The Dungeon
The next day, Joseph intended to search the area around the village more thoroughly. If the place came under attack while he was gone, the situation could turn ugly — and he needed the road secured if he was going to get a messenger through to Folmers.
I'd rather not report this if I can help it...
Even a complete outsider would have taken one look and known something was wrong with the place they'd found. Joseph had never once seen power involve itself in a site like this and produce anything good. But the soldiers already knew the cave was there. He couldn't hide it now.
Joseph led the soldiers north, where the bandits were said to be hiding. They combed through the forest and lay in wait along the paths. At last, nestled between two hills, they found what appeared to be a campsite the bandits had been using.
Joseph and the soldiers crouched in the nearby brush, waiting for someone to return. No matter how long they waited, no one came.
After a considerable stretch of time, Joseph and the soldiers searched the camp themselves. All that remained were a tattered cloth spread across the ground and a campfire that had gone cold long ago.
Did they run?
It wasn't impossible. Even if they'd been lucky enough not to cross paths when they first entered the village, it would have been stranger still for the bandits not to notice after three full days of occupation. The villagers had grown noticeably livelier the moment soldiers arrived with a wagon, after all.
Joseph searched the surrounding area even more thoroughly. He planned to travel to and from the cave every day for some time, and he had no intention of leaving a threat at his back. Only after they'd scoured the area until the sun had fully set did he conclude that no one was around.
Joseph selected two of the village youths with decent builds. One of them was the man who hadn't let go of his flail even after Joseph's party had entered the village.
"Go straight to the castle and deliver the news."
They set off immediately, accompanied by one of the soldiers. Joseph had already cleared the entire road leading there, so they would almost certainly arrive without incident.
Once the villagers understood they were safe, their expressions finally brightened. The wretched, beggar-like look was gone, and so was any trace of the people who had threatened the wagon when it first arrived. They moved about as if they had been waiting for this moment all along.
"Good day, Mage!"
"Mage! We caught some fish — would you care for some?"
Thanks to that, Joseph was able to focus on exploring the cave in peace.
Joseph headed for the cave with the soldiers, including Refn. The moment they stepped into the passage, he felt the dense mana saturating the air — a powerful current crawling across his skin and boring into his core. Mana sickness, all over again.
I'm going to throw up...
The instant he let his guard down, even for a second, a massive surge of mana would reverse-flow through his skin. The unrefined mana mixed with what he had already accumulated inside himself and began to churn violently.
"Hah..."
Joseph leaned his back against the wall and sank to the floor. The soldiers immediately gave him space, spreading out to cover the left and right of the passage as well as the crawl-hole. A reasonable degree of safety had been secured.
Let's try this.
Joseph drew a deep breath and closed his eyes. Something was starting to click. He let his consciousness drift, sinking it all the way to the bottom of his mind. As his awareness of the outside world faded, he could feel the mana raging inside him. The mana that had flooded in from outside couldn't settle; it scattered and swirled in every direction.
He dug through that current, searching for the mana that had been his to begin with. It was thrashing about like a beast with its tail on fire. Joseph slowly, firmly seized hold of the churning mana.
I can't let this moment slip...
He knew it instinctively. This was a fight for control of his mana. If he couldn't stabilize it here, he would have to abandon the passage entirely.
Joseph clung to the mana with stubborn persistence, circulating it, converting the foreign mana that had entered from outside into his own. He sat there for a long time, repeating the process again and again. Gradually, the mana raging through his body began to settle.
"Hah..."
He took a slow breath and opened his eyes. Cold sweat had soaked through the back of his shirt. His vision gradually cleared, revealing the soldiers watching him. They had been standing guard the entire time, staring at Joseph — who had sat motionless for so long — with uneasy faces.
"...Are you all right?"
Refn asked, his expression worried. Unaffected by the passage himself, he had no idea why Joseph was groaning, or why he had sat down in the tunnel instead of pressing deeper.
"I think I'm fine."
Joseph nodded and summoned a mana orb into the air. Its form was far more distinct than when he had summoned one in the cave before — though it still wasn't perfect, wavering faintly, not yet fully stable.
Still not enough.
Even with control restored, the mana saturating the passage was still pouring into him indiscriminately. The moment he relaxed, it would start churning again. Until he solved that, exploring the interior was out of the question.
From that day on, Joseph came to the passage every day to meditate. It took a full four days before he grew accustomed to controlling the unstable mana and holding it steady.
In the meantime, those who had gone to the castle returned to the village. The soldier handed Joseph a letter from Folmers — and the contents were not what he had expected.
His Lordship the Count shall dispatch personnel in due course.
Seal the entrance and relocate elsewhere.
...This isn't good.
Joseph clicked his tongue as he read. The wording was roundabout, but the meaning was plain: don't go any deeper. The intent behind the letter came through loud and clear — Don't do anything stupid.
What's this about?
Joseph's curiosity about the cave's true nature only grew. What was in there that would make Folmers tell him not to enter? The Folmers Joseph knew wouldn't have issued a blanket prohibition like this without reason. What did Folmers think this cave was?
There's definitely something here.
A passage overflowing with mana. Zalier, who had been searching for a dungeon. Folmers, trying to seal the cave. Every clue was screaming that something was hidden here — so loudly that you'd have to be an idiot not to notice.
There's something going on that I don't know about.
Joseph took a moment to assess the situation. Refn knew the contents of the letter as well. Joseph wasn't a mage in the Count's service, so he couldn't conceal what it said. Come morning, Refn would almost certainly try to seal the cave.
Then I'll go in before that.
That night, Joseph quietly slipped out of the village, taking his staff and a shield. Upon reaching the cave, he circulated the mana in his body once before entering.
I've been thinking about this for four days while I adapted.
This passage had been created artificially. That meant whoever made it hadn't been affected by the mana concentration. How was that possible? Had they been an ordinary person? Hardly. Magic was always the province of mages. No ordinary person could have created a space like this.
There had to be another method — a way to remain unaffected by the external mana flooding this passage. And he had found the clue in his fight with Zalier.
My mana orbs didn't work on that bastard.
When he had fired a mana orb at Zalier as the man charged him, the orb had dissipated into thin air. At the time, Joseph had assumed Zalier had used some spell he didn't know.
Zalier doesn't even know combat magic.
His specialty was artifact crafting. And nothing in the grimoire he had been carrying had described an artifact that could instantly negate a spell.
Magic doesn't work properly on other mages.
Looking back, the wild dog demonic beast had been blasted off its feet and killed instantly the moment Flame Bite hit it. Zalier, by contrast, had rolled across the ground again and again and still come at Joseph trying to kill him.
Joseph concluded that mages must possess something like magic resistance.
This passage is a kind of offensive spell that only works on mages.
In which case, Joseph should be able to block it too. He released a minute amount of the mana he had been circulating, just outside his body — a thin layer, like draping a cloth over his skin, continuously.
When he arrived at the passage:
"...Looks like I was right."
Unlike before, the mana pouring into his body had decreased dramatically. It hadn't vanished entirely, but thanks to four days of adaptation, the mana inside him was no longer being thrown into chaos.
He immediately summoned a mana orb to check. It held its form perfectly now. A smile crept onto Joseph's lips.
Joseph lit a torch at once and moved slowly, following the flow of mana. Shield in his left hand, torch in his right. If anything appeared, he would smash it with the shield and then drive a mana orb into it. Fire magic seemed unwise — start a blaze in an enclosed space and he would be the first to die.
The staff, however, turned out to be surprisingly in the way like this.
I can't exactly leave it behind.
It wasn't just any object. It was a staff with a holy relic embedded in it. He had no choice.
Then, after he had gone a fair distance in, Joseph stopped in his tracks.
...A smell?
A nauseating stench — the kind of filth-reek you caught walking past a pigsty. Joseph summoned a mana orb and slowly sent it down the path. The orb always emitted a faint glow, making it useful as indirect lighting. When it illuminated the floor, he saw filth scattered everywhere.
Was this a nest for wild dog demonic beasts?
The thought that something else might still be here made him drop into a crouch on instinct, summoning another mana orb. The moment he heard a sound, he intended to deploy Return.
The one mercy was that, unlike before, this was a passage sealed by walls on all sides except forward and back.
Joseph moved on past the beast's nest. A little farther in, the passage gradually widened. Wooden posts had been carefully fitted along the walls; it looked as though the tunnel had been deliberately carved out.
Then, when the passage had nearly doubled in size—
A dry rustle whispered out of the darkness ahead.
"...!"
At that unpleasant sound, Joseph reflexively floated three mana orbs around himself. One in front, one at his back, the last above his head — positions from which he could react instantly no matter where something came from.
The rustling came again, louder. It drew closer, then receded, repeating in a way that made the distance impossible to judge.
This... wait.
Joseph swallowed hard at a bone-chilling sound he had heard somewhere before. He sent one of the mana orbs forward.
The rustle again—
And then it came into view. A black, glossy carapace, caught in the mana orb's light. Long antennae, twitching...
"Oh, fuck!"
A familiar insect, swollen to an enormous size, was crawling across the wall.