Vol 2 Chapter 62

"I vaguely remember. Left, left, right, left, right, right, and then from the fork after that..."

"Alright, just run ahead first."

At Kapros's words, Kran immediately turned and started running. Kapros followed him along with Yu-wan.

He might have taken a big hit, but he wouldn't be dead. He'd probably be chasing them soon. So they needed to put some distance between them until then.

How long had they been frantically making their way through following Kran? After advancing while mercilessly blasting away the occasional monsters that appeared, they stopped in front of a fork in the road where it was impossible to tell where they were.

"In my memory... I think it changed roughly after passing through here."

Kran said as he shook off the dirt on his sword and looked around, but the structure of this cave was so similar everywhere that it was hard to tell. Instead, Kapros suddenly remembered the method Lucrecian had used to find the 'place' in a similar location before.

Hadn't a passage opened when he struck the wall of the point where the location kept rotating with a dagger? He wasn't sure if the structure where a hidden passage was revealed by stimulation applied here too, but it seemed worth trying.

"Step back. We don't have time now, so I'll have to check like this."

Kapros raised his hand to focus the attention of Yu-wan and Kran, who were looking around.

"W-What? What are you going to do?"

Kran looked on with very anxious eyes, but Kapros ignored him and carefully examined the two forks in the road.

Hmm... The range should be from right in front of him to a few meters inside the two forks. It would be difficult to tap carefully, but if he set his mind to it, it shouldn't be impossible. As soon as Yu-wan and Kran stepped back, Kapros stretched out his hand, staring at the wide-open view without delay.

"Lightning."

Crackle!

In an instant, an enormous number of bluish electric shocks were created in the air, as if surrounding Kapros. Along with the feeling that all the surrounding air was tingling, he felt a refreshing sensation. At that tremendous number, which seemed to be nearly 100, he heard the sound of someone swallowing behind him.

"Amazing, really..."

Honestly, this was a bit of an overexertion in summoning them. He felt his mana sharply decrease and his strength drain, but thinking about the job these had to do now, he tensed his body and stood firm.

"Bolt!"

Boom boom boom boom!

The indiscriminate explosion barrage of Lightning Bolts, covering everything from the ceiling to the walls to the floor, caused a white flash before his eyes for a moment. With a brutally loud roar louder than any magic had produced so far, along with earthquake-like vibrations, the entire cave shook.

'It's as powerful as setting off a bomb inside.'

Even as his body shook up and down like an earthquake, making it difficult to keep balance, Kapros thought this while staring at the chaotic scene in front of him filled with dust and exploding light. Then he faintly heard a sound.

Rumble...

The brute force method had worked. It seemed something had opened, though he didn't know where.

After all, trying things head-on is always the best. Smiling with satisfaction, he turned his head back.

"It seems to have opened. Let's go."

The passage that appeared after the dust settled was, ridiculously, a stairway leading underground right in the center between the two forks. It meant that whichever fork they had taken, right or left, would have been in vain. Come to think of it, hadn't this cave been said to be a path leading west?

"I wonder how dumbfounded the person who made this quest would be if they saw that just now... The path just opened so easily with one big bang!"

As Kapros was thinking about various things while going down, he turned back, concerned about Kran following him and muttering in a deflated tone.

"...So what?"

Complaints up front, consequences on your own. As Kapros quietly conveyed that meaning, Kran fell silent and then shook his head desperately.

"Yes! Thank you so much, Kap! You really are MIST's best mage! Who else could have opened the path in one go!"

Kapros couldn't even get angry at the handsome guy acting so cute. He chuckled, unable to help it, and Kran soon grinned sheepishly while scratching his head. Yu-wan, who was walking ahead of Kapros, turned back for a moment and smiled faintly. Perhaps Yu-wan also knew that Kran was someone who was hard to dislike no matter what he did.

"This is..."

After descending the stairs for a while in silence, feeling along the walls in the darkness, Kapros almost bumped into Yu-wan who had stopped in front of him. He looked up.

"Why?"

"...No. It seems like it will end soon if we go a little further."

Although Kapros didn't know how Yu-wan could tell when there was no light visible, true to his words, the narrow, dark stairway passage ended not long after.

"Haa... Haa..."

Is it finally the end...

As soon as they came out into an open space where visibility was faintly improving, Kapros took a deep breath and looked around. The next moment, he couldn't help but gape at the sight before him.

"This is..."

Yu-wan also stood as if frozen.

"What, why are you... Gasp..."

Kran, who was coming out behind them, rubbed his eyes and then his mouth fell open.

What unfolded before their eyes was a world so vast it was hard to believe it was underground. Somehow, despite being underground, it felt like they could breathe freely. The ceiling, which was clearly closed like a cave and thus dark, was so high and wide that its end seemed invisible.

The peculiar thing was that all the ground was as white as limestone, no, even whiter than limestone. Perhaps because of this, it felt bright despite the lack of light, but the all-white world also gave a somewhat eerie feeling.

All that existed here was a rocky canyon split into a V-shape with a deep, deep cliff in between. The distance between them was so great that the other side was barely visible. The white, gloomy land where no monsters or anything else could be seen stimulated a chilling sensation the more they looked at it.

After looking around the underground world for a long time, they all let out a small sigh almost simultaneously.

"This place is..."

Just as Kapros was quietly looking around and speaking softly, a bright golden light suddenly burst out from behind them.

"Oh..."

"What's that?"