How much time had passed?
Kwa-gwagwagwa!
I pushed through the sandstorm that left me unable to see an inch ahead and arrived at the terraforming ruins.
A low, wide building, half-buried in the middle of the basin.
The ruins were unchanged from when I had last seen them.
In the basement of this building was the console that could control these ruins.
I quickened my pace.
Kyarrr...
I couldn’t see it, but I could hear the monster’s shriek from behind me.
It was still following me, even while being ground down by the sandstorm.
The creature neither gave up nor lost its way within the storm.
It wasn’t that the sandstorm was weak.
The native monsters that had been chasing Hanna and Sergeant An had all been shredded by that sandstorm.
If Sopeu hadn’t shown me the way, I would have had no choice but to die after being swallowed by it.
But Akzar was different.
[If something of this level could kill them, every facility would have been plastered with defensive magic.]
Defensive magic like this was only possible because these ruins were a large-scale magical facility.
But even that defensive magic could only slow its entry.
I stepped into the entrance of the ruins and looked around the lobby.
“This place is just the same.”
The interior of the ruins had not changed either.
In the corner of the lobby, the traces of our stay remained exactly as they had been.
[No one has been here, so of course nothing would have changed.]
With those words, the dirt scattered across the lobby floor gathered into one place.
Shaaaak.
The gathered dirt clumped together, each mass becoming a large humanoid doll.
Once all the piles of dirt had disappeared, only the earthen dolls remained inside the lobby.
Guardians molded from earth, easily over two meters tall.
The earthen dolls held out their hands and warned me.
“This is a facility ordinary persons may not enter. Please leave immediately.”
I raised my spear.
“Don’t tell me they weren’t fixed back then. If even this is still the same, that’ll be a problem.”
[Impossible.]
As soon as Sopeu finished speaking, the dolls lowered their arms.
“Confirmed. Administrator, welcome.”
[Did I not tell you before? These ruins are all under my management.]
“You did.”
I lowered my spear as well and stared at the earthen dolls standing motionless.
“But can these guys buy us time?”
[With just these fellows, it would be difficult.]
Even the earthen dolls that kept reviving seemed unlikely to hold that thing back.
“Then we’ll have to hurry.”
I quickly passed by the earthen dolls.
Since I had already used body enhancement magic, I couldn’t use magic again for the time being.
[Even now, I am suppressing the side effects of the magic. If you use body enhancement again on top of this, it will not end with mere muscle pain.]
Sopeu tried to scare me, but I let it go in one ear and out the other.
During operations, it wasn’t as if I had only done things I’d been told not to once or twice.
If I needed body enhancement magic again, I intended to use it this time as well.
Even after entering the passage, I encountered more earthen dolls.
Instead of blocking me, the earthen dolls stepped aside.
After passing through the corridor, I descended the stairs in the center of the building.
After going down the stairs for a long while, I reached a space with a huge metal door.
Last time, there had been an earth giant here.
The tip of my stone spear had come from that Guardian.
This time, I was able to stand before the door without the earth giant getting in my way.
Kurururung.
The metal door opened.
In the middle of the vast underground plaza, I saw an empty glass structure.
With nothing left inside, it could no longer be called a botanical garden.
I couldn’t help but stop when I saw the empty glass interior.
Because I thought of the woman who had been lying inside it, and of her recording.
[Hurry. We do not have much time.]
When I stopped walking, Sopeu urged me on.
Sopeu’s voice was calm.
But I could sense, at least a little, the emotion contained within those words.
When the person concerned was speaking like that, I couldn’t afford to dawdle.
I walked toward the console.
The small console that had repaired the black stone.
I stood before it.
[Place the staff on it.]
Instead of telling me to remove the black stone from the spear, Sopeu told me to place the staff on the console.
It was obvious the staff would fall over if I tried to stand it on the console, but I placed the spear on top of it anyway.
Srrr. Click.
Even when I let go, the spear did not fall.
The spear stood upright on the console.
“How long do you think it will take?”
[I cannot say for certain. I have lost many memories, so in several places, I will have to create the magic anew.]
“I hope it won’t be too late. If you’re late, Sopeu, both I and these ruins will be smashed to pieces.”
[When it comes to surviving, you are better than I am. Do your best to buy time this time as well.]
As expected, he wasn’t completely unaffected.
His answer was rougher than usual.
But I still had something to ask of him right away.
“Then please cast body enhancement magic on me.”
[Did I not say it was dangerous!]
“It’ll be better than dying.”
[What is it with you Earthlings...]
Sopeu clicked his tongue, then cast body enhancement magic on me.
Once the magic took effect, vitality surged through me again.
But it felt different from the first time the spell had been cast on me.
My muscles and joints felt strangely uncomfortable.
This must be the side effect Sopeu had mentioned.
I was a little worried, but it was too late to take it back now.
Leaving the staff and Sopeu underground, I climbed back up.
Perhaps because the magic was active, it did not take long to return to the lobby.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
When I returned to the lobby, the sound of pillars striking the ground came one after another from outside the building.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
It was the footsteps of the black monster, the Akzar scout.
The footsteps drew closer and closer.
The last sound of its feet—no, its tentacles—striking the floor came from right in front of the building’s entrance.
Thud.
When the footsteps stopped, I heard the sound of something slicing through the wind.
Shaaaak.
It was the sound of tentacles cutting through the air.
Two tentacles shot in through the entrance.
The two tentacles were no different from when I had first seen them.
They had not been wounded by the sandstorm.
After passing through the entrance, the tentacles stopped instead of advancing any farther.
They swung widely as if checking the entire lobby, and in the end, pointed toward me.
Tentacles beckoning at me.
Seeing them move in that unpleasant way, it seemed happy to have found me.
The tentacles did not withdraw again, but instead seized both sides of the entrance.
They changed shape like pincer arms.
Then the tentacles bulged and throbbed, as if muscles were being tensed.
Gddddk.
The building was crushed, and the entrance began to widen.
The thing was widening the entrance of the ruins so it could enter.
Once the entrance had been spread sideways to a certain extent, more tentacles latched on.
Crunch, craaack.
This time, it was forced open upward and downward.
After some time passed, the entrance to the ruins no longer looked like an entrance where a door had once been.
Now, it was simply a huge gaping hole.
“Sopeu’s going to be furious.”
While I clicked my tongue, the creature began entering through the widened hole.
Kyarrrrk.
The body of the monster squeezing through the hole was not as unscathed as its tentacles.
The body that had endured lightning made with all the black stone had been torn to shreds.
On top of that, white liquid was flowing from its torn wounds. That white liquid seemed to be their blood.
The defensive magic of these ruins, which Sopeu had told me not to get my hopes up about, was quite useful after all.
Well, if it couldn’t even do this much, it would be hard to call it the defensive magic of a facility that terraformed a planet.
The chances of the operation succeeding had risen a little.
Beyond the broken entrance, I could see the shattered moon.
The sandstorm had stopped.
When the thing entered the ruins, Sopeu must have stopped the sandstorm.
Now it began.
Phase three of the operation.
I had to keep that thing pinned here until Sopeu finished his work.
I took out the extra metal spear the blacksmith had made for me, then threw the backpack containing the box into a corner.
A normal spear, huh.
Feeling the unfamiliar sensation of the spear, I clicked my tongue quietly.
It had not even been a month since I started using Sopeu’s staff.
And yet, it already felt like several months had passed.
Because far too much had happened in that time.
The monster, which had been busily forcing its body through the hole, was finally able to enter the building.
It tried to charge straight at me, but the ones who moved first were not the monster, but the earthen dolls.
“This is a facility ordinary persons may not enter! Please leave!”
The Guardians moved while giving the same warning as always.
But their movements were different from before.
Like they were forming a scrum, the earthen dolls charged the monster in formation.
Sopeu was issuing real-time commands to all the earthen dolls.
A few of the earthen dolls hugged the tentacles that served as its legs.
The other earthen dolls leaped at the monster’s round body and swung their fists.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The attacking dolls’ fists burst apart, and each time the tentacles moved, earthen dolls shattered.
But each time, the earthen dolls revived.
Perhaps finding the earthen dolls annoying, the monster kept crushing them, but it did not leave the lobby.
That was because I kept loitering in front of it.
I moved quickly among the earthen dolls that were constantly being smashed.
Each time I moved, I used an earthen doll as a shield, slipped beneath the creature’s body, and thrust my spear into it, repeating the process over and over.
While I thrust my spear like that, several tentacles shot toward me.
Whenever I stopped moving, a tentacle passed right before my eyes, and the earthen doll I had used as a shield was smashed apart.
There were several moments when a chill ran down the back of my neck.
But I did not retreat.
It was partly because I had to keep buying time, but more than that, it was because of a strange sensation brushing against the edge of my senses.
A strange feeling within my body each time I swung the spear.
At first, I thought it was a side effect of body enhancement, but it wasn’t.
In truth, I had been feeling this sensation for quite some time.
Ever since Sopeu had begun using my energy to cast magic.
The faint tickling sensation had been growing little by little.
‘Is this right? When Sopeu used magic, he did it like this...’
As I kept moving my energy along that sensation, it became similar to the flow of energy I felt from the staff whenever Sopeu used magic.
‘Now that it’s come to this, I guess there’s no helping it.’
Unable to endure the tickling sensation, I moved my energy exactly as I felt it.
Wooooong.
At that moment, the energy inside my body moved in one direction, and a single pattern formed in my mind.
A pattern I felt as if I had seen somewhere before.
Along with the pattern, unfamiliar formulas began to flash through my mind.
At the same time, energy flowed toward the spear.
Not the energy within my body, but transformed energy.
Electrical energy.
Papaat!
Sparks burst from the spear.
Startled, I stopped the spear.
As it happened, the spear was lodged in the monster’s belly.
Along with the sparks, white blood burst out.
Kyarrrr.
The monster’s scream rang out from above my head.
Even as I was drenched in its blood, I couldn’t understand it.
I had merely moved the energy inside my body in a way similar to when Sopeu used magic.
I had not spoken any formulas, incantations, or activation words.
And yet, something resembling magic had burst out.
As someone who wasn’t a mage, I had no idea what had happened.
It was then.
Shaaaak!
I saw a tentacle fly toward me, filling my vision.
‘Damn it!’
Because of the sudden magic, I had lost track of the tentacle’s movement.
But regretting it now was useless.
There was no time to dodge.
Prepared to lose an arm, I raised my spear and blocked in front of me.
I bit my lip, and just as I looked one last time at the arm holding the spear—
Thwack!
The tentacle was knocked sideways.
An arrow was embedded in the tip of the tentacle that had been deflected.
It was an arrow I had seen countless times.
Then Hanna’s voice rang out.
“Dodge! I’ll buy time!”
At the entrance the monster had come through, Hanna was shooting her bow again.
In that moment, the young girl looked like an angel descended from heaven.
Thwack!
Another arrow lodged itself in a tentacle.
Kuaaaak!
The monster screamed, and I hurriedly moved out of the way.