Chapter 24
-Drip
How much time had passed? Cold droplets fell on her cheek. As Emily, who had been twitching her eyebrows, slowly opened her eyes, it was so dark all around that there was little difference from having her eyes closed.
“Mmm…”
After blinking and sitting up, she brushed her hair-covered forehead, and belatedly, an aching pain rose from various parts of her body.
“Ouch… Where on earth is this…?”
The floor was cold stone, and her voice echoed when she spoke. It seemed she had fallen from quite a height.
Even so, she hadn’t expected a cave-like place like this, so she looked around in puzzlement, but the cave walls were straighter than expected. It looked almost man-made. As she was feeling along the wall, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, suddenly a small light appeared in the distance.
“Huh? What’s that?”
As Emily stood up, leaning against the cave wall, and carefully walked towards the light, the light suddenly flickered at the sound and rose up from below. Kira’s face appeared beneath it.
“Miss Emily! There you are! I found you.”
“Miss Kira?”
As Emily stopped in her tracks, surprised, Kira ran towards her with quick steps from afar.
“I’ve been looking for you! Are you hurt anywhere?”
“Ah, yes… Fortunately, I don’t think I’m seriously injured anywhere. But how did you get here…?”
“When you didn’t come up no matter how long I waited, I came down too. It seems we both fell in similar places, so I think I was able to find you easily. I’m so relieved.”
“What? Are you alright, Miss Kira?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I slid down the slope, so my clothes are a mess because of the mud, but my body is intact.”
Surprised by Kira’s words, Emily tried to examine Kira’s body hidden in the darkness, but she smiled and said she was fine. Kira also seemed to be covered in mud not much different from Emily, with dried soil sticking to her face and entire body.
After examining Kira and confirming that she wasn’t injured, Emily let out a sigh of relief and finally looked around.
“Where on earth is this? Why is there a place like this in the middle of the forest?”
As Emily asked, feeling along the wall in the darkness, Kira brought her magical fire burning on her palm closer to her and answered.
“It seems to be some kind of monster shelter built a long time ago. When I looked around searching for you, I saw old emergency food and weapons for dealing with monsters.”
“A shelter?”
“Yes, remember Lord Jake said there was a barrier stone around here? It seems to be a shelter built near it. They say monsters used to swarm in the forests too in the past.”
“Ah, so we happened to fall where there was a shelter and rolled into it…?”
“It seems so. The slope of the hill wasn’t too steep, but it was still dangerous. I’m really glad you’re not hurt, Miss Emily.”
“You too, Miss Kira. How did you manage to come down here? It’s dangerous.”
“When I came down, you weren’t there, and I only saw a large mud pit. I quickly informed Lord Jake and used magic on the mark Professor Violet gave us to alert them. Then, while I was about to wait, I got worried that you might be seriously injured and in critical condition, so I came in alone while Lord Jake went to seek help.”
“…Thank you so much, Miss Kira. But it was dangerous to jump in without knowing the structure of this place. It’s pure luck that we’re both okay.”
“Before coming down, I illuminated the bottom of the pit with fire magic and caught a glimpse of stone walls. I came down carefully avoiding the collapsed soil, so I descended relatively safely. When I tried to wait quietly up there, all sorts of thoughts came to mind and I couldn’t bear it. You could have been buried in soil and suffocating.”
Emily looked at Kira, who was answering with a slight smile, with a slightly dazed expression. She was a bit moved, not expecting Kira to follow her down to such a dangerous place right away. She even felt a bit guilty, as she had tried to distance herself from Kira, not expecting her to readily offer a helping hand like this.
“But I don’t know what I bumped into. Something hit my back, causing me to lose balance, but when I turned around, there was nothing there. Could it have been a small animal?”
“Ah…”
As Kira frowned, recalling the moment and seeming utterly confused, a scene flashed through Emily’s mind. When Emily’s foot slipped and she fell down the hill, everything seemed to move in slow motion.
And at that moment, behind Kira where there had been no one, a girl with pale purple eyes suddenly appeared briefly and then disappeared again.
Emily remembered that pale face.
It was clearly Chloe Allen, whose dress had been ruined when Kira spilled her drink on her at the freshman welcome party. She was supposed to be staying at home for a few days, but it seemed she had already returned to the academy. Recalling her appearance, Emily fell into contemplation for a moment.
She hesitated, unsure whether to tell Kira what she had seen, but decided to confirm it more clearly before speaking, as she wasn’t certain about what she had seen.
“But the force that pushed my back was quite strong for an animal… Could it have been someone using invisibility magic?”
Unable to see Emily hesitating in the darkness, Kira was still deep in thought. Emily suggested they look around more, changing the subject.
“Miss Kira, you said this is a shelter, right? Then there must be an exit too. How about we look around inside together?”
“Ah, right. The important thing is to get out of here first. Yes, Miss Emily. Let’s do that.”
As Kira infused more mana, enlarging the fire floating above her hand, their field of vision expanded to encompass the area surrounding Emily and Kira. The surroundings were quite well-organized, but couldn’t escape the traces of long years, covered in thick dust and white cobwebs.
“There really are weapons for dealing with monsters. There are even things I’ve only seen in books! How fascinating…”
As Emily looked around in admiration, Kira also nodded. Seeing things they had only read about in books with their own eyes, they couldn’t stop looking around in wonder.
“Oh, there seems to be a space over there. Let’s go that way.”
After walking down the corridor for a while, they saw an open space ahead. Emily and Kira hurried their steps in that direction. The two entered, looking at the weapons and emergency food boxes placed on both sides.
In the center of the open space, large enough to hold about twenty people, stood a large stone monument. There was nothing else particularly noticeable. Even the upper part of the monument seemed to extend outside, only the lower part visible from here, supported by a large square stone.
The square stone base supporting the monument was also quite high, reaching up to their waists as they approached.
“Miss Kira, shine the light here. There’s something written.”
As Emily called Kira, pointing to the square stone below the monument, Kira brought the floating fire on her hand closer.
“This is… ancient language? It’s covered in dust and hard to see. We should try cleaning it off first.”
As Kira began brushing off the dust on top of the monument to examine the writing, Emily also started dusting off the left side to help her. Suddenly, Kira turned to Emily at the sound of scratching beside her.
Emily, who had bent over to dust off the monument base, was scratching her face with her other hand, apparently itchy from the dried mud.
“Miss Emily! You’ll hurt yourself if you scratch your face like that!”
Startled, Kira grabbed Emily’s hand to stop her, and Emily, interrupted while scratching her face, looked embarrassed.
“Ah, I’m sorry. The dried mud is so itchy, I couldn’t help it. It’s too dry and my skin feels tight, I can’t stand it. Aren’t you itchy, Miss Kira?”
“Ah, I’m used… no, I’m fine. Um, the mud could damage your skin, so try brushing it off gently.”
“Ah, I see. Brushing it off should work. Thank you, Miss Kira.”
Kira almost blurted out that she was used to it, but barely swallowed her words. Kira’s grandmother used to always cover her face with mud when she went outside to hide Kira’s outstanding appearance, which had been evident since childhood.
‘Never show your face.’
Her grandmother’s words, repeated like a mantra, had been something she heard daily since she began to understand speech. Momentarily recalling her grandmother’s voice, Kira quickly shook her head to erase the memory and focused on the monument base in front of her.
And as her hand brushed off the white dust, suddenly blue light burst forth from the letters on the monument.
“Huh?”
“Wait…!”
-Flash
The two reflexively squeezed their eyes shut at the blue light filling their vision. Then the blue light filled the space and suddenly disappeared with a whoosh.
“…What was that just now?”
As Emily turned to Kira with a surprised face at the suddenly vanished light, Kira also looked back at Emily with a confused expression.
“I’m not sure either. Suddenly light came from the monument…”
At that moment, a large light about the size of a person suddenly floated up in front of them and was instantly absorbed into Kira’s body.
“Miss Kira!”
“…Huh?”
As Emily approached Kira in surprise, Kira, with a dazed expression, opened her palm and examined it.
“Are you alright, Miss Kira?!”
“…Yes, I think I’m fine. This is… mana?”
“What? Mana?”
Emily, startled, grabbed Kira’s shoulders and examined her, but Kira answered in amazement, flipping her palm back and forth.
“Yes, this is mana. I think my mana quantity has increased from before.”
As Kira experimentally infused more mana into the flame, the red fire on her hand blazed with much more intensity than before.
“Oh my…”
The orange light reflected on her face made Emily’s light brown hair appear red. Surprised by this sight, Emily was staring blankly at Kira with her mouth slightly open when suddenly a fist-sized ball of light popped out of the monument again and rolled energetically on the floor.
