As night fell properly, the queues of people began walking towards the bizarre house in town center again. We had already agreed to go investigate, so unfortunately, even I couldn’t think of a reason to just…not go.

  Something about the idea of going into that building was rubbing me off the wrong way, but as I couldn’t concretely figure out WHY, I had no reason to tell Amelia and Fanael to stop.

  The root of our plans was revenge.

  Revenge to the golden people, and the current target was Amelia’s daughter’s murderer ‘Claire’. A golden-haired princess who seemingly had the power to charm people around her to do her bidding.

  But from the sounds of it, she had an entire kingdom on her side. It’d be nothing short of suicide for us to go there with just the three of us.

  If Arlow’s hunters aided us in our journey, it’d surely make a big difference. Which is why we were yet again diving head first into danger.

  Well, to be completely fair. Arlow specifically requested us to pick up some kind of sword for him. Somehow, now we were in the process of uncovering the whole mystery behind this strange little town.

  What about the sword!?

  It’s not like anyone made the claim it’s in the building!

  And yet… somehow, I didn’t really think about this at the moment. Not as much as I should have.

  There was something about seeing people under the influence of this strange stone that made me feel… angry, maybe? I don’t know if that was the right emotion to describe it as, but I was definitely at least annoyed by it.

  Somehow, these dark stones had revolved around my life ever since I had made it into this world. I’d be lying if I said I would rather not give some kind of pushback to the evil they seemed to represent.

  Or was it really even evil? Aren’t I supposed to be evil? If I’m evil, then what the hell is this?!

  I didn’t really know anything about them, outside the fact that they consume mana.

  The only thing truly motivating me to jump into the heart of danger yet again, was that I might finally be provided with a hint of light to shed upon the mystery of the weird ‘Terminus’ stones.

  We had come up with a system to communicate with while underneath the water veils. I used magic to create a little flame inside both Amelia’s and Fanael’s reflection bubbles. The fire would tilt and point into the direction we were going at each moment.

  Manipulating a lighter-sized amount of fire was easy enough even for me at this point, so it seemed to be an effective way of communication. Honestly, keeping up the water veil spells was the more focus heavy task, in my opinion. I had to manually move them around as my companions moved, it was very awkward and difficult.

  But… the fire!

  If the fire pointed straight up, it meant to stop. If the person hiding inside the bubble was to wave the fire away and extinguish it, I’d recast the spell, and if they’d repeat the action, it meant the person inside the water bubble wanted to discuss something.

  The plan was to be executed in total silence. We were essentially on our way to invading enemy territory after all.

  Our footsteps didn’t make much noise due to the dirt roads in the town.

  As soon as we began approaching the building, we encountered an issue.

  The entire perimeter had several people walking all around it. Some seemed to have strange glasses of some kind on their heads, and they kept looking around every direction rapidly.

  The closer we got to the townhouse, the more noticeable a cacophony of those strange whispers became.

  “Guard. Extraction.” These words kept being repeated endlessly.

  Fanael’s fire went out the instant we stopped, a distance away from the yard of the modern home. I lit it up again, but it was extinguished yet once more. I looked around carefully to make sure there was nobody around. After I had triple checked, I finally let the magic veil around Fanael fall off.

  “We need to return.” She blurted out rapidly. “Now.”

  And without really staying back to argue about it, we returned. I made the observation, that we saw none of those folks with the strange glasses on our way back. It was easy enough to assume Fanael’s reason for concern had something to do with that.

  I dispelled the magic veils from around Amelia and Fanael, who I had reapplied it on for our return trip.

  “They had mana-detectors on.” Fanael nodded firmly.

  “As I expected.” Amelia groaned.

  “Those weird goggles some guards had on?”

  “Yeah. They’re not really comparable to a naturally magical entity like you in efficiency, but they start alerting and making a lot of noise when a lot of mana approaches them.”

  “Mmm… they’re like metal detectors…” I grumbled, only to get confused glances from Amelia and Fanael. “D-don’t mind me! Just a thing from the past.”

  “But yeah, the plan has to be re-done.” Fanael crossed her arms.

  “We need a distraction of some kind to pull the magic detectors away from the building…” Amelia mumbled to herself. “But wait! There were no guards during the daytime! Couldn’t we try entering the building then?”

  “That’s a… good point.” Fanael crossed her arms. “I wonder why that is…”

  “How about we investigate it once the sun is back up?” Both Amelia and Fanael seemed to be in agreement with my suggestion.

  The girls went to bed. I kept watch overnight.

  I sighed and glanced at Amelia sometimes, almost hoping her weird fake goddess would give me more cryptic warnings about things, but to my dismay she slept in peace.

  Nothing particularly out of place happened, so my mind ended up wandering a bit. I couldn’t help but wonder what the Southern Continent was like. It seemed like a pretty bad place if Eden had to escape from it, and elves were kept as some kind of war slaves.

  I also couldn’t help but feel a bit curious about what dragons were like in this world. What exactly about them was so ominous, that both Fanael and Amelia got very skittish around the subject?

  I mean, I guess if I really thought about it, a gigantic lizard spewing fire would be pretty awful. I was personally of the variety that always found dragons to be insanely cool.

  Noble and fierce beasts of immense intelligence. Strong enough to command respect from everything around them, even nature itself.

  What’s not to love?! But, apparently in this world, they smell like sulfur? I have to admit I didn’t feel like getting my cool image of dragons ruined by a smelly one…

  So, maybe it was best to never see one in here in the first place…

  Eventually dawn broke, and without much in terms of breakfast, we headed out. The town was lively and bustling as always, and it felt almost like an entirely different place in comparison with how desolate it was at night.

  We made our way to the town center, starting to look around. I had a feeling the building was a slightly different hue again. This time it looked maybe more like a creamy yellow?

  … Now that I took a good look at the building, I started to notice there was a slightly larger amount of mana amassing around it than at night.

  I looked at it, tilting my head a few times from side to another. From some angles, the building looked partially see-through, I think?

  “I think it does have some kind of perception blocking spell on it…” I mumbled aloud at no-one in particular.

  “Is that what it is? I’ve been wondering why it seems to be a slightly different hue every day…” A familiar voice caused all three of us to squeal and jump up.

  “Eden!” We all shouted in unison.

  “Hello all!” He smiled. He looked emancipated still, but his face had regained a bit of color. “Would you ladies care for some breakfast?”

  And with that, we headed to the bakery once more. There were no customers apart from us, just like yesterday. The locals probably just were not active in the mornings due to their nightly outings.

  We were provided with a glorious assortment of delicious baked goods yet again.

  “Are you three trying to do something about the house?” Eden was clearly not the type of guy to beat around the bush.

  “We’re trying to infiltrate it!” Fanael declared proudly. She clearly didn’t seem to even consider the possibility, that blurting something like this out loud might be a bad idea.

  “R-really…?!” Eden looked quite shocked. “Mm… I see…” He crossed his arms, seeming to get lost in thought momentarily.

  “It’s understandable if you would be against the idea.” Amelia comforted him.

  “No, no… I somehow understand the desire to look into it, while it does give me an uncomfortable feeling to even look at it, I also am somehow drawn to it.” He mused to himself.

  “I kind of want to do an experiment.” I blurted out. “I want to throw something at it.” I nodded at no one in particular.

  Everyone stared at me wide-eyed. I huffed in approval of the reaction. It was exactly as I expected the conversation to go. Clearly, a small clarification would be appreciated.

  “I’m somehow not sure if the house is actually even …here right now.” I explained. “It looks transparent in some angles.”

  “Oh? Are you implying the house only appears properly at night, which would explain why the guards were there?” Amelia joined the conversation while munching on a croissant-like thing again. It was clear there was no intention of hiding the details of our plan from Eden anymore.

  “That’s the gist of it.” I replied.

  “Uh… May I be of any assistance?” Eden inserted himself into the conversation.

  “You want to help us do something objectively illegal?” Fanael repeated the statement for confirmation. “You, the skeleton baker?” She had a point. Eden didn’t look like he was really geared for adventure, but I couldn’t help but think MAYBE Fanael’s point could have been worded a bit less… sharply.

  “A-ahem…” Eden seemed a bit embarrassed over his current state. “I know I am incapable of helping you physically, but would there be anything I could do, that you can think of?” He sighed a bit solemnly.

  “May I ask? Why are you so keen on helping us?” Amelia smiled patiently.

  “Of course!! Pardon me, I must have seemed a bit suspicious!” The man flailed a bit. “I… I had the best rest since what feels like forever.” He sighed. “I threw away that rock Miss Yverna told me about, and I slept incredibly well.”

  “Ohhh….!” I brightened up. Upon closer inspection, the dark shadows under Eden’s eyes had become a little bit less noticeable.

  “This morning, I actually headed out to look for you three…” His face darkened. “When I opened the store, another one of those stones was hung on the door.” The moment he spoke up, the room felt cold.

  The way he worded it implied it wasn’t there accidentally. There was some entity or group in this village that kept tabs on every person living here, just to make sure they all owned a ‘Terminus’.

  By throwing his away, Eden had essentially become a target. He had signaled to whatever powers were responsible for the village, that he did consider the stone harmful, or at least wanted nothing to do with it.

  … And I was the person guilty for putting this ring target on Eden.

  “As long as you don’t put yourself in danger.” I nodded, feeling guilty over causing this to happen to the poor baker.

  Eden brightened up. “Please! I wish to wake up from this…strange daze I feel this village has inflicted upon me already! I’ll help in any way I can!” He sparkled with joy.

  We held a small meeting to discuss how we could approach the house. Eden was provided with the honorary duty of being a distraction, but also a lifeline for us.

  “Okay! So, Amelia and Fanael will go into the forest to create some fake footprints. I’ll explain everything to Eden in the meanwhile.” I was pacing around the room as I spoke. Amelia and Fanael both stood up and with a nod of equal understanding, they were off.

  I explained to Eden, how the weird mana-lacking townsfolk were really aggressive towards the Hunter’s Guild. The plan was to have Amelia and Fanael go to the forest to create fake evidence of someone having been there.

  Eden was to go shouting about suspicious people with blue capes in the forest at night to pull the guards away from the modern house.

  This would give us an opportunity to infiltrate.

  I also had the idea to leave a little fire spell to Eden as well. The tiny flame would disappear if something happened to us, which would be Eden’s signal to escape. This way he wouldn’t be put into any danger even if something were to happen to us.

  At first, he seemed a bit apprehensive towards the idea of running away, but as much as he hated to admit it, he wasn’t really in the shape to help us either.

  After Fanael and Amelia returned, it was time to put another plan into action. Eden was left in the bakery to rehearse his lines, so he’d be ready at night. We left the bakery and decided on initiating the plan at three in the morning!

  Why at three? Because that’s when the WITCHING HOUR starts. I felt it was pretty fitting for our group.

  What’s the witching hour? It’s a concept from back in the normal world, referring to a time at night when the FORCES OF DARKNESS are most active at.

  It’s basically just fantasy nonsense I learned while studying about witches.

  But before that…

  “OOOPS!” I yelped and fell over, only to be caught by Amelia in a very dramatic and princely manner. We earned some chuckles from some bystanders as the knight helped me up.

  After awkwardly apologizing at everyone around, we began marching towards the inn-room rapidly.

  “Fanael…speak to us.” I hissed under my breath as we walked.

  “Fell right through.” She replied quietly.

  “Damn…”

  We had just sneakily tested my theory of the house being there or not. I had a small stone in my hand when I fell over, which was flung at the house as Amelia caught me. Our dramatic display was a distraction to make sure nobody noticed what we were up to.

  Fanael was responsible for watching the stone fly, and it seemed as if it had just straight up passed through the whole building.

  “Explains why they don’t guard it at day…” Fanael sighed and crawled into bed.

  “Quite an irritating turn of events…” Amelia groaned.

  “We have to go with the nighttime plan then.” I crossed my arms. As much as it irritated me to involve an innocent bystander like Eden in this, his role was crucial to the success of our plan.

  There wasn’t really much to discuss. Amelia and Fanael did their best to get some rest before it was nighttime. It seemed like their sleep was a bit troubled. Especially Fanael’s. I think she was having a nightmare or something, so I sat beside her and tried to pet her gently every time she seemed to be struggling.

  Luckily, it seemed to calm her down a bit.

  Night fell faster than I hoped, and then a whistling sound of some kind echoed through the village.

  All the guards wandering around town seemed to suddenly be drawn to the outer perimeter, where Eden was most likely guiding them.

  Hidden under the invisibility veils, we made our way towards the building, only to find the guards were all gone. There was a lot of commotion in the direction where we assumed Eden was at.

  We could hear echoes of people shouting about footprints and something along those lines all the way to the townhouse.

  We had our mission to fulfil, though, so there was no time to get distracted.

  As we stood in front of the building, it felt completely unassuming. The only unusual part about it was the slight traces of magic swirling around the door.

  At this point, it hit me…

  It was probably some kind of locking magic, wasn’t it? I facepalmed internally, somehow having not thought that. Yeah… it made sense. They would definitely have at least some kind of locking mechanism for it, just for good measure, if nothing else.

  I felt like an idiot, sighing deep, but still trying the door handle just in case.

  … And it opened. As soon as the door opened, however, there was nothing but a pitch-black void awaiting us at the other side.

  A horrible sense of nausea suddenly shot through my body, causing me to dry heave. Judging by the voices of Amelia and Fanael behind me, they were clearly experiencing the same.

  The nausea dissipated as rapidly as it arrived, so I began looking around in hopes of locating the source of it, but somehow everything looked totally normal.

  A myriad of questions was bubbling in the back of my head.

  Why did it open? What about the locking magic? It didn’t make any sense. If there was no locking mechanism, how in the world would this building be safe from invaders, be it us or those… Hunter’s Guild people who the villagers were so afraid of.

  I shook my head and peered into the void behind the door, only to find a rather crude stone corridor where the darkness had previously been in.

  A very faint, quiet humming noise was all that filled the corridor. It felt somehow familiar… but I still wasn’t exactly sure from where.

  The corridor was quite short, and it was made of rough stone, completely mismatching the fancy exterior of the building. At the end of it, there was a stairway leading down underground, most likely into the volcanic deposit Fanael spoke of earlier.

  I took a deep sigh and walked onward, starting to walk down the stairs. Oddly enough, even though I couldn’t see any light sources around, the stairway kept somewhat faintly lit up even when we went deeper.

  Warning bells were ringing in the back of my head, but I was unable to stop now. We went in deeper, when suddenly I heard a voice from behind me.

  “C-can you two please stop?” Fanael suddenly whispered.

  I turned around. “Is everything okay?” I replied.

  “N-no…” She seemed shaken.

  I looked around carefully, then dispelling the spell hiding us, revealing a very pale, shaking Fanael. “W-what’s wrong?!” Amelia lifted Fanael up, and we rushed up back to the short corridor.

  “D-did you two not notice…?!” She pointed at the door.

  “Notice…what?” Amelia whispered quietly.

  “T-the town…! Something was wrong with it…” The shaking little royalty whispered.

  I exchanged a nervous glance with Amelia, only to slowly walk over to the door to open it.

  “What’s wrong here…?” I asked Fanael quietly as I looked out while holding the door to the building open.

  “Look closely at all the buildings.” Fanael seemed absolutely terrified. I had never seen her like this before.

  I began looking around, and at first glance I had no idea what Fanael was saying, until I began to notice it. The buildings from my memory of the town were very slightly different. The houses all around we were looking at seemed a bit wider somehow.

  There was no space between them whatsoever, almost as if they were glued to each other.

  “They have no doors…” Amelia gasped shakily.

  I jolted my line of sight to the houses again. It was as if the air started growing colder as the realization washed over me. She was right. None of the buildings had doors to them, and upon looking at all of it closer, sometimes the windows were far too low and close to the ground, almost as if a part of the house had sunk into the earth.

  “W-what the…?” I began looking around frantically.

  All the lights in the houses were off. The sky was, dark, but lacking any clouds. The smokestack was there too… but the higher I craned my neck, the more I suddenly got the urge to vomit.

  I began silently pointing at it, unable to say a word. Amelia and Fanael turned their gazes to it too… only to crane their necks higher… and higher… until it was impossible to do it further.

  The smokestack just kept going on. Disappearing somewhere into the sky, it stretched out infinitely until it was impossible to make out.

  “Where the hell are we…?” Amelia finally said the words both Fanael and I were trying to cough out.

  There were faint traces of magic floating around everywhere. Whatever we were involved in, it was magical in nature. Not that this knowledge helped a lot.

  “There’s magic in the air.” I mumbled quietly, looking around.

  “Is it an illusion of some kind…?” Amelia asked, holding Fanael in her arms while she walked around.

  “S-should we look around?” I asked, but even I could tell my voice was shaking.

  “… Mm… Knowledge is power…” Amelia sounded like she hated the idea too, but we didn’t really have much choice. How would we even go back? “We’d be best off knowing what kind of trouble we got ourselves into.” She lowered Fanael down to allow her to walk on her own.

  We began walking through the town. Weapons drawn, we slowly marched onward. There were no doors to any of the buildings, and upon closer inspection, there seemed to be nothing but a black void behind the windows that were low enough for us to observe through them.

  As we arrived at the edge of the town, the bizarre nature of our circumstance got a lot more obvious. The forest was surrounding the town in a perfect circle, and the shadows of the dark woods were nigh impossible to see through for further than a couple of meters in.

  A nervous glance was exchanged.

  “I’ll test something…” I nodded and began casting magic. A bead of water appeared in my hand, and I shot it into the forest like a bullet, only for it to fly back from a different point in the forest. The wet splatter it left on one of the house's walls was easy enough to find.

  “H-how do we get out of here…?” Fanael whispered.

  An oppressive silence fell over us. She was right to ask this… but somehow, I really didn’t want to think about it. I highly doubted we’d just conveniently pop back into the normal town if we just kept slamming the door of the center building again and again.

  “Mmm… Well.” Amelia sighed, as if to calm her nerves. “Do keep in mind, that those weird villagers seemed to enter and exit this building quite freely.” She rationalized. “Which would mean there HAS to be some way for us to exit into the normal world again, too.”

  “I-I see… I guess you’re right.” Fanael nodded, calming down a bit. “Okay… Yeah…! That makes sense…!” She laughed awkwardly. “Haha…! I was getting nervous the whole building was a dungeon entry threshold or something!” She spoke shakily. “B-but that wouldn’t make any sense! Why’d a dungeon let people out? Haha…”

  At that moment, I knew Amelia came to the realization that I did. Why did I not think of it earlier…?! I had already experienced a dungeon once! Back in the swamp! It was a modern fire escape staircase.

  Later on, Amelia told me a story of her experience with a dungeon threshold, only to describe a traffic sign.

  The dungeon thresholds were always modern items from my world, and the whole building was unusually modern for this world.

  Why did I not realize this sooner?!

  Amelia sighed very deep. “It is one…isn’t it?”

  “I think so…” I exhaled shakily.

  “W-what? You two don’t seriously mean…” Fanael really seemed uncomfortable with the idea of being in a dungeon, and I didn’t blame her.

  “It’s got mana swirling around… The same ambient hum as the previous one… and we got transported here through touching something I recognized from my world…”

  “Your…world?” Amelia confirmed.

  “Yeah. I somehow never realized how important this could be, but both dungeon thresholds I’ve encountered have been items from my world, and in your story from your past about the dungeon, it was also from my world, if I’d have to make a guess.” I lamented.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “W-what in the world was the strange colorful metal sign then?” Amelia argued.

  “It’s called a traffic sign. In my world, they reminded people driving on mechanized carriages about the rules of travel. The one you encountered with the dot and the long dark bar symbolized to ‘stay alert’”. I explained.

  “How…fitting…” Amelia’s face darkened.

  “S-so… We’re in a dungeon then?!” Fanael grasped onto my dress. “You might have survived once, but it was only because you were immune to the swarm! We can’t start pushing our luck with this!! PLEASE BE MORE ATTENTIVE!” She basically screamed.

  “I know… I know…!” I started panicking a bit, feeling the cold sweat gliding down my skin.

  “Fanael.” Amelia spoke firmly. The princess looked at her, only for Amelia to nod at me. Fanael looked at me again, realizing I wasn’t necessarily in the best mental state at this point either.

  “S-sorry…! Sorry…” She slowly let go of my dress. “I’m… just stressed out. You’re not from this world. I can’t… somehow fully understand that… I know you wouldn’t realize to be wary of something like this.” She looked around.

  I slowly collapsed to sit down. My flesh and blood leg was shaking to the point where it could no longer support my weight. Fanael seemed a bit taken aback by the fact that I suddenly slumped down.

  “A-are you okay?! Wh-what’s happening?!” She began flailing around, looking at Amelia for help.

  “I’m… I’m okay…” I spoke shakily. “I’m… just a bit overwhelmed…” I wrapped my arms around my sides. “I-I guess I’m kind of scared…? W-weird huh…! L-last time I was pretty calm…” I tried laughing, but it was cut short rapidly.

  Amelia sat down next to me. “It’s understandable. Last time you didn’t really understand what we were getting into, until the situation was already so bad, adrenaline took over.” She explained. Her words made sense… But they didn’t actually give me comfort.

  “S-so… What do we do…?” I asked, looking around. The doorless buildings felt somehow foreboding and eerie now that I fully grasped the scope of our situation.

  I never realized the dungeons were like this. I thought we’d end up in another corridor like last time, but no. The dungeons… these things were like strange pocket dimensions, and it was clear they could come in any shape or size, most likely for the sole purpose of crushing its prey, in both mind and body.

  “We can’t just sit around. I suggest we find some of the villagers who are most likely in here somewhere, and then tail them while hidden under the invisibility spell.” Amelia spoke. “Even if it doesn’t directly allow us to escape, at least we’d know where the exit is, which would allow us to at least try to figure out a way to go through it.” She spoke.

  “Do you mean… We’re going to go in deeper…?” Fanael shivered. “Into a dungeon?!”

  “Yes.” Amelia nodded with conviction.

  I wanted to argue against it, but both Fanael and I knew being stuck in place was not going to help us in any sense.

  Slowly and shakily, we got up and began walking back to the center of this weird fake town. The modern building looked different. The cubist shapes it was originally made of were now exaggerated and bizarre. Cubes were sticking out from completely random places. There were even stone shapes growing out of the windows, right through the glass, somehow without disturbing the glass at all. It gave me a headache to try to figure out what I was even looking at.

  As much as I wished for it, opening the door to the building didn’t somehow suddenly make the town return to normal. We were trapped here… and that was that.

  The short stone corridor awaited behind the door, just like it did only a moment ago. The fact that there were lights inside the path despite the lack of light sources somehow made all the more sense now too, because it was exactly like this in the other dungeon too.

  Walking through the thin corridor felt much more oppressive now, that we all knew what we were getting ourselves into. Amelia went first, which did calm my nerves a bit. Fanael was in-between us, and I was last.

  The stairs began leading down in a spiraling fashion, going deep into the earth like a drill.

  As we walked further, I noticed something strange.

  “W-what’s this…?” I looked at the walls, which now had a few strange ceramic looking tiles. The tiles were strewn in random positions along the wall, but their angle was always totally fixed.

  “It seems to be wall reinforcement of some kind.” Amelia observed, touching one of the pieces, causing both Fanael and I to yelp, only for nothing to really happen.

  “D-don’t do thaaaat!!” I squealed.

  “W-what?” Amelia seemed a bit surprised. Both Fanael and I shook our heads in disbelief over how careless Amelia was about all this.

  “Just… don’t touch weird stuff without a warning from now on, okay?” I sighed.

  “Mm…! Forgive me.” Amelia nodded a bit awkwardly, seeming to understand the reason for our concern.

  As we descended deeper, the tiles became more common, until the entire wall was covered in them. They were smooth like glass to touch. Another distinct dungeon detail also reared its head.

  “Mana circuits…” Fanael commented, as faint blue streaks of light traversed in between some wall tiles.

  “Is it choralium?” I asked, trying to take the conversation anywhere apart from our imminent danger.

  “… I don’t know. I’ve never seen blue choralium…” Fanael mumbled, seemingly a bit lost in thought.

  “Seems like the stairs end here…” Amelia suddenly spoke, walking down to even flooring. Fanael and I followed suite.

  The walls were now fully coated in the ceramic tiles, along the ceiling and floor as well. It was white, with some slightly blue-tinted ones mixed in. The blue tiles were almost in some kind of geometric patterns, but there were always a couple of tiles that were missing from the patterns, making them feel somehow awkward and incomplete, they were also glowing slightly sporadically, implying they were also some strange type of mana circuit.

  Similarly to our last experience with a dungeon, I started hearing hushed whispers from all around us…

  Just like last time, it’s not that specific words were said, but instead the intent or…meaning behind those words quietly scraped at the back of my subconscious.

  Something about feeding… Something about the endpoint being nearby?

  I suddenly realized the whispers sounded very similar to the second voices the mana-ridden villagers had. It was eerily similar.

  Were the void-people some sort of extension of the dungeon? How were they out here? How could they exit the dungeon??

  As much as I would have rather theorycrafted on this, I had the reality of being inside a dungeon to worry over, so I had to set these thoughts aside.

  The tunnel continued straight and there seemed to be some faint light at the end of it. As we walked along further, I started hearing some noise. Amelia clearly heard it too, gesturing for us to quiet down.

  Walking as carefully as we could, we began slowly closing in on the opening at the end of the tunnel.

  “Water…?” I whispered. The noise we had heard previously was now a lot more prominent. There was definitely falling water somewhere nearby.

  Amelia signaled for Fanael and I to stand back and wait as she got closer to the edge. She peeked in through the door-like hole. After looking around for a moment, she waved at us to come over as well.

  Gazing out of the opening, a long metallic ladder descended into an enormous chamber

  Enormous to the point, where I genuinely couldn’t even see the ceiling. A vast path opened upwards into the darkness endlessly. I feel there might have been a very tiny flicker of light somewhere far in the endless void of the ceiling, but I might have also just been seeing things. The enormous chamber was a perfect square in shape, minus the ceiling of course, and its walls were lined with the same ceramic tiles and mana circuits all over.

  At the bottom of the room, there was a raised platform circling the perimeter of the room, leaving space in the middle for a small river of clear water to flow through. There were random protruded pieces of floor in the river here and there, too, making it possible to cross the river at some particular spots. All in all, it felt like an abstract… slightly cubist depiction of a swimming hall.

  To both our east and west from the opening were gigantic openings on the cube-room’s walls. They were a bit thinner than the room width itself… leading into another similar room by the looks of it.

  Trying to describe the sight in words alone is genuinely difficult… It was somehow really familiar, but also completely alien at the same time. Like low-end artificial intelligence was given a set of architectural assets to work with, and then it was told to build a room.

  There were random cubes sticking out of the walls, creating a strange acoustic environment where we couldn’t hear much echo at all, which added to the ethereal feeling of the place even further.

  “H-how is this even possible…?” Fanael hissed out quietly, marveling at the eerie architectural wonder.

  “You’ll probably only get a headache if you try to figure it out…” Amelia grumbled and grabbed onto the metal ladder, starting to lower herself down.

  “Y-you’re seriously going?!” I yelped, only to get a courageous nod from the knight in response.

  “I’ll go first, just in case something is lurking here.” She nodded. “If nothing else, I take pride in my sturdiness.”

  I gulped dryly, exchanging a glance with Fanael, who sighed and grabbed the ladder as well, starting to descend with Amelia.

  I honestly didn’t want to go. Like…seriously. Hell no. The ladder was so long, that if there were to be anything unwanted down at the bottom, we’d never have enough time to climb in time before whatever could be lurking there could rip us to shreds.

  But… I didn’t really have much choice, so I decided to calm my nerves by being an asshole. I jumped off the ledge, causing both Amelia and Fanael to scream in horror, only for me to land like a feather due to the floating spell I mentioned a while ago.

  “YOU BITCH!” Fanael screamed from the ladder, suddenly jumping at me. Now it was my turn to panic, I managed to cast the spell barely on her in time, stopping her from falling flat on her face.

  “W-what the hell is wrong with you!?” I whined at Fanael.

  “Look in the mirror!” She sassed at me loudly as Amelia finally made it down too. “Don’t ever do something like that without a warning, or I’ll seriously kill you.”

  “I agree… that was a bit much.” Amelia seemed a bit pale from the shock.

  As much as I wanted to argue my case… I decided against it and just apologized. “I’m sorry… I’ll warn you guys next time…” Amelia patted my side, and then Fanael punched my real leg, causing me to yelp and bounce around in pain.

  “Cool spell…” The princess grumbled. “Next time, introduce it to us with your words…”

  After whining for a bit, we continued onward. We made our way to one of the vast openings at the western side of the room. It led into another room with a very similar décor. The only real difference was the placement of those weird cubes jutting out of the walls and the river at the center. Looking in from the entry point, there was another opening to the east of where we were at.

  The cubes in the stream helped us cross the river when necessary.

  “Fanael…?” I tried to start a conversation to kind of gauge if she was still mad at me or not. “Do you know how a structure like this could be born?” I asked a bit, hopefully. “I get that it’s magic, but even magic has rules, right?”

  “Not with conventional magic, anyway.” Fanael scoffed, looking around, and then up into the endless ceiling. “My wild guess would be it’s got something ancient and long forgotten mixed in…”

  “W-what do you mean?” My curiosity was piqued.

  “There are myths of magic far beyond comprehension, existing, back in the ages before the Walkers ruled this world.” Fanael needed some help for a bigger jump, so Amelia carried her. “Ancient Magic.” She added.

  “This is news to me as well.” Amelia commented.

  “Plainswalkers wouldn’t know of it, since your kind isn’t particularly proficient with magic in the first place.” Fanael pointed at Amelia.

  “M-my kind…?” Amelia pouted.

  “Even to us Earthwalkers it’s nothing but legend. No evidence exists of its existence. Just word of mouth and rumors.” The princess continued. “Ancient magic supposedly combines the properties of multiple colors of magic in ways that fully defy all logic.”

  “L-like how…?” I asked quietly.

  “Rumors say a mixture of black and white magic, which is completely impossible by nature, has power over the space-time continuum.”

  “T-the…what?” Amelia’s eyes were wide.

  “It gives you power to control time and space. You can run back time, and even displace matter on an atomic level.”

  “So…it could like…move someone’s head a few meters back to instantly kill them?” I mumbled.

  “I don't understand why that was the first thing you thought of, but yeah. Something like that.” Fanael nodded and glanced at me as she held on to Amelia.

  “What are…atoms…?” Amelia asked suddenly, looking at Fanael for help.

  “Science stuff.” She replied in turn. “We haven’t really published our research yet.” She continued as our journey through the room picked up in pace a bit.

  “Do you… know of them?” The knight looked at me.

  “I do. They were a pretty basic scientific theory back in my world.” I nodded a bit awkwardly as I tried my best to hop over the platforms as well. “Or was it a theory? I don't know if there was a way to see them somehow…”

  “B-basic…?!” Fanael stared at me in disbelief. “W-we need to talk about science sometime, if we make it out of here alive.” She sighed and looked around.

  “Just for the record, I was a terrible student, so I can’t really go in depth on the subject!” I quipped.

  “What kind of magic would create this kind of bizarre structures then?” Amelia interrupted the science-talk.

  “I got no clue.” Fanael murmured. “Ancient magic is basically a nonsense myth. Not even the gods can use it.” The princess pondered aloud. “All I can do is make wild and mostly random guesses at it, but judging how it created something that looks completely impossible… I’d assume blue magic had something to do with it. It specializes in illusions after all.”

  We made our way through past the stream into the opening in the easternmost side of the room… only to find another identical gigantic room which had an opening straight up north from the point where we entered.

  For some scale, I’d say each room was about a hundred to two hundred meters in diameter. The weird cube placements in this particular room allowed us to comfortably walk to the northern opening, only to find another one of the tiled rooms.

  This one had an opening to the east yet again.

  Looking at it up closely, it seemed almost as if the water in the strange canal in the middle of the room was glowing a bit. I don’t know if it was actually water, but I also had absolutely no interest in testing it out.

  At the eastern opening, another straight room awaited us…

  To our surprise, there was also another ladder to the easternmost wall of the room. It was behind the stream, which would require us to jump over some platforms. As expected, there was also an opening to the north of where we were standing at.

  “Two ways to go. Which one should we check first?” Amelia asked.

  “I vote the next room.” I raised my hand a bit. “We should first check out the areas that allow us to run and hide, instead of going into a risky territory with no escape routes.”

  “I agree with the idiot witch.” Fanael raised her hand too. I rolled my eyes a bit. Terrifying situation or not, I’m glad I wasn’t here alone… Having some friendly banter going around did lighten the mood considerably.

  “V-very well. We’ll go with the idiot plan then.” Amelia joined in. It was a bit more annoying when she did it, somehow.

  We travelled past the ladder into the next vast room up north, only to find it also opening up Eastwards.

  “D-do you think?” I began speaking.

  “I bet it’s a circular shape… yeah.” Fanael had seemingly noticed it too.

  “But what is its purpose…?” Amelia looked around at the vast walls extending forever into the darkness.

  “Excellent question…” Fanael replied, walking around.

  We did indeed find out that the entire structure was like a donut in shape. The ladder we had originally come down from was on the western wall from the way we entered.

  This must all be pretty confusing to read about, right? Just imagine being there yourself. It was a lot more confusing in person.

  “I suppose we should go check up on the ladders back on the other side then?” Amelia sighed, only for her relaxed expression to be completely shattered by what felt like an earthquake.

  “W-wha…!?” Fanael made a hushing gesture and guided all of us to rush against a wall. “Spell… now…!” Fanael looked at me, and I knew exactly which one she was talking about.

  With a moment to cast it, all three of us were soon hidden under the veil of water, pressed firmly against one of the corners of the room we had arrived in.

  A horrifying noise began surging through the entire area, and the water in the center of the room began to flash with sparks shooting out of it almost constantly. Almost as if on cue, water began slowly flowing out of some patterns on the walls.

  Fanael was quick to react, pulling both of us away from under a lazy stream of water that slid down the walls into the main stream.

  As soon as the water flow touched the center river, the electric sparks rose the walls and caused the room to start flashing in and out of light. We huddled up near each other, hidden underneath the reflection spells. The tension in the air was so immense I swear I could hear the heartbeats of my companions despite being a small distance away from them.

  Tun….

  TUN…..

  TUNNN…..

  A repetitive thudding noise came from what, I believe, was the opposite part of the donut where we were.

  THUNNN….

  THUNNNNNNN…

  THUNNNNNNNNN…

  Remember how I said the strange acoustics in this place made echoes difficult to hear? Somehow, the fact that we could hear this… whatever it was approaching us from a different room was absolutely horrifying. How big was this thing?! For it to create echoes like this, it must have been so incredibly enormous it’d send the earth roaring with pain, no matter where it’d walk.

  A low grumble and what sounded a bit like metal scraping against the ground began to make its way into the room, and in that instant, I felt my heart drop. I could hear a faint choking gasp from behind myself. I couldn’t tell if it was Amelia or Fanael, but it was clear I wasn’t the only one shocked by the sight.

  I could feel cold tears of horror begin gliding down my cheeks as I saw the thing that lurched whatever part of its body it was into the room.

  It was like a gigantic snake with an unnervingly humanoid upper body that had two muscular arms. But where its head should have been was just a gigantic black hole with jagged metallic blades of various shapes and sizes lodged around it, as if to make a crude imitation of teeth.

  The metallic scraping noise became clearer as the horrid mockery of nature itself dragged the rest of its body into the room. It was covered in metallic shards of various shapes and sizes. From the looks of it, I’d guess they were corroded pieces of armor attached into its skin to act as scales of sorts.

  The reason to why my body was reacting by pure shock wasn’t due to its appearance, however. It was the swirling remnants of immensely dark magic on some metallic fake scales the monstrous creature was adorned with.

  The hole, which I’ll assume was its mouth was undulating, causing the jagged metallic thorns to grind against the insides of its maw.

  My entire body felt cold.

  It dragged its gigantic mass through the room, only to peek into the one after. It seemed to sort of mindlessly meander around. The crackling of thunder surging through the water everywhere only added to the horrifying noise now echoing around us.

  From the looks of it, the metallic pieces lodged into the skin of the creature seemed to surge with electricity sporadically, implying the monster was the source of the crackling lightning bolts flying all over.

  As I mentioned before, numerous pieces of the metal scrap-scales it donned were enveloped in sinister dark magic, but the mana felt somehow detached from that of the monster itself.

  The creature was actually not particularly magical in nature, at least judging by the somewhat measly amount of mana surging through it.

  Judging by this, I think the electricity it made was more biological than magical in origin.

  My imagination wandered, and I imagined the pieces of metal adorning its body were the weapons and armor of warriors who had tried to slay it, and maybe their spirits or something were still possessing some gear, which is why such sinister mana flowed around them… Or something.

  Then, as I gazed upon the horror once more, something clicked in my head.

  It was… perhaps a bit like an electric eel? I don’t know if there are any other electric animals like the eels, but they were definitely the most famous kind. Upon focusing my eyes a bit, I think the skin of the creature was kind of similar to that of electric eels. It was fleshy and had a gross greenish yellow tint to it, or so I think. It was mostly obscured by the burnt metal everywhere around it.

  Its front, or belly had less of the metallic pieces on it, but it made sense considering it seemed to drag its body along the ground with those strange arms.

  Which made me momentarily wonder why could I remember something as random as an electric eel, but I didn’t remember my own old name?

  I could hear a very hushed whisper coming from Fanael’s direction.

  “Stay…really…quiet…”

  Fanael’s voice was shaking with pure terror.

  “It’s blind… it can’t see us…” She whispered, at which I could feel my breathing calming down a bit.

  “Are you…sure…?” I asked really quietly. “Should I remove the spell…?”

  “Yes…” Fanael replied so quietly I could hardly hear her with all the electricity crackling.

  I slowly removed the magic veil from around us as we stared at the gigantic horror ambling around.

  Amelia was pale like a sheet of paper. Fanael was wide-eyed and seemingly gulping dryly in a panic.

  “What…the hell…is that…?” I quietly worded at my companions.

  A silence followed, until Amelia managed to finally stagger out the words.

  “A dragon.” Amelia’s words barely squeezed out from in-between her teeth.

  It made sense now. The reason to why Amelia and Fanael were so upset about the conversation on dragons. It made sense, why the Hunter’s Guild was so wary around the village.

  It made sense… That they all feared the dragon, for I feared it now too.

  An unholy eldritch abomination, mixing burning steel and some kind of horrid tunnel worm. Nobody in their right mind would ever want to see this thing. It was a living nightmare come to life.

  It wasn’t a noble flying beast that could be reasoned with. It was more than obvious this thing was a mindless death machine. I mean… It didn’t even have a head to begin with, so assuming it had a mind was a stretch.

  Fanael took our hands and began writing letters with her fingers to our palms. “They are blind, but they have excellent hearing. Make a noise, and you die.”

  “If you smell gas…run.” Amelia whispered quietly as well.

  This ‘smell of gas’ was most likely referring to the sulfurous odor the villagers mentioned a while ago, as if having it emit a crazy storm of electricity wasn’t enough, it apparently had even more ways to kill us.

  Fanael gestured for us to begin traveling the opposite way the dragon was going.

  Was she mad?!

  We’re not going to try to climb the ladders in this room and run?! She seriously wanted to go to the ladder all the way on the other side to explore this death trap further?!

  I felt like crying when Amelia nodded in agreement.

  It was clear neither one was planning on just abandoning this whole place and escaping to regroup.

  We began slowly crawling towards the eastern exit of the room, only for us to come across a horrifying problem.

  The new streams of water slowly sliding down the walls made it basically a necessity to jump over them… Which would definitely make enough noise to alert the monster.

  It was almost as if this entire place were designed with creatures of humanlike intelligence in mind. It was a trap that forced you to make bad decisions…

  Amelia and Fanael seemed to be gauging our choices.

  “Can you shoot ice into the water from a distance?” Amelia’s whispering voice asked shakily.

  I took an uneven breath with my eyes closed and nodded. I had a feeling I understood what she was thinking. She wanted to distract the monster with noise, so it would be too occupied to notice us jumping.

  “Shoot it as far as you can… into the next room if possible.” Amelia was still as pale as before. It was clear her slight hints of confidence were nothing but a fa?ade in the face of this waking nightmare.

  Doing my best to not think about it, I began casting magic. A small ice chunk about the size of my fist formed, and I shot it as far as I could, landing somewhere behind the monster.

  Plip! The sound of the ice chunk contacting water was heard, as we jumped over a stream.

  The monster suddenly twitched slightly at the sound of the ice hitting water. It began emitting that ear rending scraping noise as it crawled into the direction of the ice chunk unnervingly quickly.

  I instantly realized something was wrong as soon as I saw the monster crawling past the approximate position of where my ice chunk had landed at. Why did it go past it? I could hear the echoes of its crawling disappearing into the rooms away from us, until silence fell in the darkness. To our surprise, even the electricity in the water was gone all of a sudden, as if the monster had simply left us.

  Glancing at both Fanael and Amelia, I could tell they were just as confused as I was.

  Then suddenly, Amelia rushed at both Fanael and I, pushing us against a wall behind one of those cubes jutting out of the walls, effectively cornering us. She raised her shield and pointed it towards the only direction we were exposed from.

  A strange, unpleasant odor filled the hall, and I could feel myself growing light-headed.

  “Don’t breathe it in!” Amelia hissed under her breath.

  Both Fanael and I covered our mouths and noses with our hands, hiding behind Amelia as the air began growing slightly darker from whatever tiny particles were now filling it.

  Then, for a split second, I could see the electricity surging in the water again, until everything went white.

  I always felt the dust explosion Amelia and I created in the first dungeon was terrifying in its power, but it felt like a pathetic joke in comparison with what was happening around us now.

  It was as if the sun itself had made its way into the room. Despite the fact, that I was hiding behind Amelia AND I had my eyes shut, I could see the light emitted from the firestorm through my eyelids.

  The pressure of the explosion caused Amelia to slam against both Fanael and I. As much as it hurt, I couldn’t even imagine what she was going through as she protected us from certain death.

  The heat of the flare was enough to burn my skin all over despite Amelia’s protection. It reminded me of the time I burnt off my arm protecting myself from the first monster I ever encountered in this world.

  No matter what body part I’d sacrifice, there was no way I’d ever be able to harm the dragon. It really made the despair of our current circumstance a lot more apparent.

  Worst of all, the thing had seriously tried to blindside us. It was a clear sign, that even if it couldn’t see properly, it was incredibly intelligent. Trying to kill rapidly escaping humans would be difficult in such a tight corridor if the monster tried to do it with its arms.

  Even if a few would die, a few would also escape. The best way to get rid of them all at once, was to lull them into a false sense of safety, and then explode them all to oblivion at once when their guards lowered.

  A deadly silence fell over the corridor…

  Amelia was wheezing very quietly. She was at minimum experiencing some kind of concussion from slamming against the wall, but I could tell she was conscious enough to avoid making more noise.

  All of a sudden, the water crackled several more times… And then we could hear the sounds of the dragon crawling off somewhere, until complete silence filled the dungeon.

  Amelia slowly slumped down. The tips of her hair were charred a bit here and there, and her shield was effectively unusable at this point. It had burned to nothing but a black disfigured mess, but it did serve its purpose.

  “Are you okay?” I worded to the heaving knight. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  “Thr…three…” Amelia gasped almost silently. It seemed like she was in bad shape, but not in any mortal danger.

  With our current predicament, however. We’d all be in mortal danger in no time if we decided to stay put for a moment.

  Without a word exchanged, we took this chance to begin silently traversing through the corridor. We carefully made our way to the yet unexplored ladder we saw a bit earlier.

  My real leg was shaking, but the choralium was ever reliable, helping me keep up with the walking. It didn’t shake and it didn’t fear. Having a body partially made of metal definitely had its benefits.

  Amelia began climbing the ladder and I followed Fanael.

  Now I understood why there was no lock to this place. It’s not like it needed one with the dragon roaming around.

  I felt, however, like I still couldn’t quite understand the big picture of what was going on. The main question was, how were the villagers coming and going in and out of this place freely?

  And… what the hell were they doing in this death trap in the first place?! I distinctly remembered Eden saying they were bringing the pickles in here!

  Do… dragons like pickles??

  It’s not like pondering the questions like this would provide any real answers, though. What would, however, was to explore further.

  The ladder we hadn’t gone up yet was at least as tall as the one we originally descended into the pool area with. It was a lot more effort to climb a ladder up, than it was to just jump down. Sadly, my floating magic was of no help when climbing ladders.

  As I finally made my way all the way up, I found Amelia and Fanael staring at what looked a big stone arch or a doorway. There was a constant flow of something like a purplish mist, slowly wafting down over the opening of the gateway.

  “What’s this…?” I asked quietly, hoping it was okay to at least whisper now.

  For the record, from my understanding of how the structure of the dungeon was built, we were just about to enter the center point of the donut. You know, the part where the hole is normally. This strange dark portal of mist was the only thing blocking our path.

  “I…don’t know.” Fanael shook her head.

  “It’s some kind of magic wall…” I nodded, making note of a large amount of mana sparkling along the mist veil.

  I felt a bit confused over the blatant use of magic by people who seemingly wanted to do nothing but absorb and remove magical powers from things.

  It was a bit out of place, and I couldn’t really wrap my head around to the motives of our perceived enemies. Did they want magic to exist or not?

  “Try touching it with the choralium arm.” Fanael interrupted my thoughts. I honestly really didn’t want to… but it made sense. If it was like a barrier that burns flesh or something, it’d be much better to burn artificial than real flesh.

  I slowly crawled closer to the veil and shakily reached out for it with my hand. As my fingers entered the mist, they split the flow of the magic fog a bit, but that was about it. Nothing much happened.

  I pulled my hand back from the mist wall, looking back at Amelia and Fanael, who then walked over.

  “Maybe it’s not a defense mechanism after all…” Fanael looked the gateway up and down. “At times like these… I feel I should follow my mother’s wise words.” She nodded in a strangely boastful manner. “Only one way to find out!” She quoted and jumped into the wall.

  “W-wait didn’t your mom die on an adventure?!” I managed to yelp before Fanael was gone. To be specific, she went to the other side of the wall. She was waving and saying something at us, but somehow, we couldn’t hear a thing of what she was saying.

  “Do you think…” Amelia looked at me.

  “It blocks sound, so the dragon doesn’t bother whatever’s inside…” I nodded and both of us walked into the mist warily, only to come through on the other side.

  As Amelia stepped into the mist in front of me, I made a small note of the fact, that the wall seemed to also block me from sensing both Fanael and Amelia’s mana.

  Maybe it blocked more than just sound?

  Before we even managed to say a word to Fanael, she gestured for us to quiet down and listen. It was actually pretty easy to understand what she was trying to say. An obvious orchestra of grunting and clanging could be heard somewhere nearby.

  The inside of the area behind the veil was totally black. The walls were covered in the same ceramic tiles still, but they didn’t have that reflective sheen on them anymore.

  It was total darkness. And yet somehow, we could see around.

  We began walking through a tunnel not too different from the one that led us into this horrible place to begin with. It was crude and seemed like it was dug there quite hastily.

  A small chamber awaited us at the end of the tunnel, and there were a few pieces of what was most likely mining equipment strewn around, but the space was otherwise empty.

  The chamber we were currently in had an open end, which allowed us to peer further into a much larger cavern that went much deeper into the earth.

  What spread before us was an enormous quarry of some kind. A path circling the walls in a spiral pattern led all the way to the dead center, where several villagers were mining at a gigantic structure of some kind.

  There was another opening to the west of the chamber we were spying at the miners from, leading into the spiraling path circling the mine.

  My guess was we were in a waiting area or a resting space of some kind. Or maybe the place from where the people in charge of this mining operation would watch over their workers from.

  The villagers were swinging pickaxes at the massive piece of… something at the bottom of the quarry.

  When I said massive, I meant REALLY HUGE. The thing extended all the way from the bottom of the mine to the ceiling. It looked like some dark crystal with weird almost… fungal growths on it?

  There were scattered smaller versions of the peculiar crystal all over the walls of the mine. I’m guessing the reason to why the mine was spiraling in shape, was to allow the miners to reach the crystals on the walls too.

  From the sounds the pickaxes of the workers made while mining, I deduced it was most likely rock of some kind. It really resembled one of those fungi that grow on old tree trunks. Polypores or something? They were pretty common in fantasy books. Usually, fairy villages or something along those lines had a bunch of the odd mushrooms growing on the trees, and maybe the fairies lived on top of them, using them like little platforms.

  Obviously, there was nothing delightfully whimsical about the scene unfolding before us.

  Somehow, the thought of fungi and such made me think like the crystalline fungus growths on the outer walls were the result of the gigantic one in the center spreading its influence around like spores.

  “Isn’t that… the weird stones we keep seeing around?” Fanael whispered and pointed. “Look… they turn dark gray after being detached from the walls.

  It was a bit difficult to see from the distance we were at, but whenever a bigger piece of the giant structure was mined off the black crystal, it rapidly changed color to the same dead gray we were very used to seeing featured on those mana-siphoning hand-print stones.

  “They’re harvesting them from that…thing.” Amelia pointed at whatever the large structure was in the center, and then something caught my attention.

  The structure was very strange in shape. It was thinner towards the bottom and expanded the higher it went. Maybe simply because it was challenging to mine the structure up higher. Looking towards the base of the scrystal, though, I could see something that filled me with an immeasurable sense of dread and disappointment.

  A black silhouette of something thin and long was sticking out of the huge mushroom crystal’s base. It looked completely black from the distance we were looking at it from… but its shape was pretty obvious.

  My immediate thought was that it might have been a sword. We were looking for one after all.

  “Is…that the sword we’re out here to get…?” I sighed deep, pointing at the thing poking out of the structure.

  “No way…” Fanael seemed to share my hopelessness in the discovery. “It’s lodged in that weird scale crystal?! How the hell are we going to get it out of it?”

  “Can we not simply steal some mining equipment?” Amelia mused.

  “If it was as simple as just pulling out after some mining, wouldn’t you think they’d have mined it off the scale crystal already?” Fanael sighed. It seemed like she thought the things protruding out of the crystal looked more like scales than mushrooms. For the record, I still thought they looked like mushrooms.

  “You make a fair point.” Amelia nodded, crossing her arms.

  We all leaned back away from the opening a bit to ponder on it.

  “You know…” I began. “I have a really cruel and dumb idea.” I mumbled. “Something that has ended up poorly for us about every single time we’ve done it.”

  “W-what is it?” Amelia asked a bit uncertainly.

  “Well…” I scratched the back of my head, a bit embarrassed over the fact, that this was like… all I could seemingly ever think of.

  “Yes…?” Fanael leaned closer.

  “Uh… Well, since the stones are bad, and we want to break them… how about we just… blow it all up.” I mumbled a bit. “Like… lure the dragon to gas up the place and blow it to oblivion…”

  “A-along the people…?!” Amelia gasped in horror.

  “Yeah.” I nodded quite coldly.

  A silence fell over us. Amelia and Fanael were looking at me.

  “You’re not the most… compassionate person, are you?” Fanael commented.

  “My compassion is just a bit selective…” I huffed.

  “No. We cannot just kill all the people.” Amelia shook her head. “I vowed not to kill unnecessarily to my goddess.”

  “Oh… right…!” I nodded a bit awkwardly. “S-sorry. I didn’t remember.”

  Amelia smiled at me gently, petting my cheek a bit. “Now, I did not say we cannot blow the place up though…” She nodded in a slightly eerily calm way.

  “We just wait for the people to leave! We know they do anyway.” Fanael started grinning now too.

  I honestly didn’t expect these two to agree with my idiotic plan. But… I guess they agreed under their terms, which made me feel a bit more okay with it.

  … Even though it was yet again an awful idea.