If one continued west from the ruins in the marshlands, there was a snow-covered mountain range.
A vast range, wreathed in clouds and difficult to see from afar.
Up close, the mountains looked as though they were wearing a black hat.
That black hat was the range’s eternal snow.
After Akzar appeared, the once-white eternal snow had absorbed poison and turned black.
The mountain range covered in black snow had been silent for tens of thousands of years.
Because of the poison, neither trees nor grass could grow, and perhaps because of that same poison, the native creatures did not approach the mountains either.
From one part of the range that seemed destined to remain forever gloomy, a tremendous noise rang out today for the first time in tens of thousands of years.
Ruuuumble.
It was loud enough to make the entire mountain resound.
No, the mountain was actually shaking.
Craaaash.
The black eternal snow began to collapse.
An enormous avalanche erupted.
And it was not only snow that came pouring down.
Soil, stones, and boulders all tumbled down with the snow.
It was not merely a landslide; it was as though the mountain itself were collapsing.
After that natural disaster swept across the mountain.
A single thorn abruptly shot up from the side of the collapsed mountain.
Shwaaak!
It was a black thorn several dozen meters long.
Other thorns burst out after it.
One, two, three, four…
Nearly ten thorns sprang from a single spot.
The thorns that had jutted sharply upward bent their bodies in all directions like tentacles.
Thud, thud, thud.
The tips of every thorn embedded themselves in the mountainside, and something emerged from the center of the thorns.
What emerged was a giant black sphere.
The thorns—no, the tentacles serving as legs—all came from that black sphere.
The monster that had broken through the rock looked like a giant spider.
A black body, and eight tentacles resembling legs attached to it.
From a distance, it seemed to resemble a spider, but in truth, it was difficult to call it one.
That round body was unlike a spider’s, and the eight legs were not legs but tentacles.
Besides, it was far too large to be called a spider.
Even excluding the tentacles, which were several dozen meters long, its round body alone was over twenty meters across.
This monster was Akzar, the one that had been sleeping in this mountain—the monster the mages had called a control object.
It broke its hibernation of tens of thousands of years and moved once more.
It was because of the transformed dark energy that had flowed in through the atmosphere.
Dark energy used by humans, different from the native creatures and from themselves.
The monster had been waiting beneath this mountain until it could sense that energy.
The monster raised its forelegs, two tentacles.
The tentacles transformed from legs back into long thorns.
The tips of the tentacles turned red.
Two red lights bloomed at the tips of the black thorns.
That light was the signal the monster sent.
It was a signal to awaken the scouts that had been sleeping like itself, and at that signal, the sleeping scout monsters opened their eyes.
Not many monsters had survived tens of thousands of years.
The number of scouts it could sense in all directions was barely a dozen.
It was not a large number, but it was enough to search for humans.
The monster sent another signal to the scouts.
[Find them. The vermin. Exterminate them. The enemy.]
It was not human language, but it meant something similar.
At that signal, the scouts began to move.
North, south, west, and east toward the forward base.
Once the scouts began to move, the monster moved as well.
Since it had sent out the scouts, it now had to make an army to fight.
As the monster descended the mountain, it paused for a moment. It stretched a tentacle toward the east.
[Magic?]
The monster flicked its tentacle briefly to confirm, then lost interest and began walking again.
The monster’s destination was the plain below the mountain.
It intended to build a nest there.
**
Sof noticed the anomaly when the monster sent its signal.
[Now that the signal has gone out, the surviving scouts will have started moving. Your base won’t be discovered immediately, but it will be found before long.]
After we learned that something called a control object had awakened, Sof continued his explanation.
But now was not the time to listen to that explanation.
“Just pour out more magic!”
[The energy in the black stone is all used up. If things had gone wrong, even my connection might have been severed. You should be grateful just to hear my advice.]
I was grateful.
Just now, the thing that had brought down most of the monsters charging at us had been Sof’s magic.
Sof had created a deep trench with magic, then poured lightning down on the monsters that fell into it.
More than half the monsters died from that chained spell.
I had supplied the energy, and I had done the targeting, but it was true that Sof’s magic was impressive.
However, the battle was not over yet.
The energy contained in the black stone was not enough to take down an entire group of more than twenty monsters at once.
Though he had not lost consciousness, Sof could not use magic right away either, thanks to the large spell he had cast.
We had to take down the rest without magic.
I kept throwing my spear at the monsters leaping out of the trench.
Thwack!
The monsters struck by the spear screamed and tumbled back down into the trench.
I continued retrieving the spear and throwing it again, but I could not knock down every monster climbing up by myself.
However, Hanna was beside me.
Her bow never missed its target.
Her arrows severed an ant’s antennae and pierced the eyes of rabbit monsters.
They were less destructive than my spear, but every arrow she fired struck a vital point.
Far more monsters were sent sprawling by her bow than by my spear.
As expected, the blacksmith and the heat ability user were of no help at all, but there was no need to worry about the two of them.
Tom and Sergeant Woo stood in front of them with spear and shield in hand.
Only a few monsters even made it as far as Tom and Sergeant Woo.
That was because Hanna and I kept pushing them back in every time they tried to escape the trench.
And so, just as the number of monsters climbing out of the trench was gradually dwindling.
Twang!
I heard the sound of a bowstring snapping.
“Ah…”
Hanna’s regretful voice came from beside me.
It seemed the bowstring had snapped as she fired her last arrow.
The monster she failed to hit leaped out of the trench.
There was no need for me to help.
Hanna gripped the bow with the broken string in both hands and began fighting the rabbit monster.
The bow in her hands moved like a staff, beating the rabbit monster down.
After throwing my spear into the last monster, I watched Hanna catch the rabbit monster.
Since she had been an athlete and an archer, I knew she was good with a bow.
I had seen that she could use a spear well too, but she was also skilled with a staff.
It seemed she could handle a rabbit monster on her own.
Watching Hanna’s performance only made my regret grow stronger.
The number of arrows was a problem, but the bowstring was an even bigger one.
Compared to the artifact-grade bow, the bowstring made from ant tendon was far too weak.
‘I’ll have to get a usable bowstring first.’
While I was thinking about how to get a bowstring, the fight ended.
After the continued beating, the rabbit monster was half-unconscious, and Hanna drove the final arrow she was holding into its jaw.
That was the last of them.
There were no more living monsters.
In the end, Hanna and I had taken care of more than twenty monsters.
The people who had newly joined us stared at me with astonished eyes.
Hanna had fought alongside me, but I had dealt with the majority.
It was no wonder they were surprised.
Sergeant Woo’s eyes widened, and the heat ability user stared at me with his mouth open.
Smith asked me,
“Are you a multi-energy ability user?”
It was a term I had never heard before. I asked him back,
“What is that?”
At my question, he frowned and answered,
“Someone who uses multiple abilities. Someone like you, who uses combat and box abilities at the same time.”
“If that’s what it means, then I suppose I am a multi-ability user.”
As expected, it seemed there were others like me.
[In any case, they are all merely lower forms of magic. Magic they have come to use naturally, without formulas. It is different from your case, where you used magic.]
If you put it that way, I had only used the artifact that was Sof’s staff.
Besides, there was no guarantee that there weren’t other people who used magic like me.
When I accepted that, Smith said,
“Well, I suppose they wouldn’t put a simple box ability user in charge of an exploration team. David and Magreta would never send us somewhere dangerous without reason, so it seems I’ve been worrying for nothing all this time.”
Smith understood on his own.
Judging from Smith’s reaction, Sof’s magic might not have been all that extraordinary.
[What nonsense is that? Where would you find another mage like me? If only I hadn’t lost my memories…]
In any case, if I used the excuse of being some sort of multi-something, it seemed I could show magic a little more comfortably.
After the battle ended, we quickly dealt with the monster corpses.
As I put all the corpses into the box, Tom looked in the direction we had come from and said,
“Those monsters that passed by in the distance before, and these ones too—they were all heading toward the base. I wonder if the base will be all right.”
At Tom’s words, everyone looked toward the base.
We had already been traveling for more than two days, so there was nothing to see.
Everyone seemed worried about the monsters, but I was more worried about something else.
According to Sof, the monster scouts called Akzar would be moving.
[Akzar should be fine for now. So much time has passed that there won’t be many surviving ones.
But I’m not sure about the native monsters. Seeing them move together, it seemed they all sensed Akzar’s awakening and were fleeing.]
If Sof was right, then it did not seem like an immediate problem.
That left the attack by the monster horde.
I made my decision at once.
We would keep going.
There were many people at the forward base.
There were also quite a few who had obtained dark energy, and though it was only in its rough form, they had built a wall too.
‘If things get really dangerous, they can retreat to the cave as David said and block the entrance.’
It would be the worst-case scenario, but at the very least, it should prevent total annihilation.
Besides, considering what came afterward, this side was more urgent.
“We’ll keep going. We’re already more than halfway there. If we can repair the spatial transfer device, getting to the ruins will be faster.”
“No, it’s troubling for you to be that certain. I might not be able to fix it.”
Smith grumbled, but the others followed my words.
We continued forward. Naturally, we also increased our speed.
A swamp full of poison blocked our path, but finding a way was my specialty.
I quickly found a route, and we arrived at the ruins before sunset the next day.
The ruins were unchanged from before.
The fossil inside the ruins was also exactly as it had been.
I had worried that the fossil might come back to life, but nothing of the sort happened.
[Didn’t I tell you only the shell was left?]
Sof had already said as much, but it was not easy to believe.
Ever since coming to this star, absurd things had happened every time.
The people who had come with me were also greatly shocked when they saw the fossil, but I dragged them along and headed behind it.
Smith, who had been dragged over against his will, examined the altar that had been cut into three pieces.
After examining the altar together with the heat ability user, he gave me good news.
“It was cut very cleanly. I don’t know if it will move again, but I think this artifact itself can be repaired.”
Hearing the blacksmith’s words, Sof spoke.
[Then that’s settled. As long as it’s repaired, I can activate it.]
Back in my hometown, as long as you had the owner of an electronics repair shop and the owner of a junk shop, there was nothing they couldn’t fix.
It seemed that on this star, as long as you had a blacksmith and a mage, there was nothing that could not be fixed.
Our means of transportation was ready, so now it was time to gather supplies.
While the blacksmith repaired the artifact, I led the others toward the storage room.