Chapter 18
"What are you doing!? Are you crazy?!"
Rei came running and shouted loudly.
It had been dangerous.
If I'd been a little late, we might have become electric barbecue together.
"It worked out well, didn't it?"
"As if that's the end of it...! Forget it. We'll talk later."
Hmm, that sounded a bit scary.
But as Rei said, now was the time to focus on the reality before us rather than discussing such things.
My sudden intrusion must have raised their guard to the extreme.
"Rei. Can you do it?"
"...If I can just touch him."
"It won't be easy. That guy has seen it too."
Fiona was right.
That guy had seen my Blink, too.
If he had a properly functioning brain, he would surely have prepared defenses against it.
The current lull was the result of that guy needing time as well.
"I'll create an opening."
Arthur, who had approached at some point, said resolutely.
He seemed determined to make up for his earlier mistake.
"It's okay."
But Arthur didn't need to push himself.
There are others who can play that role.
There were three people still watching the situation.
Leaf, Amaia, and the brown-haired guy.
I told them to observe the situation and intervene.
Even if the others didn't, Leaf, who had worked with me before, would understand my plan.
"Fight like before."
"...Understood."
Arthur seemed to sense that I had some plan and immediately agreed.
And he immediately went into order-giving mode.
"Alexandra will handle those summons. Block them with area attacks to prevent them from interfering with us as much as possible. The Grand Duchess and I will be support. We'll assist the instructor at the vanguard and prevent the necromancer from interfering with those two as much as possible."
The brief ceasefire was over.
The necromancer had reorganized his mana and built a new defense system while we had reset our strategy centered around me, the newly added personnel.
Now, it was time to test.
Who would win?
Flames riding the wind raised the curtain on the battle.
Swords and mirrors flew around, blocking and intercepting the necromancer's magic.
Spells ran rampant.
The light created by colliding spells added new colors on top of the flames.
"This isn't easy..."
No openings were visible.
The necromancer's fighting style, which had thoroughly switched to defense-oriented and aiming for counters, seemed to be waiting for us to tire out and collapse first.
And in reality, his strategy was hitting the mark.
"Ugh!"
Our vanguard, Davenport, collapsed, allowing a counterattack.
When the anvil broke, the hammer could no longer find a place to strike.
Now, the right to attack had all but passed to him.
—Or so everyone thought.
Splissssssshhhh-!
As a stream of water gushed from the corner of the cavern, a figure covered in steel fell onto the battlefield.
Boom-!
"Crazy!"
Covering the entire body in black steel?
This was a full-on War Machine.
Clang!!
Amaia filled the gap created by Davenport's collapse.
Blocking the necromancer's curses with a steel shield, she was truly an iron wall.
And the waters that had appeared with the new vanguard moved as if they had a life of their own.
Water streams extending like water snakes wrapped around the necromancer like whips.
"Futile."
But how strong could water be even if it had physical force?
Unless it was a water jet shot at ultra-high pressure.
But what if it isn't water but ice?
"Freeze─!!"
As if pouring all his pent-up frustrations into this one strike.
The brown-haired guy shouted at the top of his lungs, pouring all his mana into a single spell.
An extreme cold field spread across the cavern.
The interior that Alexandra's flames had heated rapidly cooled down.
But the sudden drop in temperature was just the aftermath of the magic.
The brown-haired guy's magic was meant to freeze the water Leaf had summoned.
"Got him!"
"...It's my achievement...!"
Self-promoting even at a time like this.
He certainly had a strong sense of self.
Anyway.
The opportunity had come.
"Go!"
With that shout, Arthur's mana swords circled around the necromancer.
It was like a flock of crows waiting for a corpse.
It was a seal made of swords, ready to intercept immediately if the necromancer tried to deploy magic.
This is like THAAD.
It was reassuring.
With this, we could focus on just one thing.
"I'm going right in front. Don't be surprised."
"Surprised? I trust you."
"Then, here I go."
With my hand on Rei's back.
I moved my mana.
Flash—
As my vision went dark, I once again crossed space.
§
The necromancer, Jegan, vaguely sensed that this operation had failed the moment that Devil Sorcerer appeared.
A mage who could traverse space.
That existence was fatal.
Since the disappearance of gods and the vanishing of mystery from the world, it was one of the three domains still not permitted even now that mystery had returned with the Abyss.
Time, space, and complete creation.
Someone who could freely handle a domain only possible with the power of Abyss relics or legacies from the ancient Age of God's Existence.
He had never heard of such a thing.
Not even among Devil Sorcerers like that mage.
A miscalculation.
Initially, he had assumed up to four meaningful opponents.
Arthur Carlyle, Fiona McManus, Alexandra Rubio, and lastly, Teresia Nachtblumer, who wasn't present.
He could have handled three of them easily, but time had been wasted on that annoying beast-folk.
And now a Spirit Summoner and a Devil Sorcerer had newly intruded.
If he insisted on a head-on confrontation at this point, there was no guarantee he could take even one life for certain.
In that case, there was no choice but to take another path.
Having used spatial movement again, the Devil Sorcerer and beast-folk suddenly appeared before him with a ripple of mana.
Beyond the silver flash approaching to pierce his heart while removing his defense magic, Jegan spoke to those watching him, "Rejoice. Your deaths have been postponed."
§
The first to notice something was off was none other than Roman.
It wasn't because I sensed the flow of mana with a special sense or because I had excellent intuition like Rei.
I noticed it through inductive reasoning based on extremely common sense background knowledge.
A villain who says such things never dies obediently!
"Rei! Quickly...!"
"Corpse Explosion."
The corpses filling the cavern began to swell.
The prelude to an explosion.
Magic was cast to stop it, but it was too late.
Just as Rei's Argentooth touched Jegan.
The explosion filled the cavern.
§
My ears were still ringing.
What a massive explosion it had been.
I was quietly observing those who were assessing the situation and getting things under control around me.
The attackers must have been dealt with; now, we just needed to find an exit, and it would be over.
Just as I was feeling relieved that we could soon go outside—
"We're screwed."
Arthur, who had slumped down next to me, muttered dejectedly.
"What?"
We took care of the necromancer, didn't we?
Now we just need to find a way out of here or wait for a rescue operation from outside, right?
"We're completely isolated."
"Why's that?"
Is there a problem just because the passage is blocked?
Can't we just use magic to break through the ceiling and get out?
"The way out is blocked. The central passage that was the exit collapsed along with it."
As I just tilted my head at Fiona's explanation, Alexandra added, "You don't seem to understand yet. This place had spatial expansion, to begin with. They probably twisted that to cause dungeonization. That necromancer was almost Lich-level. He must have done some preliminary work inside, too."
"So?"
"If we mess with it wrongly, the dungeonized underground floor could go berserk again. Like when those guys messed with it at first."
"In the worst case, the underground floor will crumple and be compressed."
To summarize,
Firstly, the underground floor was already in an unstable state due to Abyss relics.
Secondly, for some reason, it had been dungeonized and was like a powder keg.
Thirdly, the existing passage was blocked by the corpse explosion, so we couldn't get out.
Fourthly, if we messed up, the dungeon could go berserk and crush us.
And lastly, we were screwed.
Is that about it?
We really are screwed.
"Forget food and water, if even the air is blocked off, it's the worst-case scenario."
"Well, we'll have to try breaking through and leave it to luck whether we live or die."
"Let's first check the situation outside. We can see outside with the mirrors we left there. Fortunately, the connection hasn't been cut."
Fiona moved her finger to bring over one of the floating mirrors and manipulated the mana in various ways.
Then, with a flash, the outside scenery appeared in the mirror.
"There was a battle there too."
"Of course. It would be troublesome if the director or instructors helped us."
"Grand Duchess, how far can you show? I'd like to check a bit further out."
"Unfortunately, not very far. In fact, this is just directly above us right now."
While the three who could be called the representatives of the current entrants were exchanging various opinions, my gaze was fixed on one spot.
Fiona's mirror.
The outside view was reflecting.
Lady Seir.
[Yes, my pact-bearer]
Is it possible?
Blink.
The spell borrowing Seir's authority of movement wasn't perfect spatial movement.
There were conditions.
It had to be within my sight.
No matter how much Seir had created the magic's structure, its manifestation was ultimately up to me.
I couldn't move to a place I couldn't perceive.
And although I hadn't confirmed it in detail yet, there must be a distance limit too.
Even if there was plenty of fuel, the output of the hardware that was me had its limits.
However, what if it was moving right above my head?
If I had visually confirmed the destination point, even if indirectly?
[It is possible.]
So it works.
Let's go over the problems from earlier again.
If we messed up, it could become an even bigger problem.
Those three were stuck here.
Then, we just need to get out without messing with it.
I approached the three, who still hadn't found an answer.
Around them, surviving entrants who had come to their own conclusions had gathered.
I declared to them, "There is a way."