Chapter 53
After parking my dear Storm-rei somewhere suitable—it couldn't be reverse-summoned due to mana overflow—I immediately entered the Floating Island.
"Roman, aren't we rushing too much?"
"What's wrong with that!? I like this decisiveness!"
Despite Leaf and Rei's contrasting opinions, I gave no answer.
My mind was full of the name of their leader that we'd just heard from Sean.
Jan Wasik.
Those three familiar syllables fueled my anxiety.
Even I, who went by Roman Sun, was not using my exact real name.
It was an arranged version that had been somewhat localized to fit this world's unfamiliar pronunciation.
Could that name be the same?
Could Jan Wasik originate from An Bong-sik?
"Roman... hey, Roman!"
"Ah, yes?"
"Are you listening?"
"Um... no. I didn't hear."
I was excited right now.
Perhaps more than ever since falling into this world.
No, maybe not.
Not just in this world, but throughout my life, my heart beat most violently when I summoned Lady Seir.
Both when it felt like stopping and when it felt like bursting.
[Hmm, ahem. T-that is only natural, of course.]
Ah, thinking about Lady Seir must have naturally opened the connection.
Lady Lerajie peeked out alongside her.
[Must be your eyes. So blue they sometimes startle even me. Honestly, some summoners have had cardiac arrest just looking at them, right?]
[Hmm~ You jelly?]
[What?]
[More importantly, Pact-bearer, stay calm. Dimensional transfer is not such a common occurrence. Rather, your existence itself is like a miracle—]
"I know."
For the first time ever, I interrupted Lady Seir.
"I know that."
Yes. I know.
This expectation is just a vain hope, something I desperately want to believe.
But can a man not hold out hope?
How can I not wish for the existence of someone in the same situation as me?
"Above all, if it happened once... there's no guarantee it couldn't happen again."
Holding onto this thread of belief, I entered the Floating Island's underground.
"Seems there are no guards? That guy wasn't lying."
At the entrance, there were clear signs of human tampering.
Rei was already there, looking around.
With the exception of when I was using Blink, Rei’s speed with just physical enhancement was twice that of my own.
Though I started first, she'd caught up long ago.
"Inside?"
"Nothing. Seems they've gone completely inside."
The ruin's interior.
The darkness spread like some creature's maw, with all torches and luminous stones seemingly removed from behind.
"Leaf, light please."
"Yes...!"
Leaf cast Light Emission while holding her staff close to her chest.
As visibility improved, we stepped forward.
"Roman, stay back."
But Rei immediately stopped me.
She would take point.
Vanguard was her role.
Rei's cold silver-gray eyes insisted on this.
"Alright. I'm counting on you."
As I stepped back to let Rei lead, she took a large stride with her legs—well, proportioned large compared to her small stature.
The interior was surprisingly clean.
There were few traces of monsters or damage from grave robbing.
The only sign of previous visitors was slight digging in the walls where torches had likely been placed.
"I thought it would be ransacked."
"Because it's underground."
Reckless searching could cause a collapse—that would be catastrophic.
"The structure seems familiar somehow."
Leaf spoke from behind, "The structure?"
"Yes. I think this might be a tomb."
A tomb?
Now that she mentions it, the structure is different from typical ruins.
A straight corridor.
Even simpler than the laboratory I visited before, let alone a dungeon.
Ruins usually had monsters, but even those were absent.
Those ahead might have cleared them, but there should be battle traces if so.
"It is strange."
"I think Rei and Roman missed it because you were rushing, but there was something like a gravestone at the entrance."
"Does a tomb this big make sense?"
With her keen hearing, Rei asked despite being some distance ahead.
"Aren't tombs about this big?"
Rei turned to face us, making a rough-sized gesture with her hands.
Drawing a circular shape about the size of her torso.
"Are you only thinking of gravestones?"
"Gravestones? What's that?"
Rei blinked blankly, giving me an “I don't know anything” look.
"...You don't know?"
"We practice sky burial."
As my heightened expectations cooled at this ignorance, Ray answered proudly, "That explains why you wouldn't know."
Sky burial—cremating bodies and scattering ashes to the wind, or leaving corpses in fields to return to nature—needed no tomb.
Apparently, most Beast-folk conducted sky burials.
"How interesting. We only practice tree burial."
"Tree burial? First, I've heard of it."
"Really?"
Leaf seemed quite surprised.
Is my ignorance really that amazing?
Seemingly quite pleased to teach me, Leaf explained with a humming tone, "We cremate the body and bury the remains under a tree. Sometimes we bury the body whole."
"Really?"
Just a difference in location—under a tree.
"But Leaf."
"Do you have more questions?"
"If Elves use tree burial, wouldn't graves just be shallow holes under trees? How did you recognize this?"
"H-huh? Ah... w-well, that..."
Leaf, flustered, stammered as if she was someone who had been caught stealing. Rei's hand signal saved her.
She waved an open palm lightly, then raised her index and middle fingers.
Instantly, Leaf dispelled Light Emission.
Darkness filled the space as light vanished.
Reading the mana-infused hand signals through magic vision.
Enemies. Two.
Confirmed.
We held our breath.
Even lowering our defensive magic to avoid detection.
The enemies hadn't noticed us yet.
If they had, Rei's beast radar would have alerted us.
Let's ambush.
How?
To Rei's question, I pointed at Leaf and showed Axis.
I'd Blink with Leaf.
Then, send one enemy flying with an ultra-high-pressure water cannon.
Our team's #1 tactic has always worked since the Abyss Worshiper training center raid.
Leaf and I moved as a set, drawing attention, and then Rei pierced through like a needle, finishing with Argentooth's defense penetration.
An absolutely winning strategy.
Once decided, we move immediately.
Deploy Axis.
The moment the spreading mana forms spatial coordinates, I jump through space with Leaf.
Pop—!
"Huh?"
"What?"
If we detected our enemies first, our initial attack never missed.
Crossing space to strike from an unimaginable blind spot, Leaf's instant spirit magic pierced the enemy without delay.
SPLASH!!
The gushing ultra-high-pressure Water Jet instantly pierced through one body.
Before the spurting blood could hit the floor, silver fangs flashed behind the turning enemy.
SLASH—! CRACK!
Argentooth tore through the reflexively deployed defensive magic in one strike.
Rei's fist, precisely striking the ribs, made a chilling bone-breaking sound.
Several ribs must have broken from that sound.
"Kuhk... huk...!"
Rei's hand covered the mouth of the enemy who could only wheeze, perhaps from broken ribs piercing their lungs.
"Shhhhh."
Will that even work? It seems like punctured lungs.
"No. I hit hard enough to break bones but not pierce organs. They're just winded."
People really did learn from experience.
The first few times she'd miscalculated her strength and killed them, but now, Rei showed such precise control.
"Are the others inside?"
The person in Rei's grip nodded at my question.
Their eyes were completely unfocused, seeming unsure if this was reality or a dream.
The instantaneous battle and choking pain acted as a truth serum.
"Don't kill them."
Thud—
Clean knockout.
Like some pressure point technique, one tap and they smoothly lost consciousness.
"Planning to use them as hostages?"
"For now."
I don't know if it'll work, but it’s worth a shot.
We could also use them as a meat shield in a pinch.
We move forward using the captured person as a guide.
The enemies probably detected our intrusion from the mana waves of the recent battle.
Preparing for contingencies, we entered the room at the corridor's end.
And a man was staring at us as if he'd been waiting.
I narrowed my eyes and observed him carefully.
Hoping my expectations were right.
But no matter how I looked, the man's features resembled this world's people more than mine.
"Good work getting here."
The man said, "Now, leave."
Clank.
BOOM—!
The moment the man touched something, the floor collapsed.
§
Jan Wasik clicked his tongue rather than rejoicing at seeing Roman's group fall into the floor trap at the entrance.
Were his men taken down by people who couldn't even spot such a simple trap?
And four of them at that?
What a pathetic bunch of subordinates.
"Hey," As if to prove Jan Wasik's judgment premature, a casual voice spoke.
Moreover, it came not from the trap, but from behind him.
Feeling cold sweat run down his spine, Jan Wasik instantly kicked off the ground to distance himself from the voice's source.
An instinctive evasive maneuver upon detecting the unknown.
He prepared for pursuit, but there was no need.
The one who'd taken position behind him merely applauded his evasion.
An unfamiliar rhythm of clapping.
A Minstrel?
As Jan Wasik rotated his mana, deploying defensive magic against an incoming attack.
The person responsible for the unsettling applause spoke as if interrogating him.
"You don’t know that beat? Not Korean, I guess. UN, Olympics, World Cup... do you know those?"
Jan Wasik was confused.
He couldn't understand any of these words.
Like the earlier clapping, he wondered if they were magic incantations, but the tone suggested otherwise.
"Haa... Bong-sik."
"...What?"
"Bong-sik is your name."
"Nonsense. My name is Jan. Wasik is my surname."
While responding casually, Jan Wasik raised his magic vision to the maximum to analyze his opponent and assess the reaction.
What magic had instantly taken position behind him?
Acceleration magic enabling ultra-high-speed movement?
Or had he been deceived by illusion magic from the start?
However, because Wasik's answer extinguished even the faint ember of hope that had remained...
Roman felt no need to continue the conversation.
Roman adjusted his grip on Axis.
If he wasn't from Earth like himself, there was no need to show mercy.
"You've disappointed me."