"Ugh... it's so hot in here..." Leronil fans himself with the shirt beneath his armor.

"Quit your whinin', elf!" Golimar bluntly tells the man in elvish. "To us Stoneweaver Dwarves, this is virtually winter!"

"Yeah, we don't live in a volcano, pal! Have some sympathy for us forest folk!"

"Hmph! Sentiments of the weak!"

"Why you—!"

Grimdal steps in between the bickering men. "Leronil! Remember your position as Elder and conduct yourself in a befitting manner."

"Y-yes, Elder Grimdal... I apologize," he stands down.

"Allowing yourself to be provoked by lowlifes will only serve to waste your time."

"W-what did you say about me, you one-eyed bastard?!" Golimar takes offense to Grimdal's words. "I can understand you know?! Are you cruisin' for a bruisin'?!"

Silvain sighs at the lack of chemistry he's lugging around. You awkwardly chuckle and comfort the masked man.

The expedition team is comprised of the strongest warriors from both the Stoneweaver Dwarves and the Elderwood Village. And as a result, Leronil, Grimdal, and Golimar all find themselves in the same group.

In addition, stringing along and quietly watching as the three men yell at one another are Celia and Fidri. As they were a part of the Elderwood Scouts like Leronil, their experience in traversing untraveled locations is invaluable.

"When I grow up will I be as grumpy as them?" Fidri worriedly thinks out loud as he bears witness to the angry men.

"No, but you're already as annoying if not more," Celia retorts.

And completing the unit are elven and dwarven soldiers, fitted with the highest-grade armaments each race has to offer. This is practically a mini-army you're tagging along with.

"Yo, Silvain," you glance at the sheer size of the outfit, "what's with the crowd? Do we really need this many people to retrieve this Fire Crystal?"

"It's insurance," he replies. "Fire Crystals are so poorly recorded, and from the few accounts I've read they are often guarded by monsters."

"M-monsters?!"

"Don't fret. They're typically low-level critters that feed off the crystal's energy. With a group as experienced and well-armed as this, I'm certain we'll be out of here in a jiffy."

"Well... if you say so..."

You've been descending through these caves for about an hour now. The dark stony walls all look the same, and you begin to wonder if you've been going in circles. That's impossible though since this winding sloped path has never curved up once.

The sole indicator of progress is the rising temperature that pervades the air. You and the dwarves don't notice it, given your heat resistance, but the elves are steadily showing signs of overheating.

Silvain too sweats buckets.

"I... didn't expect these caverns to go on for so long..." Silvain pants like a hot dog. "This is highly unusual... this goes against the projections!"

"O-oi Garden Beast..." Leronil weakly raises his hand. "Can you ask the human if we have permission to dump our armor? At this rate, we won't survive the trip back..."

You relay Leronil's wishes to the masked man who responds with, "I suppose we have no choice. And the risk of running into monsters is pretty low now. Fine, they may remove a layer to cool themselves."

With that brief confirmation, the elves take off their armor and march onward wearing nothing but their undershirts. The dwarves laugh at the display and arrogantly strut about with their heavy-plated armor.

"Haha! Can't take a bit of heat, you knife-eared weaklings?! Next, you'll want us to give you a piggyback ride!" Golimar persistently pesters them.

Alas, Leronil doesn't bite and brushes the dwarf's comments off. "Yeah, yeah, you're sooo much better than us..."

"Hah? Are you patronizin' us?! You lookin' for a fight?!"

"What the heck do you want from us?!"

As the two men began arguing again, Fidri struggles to look away from Celia, whose revealing undershirt exposes her midriff and a lot of her chest.

"Hm? What are you ogling at? Is there something on my face?" Celia notices the boy stealing glances at her.

"O-only thing on your face is that stupid look of yours..!" the young elf quickly averts his gaze, reddening like a tomato. "Also... aren't you showing a bit too much..?"

"Showing too much?" the woman briefly looks down and catches his drift. "Bwahahaha! Since when did you become such a perverted brat! Oh man, this is rich!"

"S-s-shut up! And stop bouncing them like that!"

Celia derives delight from Fidri's flustered reactions and continues teasing him by grabbing her ample bosom and chasing him with them.

"Watch out Fidri! They're coming after you!" she laughs hysterically.

"C-cut it out, idiot! I'll kill you once we get out!"

"Will you now?! Or will these pair of slimes be your end?!"

The poor boy screams and scurries around the place with Celia hot on his heels. Grimdal, irritated by the lack of organization among the elves, shouts at the top of his lung in an attempt to get them back into line.

"What in Gaia's name are you imbeciles doing?! You are making fools out of yourselves! Cease this tomfoolery at once, lest you bring shame to our forefathers!" Grimdal reprimands them furiously.

Yet no one was actually listening to the old man.

And Silvain, being forced to listen to the back-and-forth between Golimar and Leronil, the incessant guffaws from Celia who runs after a crying Fidri, and the deafening yells of Grimdal that fall on deaf ears, rubs his temple in exasperation.

"I can't understand a word they're saying," the masked man audibly grinds his teeth, "but I'm going to assume the heat has driven the elves mad."

"I feel like I need to apologize," you lower your head in shame. "They aren't usually this bad. Usually."

"God, make them stop..."

And as if to answer his prayers (for better or for worse), powerful tremors immediately sweep through the tunnels, causing everyone to stop dead in their tracks.

"Everybody eyes on the ceiling! Look out for falling rocks!" you and Silvain warn the elves and the dwarves respectively.

Suddenly, cracks appear in the ground, and the walls crumble to stone.

"C-crap! Brace for impact!" Celia swiftly carries Fidri in her arms as the floor gives way, much to the boy's embarrassment.

And the entire expedition team is swallowed by the earth.

When you open your eyes, you find yourselves on a large flat piece of rock hemmed in by a pool of lava. You then realize this is the heart of the volcano, as floating above you is the Fire Crystal you've been searching for.

It is a massive red orb suspended in mid-air. You can tell by its size alone, that it's imbued with a great deal of magic. But therein lies the problem.

"That's the Fire Crystal?!" Golimar flounces over to a disoriented Silvain and grips him by the shirt. "Oi, magic man! How in Ifrit's name are we supposed to carry that ourselves?! You promised a small gemstone, not a shiny boulder!"

Silvain snaps out of his dazed state and takes off his mask to better examine the Fire Crystal. "H-huh?! Why is that Fire Crystal so big?!"

"That's what I'm askin', numbnuts!"

"T-this isn't right. There's no way a magical stone of that size could survive on its own! Interference like this doesn't come naturally... it's simply unthinkable!"

"I ain't deciphirin' all that. Speak dwarvish!"

"There's something here that's feeding off the crystal. Something that has managed to absorb so much energy that it's forced the crystal to expand."

You jog up to the man. "You're talking about a monster, right?!"

His face somehow turns as white as milk in this burning hot environment. "A monster of that magnitude is..."

And as he utters those fears, from the lava lake emerges a giant horned serpent-like creature—its scales a deep scarlet and its beady eyes a piercing yellow. The beast lets out an ear-splitting roar that causes the earth to tremble.

"What in Gaia's name is that?!" Leronil exclaims as he stabilizes his footing.

"Men!" Grimdal pulls off his eyepatch and addresses the elves. "Steel yourselves, this isn't your run-of-the-mill monster!"

You glimpse exactly what the old man means.

Asmodeus

Magma Wyrm [♀]

Level: 95

HP: 1500000/1500000

"A Magma Wyrm?!" you read out its description box.

"Wait, a Magma Wyrm?!" Silvain stumbles backward. "Of course, it all makes sense now!"

"What makes sense?!"

The monster spirals up into the air and dives headfirst into the walls of the cavern. It uses its horns like a drill and burrows into the solid rock. It disappears for a moment, before reappearing on the opposite side of the chamber.

"Those tunnels we were walking through, they were created by the Magma Wyrm!" Silvain concludes. "And judging by how different and misshapen this volcano look compared to the projections, we can assume this monster has been feeding off the enclosing rocks for centuries. That's why it took us longer to dig it up!"

"Okay, but how do we defeat this thing?!" Golimar holds up his war hammer and keeps his eyes on the monster.

"I... don't know..."

"What?!"

"This behemoth... there exist no records of its defeat."

"S-seriously..?"

You and the rest of the expedition team step forth to face this serpentine menace.

"If there exist no records, then we'll be the ones to make history," you confidently declare while wielding a flame spell.

"Leronil, can you handle yourself?" Grimdal unsheathes his Lunar Glaive.

"Heh," the man answers by readying his spear. "Just watch me you old fart!"

Celia places Fidri on the floor and also prepares her spear. "Fidri. If we survive this, I'm letting you touch them!"

"Yeah!" Fidri takes out his dual daggers. "W-w-wait, touch what exactly?!"

Seeing the elves prepare for a hopeless battle brings an elated grin to Golimar's face. "Gahaha! Whatever, I've been itchin' to use my hammer anywho!"

And the elven and dwarven soldiers stand united against this fiery fiend, their sights set on the hovering orb that brings life to this volcano.

Silvain looks on in awe, and his first instinct is to quietly say, "May fate be on our side."