Chapter 38

“Yeah. It’s a straight shot from here.”

The morning after my encounter with Brad, Eni and I stood before a one-way wall.

“I can see that. It’s a one-way straightaway, isn’t it?”

Beyond the transparent one-way wall, a single path stretched forward, interrupted by another one-way wall, and another beyond that… a seemingly endless cycle of straight paths and one-way barriers.

“Exactly. This is basically the main attraction of the Ancient Stone Castle. It’s the final stretch before the deepest level. Experienced adventurers walk through here like it’s nothing, but we’re going to sprint.”

“Wait, is there something there?”

“It’s a monster festival. Even for a veteran, passing through here alone is a bit of a nightmare.”

Eni began her preparations, pulling various jars and pouches from her clothes.

“A monster festival, huh… but in our case, it’s two people, not one.”

“Hmm, I’d count you as maybe half an experienced adventurer. You don’t have the mileage. So, technically, it’s 1.5 people.”

“…Oh, is that so?”

I drew my sword. I didn’t have much confidence in my swordsmanship, but now wasn’t the time for excuses.

I readied my physical reinforcement magic as well.

Let them come.

“Alright then, let’s go. Once we dive through here, we’re at the goal. We’ll be officially cleared for the main event, but…”

Eni bounced on the balls of her feet, giving me a quick side-glance.

“I can make it to the end by myself if I have to. If things get dangerous, get out of here immediately. I don’t have the luxury of worrying about dead weight.”

She seemed to be worried about me in her own way.

“Thanks.”

Being the honest type, I gave her a simple word of thanks.

“Wh—Haah?! Why are you saying ‘thanks’ there? I don’t get you at all!”

Eni looked away, clearly flustered.

“Fine, let’s go! One, two, three!”

As if to hide her embarrassment, she shouted the count and leaped through the one-way wall.

I dashed forward at the same time, activating my physical reinforcement.

“Whoa!”

The moment I passed through the wall, monsters suddenly swarmed the narrow passage. It wasn’t just ten or twenty; the cramped corridor was absolutely overflowing with them.

“We’re pushing through!”

Without stopping, Eni hurled a glass jar as she charged into the middle of the pack.

An explosion erupted at the center of the swarm, blowing the monsters aside. They weren’t all dead, but killing them wasn’t the goal. We just needed to clear a path forward.

Eni ran through the gap created by the blast. Monsters swarmed back in almost instantly, but she kept throwing pouches and jars. Every time she did, explosions or high-intensity flames ravaged the creatures.

Still, monsters with fire resistance or those lucky enough to dodge Eni’s attacks lunged at us.

I swung my sword, aiming specifically for them. I didn’t need to kill them; I just needed to make them flinch.

For the monsters out of my sword’s reach, I used wind magic to blow them back. Of course, even for someone like me, I couldn’t kill monsters with improvised magic alone. It was more about the sensation of pushing. Using the air to shove them, keeping as much distance between us and the monsters as possible.

“That helps,” Eni muttered as she passed through the next wall.

More monsters. More jars and pouches being thrown. I swung my sword and unleashed my magic.

We repeated the process over and over.

Slowly losing her composure, Eni began triggering explosions at dangerously close range. Her hair and skin started to show signs of singing.

The movements of my arms, desperately swinging my sword, began to grow sluggish. It seemed I had overtaxed them with the reinforcement magic. My swings grew wild, and monsters I failed to finish off began clawing at us.

“Dammit!”

Still, we couldn’t stop.

I blew them back with wind magic, but the precision of my spells was slipping. Monster fangs, claws, and weapons tore into our skin.

A sharp pain flared. I ran on, grateful that I hadn’t sustained any deep, fatal wounds yet.

“Just a little further!”

Even in this desperate situation, Eni’s expression showed no signs of panic.

This was an intermediate-level dungeon? Was it possible that for real adventurers, a situation like this didn’t even count as a crisis? I didn’t like the sound of that; my desire to participate in the main event was vanishing by the second. This was way beyond just being “a bit tough.”

As these thoughts crossed my mind, I reinforced my legs to their absolute limit, moving them so hard it felt like the muscles in my thighs would tear apart.

Beyond the swarm of monsters, I saw an open area. It was past the final one-way wall. That was the goal.

“Hyup!”

Eni threw a jar filled with liquid, triggering another explosion.

“From here on, we’re forcing our way through!”

It was the final sprint.

“Eni!”

I threw my sword at a monkey-like monster lunging toward us. Without even checking if it hit, I scooped Eni up with my free arm.

“Kyu?!”

Eni let out a strange squeak.

I didn’t care what happened to me after this.

With that resolve, I reinforced my entire body to the breaking point and sprinted.

“Ghu… gh… egh…”

My lungs felt like they were being crushed. Strange noises escaped the back of my throat. It felt like my entire body was about to fly apart.

Still, I ran with everything I had. It was just a little further.

“Wait, hey—!”

Eni tried to complain.

Shut up. If we’re forcing our way through, this is the better way to do it.

I wove through the monsters, sprinting through the gaps in their formation that had been broken by the explosions.

My whole body screamed in pain. I was probably covered in wounds.

“Guh… ah… aaah!”

My vision flickered and sparked. In the midst of that light, I slid through the final one-way wall.

Instantly, the presence of the monsters vanished into the distance.

We’d done it. This place was just like the camps—monsters didn’t spawn here, and they couldn’t get in.

“Alright…”

I muttered under my breath, but I couldn’t stop my momentum immediately. I kept running, and though my legs were still moving, my consciousness began to drift away.

As I lost my balance, the last things I saw were Eni’s panicked face as she landed on the ground and a group of people looking at the two of us with exasperated expressions.

There was Jin, Brad, a woman clad in pure white, and—ah, Kijiitsu was there too. Even that man in the kinagashi.

With those scattered thoughts, I lost consciousness the moment I hit the floor.

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was Eni peering down at me with a worried look.

Realizing I was lying on the ground, I scrambled to sit up in a hurry.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Eni muttered, her expression instantly shifting back to her usual look of exasperation.

“Where… am I?”

I was confused.

It looked like the hall we had slid into right before I passed out, but the agonizing pain that had racked my entire body was gone. Not only that, I didn’t have a single scratch on me.

Seeing me check over my body, Eni seemed to realize what was confusing me.

“Shirona treated you,” she explained.

“Shirona?”

“Me.”

The one who answered with a short clip was the girl dressed entirely in white. She was hidden beneath a snow-white robe, but even the skin and hair peeking out from it were pure white.

“A Medic.”

As Shirona added the brief clarification, I gave a deep bow.

“Oh, I see. Thank you very much.”

A Medic was essentially the same as a doctor. However, instead of seeing patients in a clinic, they carried their equipment and medicine with them to treat people on-site—particularly on battlefields or inside dungeons.

“I’ve already been compensated.”

Shirona turned her face away with a dismissive flick.

“Compensated?”

“I commissioned her. We couldn’t very well move the conversation forward while you were suffering. Though, goodness… thanks to you being unconscious, we’ve been kept waiting for thirty minutes even though the exam is over.”

The man wearing a wry smile on his refined face was Hunt, the son who had been standing next to Bent back at the manor.

At the word “over,” I looked around.

A handful of men and women were loitering about. Judging by their auras, not a single one of them was ordinary.

“Honestly, you’re an idiot. Doing something that reckless.”

“No, I mean, we were in a tight spot, weren’t we?”

“It wasn’t that much of a tight spot,” Eni said, pulling out several small vials filled with a purple liquid.

“I didn’t use them because they’re expensive, but if I’d used these, I could have turned every one of those monsters into charcoal.”

“Wait, really?”

“Panicking over something like that… as far as adventurers go, you’re as green as they come.”

“Well, I am a rookie, so I can’t help it.”

“That’s no excuse!”

Eni’s fist collided with my head. It didn’t actually hurt that much, though.

“Seriously. Idiot.”

“My bad.”

“…I mean, if you thought we were in that much trouble, why didn’t you just use your Return Stone and get out of there?”

“Because you were there, Eni. I didn’t know if you’d turn back just because I did.”

Knowing her, she probably would have stubbornly charged in alone, and I’d have nightmares if she ended up dying because of it.

“Hah?! You’re a hundred years too early to be worrying about me, you moron!”

“Hey, give the comedy routine a rest, will you?”

Jin spoke up with a smirk.

I turned pale at his words.

“H-Hey, don’t say stuff like that even as a joke. What if Kirio hears you?”

“Huh? Who’s Kirio?”

Eni’s eyes turned sharp.

“Hmm? You dating that person?”

Jin looked equally puzzled.

Crap. I’d really stepped in it now.¹

“That’s enough.”

The sound of hands clapping twice echoed through the hall. It was Hunt, looking weary of the situation.

“Now that Van is awake, let us return. We shall continue this at my family’s manor.”

No sooner had he spoken than Hunt vanished.

Almost simultaneously, everyone else began to disappear as well.

Only Eni and I were left behind.

“Oh… since this place is one-way, there’s no exit, is there?”

I finally voiced that hollow realization.

It was a good thing I hadn’t tried to act cool and push forward without touching a Return Stone. I might have been soft-locked.

“Van.”

“Yeah?”

“Idiot.”

She spat out the insult with a spiteful look, and before I could even shoot back a retort, Eni vanished.

I scratched my head.

Well, I guess I am an idiot.

With no other choice, I let out a solitary sigh.

“Return.”

I chanted the command.