Waves from the South
About half a day after the carriage set off, another ominous screech echoed from the oak-plank floor. Screeech. I reflexively lifted my hips and shifted my center of gravity toward the pile of furs. To maximize the distribution of weight on the carriage floor. If it concentrated in one spot, those planks wouldn't hold.
Even lying in bed, sitting in a chair, or riding in a carriage—it's always this. Even in human form, my dragon-dense bones and muscles made me far heavier than an ordinary person. To anyone watching, I just looked like a sturdy adult male sitting there, but the load on the floor was on another level. Leaning back against the cargo wall would dent the wood; crossing my legs comfortably would surely crack the planks. In the end, I was enduring in a rider's stance—arms draped over fur piles on both sides, hips hovering a mere palm's thickness off the floor. Holding my weight suspended in midair with just thigh muscles was child's play for a dragon's strength, but the thought of maintaining this for the next ten days or so was subtly grinding down my sanity.
This is exactly how I felt commuting on Subway Line 2 in my past life. I recalled those office worker days, dangling from handholds, neither sitting nor standing, jostled every which way. Even after the world and my species changed, the misery of public transport remained unchanged.
Thud! The carriage jolted hard over a rocky stretch. A sliding herb crate slammed into my knee. I felt the poke, but pain? No chance. Instead, I hurriedly shifted my leg before the crate's edge crumpled against it.
Through the tent flap gaps, the passing scenery was gradually changing. The conifer woods encircling Rune Village had thinned into scattered mixed groves, and the roadside earth had lightened from deep rust-red to pale ochre. Heading north to south, the landscape was slowly transforming. And the mana density permeating the air was shifting too.
A dragon's senses read the world on a layer utterly alien to human perception. The flow of mana in the air felt as vivid as wind brushing skin, and the eerie distortion I'd sensed leaving Rune Village had thickened even more. Something unidentified surging from the south was twisting the atmosphere's mana more violently. The mana currents buckled irregularly like water caught in a riptide, density surging erratically. It felt like a massive boulder dropped in a still lake, ripples spreading everywhere. This was definitely the Magic Power Wave I'd witnessed from Black Thunder Mountain Range's peak last night. Overnight, its reach had widened, and its frequency had shifted subtly.
I closed my eyes and pushed my senses to the limit, tracing the wave's texture. With a top-tier dragon's mana detection, I could at least pinpoint rough distance and direction. South-southwest. Distance: too far to gauge precisely. The real issue was the wave's nature. A Magic Tower large-scale experiment would bias toward a specific elemental system. A magic beast outbreak would mix in the murky noise unique to vital mana. But this was neither. Pure mana itself, swelling with some colossal will—an alien vibration.
What event explodes from the south around this time in the original story? I racked my brain, but nothing surfaced. Imperial Year 497. Exactly one year before the main plot kicks off. Descriptions of this era were just fleeting background in the prologue. Major incidents all erupted from Rose Month, Year 498.
I don't know. It's not in the original, so original knowledge doesn't apply.
An unknown calamity. That fact unnerved me most. I cracked my eyes open. Through the tent gap, the southern sky was pure serene Greenwind Month afternoon. Clouds drifted lazily; to the naked eye, no anomaly whatsoever. But as the carriage pressed south, we were undoubtedly drawing closer to the wave's core.
From the driver's seat came the laborers' idle chatter. Weather's great; dry road means less rattling; hot stew waiting at the next stop. The everyday peace of a trade route journey. Against that soothing noise, I fiddled with the wooden tag around my neck. My fingertip caught the crudely carved "Temporary."
The Black Thunder Mountain Range's summit winds scoured like knives on bone. Harwen Delma, arriving in the north via teleportation array with her advance team, stood tall on the ridge, gazing up at the sheer peak. Her black cloak, embroidered with the Imperial Knight Order's silver crest, whipped fiercely in the mountain gale, but her posture didn't waver an inch. She merely pressed one gloved hand to steady the flapping hem over her armor.
"Vice-Captain, this way."
The lead knight from the advance team gestured from atop a rocky outcrop. Harwen nodded curtly and climbed the gravelly slope, boots crunching. Soon, the cave entrance came into view. Jet-black rocks had melted into grotesque forms. Like molten iron poured over them—the jagged edges now unnaturally smoothed into perfect curves, gleaming obsidian surfaces polished as if intricately carved, catching the afternoon sun.
Harwen's eyes narrowed. "Is this a natural phenomenon?"
The Magic Tower mage who'd followed, panting heavily in his gray robe over formal attire, crested the outcrop. A young man, robe flapping wildly.
"A-about that..." He fumbled a bundle of parchment from his belt, clutching it desperately against the wind with both hands. "Preliminary Analysis Report from Tower HQ. On the mana anomalies detected around northern Black Thunder Mountain Range—the leading hypothesis is a natural rampage by a fire-affinity magic beast."
"Natural rampage?"
"Yes. The range's underground volcanic remnants still hold residual heat. If a resident fire magic beast couldn't handle mana saturation and rampaged naturally, this level of thermal trace is entirely—"
"Mage."
Harwen cut him off decisively, eyes lifting from the report.
"Your name?"
"R-Ruben, sir. Magic Tower Third Archive Analyst—"
"Analyst Ruben. Examine this cave entrance closely."
Harwen trailed her gloved hand slowly over the rounded rock surface.
"See the melt direction?"
Ruben fell silent, inspecting. The black lava-like flow had solidified in uniform waves. Pointing...
"From outside... inward."
"Correct. Traces of fire pushing from outside in." Harwen approached with firm steps, staring at the massive obsidian plug sealing the entrance completely. No gap left—the entire cave melted and fused solid by immense heat.
"Natural rampage," Harwen said calmly, pointing at the glossy surface, "would mean the beast exploded inside this cave, right?"
"Y-yes."
"Yet the fire traces point from outside in."
Ruben's mouth worked soundlessly.
Shing. Harwen drew her sword. The silver blade flashed in the sun. She scraped the tip slowly along the solid mass. Screeeee— The glassy surface peeled thinly with a harsh rasp, revealing a dense black cross-section below, bubble-free and packed tight.
Harwen studied it. The fused rock's grain was freakishly uniform. Too uniform. Overwhelming flame had penetrated from entrance to dead-end depths, filling every void perfectly. Relentlessly inward, no gaps. Natural rampages explode omnidirectionally. This was different.
"Analyst Ruben." Harwen sheathed her blade slowly. "Could a rampaging magic beast position itself outside this cave and precisely breathe fire inward to melt and seal the entire thing solid?"
Ruben licked dry lips. "Theoretically possible, but extremely atypical—"
"Just say impossible."
Harwen stated flatly. "This isn't natural rampage."
Ruben's parchment-gripping hands trembled faintly.
"Th-then, Vice-Captain, you think this is—"
"Someone deliberately erased traces inside the cave. Overwhelming fire shoved from outside, melting and filling everything within."
Harwen's gaze swept the glassy plug once more. Perfect erasure—no hair, no claw mark.
"Only a highly intelligent being could erase traces this thoroughly."
Ruben swallowed dryly. "Intelligent... like a high mage, or—"
"This heat is beyond human mages. Even a Grand Archmage staking their life couldn't melt a summit cave this deep solid."
Harwen turned resolutely from the sealed entrance. Ridge winds tousled her neat golden hair. Descending slightly, she halted on the ridge, peering below. Black Thunder peaks layered endlessly; far down, Frostsea Forest's dense canopy half-shrouded in faint mist.
"Vice-Captain."
An advance knight approached from scouting. "Search results: massive fissure on that ridge outcrop. Rocks crushed top-down by immense pressure—scale is extensive."
"Size?"
"...Hard to estimate. Far beyond any ordinary magic beast's weight."