Ian... Just What Are You?
Ian... Just What Are You?
The fact that nothing veered from the in-game setup tugged a slow smirk onto Ian's lips.
A vast, dense chill of yin energy pressed in from the depths.
"We can walk easy for a while."
Meanwhile.
Step. Step.
Sylvia moved forward with her characteristic poise, every bit the untouchable heiress. The truth was, she desperately wanted to illuminate the passage with magic.
The dark frightened her.
It likely traced back to a childhood spent separated from her parents. Everyone in the Laurent Trading Company had always been too busy.
When a young Sylvia suffered nightmares, she'd always woken alone. For her, deep darkness was as terrifying as a night with no one to lean on.
'...This much is tolerable. Ian must have some plan. I'm sure the dark is tactically advantageous, or something along those lines.'
In truth, Ian simply had excellent night vision.
—Clack.
A stone skittered away, dislodged by Sylvia's misplaced step.
Her face remained regal, but the faint flutter of an eyebrow betrayed her.
'Kyaaak! If I scream, I'm done for! Why didn't I bring something to light the way?!'
Total chaos reigned inside her head.
"......"
Ian walked about ten paces ahead.
She wanted to get just a little closer without him catching on.
Would it work if she struck up a conversation—closed the distance before he even noticed?
After a moment's thought, she seized on a topic.
"D-Did you hear that Miss Rina Rosewell was acting oddly in the dorms last night?"
Step.
Ian paused for a breath, a fraction of a step, then moved on, letting her edge slightly nearer.
"Oddly?"
"Yes. She was wandering around in the middle of the night, asking why the world was tormenting her like this. It might've been sleepwalking, but her expression was... terrifying."
"Did you catch any specifics?"
Sylvia combed through her memory. The story had been filed away earlier—unrelated to business.
But she'd recalled the rumor for a reason, hadn't she?
"Ah! Right. They said she was looking for you. Did something happen between you two?"
Another half-step closer.
She closed the gap while Ian was stopped.
"No. Nothing in particular."
"Hmph. How dull."
What should she talk about next? This was a first for her—racking her brain for conversational topics, not for business, but just to get closer to someone.
"And also... well... Hmph. Why am I the one fretting over this? Don't you have anything to say to me?"
"You can use a light if you're scared. Instead of creeping along behind me."
"I-I am not scared!"
She regretted the reflexive outburst the instant it left her mouth. She should have just admitted she was frightened.
It was the image. The heiress of an elite trading company, the successor—polished and sophisticated. She had worked tirelessly to maintain that facade.
'...Though, now that I think about it, Ian doesn't seem like the type to care about that sort of thing.'
Sylvia quietly studied him. Her mental image had pegged him as someone who'd dress like a complete slob, but surprisingly, his clothes and overall state were quite tidy. ...Had he always been like this? Or was the darkness just hiding the filth?
Tilting her head, she put the question to him.
"Don't you worry about managing your image, Ian?"
"Image?"
"Yes. People generally think of you as someone who doesn't know his place and just throws himself at any pretty woman he sees."
A direct hit, no holding back.
Ian froze for a moment. The pause lasted a full two steps, and Sylvia delighted in it internally.
"Does what you see match the rumors?"
"No. I mean, I've actually spoken with you, so my impression is somewhat better... No! What am I saying! I simply meant that you seem a little different from the gossip! I absolutely detest judging people by appearances alone, so...!"
Ian snorted a quiet laugh. "Same here, which is why you should just turn on a light. Your untouchable-heiress act doesn't work on me."
"Excuse me? It's not an 'act,' it's genuine. I happen to be the successor of the premier Laurent Trading Company. But since you said to light things up, I'll oblige."
"Sure. Sure."
Sylvia narrowed her eyes at his insufferably nonchalant tone and began to murmur a light spell.
Right at that instant—
"Lux... Kyaaaak!"
The moment light blossomed outward, something black and shifting fled from its reach.
—Ch-ch-ch-chk!
The spine-crawling sound made Sylvia lock up, and before she knew it, she had grabbed onto Ian's arm.
"What."
"I-Ian, that—there's something going 'ch-ch-chk' over there!"
"You're touching me."
"Eek!"
She glanced down at her chest against his arm, let out a bizarre noise, and stepped back.
Ian steadied her.
"Nothing to worry about. It's just stagnant mana reacting to the light."
"Stagnant... mana?"
"A sort of ghost-like presence..."
He'd barely finished speaking.
—Shhhhhk!
The eerie, shapeless energies shifted once more.
Sylvia's composure had already been fractured by a dozen different things. When her foot caught awkwardly on a loose stone, she staggered forward a few steps, off-balance.
And Ian threw himself over her.
"Kyaa!"
A sharp little scream.
—Thud.
Their bodies tangled and hit the ground.
Sylvia ended up on the bottom, though an academy student of Lichten's caliber was never going to be seriously injured by something this minor.
Still, a ragged breath tore out of her.
"Haaah... I-Ian."
"Sorry."
First physical contact with a man.
She reflexively grabbed at her own body, flustered, but didn't actually snap at him.
"Ah..."
She'd seen it too as he dove over her. Turning her head, she spotted something sharp—a throwing weapon of some kind—embedded in the cave wall.
That was what Ian had seen. Enough to make him hurl himself at her. Astounding visual acuity and reaction speed. If he hadn't done it, she would have been badly hurt. She was in his debt.
Sylvia ducked her head low.
"No, I'm the one who's sorry. I've been... far too careless. This is still a dungeon."
She mumbled the rest, the tips of her ears going thoroughly red.
"Th-Thank you."
◆
This was the cave's signature setup. A claustrophobically confined space, just the right size. A comfortably warm temperature thanks to the geothermal heat. The steady clop of footsteps. The rhythm eventually lulled you into letting your guard down and letting your mind wander to other things. Then, at some indeterminate point, the traps triggered: sharp projectiles, perfectly timed.
It was the boss monster's custom-designed mechanism. Ian had intended to warn her ahead of time, but he'd slightly misread Sylvia's psychological limits.
He'd already pinpointed the traps' positions, so they could avoid them without harm.
'She's more afraid of the dark than I thought.'
A deep-seated terror of darkness.
It was, in fact, the engine of Sylvia's growth—the very reason she was driven to master light-element magic, a rare special attribute.
In Fanta X Aca, her in-game rating was 4-star, but her combat ability lagged somewhat behind that figure.
In this dungeon, saturated with yin energy, however, her abilities could be devastatingly effective.
The real operation had begun.
"Sylvia. Light!"
"Got it!"
This dungeon was a collecting point for mana that streamed down from the mountain ranges on either side. Its monsters were spectral types—roughly Grade 8 to Grade 7, a fairly high difficulty.
But they all shared a fundamental vulnerability to light.
—Fwoosh.
Sylvia's light magic slowed the creatures' movements.
—Crunch.
And Ian beat them down with lunar energy blazing along Lunnar's blade.
Most of them were naturally spawned monsters to begin with, so the takedowns were straightforward. Before long, they reached the dungeon's inner heart.
A massive, pond-like expanse stretched before them, with a wide patch of ground visible at its center. It was unmistakably the lair of the dungeon's master.
"We're here. Boss room."
Sylvia fussed at Ian's declaration. "Wh-What exactly are you?! How are you handling Grade 7 monsters that easily...!"
"Too early to be surprised. Get ready."
"Are we going to cross this...? Wait, hold on."
Sylvia stared at the pond with an expression of dawning disbelief. A lake this vast, inside a cave—it was so difficult to accept that calling it a lake felt more appropriate.
Her face shifted gradually into sheer alarm.
She'd thought it was water at first. It wasn't.
"I-Ian, this is...!"
"You're right. All of it is mana."
Leaving the stunned Sylvia behind, Ian crouched at the edge of the mana lake.
"A V-shaped gorge. A perfect shape for channeling the mana that rises off the mountains. It gathered through those tiny burrow-like tunnels and eventually crystallized into this."
"But it doesn't feel like pure mana..."
"A lot of different components have mixed in. Mana itself is colorless and odorless. During the crystallization process, it would've absorbed countless elements and things that interact with mana."
As he explained, Ian reached toward the lake's surface.
"H-Hold on! This doesn't feel right at all! It gives off this... demonic energy. If you touch it carelessly and it reacts with your mana channels, you could trigger an overload...!"
"Relax."
Without a trace of hesitation, Ian touched his fingertips to the liquid mana.
A prickling, electric numbness skittered along his fingers.
"!!!"
Ignoring the flustered fussing beside him, Ian closed his eyes and concentrated.
A lake of mana. At first glance, the sight was almost majestic. The reality was different. The mana had gathered by passing through everything the mountain held. Impurities abounded. To an onlooker like Sylvia, it was no wonder it felt contaminated—almost demonic in nature. The toxic elements were brazenly conspicuous in their presence.
But those, too, were just one faction among the impurities. The lake wasn't as lethal or as overwhelmingly dangerous as it seemed: it was a soup of mana and raw material. Ian envisioned it purified.
And at the same time, he activated his Authority: Dishwashing.
—Sssssssssss.
A dark vapor began to rise from the lake's surface near him.
"...Purification? W-Wait. Are you seriously planning to purify all of this? The absurdity alone..."
Sylvia's voice reached him in flickers from the edge of his awareness, and he gently cleared it from his mind.
Dishwashing was an Authority. But the one wielding it was still Ian, a mere human. He couldn't purify this entire lake alone.
However.
'I can feel the earth's energy inside the mana.'
The mana had gathered along the mountain slopes, born from the earth itself. Even if it was now tainted, even the impurities had originated in that same earth.
And he could feel the earth's will inside it.
—Grrrrrrumble!
The lake responded as though brought to a boil. Waves spread outward from the corner where Ian crouched, rippling farther and farther.
"...No. This... this is..."
Black steam rose from the lake's entire surface. The dark mist unfurling across that vast subterranean expanse was an overwhelming sight unto itself.
"Ah..."
Sylvia stared at the tableau, stunned. A spectacle born entirely of Ian's doing.