldn’t figure out what was making Luca so desperate.
But when she looked back at Kazuya, all her doubts were cleared.
Spring had arrived Kazuya and the Beastmen. Literally!
Lava-red flowers were blooming around the three, while green whirlwinds plucked their petals, swirling them around.
It looked like they were inside a beautiful tornado made out of flowers.
As Evva looked at the scene before her, she recalled a particular memory. When she learned that Sakura Kazuya would be her mentor during her internship, Evva had asked her mom, a friend of his, how she would describe him.
“Beautiful. And deadly. That’s how I will describe him. He’s like a beautiful rose with thorns coated in the deadliest poison. But even if you know the thorn has poison, he is still a rose you will pick.”
At that time, Evva didn’t truly understand what her mother meant. Although Kazuya’s looks were indeed stunning, and his unique wardrobe gave him a weirdly pleasant charm, it wasn’t strong enough to make her pick a deadly flower.
But looking at the spell her mentor had summoned, Evva finally understood what her mother had told her.
The crimson red and emerald green glowed magnificently around him.
It would be a sin to call it an attack.
Art would have been a more apt way to describe what she was looking at. If something so bewitching was reaching out to her, then she would have definitely reached out for the forbidden fruit.
And it seemed like the two Beastmen shared her thoughts.
The entrancing dance of the flowers in the breeze had left them mesmerised and frozen in their steps. By the time they came back to their senses, the flowers, made out of fire mana, had left several burns on their bodies.
Even the ground was on fire, despite the abundance of moisture in the soil.
Alas, she wasn’t able to see the ending of the brawl for soon the two of them were back in the woods. She didn’t know when, but at one point the lock on her mana seemed to have lifted, and she was able to move it freely again.
“We should go back for them!”, she pleaded to Luca, after she checked that her mana was in perfect condition.
“Did you look at the level of the spell Kazuya was using? At this point, we would only be a burden to him. The best we can do is get away from the attack zone as fast as possible.”
“But there’s two of them. What if he gets into trouble?”
“I don’t think you need to worry about me being in trouble, Evva.” A voice suddenly called out to her from behind.
A silhouette of two people came out from the forest.
“Sir Kazuya!” She ran towards her mentor, who was supporting Professor Ray.
There were a few burns on his body, meaning the Fire Flower spell hadn't him untouched. Thankfully, it seemed that he had taken a Healing Potion since the burns were already repairing themselves.
“Thank god, you two aren’t hurt.” She sighed in relief, seeing that her mentor was unharmed.
“I am honestly more hurt by the fact that you think I would be in trouble.” Kazuya pointed out. “Not to mention, it was dangerous on your part as well. I ordered Luca to take you away because I didn’t want you two to get hurt by my spell.”
“I just thought that since that weird spell that bound our mana was gone, we would be able to help you from somewhere far away.”
“I admire your desire to help, but it would do well for you to remember from next time to prioritise your own survival, lest you become a burden to others, much like Sir Ray here.”
“That’s not fair. The Beastman really did a number on me, so I wasn’t able to escape. And you could have at least reined in that spell of yours!” Ray whined.
“Why would I need to rein in my spell? My students were nowhere near it.” Kazuya just scoffed in reply.
“That’s discrimination. I am much weaker than this student of yours.” He pointed in her direction.
“Where was that reasoning of yours when you decided to anger the Beastmen? Heaven knows how much trouble that caused us.”
“Speaking of the Beastmen, where are they now?” Luca decided to change the subject. Seeing two adults fighting like kids in front of them, made him feel uncomfortable.
“...those two escaped.” The two replied after a small silence.
“What about that thing we found? Below the mountain of corpses!” Evva suddenly remembered the mysterious item they had discovered after that gruelling task.
“Sorry, but it seems the Artifact disappeared while I was distracted by my burns.” Ray apologised to her. For a brief moment, Evva thought she could see a small movement on Ray’s arm, but it quickly disappeared like it never existed. Must have been from exhaustion.
“Sensei, shouldn’t you be going after those Elves from before? If we can capture them now, it would still be beneficial to the League.” Luca reminded Kazuya.
Kazuya shook his head. “It looks like that Beastwoman was true to her promise. Except for the Elf that is under my captivity, it seems that the rest have disappeared. Didn’t you say the Beastman was fighting one of the Boss monsters? A portal should have opened near its corpse.”
“Then let’s go and exit this Dungeon!” Ray pointed in the direction of the Boss’ corpse.
Author's Note:
I apologise for the delay in release. This week was just a hurl of parties at my university, so I had a bit of trouble writing.
Also, I made a small change. The main character, whose name was originally Lector, I have changed it.
