Volume 3 Chapter 93 The Traces Continue
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
Half an hour later, Kian, Sarah, and Serena stood before the newly set magic circle, its crystal gleaming brightly against the wall.
All that remained was to channel their magic power, and the formation would activate, opening the gate connected to it.
Only 3 people were there to see them off: Natra, Rufna, and Priscilla.
It seemed Natra was the only one among them destined for duty in the mountain patrol shortly after, fully adorned in her spiritual gear and equipped with a magic sword.
”Did you forget anything?”
”I’m fine. Just take care of the sick and keep the base running, will you?”
”Got it.”
”Sir Kian, may fortune smile upon you.”
Natra cast a worried glance from beneath her Kitsune mask.
The lingering regret of being unable to join them weighed heavily on her.
However, this quest was primarily for reconnaissance and rescue; engagement was actually discouraged.
The choice of Sarah and Serena was more than sufficient for the task.
Considering they needed to maintain some defensive strength at their base, having Natra hold the fort was the wisest move.
If that lich dared to return, Natra would eliminate it in an instant, no doubt about it.
With the magic sword in her possession, her offensive power and range had skyrocketed beyond imagination.
”Lord Kian, just a moment.”
”Yes?”
As Kian nodded back to Natra, Priscilla tugged at his arm, pulling him a bit away from the others.
She stood on her toes, whispering conspiratorially.
”The dream world I created should be usable. If you ever find yourself in trouble, just sleep and call for me. I may be terrible at fighting, but I can lend you my intellect.”
”Terrible…?”
”Well, I’m a 25-year-old grandma now. Right?”
(How long is she going to keep this up?)
Kian forced a smile and nodded.
”Understood. I’ll make use of it if necessary. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep lately, plus I have to report back to Her Excellency Maribel.”
”Absolutely, you’ve got to use handy tools to their fullest. That’s all from me. Now, about that sample…”
With a playful smack on his waist, Priscilla sent him off.
Kian nodded once more before returning to stand beside Sarah and Serena.
Like Kian, the two of them wore backpacks, loosening their joints in preparation for what came next after teleportation.
”Ready now, Kian?”
”Yeah.”
”Then let’s go. Rufna, please.”
Responding to Sarah’s command, Rufna touched the formation and began to chant the ritual words.
The messenger of the ‘world’──a being manifesting nature’s will into reality──received her words, and the spell activated.
A deep, rumbling bass resonated briefly, and a rectangular blue gate appeared against the wall.
(It was a different color from the teleportation gate.)
Perhaps because this magic worked fundamentally differently from standard teleportation.
Nevertheless, to Kian the swordsman, it was still a handy tool that could transport him to another location.
”――――.”
He raised his hand lightly.
Natra and Rufna nodded back silently.
Kian adjusted the position of his backpack and leaped toward the blue gate with momentum.
* * *
Unlike a magician’s teleportation gate, moving within the Spiritual Vein felt weightless.
He could only describe it as a pulling sensation, like a tug beneath his navel.
It felt as if he had become feather-light, rapidly drawn sideways at high speed.
In what felt like an instant, he jumped through the gate, and before the next heartbeat, the cold air of reality brushed against his skin.
”…!”
With blue light lingering in his vision, he felt the ground rush up to him.
Instinctively rolling, he felt the soft touch of a tree root against his back, followed by the sharp chill of stone against his right hand and calf.
As he stood up, his vision cleared from the roll.
”――Where is this…”
An expansive view of ancient temple ruins, consumed by roots, unfolded before him.
Above, a few birds flew, chirping as they went.
Kian crossed over a massive tree root, stepping into the center of what appeared to be a ritual stone plaza, where a cool, damp breeze swirled up from the ground.
The smell of moss.
The scent of misty water.
Before him, a stone staircase led down to a paved path of stone tiles.
It felt as though everything was being eroded at the roots, as if the world had been teleported to a post-apocalyptic landscape.
Yet Rufna’s explanation made it clear that the teleportation array shouldn’t have had any time-bending effects.
As Kian gazed up at the towering trees, the space behind him rippled, and Sarah’s magic power made itself known.
Serena followed suit after a moment’s pause.
Turning around, Sarah landed as lightly as a cat on the tree roots, while Serena skillfully twisted in mid-air to grab onto a hanging vine of green ivy that draped from the cliff above the ritual site.
She then gently landed beside Sarah.
”What a sight…”
”Pretty juvenile observation.”
”Oh, shut up, Kian.”
”…The teleportation gate, it’s gone.”
Serena turned back to the cliff with a stern gaze.
Just as she said, there was no distortion in the space where Kian and the others had fallen.
It seemed that returning through the Spiritual Vein path was currently out of the question.
”No worries. I can open a gate once we’re out of this ruin. But we’ll need to pinpoint our coordinates first, so it won’t be immediate.”
”Considering the risk of giving away our position to the enemy, we shouldn’t teleport if we can help it.”
”Right.”
”Let’s get in touch with Ms. Priscilla. If we’ve found Rean, we can have her calculate a route for us to walk back.”
”Is that so?””First I’ve heard of it.”
Serena tilted her head curiously, while Sarah shot her a suspicious glance.
Her expression seemed to ask, “Just how many secrets are you hiding?”
”Hey now, don’t suspect my relationship with Ms. Priscilla. I don’t want to be lectured about my love life after coming this far.”
”Well, I don’t mean to overburden you, but… come on. As your childhood friend, of course I’d have something to say if the once innocent Kian turned into a libertine.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow and spoke with a sly grin.
Well, one could sort of understand her feelings.
Kian, too, had his days of despair, believing Sarah had been taken from him by Jibril──days when dreams of them haunted his mornings, driving him to the brink of madness with each waking hour.
Sarah may not have sunken as low as Kian, but she likely shared a similar malaise.
”Quit the squabbling and let’s go after them, shall we?”
”This isn’t squabbling!” Sarah snapped, her voice a mix of frustration and desperation. “We’re not even together anymore!”
Kian and Sarah denied it vehemently, but Serena just looked bewildered, as if she couldn’t fathom their outburst.
She knelt by the ground, immediately beginning to search for the lingering scent of Vestacia’s Juniper.
”This way. Down these stone steps.”
”Right, let’s move.”
”The ruins before teleportation resemble this structure. The only difference is the presence or absence of a cave.”
Kian nodded in agreement; the comparison was uncanny.
The vegetation had made significant headway in reclaiming the ruins, but the structures themselves, from design to the very stone material, were identical──like mirror images.
At the bottom of the steps, stone soldiers lined the corridor, identical to those that had once attacked Kian.
However, these statues didn’t leap to the assault, and some were damaged by moss and rain──a stark contrast to the well-maintained counterparts in the other ruins.
(Could the grand statue of Erynys be ahead?)
They followed Serena down a path lined with the remnants of collapsed buildings.
Upon reaching the next clearing, they were greeted by a mountain of rubble that was once a statue, its remains brutally shattered, leaving only the ankles intact.
It was undoubtedly an image of Erynys, now unrecognizably destroyed.
The annihilation was too thorough to be a product of natural erosion; it was the work of human hands, determined to obliterate every trace.
Serena halted before the debris, kneeling down as if in defeat.
”We’ve caught up. There are footprints here. A man’s and a woman’s boots. And faintly, another set… probably Ms. Ninini’s. She’s a skilled scout. The man is Rean, the woman Ms. Vestacia. Is the Juniper scent coming from the heels?”
”Yeah… there are multiple footprints here. They probably had a quarrel with Mr. Rean right at this spot, don’t you think? From what Ms. Lyritisse said, he was somehow running away from his own group.”
”But the 3 of them aren’t here.”
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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