Chapter 205
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 205
Chapter Title: A New Perception
The first and second circles formed a cross, one vertical, one horizontal.
The third and fourth circles intersected, enveloping the heart in an X.
At last, mana circulated in its complete form. There was no longer any strain in the flow. No awkwardness in the circulation.
A force, precisely countering the pressure surging up from the bottom of the tunnel, newly formed into a sphere.
Soon, the sphere grew harder and harder, while the upward force slowly weakened.
Grrrnd.
The sphere, which had been on the verge of escaping the hole, came to a stop.
Loan, finally feeling at ease, purified his mana.
Then, gently pushing back the surging mana with the sphere, he slowly descended, down, down.
Seeing Aul follow him in, he didn't forget to close the lid.
Floating down to the bottom, Loan finally set his two feet on the ground.
Sensing the sudden shift in the flow of mana, movement began in the distance.
Loan limbered up lightly, waiting for his opponent to arrive.
The surroundings were overflowing with more mana than necessary, and the fourth circle was now settled in Loan's heart.
Was it because the path of circulation, built upon this foundation, now flowed from his nose past his ears?
It felt as if, for the first time, his sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch were all perceiving the world as equal senses.
And with it, a maximized synesthesia.
Loan's foresight had always shone sharpest when facing an opponent, when the battle was fierce.
Yet even before laying eyes on the enemy, he felt as if he already knew what they intended to do, and what he should do in response.
Mind and body, senses and magic—not a single aspect felt lacking. It was, in a word, perfect readiness.
“Kyaaaaaaak!”
Due to the dense dark mana filling the tunnel, he couldn't see the creatures' auras of light.
But it didn't matter.
His five senses were clearly identifying them instead.
The magical beasts charging toward him in the slow-moving current of time.
“Hmm…”
Loan watched the yawn-inducingly slow creatures for a moment before turning his gaze to his surroundings.
This place was somehow different from the tunnel before his vertical descent.
Luminous stones were embedded here and there, but it looked less like an artificially carved and polished passage and more like a tunnel formed naturally by some phenomenon.
One that seemed to have been formed a very, very long time ago.
Loan used Convection to pull the foreign substances scattered on the floor closer and examined them.
It wasn't just simple dirt; things like rotted plant fibers were mixed in, or ancient things had fossilized and become jumbled together.
As if densely concentrated.
‘This is similar to what I saw in the Rhodes underground…’
The memory of falling underground after stepping on a giant root, withered who-knows-when.
The holes that stretched out complexly, like a labyrinth.
Even in the legendary underground city said to have been built by the dwarves, there were traces of a different kind of craftsmanship.
Perhaps the 'cursed space' the demons spoke of, or the place suitable for opening a gate to the demon world, was related to these naturally formed tunnels.
Loan methodically organized his speculations in his mind.
In the meantime, the magical beasts had taken only a single step forward, despite clearly running.
Their faces were still distant, but they were drooling from their torn mouths, seemingly revealing their killing intent in earnest upon seeing Loan.
Nearby, there was another drooling as they watched the creatures.
“Aul!”
Aul, flapping impatiently in the air.
It looked incredibly hungry, turning its head quickly to look at Loan.
What it ate a few days ago should still be a lump of magic in its stomach, yet how could it be so gluttonous?
“Still hungry?”
“Aul!”
“Alright.”
Loan needed a little more time to think, so he decided to grant Aul's request.
He focused his synesthesia and properly faced the approaching creatures.
They were certainly different from the ones he'd seen on the surface. They were similar to the magical beasts from back then, the ones he'd debated eating while escaping the Rhodes underground with Bella.
In other words, these weren't magical beasts artificially created by demons or their followers, but ones that had naturally occurred in the wild of this ancient underground.
Creatures with no intelligence, only malice, killing intent, and the desire to eat—beings that were alive, yet not alive.
The intense desire they showed toward Loan began to appear not as a mere feeling, but as distinct lines.
This was subtly different from when he had foreseen the fighting style of Nostra's consigliere, Mario, after completing his third circle.
At that time, Loan's foresight would shine sharpest when the battle with his opponent was fierce.
He had gained the upper hand in battle by foreseeing how their powerful intent, filled with killing intent, would unfold and preparing for it.
But now, despite the considerable distance and the fact that there were dozens of them, he could see it all at a glance.
His fully blossomed synesthesia laid it all out for him, as if telling him to step only on the safe parts of a clearly visible thorny path.
The lines were tangled and dizzying, but to Loan, they seemed like harmless spiderwebs.
And just as one would brush away such things with a wave of the hand, Loan did exactly that.
He thrust his hand forward, pushing out Convection. Lightly flicking its end.
Fwoooooosh—
That was all he did.
Yet the Convection that poured out like a condensed storm spiraled down the tunnel, embracing the stalactites hanging from the ceiling, the stalagmites jutting from the floor, and the dirt, loose stones, and hard fragments of fiber—
“Kieeeek!”
And pierced through the creatures' bodies all at once.
Simultaneously, the thin threads they had been emanating all vanished.
In the ensuing silence, Aul urgently glided forward.
And began to pick up and eat the creatures' heads.
“Aul! Keck! Ptui! Ptui!”
It spat them out with a grimace, as if fragments of dirt and stone had gotten mixed in.
“Ah, sorry…”
I should have eliminated them a bit more cleanly.
Loan promised the grumbling Aul, who was picking out the more or less acceptable ones to eat, that there would surely be a demon it would like, and that he would be sure to prepare its head cleanly.
But there was no immediate sign of one.
Loan's attack had been excessively swift and hadn't made much noise, but the magical beasts' screams had echoed through the tunnel for a while, yet there was no reaction from anywhere.
Loan hurried the slowly bloating Aul along and moved deeper into the tunnel.
Giiiiiiing—
Wooooong—
Once Aul finished its meal, the only sound was the resonant hum of his rotating circles.
Of course, even that sound didn't travel outward, so the inside of the tunnel was deathly quiet.
Loan heightened his senses, unfurled the Narrow Path, and increased his speed.
While doing so, he extended his [Barrier of Recognition] as far as possible, quickly choosing paths through the labyrinthine, multi-branched tunnels.
As he ran, whenever a magical beast was about to notice them, Loan would preemptively silence it by sending a horizontal slash of Convection.
After running for a good while, maintaining the silence, he finally felt a sound accompanied by vibrations in the distance.
He slowed down and focused his senses.
The sound of striking the ground. The sound of digging earth. The sound of clearing away stone.
A mining operation was underway just beyond.
Judging by the sources of the sound, there were 82 of them.
A moment later, when the sounds were close at hand, Loan hid his body behind a stalagmite taller than himself and observed what lay beyond.
He observed using only his other senses, excluding his mana-seeing eyes and his normal sight.
What they were doing was the same as he'd first assessed, but the number was slightly different. He'd thought 82, but it also seemed like 81.
Still, even that small margin of error was impressive.
Loan marveled at how the resolution and accuracy of his synesthesia had reached a considerable level, then filtered out the voices mixed in with the sounds of equipment.
Two were primarily having a conversation.
“Any news from Virna?”
“How would I know?”
“If you don't know.”
“You and I. We're both stuck here.”
“Why didn't you follow?”
“You didn't go, so how could I?”
“How could I? They keep telling me to dig.”
“Right, so I couldn't go either.”
“True that. Keke.”
“Kukuku.”
Listening closely, he realized the conversation between the two was actually two voices coming from a single body.
The two voices began to continuously encourage or berate those who appeared to be their companions.
Interspersed with the sound of a whip cracking through the air and striking the ground.
“You small, slow things. You need to move those short limbs faster!”
“Brothers. Let us be strong. An ancient treasure is surely somewhere here!”
“Hey, hey! The stuff you dig up there is going to be transported out, so gather it properly. A high priest is coming later, and he'll raise hell, so do it right, you idiot!”
“Brothers, if we just finish this section, we can drink beer! Let's put in a little more effort!”
For something happening in a place like this, the conversation was quite peaceful and the atmosphere laid-back.
It was understandable enough.
This was a place one could only enter by going deep into a hole inexplicably opened in a corner of a hill where you wouldn't find a soul, opening a sealed lid, falling vertically for a long time, and then passing through an area teeming with magical beasts.
Having dug holes in such a place for quite some time without any outside visitors or intruders, it was only natural for them to be careless.
Thanks to that, he was able to obtain some useful information.
That they were related to Virna.
That the earth and stone quarried here had flowed into Ferrara.
And that perhaps a high priest of Le Tell might show up here.
After confirming for a while that there were no other beings besides them.
-Wait here a moment.
He instructed Aul and, after blocking out the sound with [Sphere of the Void], revealed himself from behind the stalagmite.
Indeed, just as he had perceived, dozens of workers were digging at the wall with pickaxes, scraping the earth with rakes, and shoveling it away.
Those with their backs to Loan were, as expected, dwarves.
And the one watching over them, brandishing a large whip, was a 'horse'.
A horse brandishing a whip?
Naturally, someone was riding on its back. No, it was more accurate to say they were fused together.
Atop the horse's body was the torso and two arms of a lion, and it was this part that was cracking the whip.
It wasn't a magical beast. Seeing the horse and lion parts conversing, it was an intelligent being. Its build was more than three times Loan's. It was definitely a demon.
Perhaps due to the nature of this underground area, it seemed to be maintaining its true demonic form.
In that respect, Aul was all-purpose. Just like Loan.
“Hmm…”
The small huff was blocked by the [Sphere of the Void] and couldn't escape.
Loan boldly approached the creatures, who seemed utterly oblivious to his presence.
Loan closed the distance with them purely to gauge their capabilities more closely.
His newly awakened ability was useful in many ways. Especially in an environment where it was difficult to properly check an opponent's mana.
He could gauge their combat strength by the threads extending from them, and the dwarves, as perceived through his synesthesia, were mostly non-combatants, though there were individual differences.
As he gathered his magic to further thicken his Convection, the creatures' threads became relatively thinner.
They were stronger than magical beasts, but he judged it possible to subdue them all at once.
The horse-lion demon was a target to be wary of.
The killing intent extending from it was less like a thread and more like the whip it held, and the number of potential attacks was countless.
Loan anticipated an attack from that many whips.
It meant it could launch lethal attacks in that many different ways.
However, that was merely its potential; there was no guarantee that it would be an effective attack against Loan.
In fact, he judged the probability to be infinitely low.
Of course, he didn't know what skills it possessed, so carelessness was forbidden.
Therefore, while surprise attacks weren't his hobby.
Chwaaaaaa—
Loan sent a horizontal slash of Convection, severing all four of the horse's legs at once.
“Kuaaaaargh!”
“Kihiiiiiiing!”
The demon, letting out a single scream from two mouths simultaneously, tumbled to the ground.