Chapter 118
Chapter 118
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 118
Chapter Title: Guide's Gift (4)
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118화
제23장
인도자의 선물 (4)
6
“Somewhere around here, I think……”
The next morning, Yuren led the group toward a cave on the mountainside. It was a cave whose entrance was hard to spot amid the winding terrain and the layers of rocks piled up around it.
“Hmm. This is it. Definitely.”
“What’s supposed to be here?”
“No idea.”
“……”
Everyone shot Yuren looks like they wanted to smack him. Kairen turned to Leticia with a sigh in his voice.
“You actually made this guy a companion?”
“…I regret that decision from time to time. Nice to have more people who get how I feel.”
Leticia grumbled. Ever since traveling with Yuren, she’d been irritated by attitudes like that more times than she could count.
Yuren chuckled.
“Ah, I know there’s something good here, but I just can’t explain it properly. Too bad.”
“Sometimes I think you’d be better off shutting your mouth and leading the way.”
As Leticia growled, Yuren shrugged and took the lead into the cave. He floated a magical light ahead, then hovered along with a flight spell.
“The Guide said there are magic traps that trigger if you step here, so it’s best not to touch the ground if you can help it. I’ll use detection magic, but there might be some I miss, so we should be careful… Mind if I cast flight magic?”
Yuren hesitated because casting flight magic could look like prep for a backstab. While airborne, a mage held all the control—who knew what they might pull?
But Azel nodded without a second thought.
“Go ahead.”
“You sure?”
“My sword’ll be faster than any trick you try.”
“…Ouch, that hurts.”
“Don’t we still lack the trust for me to say I believe you outright?”
“Could you at least soften it a bit?”
Yuren grumbled as he cast flight magic on everyone except Laura. The group floated about thirty centimeters off the ground as they entered the cave.
The cave entrance was incredibly steep. But after a ways in, the slope gentled and the space widened. Azel clicked his tongue.
“Good thing we didn’t just barge in.”
“Definitely a ton of magic laid out here.”
Kairen whistled too. The magic traps were perfectly concealed. Yuren’s detection magic revealed them, though. Even if not all were spotted, an insane number had been detected in just two hundred meters.
Even Azel couldn’t do a thing about that. He could sense magic focused there and that it was dangerous, but specifics and disarming? Mage territory.
“But won’t some traps react to detection magic? How’re you dodging those?”
“There’s a key spell. The issue’s the ones that trigger on contact or proximity—the rest are whatever……”
“Doesn’t seem that easy.”
“The Guide gave me the rough layout and the key spell.”
“……”
Azel shot him a look that screamed he wasn’t buying it. Logically, it occurred to him that Yuren or his crew might’ve set these traps to lure them in……
‘Doesn’t seem like the type with that level of acting chops, though.’
At this point, he was seriously curious about Yuren’s true identity. Or rather, the Guide pulling his strings……
The group pressed on. Progress was slow with all the traps, but with no danger so far, their tension eased a bit.
“About three hundred meters? Pretty long.”
Even in this hard-to-judge space, Azel precisely tracked their distance from the entrance. All the while, he ramped up his vigilance.
Humm……
Suddenly, Azel felt mana stirring within him unbidden.
‘The Cup of Lament?’
It was reacting to something nearby, moving like it wanted to tell him something. Focusing on the sensation, Azel grasped one fact.
“…Damn.”
“What is it?”
Kairen asked. Azel clicked his tongue.
“Deviously done. We’ve barely come down thirty meters.”
“What?”
Everyone stared at Azel in shock. He turned to Yuren.
“You knew.”
“I was wondering when you’d notice. Took me a while even while directly interfacing to unlock it… How’d you catch on?”
“The Cup of Lament tipped me off. Otherwise, I’d have figured it out way later—or not at all.”
“Care to explain?”
Kairen said, exasperated. Azel replied.
“We’re in a warped space right now. The real cave’s just thirty meters short. They twisted space to loop us around… Incredibly subtle. I didn’t sense a trace.”
Azel shivered. Masterful work. High-level spatial mages could distort specific areas to wreck spatial senses, but fooling even him into wandering ten times the actual distance? Unreal.
‘Dangerous.’
The Cup of Lament must’ve gotten fed up with his obliviousness and clued him in. It sharpened his alertness too. Magic like this could trap people before they even realized. Hell, maybe they already were trapped.
As Azel moved to invoke the Cup of Lament, Yuren spoke.
“No need to invoke your Dragon Demon Armament. Lock’s already off—just gotta open the door to get out.”
“How long ago?”
“About ten minutes.”
“…And you just watched us wander?”
“Curious when you’d notice. Was gonna undo it after five more minutes if not.”
“……”
“Don’t get mad. Good chance to gauge my new comrades’ skills.”
Azel flinched at that. Yuren’s puzzled gaze overlapped with someone from his memory.
“What’s up?”
“…Reminds me of someone I know.”
Yuren’s smack-worthy antics evoked old Kallos. Before they became inseparable friends, Kallos had tested Azel in all sorts of ways. Watching him in solvable crises, then bragging at the end—how often had Azel wanted to punch him?
Yuren was just like that Kallos. The facial resemblance made it hit harder.
‘Is the descendant really his descendant?’
As old memories stirred confusion, something pinged Azel’s senses.
“…Hm?”
At the same instant, Yuren dispelled the spell, unraveling the spatial distortion. The space around them warped like heat haze, revealing a totally different scene.
“This is……”
Everyone looked around in awe. Somehow, they’d reached the cave’s end. In the modest chamber’s center stood a pillar of soft blue light, and at its heart……
“A magic armor?”
A pristine white suit of armor lay neatly arranged. Azel’s expression turned odd at the sight.
“No way this is……”
Then Yuren stepped up to it, spun around, and spread his arms like a theater actor.
“This is the gift the Guide left for you.”
“You know what it is?”
“Of course not!”
“……”
“But at a glance, it’s obviously some top-tier magic armor, right?”
“Hm.”
Azel eyed the armor with a complicated look. Then Laura spoke.
“White Dragon Armor?”
“Hm?”
Everyone turned to her. Laura stared at the armor.
“Looks like the White Dragon Armor that Azel Karzark wore.”
“……”
That was why Azel looked so conflicted. This armor matched exactly the one he’d worn in the Dragon Emperor War.
7
During the Dragon Emperor War, Azel had covered himself head to toe in magic gear. The White Dragon Armor was a helmet-and-armor set forged from magic metal, using dragon bone for the frame and melted dragon scales.
“White Dragon Armor……”
Azel approached it. He inspected it closely, then asked.
“Hm. Can I touch it?”
“I’ve undone all the spells, but seems like the armor itself vets worthiness?”
“A magic item with a will?”
“Probably. Not super smart—just faint instincts, I’d say.”
Even non-Dragon Demon Armaments among top magic gear sometimes had egos, choosing only worthy wielders. This seemed one.
Azel said.
“This isn’t the White Dragon Armor.”
“Huh? But… it looks identical?”
Laura tilted her head.
“Have you seen the real White Dragon Armor?”
“Only in records. Looked the same in the visuals.”
Kairen cut in.
“Design matches Azel Karzark’s portraits… But what makes you so sure?”
“The White Dragon Armor had no ego. That much I know for certain.”
It hadn’t been made for him originally—he’d looted it from the enemy. He’d just had artisans resize it at first; otherwise, it fit perfectly.
“But they replicated the White Dragon Armor spot-on.”
Azel cautiously lifted the helmet atop the suit. Something flooded his senses.
‘Hm?’
He reflexively moved to block it, then stopped. He realized it was magical intent from the helmet flowing in.
-Hm. Can you hear me?
A voice echoed in Azel’s mind. He recognized it from once before.
‘…Kallos?’
It was like the old-man version of Kallos’s thought-form he’d met in the Valan Forest ruins. Azel addressed it.
‘Your doing, huh. Still at it even after going bald…’
-If you hear me, that means Azel’s the one who picked this up.
But Kallos’s thought-form ignored him, monologuing. From that attitude, Azel realized.