Chapter 4
This black mist… Is it mana? I can definitely sense mana, but it feels… different.
Could this be some kind of corrupted mana? I have a bad feeling about this. First, I need to get everyone away from the Gate…
At that moment, the black mist that had been slowly drifting out suddenly burst forth, engulfing the people around the Gate.
Naturally, that included me.
The black mist suddenly thickened. I hurriedly covered my nose and mouth with my sleeve and shut my eyes, feeling the concentration of mana against my skin grow denser by the second.
Unlike Earth, where there wasn’t the slightest trace of mana, I was now surrounded by mana so dense I could sense it clearly.
I reinforced my senses with mana, then clicked my tongue to make a small sound.
A faint echo spread out, and my extremely enhanced senses caught it as it bounced back from the surroundings.
The high humidity clung to my skin. And a musty, unpleasant stench stung my nose.
The moment I made out a cramped cave without a single speck of light, a sense of déjà vu I’d long forgotten came creeping back into my mind.
“Tsk…. To think I’d end up here again.”
Back when I was a novice adventurer, this place had been filthy and tedious, and barely made any money. It was a textbook goblin nest.
I’d come here a few times for quests, but after raising my rank, I’d never set foot here again… And now I’d been swept here by the black mist from that Gate.
Still, at least the situation wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.
A goblin nest shouldn’t be much of a problem as long as I avoided the primitive traps and the goblins living inside.
So.
“First, let’s find the exit.”
I still had no idea what that pitch-black Gate was, but if it served the same purpose as the Gates that often appeared in web novels, then getting out of this goblin nest should take me back outside the Gate.
I turned on my smartphone’s flashlight, illuminating the dark cave as I looked around.
It was a typical naturally formed cave. The humidity was oddly high, as though there was water flowing or pooling somewhere deeper inside.
Let’s see. The airflow is coming from… this way?
I read the current of air against my skin and started walking in the direction it was coming from.
There were several things to watch out for in a goblin nest, and to list them one by one…
The primitive traps the goblins had set.
Goblins lurking in empty spaces along the passageways, waiting to attack intruders.
And the environment of the nest itself.
Goblins were inclined to build their nests in cramped caves, and since such caves were usually formed by groundwater, they tended to be humid.
And because goblins could see well in the dark, caves without a single source of light… weren’t exactly ideal places to walk around.
The rocks were slick with moisture, and the lighting was terrible. It was a miserable environment.
Back when I was an adventurer, I’d come in wearing boots with spiked soles and carrying a long-burning torch—or, if I had a little money, a mana-stone-powered lantern… But even after coming a few times, I’d gotten sick of it and stopped coming.
How expensive could a goblin’s mana stone be, anyway? Unless you were a beginner adventurer, it was barely worth pocket change… It was more profitable to rank up quickly and hunt other monsters than to raid goblin nests for money.
There were occasionally adventurers who held a grudge against goblins and hunted nothing but them… But those adventurers were oddballs.
Anyway, between that loathsome environment and all the traps goblins laid everywhere… this was a dungeon I never wanted to visit again.
Ahem. I’d gotten carried away reminiscing about the old days. Anyway, I continued in the direction I thought the exit lay.
I couldn’t sense any goblins, but here and there I spotted sharpened branches and pointed shards of stone broken off from larger rocks.
Primitive traps that would do little more than leave a mark on the sole of a sturdy boot with a metal plate in it. Goblin traps.
Whenever I spotted one, I pulled it out and tossed it into a corner, then continued toward the exit.
I walked on for about a minute.
“Ugh….”
I heard a human voice. It was probably someone else who’d been caught in the black mist that came out of the Gate with me.
Hmm. I couldn’t hear the goblins’ distinctive rough breathing, so there probably weren’t any nearby… It should be all right to speak to them.
“Is anyone there?”
“Who is it?!”
“I’m a person. I got caught in some pitch-black mist, and ended up here.”
At my words, the owner of the voice seemed to relax, and replied in a drained voice.
“Ah, ah… I’m sorry. I was a little taken aback to suddenly find myself inside some strange cave.”
I cautiously headed in the direction of the voice, where I found a middle-aged man sitting on the ground.
His forehead was slightly cut and bleeding, and a fair amount of blood was coming from his left sneaker, too. It looked like he’d stepped on one of the goblin traps, injured his foot, and fallen, cutting his forehead in the process.
“Are you all right?”
“I stepped on a sharp piece of stone and hurt the sole of my foot, then fell. It was so dark I couldn’t see a thing….”
Hmm. If he’d been young, he probably would’ve used his smartphone’s flashlight to light the way, but it seemed he didn’t know about that feature.
“I’ll help you. Let’s head for the exit.”
“You? A student? I appreciate the thought, but it must be pretty hard…?”
“It’s okay. I’m stronger than I look.”
It was actually strength boosted with mana, though.
I firmly draped the bleeding middle-aged man’s left arm over my shoulder.
Ah, this padded jacket was a gift from Mom. She’d definitely give me an earful if it got blood on it.
I wrapped my right arm around his waist, taking care to keep as much of his blood as possible off my clothes.
Without reinforcing my strength with mana, this frail schoolgirl’s body wouldn’t have been up to carrying him.
“You’re surprisingly strong for such a young student. Do you exercise?”
“Ahaha. I’m just a little stronger than most. The exit should be that way. The air’s coming from there. Oh, could you use my smartphone to light up the cave?”
I handed the middle-aged man my smartphone with the flashlight on, then supported him as we walked.
As we made our way toward the exit…
“Thank goodness! It’s a person!”
Three more survivors joined us as we made our way through the dark cave toward the exit.
“The exit is that way. Follow me.”
“Miss, let me take over supporting him.”
The young man held out a hand toward the middle-aged man with the injured leg, but I shook my head.
“It’s okay. He’s not that heavy. Let’s keep our voices down and hurry.”
“Where the hell are we? Is this like the Gates you see in web novels?”
I gave the young man’s trembling question a vague answer.
“Who knows? Whatever it is, it doesn’t seem like a place we should stay long. Let’s hurry.”
They looked a little uneasy, but it was better to head for the exit than wait in this cave for a rescue team to arrive.
“Are you sure there’s an exit this way, miss?”
One middle-aged woman seemed a little anxious.
“There’s a faint breeze coming from this way. At least, this should be the direction out.”
“Is that so…? I can’t really tell….”
“If you can’t tell, just trust her. Don’t make everyone nervous for no reason.”
At the middle-aged man’s scolding, the woman quietly started following us.
After going on for about five more minutes…
“What’s that…?”
Something oval and dark had settled near what looked like the cave’s exit.
Beyond it, I could see the outdoors, sunlit… but…
“We came in through that when we entered, so I guess we should go back out through it…?”
“Is that really a Gate…?”
“W-we’re outside!!”
The woman ran toward the Gate first and jumped through it, and the others followed her out through the Gate.
I supported the middle-aged man and cautiously approached the Gate.
“When that pitch-black mist suddenly swallowed us, I thought we were as good as dead. Thanks to you, we made it out safely. Thank you, miss.”
“You’re welcome. It was the least I could do.”
I hadn’t lost so much of my humanity that I could abandon an injured person.
And so, the middle-aged man and I passed through the Gate and made it outside.
“Survivor! Another survivor!”
“He’s injured! His foot’s hurt! Someone call 911!”
Before long, paramedics rushed over and gave emergency treatment to the middle-aged man’s injured foot.
“Miss, if you don’t mind, could I get your contact information? I’d really like to repay you.”
“No. I didn’t do anything special. Please get to a hospital right away.”
“But….”
“It’s really all right. Take care.”
And with that, the middle-aged man was loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital.
Now then…
“Let’s see….”
I wanted nothing more than to go straight home, but unfortunately, I couldn’t.
The Gate was still open, and I hadn’t encountered a single goblin while making my way out of the goblin nest.
I didn’t know why that Gate was still open… but there was a chance someone who hadn’t crossed paths with us on the way to the exit was still inside.
Anyone who couldn’t read the airflow like I could and figure out where the exit was would get lost in the goblin nest’s tangled passages, and then they’d run into goblins.
No matter how weak goblins were—the weakest monsters there were, and creatures you could kill by kicking them hard enough to break their necks—that was only true of people from the other world.
Here on Earth, in South Korea, there couldn’t be many people capable of killing a creature that threatened them… especially a small humanoid monster.
I headed for the convenience store inside the terminal.