Chapter 25 - Mysterious Cave
That thought would have to be held for later thinking because now I sensed that I strayed a bit from the rest of the convoys and I was found by a few of the predators that were lurking around.
I needed to get some steam off so they happened to come at quite the great time. After checking to see that there was no one around for quite a distance and that the trees would block off the site of the battle, I readied myself to fight to my hearts content.
Casting Void hands to get started, I then revealed my weapon of choice when using these guys. Unlike the main body who likes the practicality of Spearmanship when combined with Void hands, I prefer something more flashy.
Over in the carriage, when I started going ham, he sensed a movement in the distance in the forest. His glance interrupted the conversation and so the others asked him what was wrong.
"It's nothing. It is just that a little girl is having a bit of a temper tantrum and is causing a mess in the forest. If this was Elf territory I would tell her to stop before she alerts anyone there, but this is mostly just monster territory so as long as she is careful she can most certainly get out of this situation unscathed."
"So the little demon twerp is getting a little rowdy while unsupervised? Classic." Vanessa said while visibly scowling.
"Hey, don't act like you haven't done any worse." Replied the saint as she laughed at her face recalling some memories.
"Do I need to check on her?" Wendy asked Luke to which he replied that the situation is under control and if something happened he would be the first to make a move.
The others nodded and simply went back to resting and chatting which is the complete opposite to what was going on in the middle of the forest.
"HAHAHAHA!" In the forest, wild screams of various creatures resounded as the joyous laughter of a small girl echoed throughout the sound canceling barrier.
"I can finally wield these things to my heart's content!" In the barrier, Felicia commanded her Void Hands to tear apart her enemies with a weapon that would be familiar to someone from a certain world.
"I am surprised, yet not that surprised that this world had actually developed the mechanical knowledge to make something like this so many years ago." In her Void hands were chainsaws that she used to cut and tear through her every opposition without fail.
This was actually the marvelous recreation of the tool created by one of the clones that she was rather close to. It was the one who took up the role of equipment maker after the main body lost interest in the endeavor. This clone was responsible for Metal based Alchemy and mechanical engineering knowledge which was a rather niche subject in this world.
Although it was niche in this world, that did not mean that what they had developed was simple as the mechanical puppets and golem creations all used this knowledge.
Even if people never used constructs like that to attack them, either after killing their respective hero or while the final battle has not struck, there have been many times that Demon Kings have gone around and happened to enter the territories of mages. Then getting assaulted by the mage's defenses and the subsequent victory would eventually lead to them putting the knowledge into their library.
After countless years, even this niche path would have been studied and developed. Even in the library, most of the books are simply condensed knowledge which leads to some difficulty when future Demon Kings want to explore and gain more knowledge.
But such a thing happens to be what Alice is best at so now she has reached the point that she has.
This knowledge on Chainsaws does not count as a weapon skill as this world does not recognize its use as a specific weapon skill. That is rather fine by me though as it just means that only those who have fought me would truly understand the strength of this weapon. Something these guys would have to take to the grave.
While I was mindlessly swinging, I had already slaughtered the inside of the barrier and the few who were outside had already run off when they saw that something was not right. Oh well, I don't need to truly slaughter everything and I have already calmed down from my previous state anyways.
Since I am done here, I decided to check up on the remaining quests that I had and finish them quickly.
"Hmm, so there are two quests remaining..."
Among them, one of them was a gathering request for a rare plant that only grows within caves or other constantly shaded places inside the forest. Another was actually a request to get the fur of a creature that inhabits caves.
Well, maybe I did encounter one of them in my rampage, but the fur is certainly not intact now.
Since both requests are in the same kind of location, I decided that I should just quickly deal with them before heading back to the convoy. Using my spatial perception, I quickly zoomed past and skimmed over the environment around me. With some quick scans I was able to eventually find a cave like I was expecting.
Heading over there, I then slowed down my pace when I was halfway there. Looking around, I noticed with spatial perception that there was actually a few traces of magic around that seemed rather peculiar. Deciding to get a closer look, I casted a long forgotten spell to my aid.
"Void Eye!"
Using the shared sight of the Void eye, I was able to find that there were traces of a hidden magic formation around the vicinity of the cave. Although the cave seemed a bit rundown and uninhabited, that could most certainly be a trap to lead unsuspecting prey like me in.
Even without explicit knowledge on formations like these, I knew that I had to find out where the core of this formation is on the outside and deactivate it just in case touching it would activate its functions so I went about scanning the area with my perception to no avail.
I guessed it would not be easy, but to have no clues at all? This was rather disheartening.
Wait! Maybe Wendy would have some way around this? She is a magic caster after all.
I should head back as well since the day is slowly reaching the evening. I don't want to stray too far from the carriage after all.
So I went back to the dirt path and quietly followed the tracks left by the carriage as well as the shape of the footprints in order to find out where the convoy was. I was soon able to catch up on my flying blanket and found that they were closing in on a large clearing with some adventurers already there to scout the surroundings.
When I popped back into the carriage, I noticed that the whole team was waiting for me and I laughed a little.
"So you are finally back. Did you get lost?" Vanessa said with surprisingly little aggression.
"At last you are back. If you took any longer, we might have been forced to come looking for you." Said Mellie.
"Did you finish all of your requests?" Asked Wendy to which I shook my head.
Luke was rather surprised at this since he knew that I used Space magic. If even I could not finish everything in such time then there must have been something that happened.
"Did you need help?" He asked.
"Actually, I need just two requests and both of them lead me to finding a cave to search for things. It is just that the cave I found had some traces of a magic formation and I am not that good at this kind of decoding. Do you know how to do it?" I asked the team, but mostly at Wendy.
"Is there such a thing? Well, I would need to see it for myself to see if I could find out about it. The others won't be able to help you much though except Luke who might be able to brute force his way through." Wendy replied after some thought.
Then I asked if anyone else wanted to check the cave out and they shook their heads.
"We need to be stationed with the convoy so you two go along ahead. Don't take too long as I won't be able to cover for you if it takes too long." Luke replied with a wink. The other two also nod their heads so the two of us quietly headed out.
I had already marked the location of the cave so knowing where to go already made it easy to simply fly back. With invisibility and flight, most creatures in the forest simply could not keep pace with me so I was able to get back ether quite quickly.
Stepping down the blanket and bring down Wendy, I then lead her to the furthest trace of the formation.
"Hmm. I can't gather much from here. Let's look around some more."
After circling around the outer perimeter of the formation, she soon came up with an idea on how to crack the formation.
"This formation seems to be a degraded version of one of the formations used among us Witches. It is based on using elemental crystals that would be buried underground to power the formation. But it seems likely that the crystals placed here had run out of energy so the formation is currently running on passive mana absorption. Can you explore underground? If we can find the crystals than cracking the formation should be rather simple." She finally said after some thought.
Since all that was needed was to find crystals buried in the ground, I quickly sensed where there were disturbances in the dirt that seemed a bit unnatural and eventually was able to find a few traces.
"Should I directly dig them out?" I asked.
"Yeah, the crystals themselves used to also power a separate warning array for when the crystals were disturbed, but that magic circle has long run out of power. You can just directly pull it out."
Since she said so, I summoned my handy Void Hands to do all of the work and eventually pulled out 5 dark grayish stone.
Holding one in my hands and turning it once over, I feel like I had seen this kind of crystal before. Before I could remember it, Wendy had already realized what they were.
"Dark Mana crystals! There was a dark mage here? But why?"
Once she said that, I then realized what was reminding me of these gem like stones. These were found in large quantities back in the Demon King Castle. Many of those of lesser quality had been implanted into the furniture in there. The reason that it took a second to realize was that the ones in the Demon King Castle were always at full capacity.
So I for one had never seen a mana crystal run dry.
"We need to get back and inform Luke and the others of this! Hurry let's head back!" Wendy quickly commanded me to fly her back quickly. Although I was confused about her urgency, I thought that I could simply just ask her on the way and it would not hurt to get back earlier since the cave would not really move around so I started the flying blanket back to where everyone else was.
On the way I finally got the opportunity to ask about why she was so worried when she saw the formation powered with Dark magic around the cave.
"Oh, you might not realize this among the Demon Race, but most races look down upon practitioners of the Dark element. Because of their prejudice, the usage of dark mana is usually banned unless authorized by the various magic councils and overseen by the church. I did not find any signs of their presence so this means that someone is illegally using dark magic. This is a problem because of certain Dark magic rituals that have been banned by all races that usually deal with sacrificing a large number of people. The situation is a bit too big for us so we should reconvene with the others and have some specialists come by and deal with the problem."
So that was why she was so worried. Well, we were already headed back so I can't really complain about anything. Just as fast as we arrived we were back among the others and I noticed that there was a merchant talking to Luke.
After they finished talking and headed out, Wendy quickly rushed over to explain what happened and what we saw in a panic. When he heard the whole story and saw the Dark mana crystal she brought as proof his expression hardened. On the sides, Vanessa also sat up straight while I noticed Mellie in the Kitchen was also rather interested in the topic.
"I understand the situation. It was a good thing that you left so readily. Who knows if they secretly laid out a trap for us in secret. Mellie, will you do the honors?" Luke said.
"Of course!" She replied. She then folded her hands in prayer and casted a light based spell that created a dove made of light.
She then whispered something to the dove and it then flapped its wings and zoomed away. I was rather surprised by this spell as I had not seen it before. Maybe Alice would be interested?
So I asked her about it, but she then told me to sit down and prepare for our meal first. Since we were going to rest here and with so many adventurers keeping watch, it was fine to cook a simple meal to fill our stomachs and relax for now.
Finishing up the meal, I then asked her about the spell.
"It is the Light Messenger spell and it is the way the church delivers messages throughout the continent in a safe manner. Would you like to see the spell circle?"
"Yes!" I replied. The rest of the day was spent looking at and sending the image over to my main body as night began to fall over the camp.
Our shift to watch the night would actually be near the end of the night so we all got to rest up for the day tomorrow.
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