The destination, the Magic Tower, lay at a distance that required me to fly all day while carrying Hanna.
And that was after departing from the farm Magic Tower, which was quite far from the mountain range. If we had started from the terraforming ruins, I couldn’t even guess how long it would have taken.
I had to fly while holding Hanna, but my speed didn’t drop much compared to when I flew alone.
On top of that, unlike before, I wasn’t searching in every direction; I kept flying straight in one direction. In terms of distance, it was about as far as crossing the Australian continent.
After Hanna and I spent a day outside, we were able to reach our destination the next morning.
Seen from the sky, a half-destroyed tower stood there, tilted halfway to the side.
I was worried whether the spatial transfer device inside a tower like that would still be intact, but right now, Hanna and I were more interested in something else.
It was the enormous basin that served as the tower’s backdrop, and the tall mountain at the center of that basin.
The tilted Magic Tower that was our destination was half-straddling the outer edge of a basin so absurdly large it was hard to take in.
“It’s an incredibly huge basin.”
“It probably wasn’t a basin before.”
It looked like a basin now, but in the past, it must have been a vast lake.
From the sky like this, the entire lake would have been visible, but from the ground, it would have been an immense lake with a horizon.
And at the center of that lake, the great mountain we could see now would have risen high.
In the past, the snow on that mountaintop must have melted and filled the lake with water, but now that mountain was covered not with white snow, but gray.
Polluted snow that hardly melted.
That lake, too, must have become a polluted mudflat instead of clear water.
[I can’t be certain of the distance, but the place where the Demon King is sealed is over by that mountain.]
Soph said he wasn’t certain, but from here, I could tell right away.
The place where the Demon King was sealed was that mountain covered in gray snow.
It wouldn’t be beyond this wide basin, and there was nothing unusual in the basin except the mountain.
If we got closer, we might see other things, but I didn’t think we were wrong.
I wanted to examine the gray mountain more from here, but I couldn’t.
Because monsters were visible on the outer edge of the basin, around the tower.
Two Akzar monsters running on tentacles.
They were scouts.
The monsters I thought were running toward the tower passed by it and kept sprinting east.
They ran as if the tower wasn’t even in their thoughts.
As if they were fleeing, or as if they had to deliver news as quickly as possible, they ran with everything they had.
Looking behind the monsters, I thought I understood why they were running like that.
If the Demon King really was sealed in that mountain, then they were running to inform the controlled entities of the Demon King’s location.
“We have to stop them. Hold on tight!”
After warning Hanna, I fired shockwaves into the sky.
Together with the shockwaves, we plummeted toward the ground.
Boom.
I couldn’t land as recklessly as when I was alone, but I was still able to block the monsters’ path in time.
However, because I had to consider Hanna’s safety, I couldn’t attack before the monsters did.
Chyaaak!
The two scouts stretched out their tentacles as they charged.
Several strands of tentacles flew toward us as if to pierce through.
This much was easy enough to dodge, so I didn’t even ask Soph for a shield.
But a shield I hadn’t asked for spread around me, and the tentacles struck it and were deflected in every direction.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
I checked the shield that had unfolded, then looked down at Hanna, who was still in my arms.
This shield hadn’t been cast by Soph.
When the shield unfolded, neither my energy nor the black stone’s energy had been used.
In truth, there was no need to check the source of the energy.
The one who had moved dark energy and cast the magic was Hanna.
I let Hanna down and asked,
“Is this the magic you learned from the spirit?”
Before we set out, Hanna had said she’d learned magic from the spirit.
[That is a proper shield. It is not the sort of magic one could learn from a spirit in such a short time.]
I didn’t think I could learn a shield like this in that brief time either, but if not, then it made no sense that Hanna could use magic like this.
“N-no. I didn’t learn this from the spirit sister… This is magic I’m going to learn here.”
It was an exceedingly strange answer.
I was at a loss because of the unexpected reply when I heard Soph speak.
[Is she beginning to awaken?]
“What do you mean by that?”
[She said she will learn it here, so we will soon find out what that means. More importantly, I think we should clear those things away first.]
The scouts, whose tentacle attacks had been blocked, did not try to attack further even with people right in front of them.
They simply tried to leave us be and keep running.
I couldn’t let them.
The two scouts split to the left and right of the shield and continued running, and I rushed toward the scout running to the left.
As I emerged from the shield, tentacles blocked my path, but half the number of tentacles couldn’t stop me.
Without even needing to get hurt, I slipped through the tentacles and placed my hand on the back of the running scout.
“Burst!”
Pwak!
Together with the incantation, the scout’s back exploded.
A black stone flew out along with white blood.
After taking the black stone, I saw the scout tumble to the ground.
Confirming that it was dead, I looked to the other side.
The one that had been running to the right was also rolling on the ground.
Sparks continued to fly from the scout’s body.
When I started running left, I had designated the one on the other side as a target, and Soph had handled it well with magic.
After finishing off the scout being roasted by electricity, I called Hanna.
Hanna withdrew the shield and approached me.
“There was no need to put up the shield after all.”
“You put it up even though you knew that?”
“Yes. I had to show you that I learned it.”
I had felt this a little before, but talking to Hanna was like trading Zen questions and answers with a high monk.
In other words, I had no idea what she meant.
Even so, I didn’t ask again.
If Soph was right, I would learn the reason at this tower.
Together with Hanna, I headed for the tower.
The half-destroyed, tilted tower straddling the edge of the basin.
When this basin had been filled with water in the past, the Magic Tower before us must have been a beautiful tower standing beside the lake.
It was half-destroyed and tilted, but fortunately, the entrance was intact.
[The locking magic is also unharmed. In that case, the spatial transfer device underground should be fine as well.]
Since I had Soph’s confirmation, I felt like I could examine it a little more at ease.
[I will open the door.]
Just as Soph was about to open the door with magic, Hanna stepped forward and placed her hand on it.
“It’s locked, right? I’ll try opening it.”
At her words, Soph stopped his magic.
Click.
But the door opened at once.
This time, too, Hanna had opened the door.
Looking at the opened door, Hanna nodded with a satisfied expression.
“This is the magic I learned from the spirit sister. Maybe because it doesn’t use much dark energy, it’s much easier than the shield.”
The doors of Magic Towers were closer to relics that utilized magical formulas than to magic itself, so I had always asked Soph to handle them.
And she said opening such a door was easy.
I had no choice but to ask Soph.
[Is it really easy?]
[It is true that it is easier than the shield. But this, too, is not something one can learn easily. She certainly has talent for magic.]
At Soph’s admiration, I also praised her.
“You’re really amazing. Soph said it was difficult magic.”
At my words, Hanna shook her head.
“What’s so amazing about this? You’re the amazing one, Oppa, killing scouts with magic in a snap.”
The magic I used was different from other mages’ magic, but explaining that was awkward.
To a third party, there probably wouldn’t seem to be much difference, so for now, I had to nod at her words.
We entered the tower through the open door.
As it had looked from the outside, the inside of the tower was a mess as well.
The stairs had collapsed, and the windows and walls had crumbled, leaving the interior dark.
“Let there be light.”
Hanna recited an incantation, and a light rose in front of her.
The interior of the tower grew bright.
I asked Hanna again.
“You learned this too?”
“Yes. It was the first magic I learned. Since it’s light-attribute magic, I was able to learn it quickly.”
I could use light magic too, but I couldn’t make it float in the air like that.
That was the limitation of a half-baked mage.
At her words, I shook my head and searched for the stairs leading underground.
We found the stairs quickly.
The stairs were also half-blocked, but that much was something I could clear right away.
After removing the piled stones, we descended underground.
Unlike the ruined upper floor, the basement was fairly intact.
The altar in the center and the shelf in front of the altar looked unharmed.
The various objects placed around it also seemed intact.
The tower had been destroyed this badly, yet this place was unharmed.
No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t seem like it had happened by chance.
I was curious about the reason, but for now, I had to check the altar first.
Leaving Hanna behind as she examined the other objects, I headed toward the altar.
“The spatial transfer altar seems unharmed, right?”
[Outwardly, it appears fine.]
I asked Soph as I walked toward the altar, and received a positive answer.
I placed the spear on the shelf in front of the altar.
The spear stood upright on the shelf that served as the control panel.
As the spear spun around and around, it projected a hologram around it.
[The magic circle also appears intact, and dark energy is being stored properly. There are no coordinates, but I should be able to enter those myself.]
The spinning spear stopped.
[The spatial transfer facility is unharmed. We can bring the others here.]
After hearing Soph’s words, I let out a sigh of relief.
I had believed it would be safe, but I couldn’t be one hundred percent certain.
If the spatial transfer device had been broken, things would have become extremely troublesome.
In truth, unlike what the team members thought, I did not welcome the idea of fighting the Demon King together with them.
The gap in ability was too great for us to fight together.
If we ended up fighting the Demon King directly, without using nuclear weapons or some other method, there was a high chance the team members and the others would get in the way of the battle.
But fighting wasn’t limited to such direct combat.
Recently, I had often fought alone, but during the war, I had always carried out operations with others.
I had received a great deal of help from other people during operations.
There were times I received help from Sergeant An, the technician, and times I obtained information through support and communication from planes and drones.
This time was no different.
I had almost died even fighting a monster called a monarch, so I had no idea what would happen if I came face-to-face with the sealed Demon King.
Even if it wasn’t combat, I had to receive as much help as possible.
‘Even if not, it’ll help us escape.’
In the worst case, we would have to flee to another planet.
To do that, we needed a spatial transfer facility nearby.
In any case, the objective of this exploration had been achieved easily.
I turned my head and said to Hanna,
“The spatial transfer device is intact. You could have come with the others after all. Everyone worries too much.”
As I said, this had truly been easy.
I was grumbling with that thought, but Hanna wasn’t listening to me.
Instead of listening, she was reaching out toward a ring placed on a table.
A beautiful ring.
I had seen that ring before.
Soph had as well.
[Why is the Shamara Ring there?]
Together with Soph’s words, Hanna touched the ring.
Fwaaaah!
The world was enveloped in light.
Guardians of the Star (2)