Chapter 125
“Mutant monsters aren’t common, so we’ll collect them.”
“Yes.”
“You check around elsewhere for a bit. The other monsters might’ve taken advantage of the commotion and come out too.”
“Yes!”
She immediately looked around, but there were no problematic areas. The slime had filled the basement, but the bars were so sturdy that it didn’t seem to have broken the cells.
But the moment Eki stepped forward to return to Cassius.
Crack.
A small fissure spread between her feet like a spiderweb.
Eki flinched and stepped back. When she looked closely at the ground beneath her, a vivid red light was leaking out through the thin cracks.
“M-Master.”
She didn’t even have time to think about what it was. Her mind went blank, and her heart thrashed with anxiety. The moment Eki saw that red light, she instinctively felt that something terrible was about to happen. This wasn’t a mage’s intuition, but something closer to true foresight.
Right. Like the power of the luck potion, for instance.
“Master! There’s something here!”
Eki immediately raised her voice and called for Cassius. Sensing something was wrong, Cassius rushed over to her, then froze when he saw the intense light flashing through the gaps in the floor.
Cassius’s gaze shifted past Eki, toward a massive gate submerged in distant darkness.
“This is something serious, right? Was there some kind of magic circle in the basement that I didn’t know about?”
“……”
“Master?”
“Eki, stay here for a moment.”
“What?”
With a pained look, he rubbed his brow. Then he placed Venta and Tys at Eki’s side, grabbed her shoulders, and said,
“Don’t go anywhere far. Stay right here with the fairies.”
“No, what’s going on?”
“…I’ll tell you later.”
And with that, he left her behind and went forward.
Eki reached out, but recalling the look of pain on Cassius’s face, she stepped back.
Before long, he vanished behind a massive door, radiating brilliant golden light. It looked like a secret door deep underground, one Eki had never seen before.
【 Venta, this… 】
【 Yeah. It really does seem like that. 】
“What is ‘that’?”
Unlike Eki, who knew nothing, the fairies seemed to roughly understand the situation. Eki asked again what it was, but they never opened their mouths.
【 Th-This is Cassius’s important secret, so we can’t tell you. 】
【 Instead of asking us, why don’t you go check it yourself, Eki? 】
‘I should check it myself?’
Eki looked at the iron gate that was faintly emitting a blood red glow.
Inside the branching cracks spreading beneath her feet, dark mana was still flowing. It seemed to be leaking out from the room Cassius had entered.
The super powerful luck potion that had kept throwing Eki and Cassius into trouble was still foretelling danger. An overwhelming fear surged up, telling her that if this wasn’t dealt with immediately, lives would be at risk.
But precisely because of that, Eki steadied her trembling hands and moved forward. She’d said it many times already. In this Pinon Forest, where there wasn’t a single house nearby, the only ones who could rely on each other were themselves. No matter how much of an archmage and dragon he was, if something dangerous enough to make even the luck potion go this wild had happened, his one and only disciple had no choice but to step in.
‘Especially after seeing that look on Master’s face.’
Eki took a deep breath.
And then, she disobeyed Cassius’s order and went after him.
❖ ❖ ❖
‘Was it because of the earthquake?’
The magic circle built by offering up a thousand dragon hearts as sacrifices hadn’t collapsed just because of a slime’s rampage. As the swollen slime pressed down on the tower’s ceiling, floor, and walls, the underground ground had sunk, distorting the blood array.
‘I just need to reinforce this part.’
A magic circle could only be deployed if all its symbols maintained precise angles and proper proportions. Even a barrier created by dragons was no exception. Thanks to the many layers of magic Cassius had added over hundreds of years, it hadn’t collapsed immediately, but if it wasn’t repaired quickly, it could become dangerous.
He immediately summoned a small dagger and slashed his own palm to fix the blood array. Vivid red blood dripped from the split wound, but Cassius, well accustomed to it, traced geometric patterns along the blood array.
At that moment, the heavy gate creaked open.
“…Master?”
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