Chapter 82
Kain immediately expanded his senses to their maximum.
'Damn it, the dense mana is interfering.'
He did his best to exclude all other senses and focused his sense of touch.
Then, he could tell that the faint vibration he had just felt was by no means a delusion.
'No, this is far beyond a delusion.'
The vibration was growing at a rapid pace.
If it were to grow any larger....
'First, I need to gather the disciples.'
As soon as he made a swift judgment, Kain kicked off the ground.
Drrrrr.
The vibration was growing rapidly.
Upon arriving at the plaza, Kain immediately threw his bag aside and entered the side path, following the tracks Anias had left.
"Anias!"
"Kain! The ground is suddenly…."
"There's no time for that. Get out, now!"
"Ah, alrigh—. Ugh!"
Before the vibrations grew stronger, Kain hoisted Anias up, bag and all.
"Hold on tight."
"You don't have to tell me, I'm already holding on for dear life!"
Taat!
After setting Anias down in the plaza, Kain quickly entered the area where Fred was.
"Fred!"
"Kain! There are a ton of White Magic Stones here so I was mining them, but suddenly the ground…."
"The White Magic Stones aren't what's important. Quickly, on my ba—. No, I'll carry you."
"Uwaaah!"
Kain hoisted Fred, who was taller than him, onto his shoulder and ran.
"W-Wait, Kain! I couldn't close my bag, the White Magic Stones are...!"
Fred reached out, watching the highest-quality White Magic Stones spill from the mouth of his bag and fall.
"Are White Magic Stones more precious than your life? Just hold on tight."
"Ah, alright!"
Kugugugugu!
While being carried, Fred silently watched the collapsing ceiling and the White Magic Stones being crushed beneath it.
"Kain! Fred!"
Anias's face lit up when she saw the two of them emerge before the collapse.
"Heok, heok."
Fred, who had done nothing, gasped for breath and collapsed onto the floor.
And at that moment.
Kugugugu!
Part of the plaza's ceiling collapsed over where the three were gathered, and small fragments began to fall.
"Fire Wall."
As Kain chanted, a thick Fire Wall enveloped the three in the shape of a dome.
"Coordinate."
He coordinated the direction of the blazing Fire Wall's mana diffusion, making it spread outwards from the apex.
Pababat. Pabak.
The falling rock fragments hit the Fire Wall and were pushed outwards as they fell.
"Kain!"
Just then, Anias shouted, pointing upwards.
Kugugung!
A massive fragment was falling from the ceiling.
A size that couldn't be blocked by the physical force of the Fire Wall.
"Convert. Flare."
While maintaining the Fire Wall, Kain converted a portion of the Fire Wall's mana into a Flare and shot it out.
Kwaaaaang!
The large fragment, its trajectory skewed by the explosion, fell to the side with a deafening noise.
"Ughh…."
Fred, his lips blue, looked around and trembled.
He tried to calm himself by clenching and unclenching his fists, but it didn't seem to be of much use.
Kain deflected a few more large fragments with Flare.
"Kain, if you need another spell, just say the word. I'll cast it right away."
Kain shook his head at Anias's words.
"This is the best way. And…."
Kugugugu….
"It seems to be over, for now."
As the vibrations subsided, Kain dispelled the Fire Wall.
***
The situation was not good.
For a start, the path they had taken, the one they had sprinkled with trophies, had collapsed and was blocked.
"This way. It looks like we'll have to find a way and climb up to where the previous plaza was."
Kain's gaze was fixed on a passage next to the one they had come from.
Excluding the three passages that led downwards and the one they had come from, it was the only path left.
As Kain immediately took the lead, Fred urgently called out to him.
"K-Kain! Do you know where you're going?"
"If I create a three-dimensional map in my head of the path we've taken so far, I can roughly guess which direction this path heads. At the very least, getting to the upper plaza increases the possibility of reuniting with Instructor Rowen."
At the mention of Rowen's name, Fred's complexion brightened slightly.
"R-Right! We have Instructor Rowen.... He'll definitely come to rescue us!"
Just as he'd said, Kain took the lead, choosing paths that hadn't collapsed, and found a way leading to the upper plaza.
However.
"...My goodness."
"This is a real problem."
In front of them, who had finally arrived at the upper plaza, was only an exit that was completely blocked off.
"C-Can't we somehow break through this with magic? Wait. Let me try with a Flame Spear…."
"Stop."
"But…."
Kain calmly explained in response to Fred's words.
"The walls inside this crystal cave are imbued with dense mana. Shooting magic at it won't have much of an effect."
"Then.... Right. We can just wait for Instructor Rowen to break through from above! If it's Instructor Rowen, he'll surely…."
"That's impossible too. Trying to brute-force a way through with firepower could instead accelerate a further collapse. Now that the vibrations have stopped, recklessly trying to break through from here is not a good decision. Instructor Rowen wouldn't be unaware of that."
"Then what are we supposed to do…."
It was a despairing situation, but Kain immediately proposed the next alternative.
"Do you remember? The border of the Flondia Empire we saw before entering this cave."
"Uh.... That sheer cliff?"
"Yes. This cave is located not far from that cliff. Meaning."
Kain pointed in a direction and said,
"If we can get out in the direction of that cliff, it means we can at least avoid being trapped and dying inside this cave."
Then, Anias spoke up.
"You're not suggesting we jump off a cliff to our deaths instead of being trapped and dying in a cave, are you? Are you saying we should just trust that if we can somehow make it there, Instructor Rowen will join us from that side?"
Kain nodded.
"Instructor Rowen should have a rough map of this cave's interior. There's a possibility he'll try to enter through the thinnest part of the wall closest to the cliff to come rescue us."
Even if their paths crossed with Rowen's or they ended up in a situation where they couldn't reunite, he planned to somehow get to the cliff, knock the other two out for a moment, and carry them up using ice magic.
To do that, they first had to move in the direction of the cliff.
'My memory isn't perfectly clear, but I have a certain degree of familiarity with the internal structure of this cave.'
This was another reason why Kain had been able to navigate the paths without hesitation until now.
It was true that the path was difficult to navigate with intuition and spatial awareness alone, but Anias and Fred were too distracted by the situation to think it was suspicious anyway.
Kain immediately took the lead and set out to find the path leading towards the cliff.
However.
"Damn it, this way is blocked too."
The situation was even worse than he had thought.
Every time a path he intended to use was blocked, Kain had to design and move along an ever-widening detour.
And if another route was blocked along the way, he had to find yet another path.
'If this way is also no good….'
The direction they were heading was also a problem.
The possibility of escape increased only if they gradually moved upwards and got closer to the cliff, but all the upper paths were blocked, forcing them to choose a downward path.
Instead of taking a path closer to the cliff, they were gradually heading deeper, even deeper than the last place they had mined White Magic Stones.
"Kain…."
"Hold on. If this path doesn't work…."
"No.... That's not it…."
Fred's voice, following from behind, sounded particularly weak.
"What is it?"
When he turned around, Fred was frowning and pressing a hand to his forehead.
"I think I'm feeling a little dizzy."
At those words, Anias also spoke up.
"To be honest, I'm feeling a bit dizzy too, though not as much as Fred. I don't know why this is happening."
"Dizzy?"
Kain immediately stopped walking.
And, he quietly sensed the surrounding mana.
'...It's much denser.'
He hadn't noticed while searching for a path, having already used up all the trophies to mark their way, all while memorizing the entire route they had taken and thinking of new paths to try ahead.
'The mana's aura is too dense, and they're feeling dizzy because they can't withstand it.'
Kain had a complete 5th-circle of ice-series magic in his heart.
But Anias and Fred, who only possessed the 4th-circle of fire-series magic, were bound to be relatively vulnerable in this environment.
'No, that's not what's important.'
What was important was that he had never once felt such dense mana inside this crystal cave before.
Including in his past life.
'And this isn't... merely natural mana that exists in a deep place.'
The sensation was different.
He wasn't certain, but if Kain's intuition was correct, this was clearly the mana being emitted by 'some kind of entity'.
'What in the world...'
A few candidates quickly passed through Kain's mind.
'A Kevarsh? No, there's no way a Kevarsh would be sleeping deep inside a crystal cave like this.... Or perhaps the possibility of a Sarknut...'
Either way, it was just as dangerous.
'If an ancient monster species like a Kevarsh had settled down and was sleeping here, and the cave collapsed because it happened to wake up.'
The moment a Kevarsh fully awakens and rampages, the paths inside the cave could collapse once more, and the way out could be completely blocked.
'It's not that I don't have a chance. If I can find it before it fully awakens and kill it by piercing its heart first.'
The Kevarsh was a giant ancient monster species, a monster on a level that would require at least ten 7th-circle mages to subjugate.
Even if Kain were to use his ice magic right now, it was a weight class that offered no easy answer in a head-on fight.
'In an environment like this, I can't even create a 6th-circle of ice magic. The balance with my fire-series circle is already broken as it is.'
This overwhelming mana, not being natural but emitted by a being, would only interfere with the creation of a circle.
With no additional movement from it right now, the best course of action was to pour all his mana into a single, powerful shot and plant it in the creature's vital spot.
That was the best option for now.
Having reached a conclusion, Kain started walking.
"We're moving forward for now. Endure the dizziness for a little longer."
Telling the two to wait while he went alone was an option.
But if he couldn't finish it cleanly in one shot and the beast went on a rampage, the other two would almost certainly be crushed and die in the collapsing cave.
Rather than risk that, it was better to bring them along, push them to one side, and protect them with ice while he fought.
Kain continued to lead the way.
'This path.... It's a path I've never seen before.'
The anxiety of an unknown route.
But he couldn't turn back after coming this far.
How far did they advance, following the direction where the mana grew denser?
They arrived at another large plaza.
It was a plaza larger than any they had seen so far.
But unlike before, there were no more forking paths leading further down.
Instead.
"...A lake?"
In front of them was a wide lake that took up more than half of the plaza.
'This is different from what I thought.'
There was a lake in the very place he thought an ancient monster species would be sleeping.
In that case, was it sleeping inside the lake?
"Uuuk."
"Ugh.... My head...."
The two seemed to have reached their limit.
"Rest for a moment."
Kain briefly knocked the two unconscious and laid them down near the entrance to the plaza.
Then he slowly approached the lake.
Kain began to draw mana from the ice-series circle in his heart.
And the most powerful he could use....
"......!"
Kururururu.
The surface of the once-calm lake vibrated.
Simultaneously, mana of overwhelming purity and density erupted from the lake.
'This is....'
Kain realized in that moment.
That the surface of this lake had been what was holding back the mana of the creature sleeping within, preventing it from escaping.
"Heok."
His breath caught.
A power so overwhelming that even Kain, who possessed a complete 5th-circle of ice-series magic, couldn't breathe properly, flowed out from within the lake.
'A Kevarsh? 6th-circle? That was a laughable notion.'
The creature was not Kevarsh.
Even if he had forcibly completed a 6th-circle, he would have been able to do nothing against the monster before him.
No matter how perfectly crafted the magic, it was fundamentally impossible to break through a being with this much power using 6th-circle magic.
'In that case, I have to somehow escape....'
Even now, if I take the disciples, go in the direction closest to the cliff, and unleash every ice magic spell I can at the cliff wall.
Wouldn't the probability of survival at least be higher than it is now?
However.
Kuuung—.
'My legs.... they won't move.'
It wasn't just his legs.
His entire body was frozen by the overwhelming aura and wouldn't move.
'Move. To be stopped by something like this....'
He grit his teeth, collected his mind, and commanded his body.
The moment his hand finally moved.
It began to reveal its form.
'Damn it all!'
But it was too late.
Frozen in place, Kain witnessed the being that was slowly revealing itself from within the lake.
Chwaaak.
What emerged, parting the lake, was a feather, sharp like delicately sculpted ice.
'A feather?'
Was there an ancient monster species this powerful that had ice feathers?
While he was thinking that, following the feather, 'its' head revealed itself.
Transparent yet coldly shining, deep blue eyes.
A beak, somewhat short but sharp.
Revealed below that, a chubby torso made of ice and frost, and small wings.
And even thin legs....
'......?'
[So I wasn't mistaken in what I felt!]
'Its' form was like that of a small bird sculpted from ice.
The small bird hopped, flew up, and flapped its wings in front of Kain.
[Child, what in the world are you? Hmm?]
