The Abandoned Mine
“……!”
Lieutenant Jennifer Iba jerked her revolver out of her holster at the sudden cry, the motion as automatic as breathing.
‘Nebula? Gods? Saintess?’
The out-of-nowhere accusations stacked up, but no matter what, the words they all pointed to were one thing.
“It's a terrorist attack!”
The Nebula’s terrorism.
Those who wielded magic from the outside.
Just seeing their faces made it a huge problem.
The three warring nations were still at each other’s throats, but the Nebula was a common enemy to all of them.
Unfortunately, the Nebula wasn’t large enough for the enemy-of-my-enemy-to-become-friend scenario to play out, but still.
The situation was desperate.
Explosions popping up from every direction proved they really were casting spells.
“Paul-senpai! Get everyone to evacuate!”
Right now, the priority was the Copper Valley villagers.
Lieutenant Iba prayed no tragic victims would be swallowed by the terror, and Paul finished assessing the situation and nodded sharply.
The explosions erupting all around were shockingly violent.
They either lacked human hearts or saw everything except themselves as meaningless.
“Spill it! Blast it!”
“For the Nebula—!”
They didn’t stop.
They were firing spells at random, as if they didn’t even recognize the village itself existed.
“Psychos—!”
Paul’s voice cracked with fury.
Just a few days ago the village had been safe from the Great Worms.
Now these weird psychos from the Nebula had come and were tearing it apart.
What had we done wrong?
The question was pointless.
They believed their actions were righteous because they were performing them for their own gods, not because they were punishing the other side for wrongs done to them.
“Hey, everyone! Gather around me!”
Paul’s urgent summons to the villagers.
He raised his hunting shotgun like a battle flag.
He hadn’t even considered firing; bullets were too precious.
Anyway, the Copper Valley villagers swarmed toward Paul.
“From now on, follow my instructions and run! Got it?”
“Where to?!”
Someone yelled.
Paul bit his lip hard.
Right, where to run?
Copper Valley had been founded because of the copper mine.
The entrance was surrounded by dangerous mountains, so the old folks weren’t suited for the escape route.
But the entrance was worse—fanatics were already going berserk there.
No way to dodge the pouring rain, and now even directions were a mystery.
Paul suddenly remembered the woman who had appeared first in this kind of mess.
“Dam! Where the hell did the wizard go!?”
Dam was needed.
If she could overwhelm the Great Worms and slaughter them all so easily, these freaks should be a breeze.
One of the old men answered Paul’s question in a panic.
“Dam went to the abandoned mine! Ah, I saw her leaving with the fairy a little while ago!”
“The abandoned mine?!”
Paul’s gaze snapped to the deepest part of the village.
A slightly uphill slope.
At the top was the mine whose light had gone out long ago.
“……Damn it.”
Paul spat the curse, then pointed the barrel at the abandoned mine.
“Let’s head to the abandoned mine! There we’ll ask the wizard for help!”
“But if we go there, we won’t be able to escape!”
“Couldn’t we just hide?”
Voices erupted from all directions.
If we go into the mine, we’re basically cornered rats, aren’t we?
Paul didn’t need to answer.
Boom!
Because blind spells were tearing through the nearby buildings and it felt like there wasn’t a single safe place left.
“Eek!”
“H-huh!”
The old men’s terrified gasps.
Paul glared and shouted, “Does that mean we’re saved?! Let’s move! Dying here or dying there is the same thing now!”
At his words, the old men finally started moving.
Dam. She had to be found.
He didn’t know why she’d gone to the abandoned mine, but knowing she was somewhere out there was a relief.
And not being caught by the Nebula’s magic gave Paul peace of mind.
Besides, watching the Nebula’s spells made him certain.
‘This is a whole different level. Those fakes won’t stand a chance.’
Strictly speaking, what the Nebula was casting right now didn’t even look like magic.
The overwhelming magic display Paul had once witnessed from Dam was on a completely different scale.
Compared to it, their spells were almost comical.
That was exactly the difference between a Magic Tower mage and one operating from outside.
So Paul was certain.
Finding Dam meant the fanatics would be crushed easily.
* * *
Kwang! Boom!
“……Something’s noisy outside, isn’t it?”
At that moment.
Dam, inside the abandoned mine, frowned at Nibi’s frantic flying.
“What can I do?”
“…….”
The real personality was so shitty.
Nibi thought to herself and stayed silent.
Bang! Boom!
The noises from outside grew even louder.
“I-Iss it collapsing?!”
Even with her terrified cry, Dam kept walking slowly and answered.
“I won’t die.”
Oh, I see.
‘Then what about me?’
Nibi suddenly remembered being shoved by the magic barrier Dam had cast earlier to protect them from the rain.
If this woman was serious about collapsing, she’d abandon her without a second thought.
The fear made Nibi flutter closer to Dam’s shoulder and grab her clothes tightly.
She was worried about being flicked away.
“Hey, where’s the fairy? Go call your kin.”
“J-just a second. Right now everyone’s hiding because of the monsters! They won’t come out on purpose!”
“Haa, so what? You want me to find the hidden ones?”
“Y-yes?”
Dam’s gaze turned ice-cold.
Like a company executive suddenly saddled with a dirty, annoying chore.
“You want to die?”
The only difference was that Dam didn’t just accept that.
“What do you want? Go find where those flies are? I came here to kill monsters, not to mess with my time!”
“No! No! I don’t know where my friends are either! I barely escaped myself!”
“Then they might already be eaten?”
“Eaten—?!”
How could such a person exist?
No, casually saying someone else’s friends became monster food?
She wanted to argue, but if she did, her wings might be ripped off like a toy for a child.
While trudging deeper, Dam finally asked.
“Hey, you said the monsters came to eat your fairy.”
“Yes, that’s right. They’re really nasty, right?”
She was deliberately emphasizing how bad they were, as if forcing everyone to believe she was doing the right thing and was morally righteous.
“Say one more useless thing and I’ll rip your tongue out.”
But Dam’s bored expression didn’t change a bit.
This woman had no conscience.
That was why she felt no guilt.
“……Yes.”
“Don’t trail off at the end.”
“Yes!”
From now on she had to be treated as a worker, not a slave, and discipline was already slipping.
Dam straightened Nibi out and asked again.
“Anyway, so you really summoned the monsters here?”
“That’s…… yes?”
It was an unpleasant topic.
So Nibi hurriedly added, “But we didn’t do it on purpose. We’re victims too—”
Crash!
Dam’s hand snatched Nibi.
“You said if you say useless things I’ll rip your tongue out.”
Her sky-blue crazed eyes sparkled even in the mine’s darkness. Nibi shuddered and nodded.
She was terrified that even answering would be seen as useless and provoke Dam more.
“I’m only asking this. How did the monsters find you? You know they’re here, right?”
“We eat mana, so we have our own special mana. They track us by the scent! We weren’t chased before, but recently the monsters got weird—.”
“Hmm, special mana?”
Dam examined her carefully. It definitely wasn’t ordinary mana.
To be precise, the mana inside her body had been absorbed and refined to suit her nature.
‘It doesn’t seem useful at all.’
There was way more mana here than any ordinary one, which was far better for Dam.
Anyway.
“It’s simple.”
“Haa?”
Nibi let out a groan.
Dam’s mana felt like it was being sucked out somewhere.
“What, what are you doing?!”
“You said you came to find the fairy.”
Dam’s steps had stopped.
Did she even need to find the fairy?
“The fairies are hiding from the monsters, and the monsters smell their mana scent.”
“Y-yes?”
“It’s simple.”
Kill all the monsters and the fairies will naturally come out, right?
“…….”
Nibi’s face went blank at Dam’s words. Then she realized.
She was a worm.
So.
A worm on a hook.
Nibi’s mana began spraying everywhere like a pheromone cloud.
Kugugugu!
The abandoned mine started shaking.
It was a completely different distance from the chaos outside.
“M-monsters are coming!”
Nibi cried urgently, trying to let go, but Dam just yawned.
“……”
Dam’s mouth simply opened and closed.