Chapter 40
Bang!!!
The force that burst from the tip of Fila's staff swallowed the pack of orcs blocking the forest path.
The shock wave from the explosion tore into the ground, sending dust flying in every direction.
The battle was over just like that.
The surviving orcs fled like wolves with their tails tucked between their legs.
"Then we won't be able to get any materials or proof of subjugation. Are you really sure that's okay?"
"It doesn't matter."
It was customary to take an ear as proof that an orc had been defeated, but the explosion had blown them away, and even if we found them, they wouldn't be intact.
"We didn't come all this way just to obtain a few orc materials. More importantly, you're incredible."
I applauded.
My praise of the power of Fila's magic was somewhat contrived.
"That was a First-Circle spell, wasn't it? Its power was at least two Circles above that of other magic. Even compared with attack-specialized fire magic, it seems to be one Circle stronger."
"I-it's too powerful to use for research, though. Hehe."
Fila grew bashful at the praise.
"I don't understand why no one wanted to learn something this good."
"It couldn't be used to obtain materials, avoid friendly fire, or for research... Where in the world could anyone use magic this destructive?"
"There should be plenty of places, if you look for them."
By Earth's standards, anyone could first imagine using explosion magic against the walls of a hostile territory.
Just as the advent of cannons caused walls to decline, explosion magic was the equivalent of a cannon.
But this was a world ruled by monsters, where monsters were resources.
Human territories in this world were scattered sparsely, like isolated dots. It was rare for lords to be hostile toward one another.
Monsters respawned every month.
Boss monsters grew stronger every month.
If a neighboring territory fell, there would be less help available to deal with an excessively strengthened boss monster.
Events commonly known as raid monsters were resolved with multiple territories participating, so even one territory dropping out was fatal.
Explosion magic seemed to be undervalued in this political climate because it was especially useful in war.
"For example?"
"Raid battles or monster waves?"
"One is a calamity that comes only once every few decades, and the other is an anomaly that occurs only occasionally in large dungeons. Reator is famous for being a peaceful territory, so it seems to have no connection to either."
"Is that what you think?"
"Why would no one learn it? They don't learn it because it's useless."
But that would soon change.
I shrugged and continued down the remaining path.
***
"This place..."
Fila stopped and looked around, then lowered her gaze to the ground.
A broken stone tile was half-buried in the dirt. The pattern carved into it had been blurred by weathering, but it was evidence that people had once lived here.
Somewhere deep in a forest untouched by human feet.
I had roughly inferred its location from the shape of the mountains and river, but I had found my way here without getting lost.
Fila's eyes narrowed as she examined the man-made object from every angle, then reached a conclusion.
"This is an ancient shrine."
An ancient shrine.
A temple dedicated to the gods worshiped by an ancient civilization.
A place whose discovery alone would horrify a lord, make nobles tremble, and send knights rushing over.
'And a place where you can obtain an item that increases the number of potions in the game.'
Fila tapped the stone floor with her staff.
Then she moved farther inside the ancient shrine.
"Eck, I think there's something over there!"
Fila pointed farther inside.
An altar, which appeared to be at the center of the ancient shrine, was tangled in thick vines.
"Fila."
"Then I'll burn them away right now."
Fila rolled up her sleeves, held her staff upright, and closed her eyes.
She gathered mana to cast fire magic and recited the spell.
"Ignite!"
A ripple of mana released from the staff reached the vines and kindled a small spark.
Fwoosh.
The tiny flame began to burn the vines, and Fila poured mana into the staff until they caught fire completely.
Magic not inscribed as a Seed required considerable concentration.
Fwoosh!
The flames clinging to the vines burned away the vines covering the altar.
After a while, the flames died down. When we brushed away the remnants of the vines, the altar revealed its true form.
I placed both hands on the altar, which had been carved from a thick rock into a rectangular block and laid on its side.
I pushed.
The heavy stone slab scraped across the dirt and grass as it moved.
A staircase appeared beneath the altar.
The staircase, where darkness had pooled, curved slightly downward, and its end was nowhere in sight.
"Eck, this..."
"We're lucky."
I pretended not to know.
"It seems to be an ancient shrine no one has ever touched."
"Th-then are there relics inside?"
I nodded.
"This is my first time seeing a relic excavated. I never even imagined something like this. My heart is pounding so hard. Would you like to touch it?"
"...."
"Ah. I'm sorry."
She looked so happy that bringing her here felt worthwhile.
But when we went down the stairs, a wall blocked the entrance.
"That's a barrier."
The wall was surrounded by a barrier.
Fila muttered as she pointed the tip of her staff at the barrier wall. The mana gathered at the tip shone as it analyzed the barrier's mana.
But as the glow of mana faded, the staff fell back into her arms.
"I-I don't think I can do it. It's a completely different system from the magic I use. Is this white magic? To open it, we'd have to break it directly or find a medium that could serve as a key."
That was why some of the ancient shrines that had been discovered were still preserved instead of looted.
I took a small pouch from inside my clothes.
"Try using this."
"What's this?"
"Adventurers are people who prepare. I've prepared this for exactly this kind of situation."
"How did you know a situation like this would come up?"
Fila sniffed at the scent coming from the pouch, twitching her nose.
With the staff and pouch held out before her, she raised mana and read the structure of the barrier.
The pouch glowed, and light enveloped the scent rising from it.
The barrier covered in the scent vanished like snow melting.
When I pushed the ordinary wall, the stone slab toppled backward with a clunk.
"Hehehe."
Fila pushed up her glasses and looked at the entrance to the ancient shrine's now-open treasure room.
"It's open."
The ancient shrine's seal had been undone.
***
The stairs were dark, cold, and dry.
As I descended the spiral staircase at the front of the group, I stopped before reaching the underground chamber and turned to Fila.
"There should be a guardian's chamber ahead."
"There will be a guardian protecting the relic, then?"
"We'll have to fight the moment we enter."
I explained several tactics to Fila.
"Do you understand?"
"Won't it be dangerous?"
"Can't you do it?"
"I-I'll try."
At the bottom of the stairs, a broad chamber opened up before us, and the room lit the torches with blue flames upon recognizing the intruder.
As the underground chamber brightened, its interior was revealed.
There was a single stone door on the far wall.
Two stone statues stood on either side of it.
The statue shook off the dust piled on its shoulders, extended one leg, and took its first step.
Guardian.
A female-form knight statue with a sturdy build held a sword and shield and turned its back to the stone door.
The remaining one woke a moment later and approached me.
"Now."
At that moment.
An explosion erupted beneath the guardians' feet.
Boom!!
The ground cracked and surged upward for an instant, making the guardians lose their footing.
I didn't miss the moment when one of the guardians staggered and lost its balance.
I leaped at the guardian, raising the blade of the magic sword Vitalia.
I slipped into the staggering guardian's guard and cut where mana flowed weakly.
Vitalia's blade smoothly pierced its stone skin,
and the statue's leg went flying.
Vitalia swallowed the mana used to reinforce its durability and gave me more mana in return.
Just then, a stone sword came flying at me.
The remaining statue wielded its sword with practiced skill.
Clang!!
The mana coating the stone sword was siphoned away by Vitalia, but my counterattack was blocked.
Clang!! Ka-clang!!
The stance for swinging the sword and the handling of the blade.
It made predetermined movements at predetermined moments.
Elena had recognized that fact at a glance in the story, but my eyes hadn't reached that level.
I merely followed the path Elena had once taken as a player: I learned the statue's movements, eventually predicting them, and caught, knocked aside, and countered the stone sword.
'At this rate, am I about three times Elena's level?'
Compared with Elena's stats at the point she reached this place in the game, it felt like I could take down the statue three times faster.
I went through the differences between the Elena in the game and me one by one.
But I wasn't the one who killed the statue.
"Done!"
I pulled back to avoid the stone sword, and a magic circle passed beneath my feet.
Just as the statue approached with its shield raised, it stepped onto the magic circle.
"Explode!"
With Fila's shout, the magic circle beneath the statue's feet lit up, and an explosion erupted from below the ground.
A pillar of earth shot fiercely upward and struck the ceiling, shattering the statue caught between them from its left arm and left leg to the section between its waist and shoulder.
"I did it. I did it!"
Fila trembled as she stared at the shattered statue.
"I-I helped in the fight, right? I defeated a guardian with my magic!"
"Yes. Thanks to you, it went smoothly."
I tucked the magic sword into my belt and pointed at the remaining statue.
Fila used explosion magic on the remaining statue as well, and the blast that surged from the ground shattered it to pieces.
"If you set the explosion point below the ground, the blast is concentrated toward the relatively weaker surface, so you can destroy a guardian with less power..."
Fila muttered to herself, going over what she had just done.
I turned toward the stone door.
When I pushed against the stone door, Fila came up beside me and pushed along with me.
It shifted slightly, and air from the inner chamber pushed out through the gap. Fila and I coughed repeatedly after inhaling dust.
We entered the treasure room through a gap just wide enough for one person.
Blue torches lit the treasure room, driving back the darkness.
There was a stone treasure chest.
"That must be the relic chest."
I opened the lid.
I pushed the thick stone lid aside, and it fell beside the stone chest.
The moment the stone lid opened, Fila's eyes widened in surprise. I also felt the pressure of the power emanating from the relic against my skin.
There were three relics.
I took them out one by one.
I picked up the largest one, a mace, and handed it to Fila.
A mace imbued with the power of an ancient god.
It produced power proportional to the amount of mana it contained.
It possessed the power to strike mana directly.
"Huh?"
"Take it."
The eyes behind her glasses wavered.
"But I didn't do anything."
"We opened the barrier thanks to you, didn't we? And the explosion magic you showed me was truly amazing."
I spoke honestly.
"Even though using explosion magic means we can't recover any materials?"
"Materials from mere wolves and orcs are unnecessary for an advanced adventurer like me. It will be extremely effective against monsters that can withstand explosion magic. You destroyed a guardian in one blow, didn't you?"
Even though this was an early dungeon, a boss monster with an absurd amount of HP had died in one blow.
The power explosion magic offered was something one saw in the late game, or the mid-to-late game at the earliest. Because it was an unconventional school of magic, explosion magic had become Fila's unique specialty over the past few years.
"Even though you might get caught in it?"
"Every spell carries the risk of hitting allies. If we coordinate beforehand and you give the right signals, it won't be a problem for someone as skilled as you."
I said firmly.
"Friendly fire? That's nothing but slander heaped on by incompetent bastards who only know how to blame others to hide their own incompetence."
I patted Fila on the shoulder.
I grasped her slender, trembling shoulder.
"The point is that it depends on how you use it. You can learn it step by step from now on. I can help you through that process."
"Was my magic useful?"
"...."
I handed the mace back to her.
Fila's lips trembled.
She hugged the mace tightly to her chest.
"Th-thank you."
Her voice was choked with tears.
She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
"No one has ever said that to me. That explosion magic was amazing. That it was useful. I've never felt this moved before."
Fila gripped the mace and sent mana through it.
There was no trace of the cringing demeanor she had shown earlier on her face as she felt the power emanating from the mace.
"Eck."
"Yes."
"I-I'll definitely be of help. I don't know what you're planning, but I... I want to help you, Eck."
I nodded.
"I look forward to it."