Chapter 127
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 127
Chapter Title: Hunt (5)
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"We need to head back."
I started staggering along. Ash leaped off to scout if any Shaika remained nearby.
An unbearable, searing pain throbbed in my left arm. Blood kept pouring out, so I had to get to Wedin fast...
"Lib!"
Far off, Wedin, who had just yanked a sword from a Shaika's torso, spotted me and shouted in alarm.
I tried to tell him I was fine, but the distorting scenery around me made me freeze.
The piled-up snow everywhere was vanishing.
The tall trees, the swaying sky, the eerily ringing moon—all were warping and fading away bit by bit.
And in their place, a sticky darkness filled the void.
The metallic stench of blood flooded my nose and mouth...
As my body began to tilt downward, I finally realized the ground beneath my feet had disappeared.
Wedin yelled something at me and reached out.
I barely managed to stretch my hand and grab his, but Wedin's body was tilting toward me too.
"U, uwaaaah!"
Wedin's scream echoed through the dark cave.
"Wh-what the hell."
I muttered blankly in disbelief.
The fall wasn't long. No, it was extremely short.
I lay sprawled on the ground, staring up at the ceiling.
Wedin was still clutching my arm, collapsed on top of me, his shoulders trembling from the lingering shock of the drop.
"I really hate falling."
Wedin struggled to his feet, wobbling.
I hated it just as much, especially since I'd hit the ground first and was flattened beneath him.
Luckily, the drop wasn't from too high, and a thin layer of water on the floor cushioned the impact.
"Wh-what is this?"
As Wedin rose, he stared at his hands. His palms, arms, legs, and even feet were smeared with a dark, murky liquid.
Considering the blood stench that had been numbing my nose until now...
"Ughhh! It's blood!"
Wedin freaked out and frantically wiped his hands on my clothes.
I wanted to tell him to think about my back, which must be bright red by now, but my whole body ached too much for anything but a groan.
"Ah, your arm...!"
Finally.
I groaned and leaned on Wedin to haul myself up.
While Wedin paled and examined my wound, I rested my head on his shoulder and tried to survey our surroundings.
No sign of Ash, the Silver Guard Knight, Shuren, or Illenia. Even Ash's presence felt faint, which unnerved me.
It had happened so suddenly, amid all that mana turbulence—even Ash couldn't hold on to me.
The spot we'd fallen into was a shallow pool of blood shrouded in thick black mist.
The fog was so dense I could barely make out anything nearby. The ceiling above was too dark to see.
Where exactly had we dropped from? And where the hell were we?
I understood the snowy plain vanishing.
The Shaika in the snowfield had been weaving illusions. They'd altered the environment into prime hunting grounds.
The wailing moon had amplified the hallucination.
Once we killed the Shaika, the snowfield illusion dissolved, and the cave-turned-maze vanished with it.
The condition to pass through the maze had been met. The "mage" condition.
"...No."
Wedin, pressing my wound with all his might, muttered in despair.
Thanks to him, I nearly screamed, but I clenched his shoulder with surprising restraint.
"What do you mean, no?"
"Holy magic won't work."
"I'm the type holy magic doesn't work well on anyway..."
"No, that's not it! The holy power won't gather! No power at all!"
I stared at Wedin in shock. His blood-smeared face was filled with desperation.
"Th-that makes no sense!"
"Damn it, I'm doing exactly the same as always. Why won't holy magic... Without holy magic, I'm..."
Wedin's words trailed off, his expression darkening rapidly. Watching it sent chills down my spine.
I hurriedly grabbed his hand and pressed it to my wound.
"No way! It's just this weird place messing with you. At least stop the bleeding. You have medicine and bandages, right?"
"Ah. Uh, yeah. Of course."
Wedin fumbled through his bag in a panic. Blood had seeped in, making clean bandages hard to find.
He cursed under his breath while digging, finally pulling out usable bandages and a hemostatic agent.
Relieved that Wedin seemed to snap out of it, I still reeled with dizziness and confusion.
"I'm dizzy..."
"You've lost a lot of blood. Stay sharp."
"I want to sleep. Or maybe since this is the destination, it's okay..."
"No!"
Wedin yelled and tied the bandage tight around my arm. The pain jolted my hazy mind awake with a scream.
"What nonsense is that? We have to get out of here!"
His shout made me flinch back in surprise.
Wh-what had I even said?
"There. That should hold for now. More importantly, got anything to light up the area? So we can find the others."
"Ah, got it."
I conjured a glowing orb to illuminate the surroundings. The wild mana surges made control tricky, but I managed.
As the light pushed back the thick black smoke, what lay beneath slowly revealed itself.
We were speechless at the sight.
An unbelievably massive tree, grotesquely pale, loomed before us.
Its trunk was so thick it would take ten of us—Wedin and me—to encircle it. Thick branches sprawled outward, dense roots upheaving the ground... all covered in white flesh-like skin.
Nothing like the trees we'd seen crossing these mountains.
The thick trunk clung to the ruins like rot, its high branches woven like spiderwebs into a ceiling.
The "snowfield" or "cave floor" we'd been on was actually those branches.
No book mentioned a giant tree inside the ruins...
This tree—hard to imagine, but—must have grown rapidly recently.
"...Fren? Is that Fren?"
Wedin pointed toward the tree's roots.
Overwhelmed by the tree's presence, I hadn't noticed, but someone lay at its base.
A figure in a red robe, gripping a long staff in one hand, ensnared within the tree trunk.
"Looks like it."
I muttered, frozen. My legs felt nailed to the ground, refusing to move.
A massive tree and a captured mage beneath it.
The thick, sinister mana surrounding it was all too familiar.
The red robe twitched.
"He moved!"
Wedin shouted and bolted straight toward him.
But I couldn't rashly approach.
Black mana tendrils from the tree writhed, beckoning me.
I felt it in my bones: get a little closer, let my guard down even slightly, and those black hands would drag me away.
"Hey! Snap out of it!"
Wedin, grabbing Fren, struggled to sever the wrapping tendrils. He shook him, slapped his cheeks, calling his name.
He wedged his arm through a gap in the tendrils to check Fren's pulse, confirming if he was truly alive.
"He's alive?"
I drew my staff and stood four steps back, asking.
I tried a simple protective spell, but the moment I stirred mana, dread told me it'd swallow me whole.
"...He's alive."
Wedin repeated it, checking breaths and pulse over and over in shock.
"He's alive, Lib!"
He whipped around, voice mixing shock and joy.
"What are you doing? Come help me get him out. He's alive, but way too weak."
"Wedin, this is the 'mage hunt'."
He'd asked for help, but I stepped back instead, biting my lip and glaring at the tree.
"What?"
Wedin pulled away from Fren and turned to me, puzzled.
"Long ago, when demons hunted mages... they used this magic."
I drew a deep breath. The foul blood stench made my vision swim.
"The moment a mage casts magic here, they're captured and their soul eroded. They lose their sense of self... but their body doesn't die. It has to keep producing mana."
"Wh-what? You mean this tree is that magic, holding Fren?"
I nodded.
Panicked, Wedin tried to back away from Fren and the tree.
Right then, the limp Fren seized Wedin's wrist.
"U, uwaaak!"
The color drained from Wedin's face in an instant.
Fren jerked his head up. His terrifyingly pale face, eyes squeezed shut.
He said something to us, but Wedin's terrified screams drowned it out.
"Aaaah!"
"Wedin, calm down."
Only after I spoke did Wedin's screams subside.
He twisted his still-grabbed wrist a few times before yanking it free, then dashed to me and plastered himself to my back.
Fren, eyes still closed, head tilted toward us amid the wrapping tendrils.
"How... did you get here?"
A faint voice leaked from his pallid lips.
"Fren? Is that you? From Prius?"
He was still conscious? Aware of where he was, his condition?
"Don't come closer."
"Fren?"
"No one should come here. I made it that way... how."
I shut my mouth, speechless. So that's how it was.
"You made this place a maze, right? You saw Miles make one and copied it."
Fren's head drooped, then twitched at my last words.
"Senior Miles... promised to head back soon."
"Then keep that promise."
I took a deep breath and steeled myself.
Even captured by the tree, Fren retained his consciousness.
Even as his mana was drained and soul consumed, he'd used every means to craft the maze and keep others from reaching here.
I couldn't just leave him and go.
"We have to save Fren."
"How? You said it's dangerous for mages. Shouldn't we find the Silver Guard Knight first?"
Wedin grabbed my arm, face full of worry.
"No time. We don't know how long Fren can hold out. The snowfield illusion and maze are gone, so everyone will be here soon."
Killing the Shaika ended the illusion, and my arrival as a mage fulfilled the maze condition.
Even so, Wedin couldn't hide his unease.
"But you said casting magic is dangerous..."
"I won't use magic."
I held out my staff to Wedin. He took it reflexively in confusion.
"Wh-what? Why give it to me?"
"Hold it tight."
I'd half-expected this from the start.
I assured Wedin it'd be fine and walked toward Fren.