episode_0239

“It’s around here, I think. Search carefully.”

Finding it is a difficult task, thanks to the vague directions. The cryptic explanation—somewhere behind a rock where a shadow falls—has me slightly wandering near the destination. It’s near the top of a cold mountain where my footsteps crunch through the snow with every step. Aries’s fire magic keeps me from being cold, but walking the bumpy mountain path for over an hour is exhausting. The biggest problem is the snow obscuring the terrain.

“Hmm. Can’t I find it with some kind of magical sense?”

“I’m trying. But I feel Prim’s energy all around here.”

A dragon’s territory can’t be just one cave. The treasure trove may be small, but that’s only by human standards. It’s natural for this area to be filled with traces of Prim’s magical power.

Swish, swish—. I try to find it, brushing away the snow with my hands, but I only prick my fingers on twigs.

Minute by minute. The more time passes, the more anxious I get. Even finding herbs is difficult on this perpetual snow mountain.

“Ah, wait, come over here!”

“Did you find it?”

At Aries’s call, Asti quickly approaches. The nimble movements typical of an elf, honed by skilled training, make her restrained movements despite her large breasts and hips impressive.

“Maybe?”

What she indicates with her fingertip is a pile of rocks. At first glance, it’s no different from the countless other stones scattered around. But getting closer, a distinct difference becomes noticeable. The wind flows through the gaps in the pile of rocks. It meant there was a space inside.

“You cleverly found it. Fortunately, the rocks seem manageable by hand.”

“Hee hee. This is the skill of the genius magician, Aries-nim!”

“Conscience-wise, I’m not attaching ‘girl’ anymore.”

“…Is it okay for an elf to tease me about my age?”

Asti slightly raises the corner of her lips and starts clearing the pile of rocks, one by one.

“Wait, wait, why are you doing it by hand? Magic. Ma-gic.”

“Conserve it. I’m already using fire magic. We don’t know what’s inside.”

While fire magic itself doesn’t consume much magical power, and I still have plenty left, Aries nods.

“The wind blowing outwards means the inside is warmer. In this weather, a warm interior is natural, but… ”

“Yeah. I understand what you mean. But I can’t just stand still~.”

Aries diligently helps Asti clear away the stones with her small hands. Once they’ve cleared enough, an entrance barely big enough for a person to crouch through appears.

“It looks quite deep.”

“A gently warm breeze. I can stop the fire magic. It would be better to have a torch instead.”

When I turn off the fire magic, a chilly feeling immediately rises, but it’s fine. It’s far warmer than the biting wind outside. Carefully, we enter. Instead of fire magic, she creates a torch-like flame with fire magic and suspends it in the air. It’s a feat impossible without familiarity with fine magical manipulation.

In contrast to the tiny entrance, the interior is surprisingly vast and large. It’s truly a cave worthy of a dragon’s scale.

“What, this size… No, the space itself is warped by magic? That’s why I felt Prim’s magic everywhere. I can’t call myself a genius right now.”

“Save the self-pity for later.”

“Oh, come on. Take a joke~.”

The cave is so large our voices echo. We can’t recklessly use up our energy, not knowing how far and deep it extends. We venture deeper into the vast cave, relying on the torchlight. Surrounded by stone and rock, we lose track of how far we’ve walked.

Even though Prim practically brought us here, climbing the mountain for over an hour was tough. Asti, being an elf trained and used to mountains, was doing relatively okay, but Aries, who had been using magic, had greater energy depletion. Even with better stamina than an ordinary mage, she was starting to tire.

“Whew….”

“…Should we take a break?”

“I’m still okay.”

“Rest when you can.”

Though I wasn’t thinking of Erina specifically, we both pictured Erina asleep from exhaustion. Considering she hasn’t properly gotten up for three days, rest is clearly important.

“I’ll rest for a bit too.”

Knowing Aries will flatly refuse to sit alone again, Asti sits down. The rocky ground isn’t comfortable to sit on, but at least there are no immediate dangers.

“It would have been nice to bring some water.”

“Our cute dragon-nim kidnapped us, so it can’t be helped.”

We can create water with magic, but we can’t drink it. Regardless of purity or composition, no matter how much magical energy a person consumes, they still need to resolve thirst or hunger.

The warm magic makes it bearable to sit on the uncomfortable rock; I feel like I could fall asleep. I need to stay alert, but the warm flames melt my resolve. Nodding off, Aries’s head keeps drooping forward.

[Grrrrrr.]

A low animal sound spreads throughout the large cave. It’s so low and soft, you’d almost think you misheard it. A small, unassuming sound, like a small animal, the kind that wouldn’t even wake you from a nearly-asleep state.

Asti perks her long elf ears.

“Something’s there…”

“Mmm…”

In a forest, I’d have ignored the sound. But here, there’s only one path. There’s no way to avoid it.

“Maybe it’s just a puppy~~.”

“A puppy…”

Puppy, puppy. The faint sound of footsteps definitely belongs to a four-legged animal.

“…! A puppy couldn’t possibly be in a hellhole like this!”

The pace of the footsteps lets us guess the approximate size, and if our guess is right, it’s far too large to be a puppy. No, it’s not even a dog; it’s more accurately described as a monster. And it’s running towards us.

“Huh?”

“Sleep later! We’re under attack!”

“Attack…?”

Suddenly, Aries’s drowsiness vanishes.

“A monster?!”

“I don’t know. It could be a simple beast, but the beasts in this cave are unlikely to be ordinary.”

“Right…!”

Aries immediately prepares for battle. Her preparation involves enchanting herself with strengthening magic. Using it on others is highly unstable, a drawback limiting its use to herself only. Asti, too, takes out a few hidden weapons from her clothes and gets into a fighting stance.

Unlike typical elves, she mainly trained in weapon skills. She isn’t unskilled in archery, but her talent leans more towards weaponry.

[Krrrrlk— Woof, woof—!!]

“Wow… Its voice is incredible.”

“Get ready!”

It was only quiet due to distance. It’s shocking that we could hear it from that range. Even Aries, whose senses aren’t exceptionally keen, can hear the sloshing sound of footsteps.

“Sloshing? Is it mud over there?”

“I don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough.”

As Asti says, the monster soon appears. Its fur is completely unkempt and devoid of sheen. Huge paws that seem capable of crushing anything, grotesquely sharp claws, jagged, sharp teeth that look like they could tear everything apart. Its enormous size fills us with dread, and the animal’s characteristic scent fills the cave—an unpleasant, foul odor that makes you want to pinch your nose.

“Krrrrlr, Krrooong—”

It snarls threateningly, drool dripping from its mouth.

“It’s a puppy. A puppy.”

“If we’re classifying it biologically, it would fall under the canine category. …If it only had one head, that is.”

Cerberus is famous for being a three-headed monster, and this one, whether it’s an incomplete evolution or something else, only has two. Although the two heads look different, they both seem equally ferocious. However, it seems to have been starving for a while, its belly sunken and ribs visible beneath its fur.

“It’s totally seeing us as food, isn’t it? In the figurative sense, too.”

“I don’t care. Here it comes, focus!”

As the mud-caked front paws swing powerfully, Asti and Aries jump back to avoid them. The rock where the paw struck is gouged like mud.

“It’s got magic on its paws, that kind of thing. It’s not just a flesh wound, so be careful!”

“I think so! I’ll go behind! Can you distract it up front!”

Asti throws short throwing knives towards the outer wall. They become embedded in the wall at regular intervals. Before Aries has a chance to respond, Asti uses the knives as footholds to scale the wall. Aries immediately uses the small flames she created earlier as torches, wielding them like whips to scorch the fur.

‘If I use stronger fire magic, I risk running out of oxygen… A simpler magic-based attack is better.’

Aries’s specialty is fire magic, but it’s practically banned inside the cave. At minimal output, scorching is the best she can manage. Imbuing physical, forceful properties is the base of magic, and the low power is a drawback. It gets stronger with training, but the upper limit is low.

Plus, as a close-range specialist, she’s uncomfortable engaging from a distance. Even with strengthening magic, she can’t move entirely without getting hit. There’s no priestess or cleric like Erina, so she can’t hope for healing.

Deciding on that, she creates three magical projectiles and dramatically fires one at each head, and one at a paw. Thinking she fired them with moderate power, all three shots are highly unstable. The impact of one of the larger explosions causes one of Asti’s support knives to fall away.

“Shoot—.”

Asti narrowly avoids disaster.

“Sorry!!! It’s not an excuse, but my magic was a bit unstable!”

“It’s fine! Keep going!”

Aries shakes her head. She decides her next goal is to impede its movements, rather than outright dealing damage.