“Zero, what are you doing?” Elsmere shouted as I left behind our last potential bastion of safety.

“What does it look like?” I stated, looking back once.

It looked as if Elsmere would run out to join me for a moment, but then Iris was there, an outstretched arm blocking her path.

Doesn’t she just seem a little too content with letting me go off to my death?

Not like I could blame her, though. She, of all people, was sure to understand it was the only logical choice left.

Now then.

I looked forward, the Hollow standing directly before me, its intense pressure bearing down on me.

Even clearly angered, it wasn’t moving from where it stood facing me.

I get it.

It was waiting. Letting us move first.

What, does this… thing have a sense of honor?

I took a stance, one leg forward as my back leg slid to the side, posture coiled and tense as I grabbed the pommel of my sword.

Still, it waited.

Fine then. Try not to regret this then, if you can even feel regret.

From behind me, I heard a gasp, but as to why I wasn’t sure. My attention was focused entirely on the Hollow before me as I shot forward with speed that surprised even me, my sword sweeping along so fast my eyes failed to track it. My sword landed true, but instead of slicing into the thing, the Hollow was sent flying like a ball struck by a bat, a thundering crack of sound resounding through the cavern.

Not from the Hollow, but from my sword.

I stared down at my gladius in amazement. Or stared down at what had once been a gladius. The sudden explosion of noise had been the sound of my blade exploding into countless metal splinters, leaving nothing but a pommel behind.

For a new mana-tempered silver sword to explode like that…

“Damn.” I whistled.

I didn’t have time to further bask in what had just happened, as from across the cave, a black blur blitzed toward me, a fist streaking toward my face that I barely caught on the side of my falchion, which I had pulled free in an instant.

As it turned out, the Hollow had been a far cry from showcasing its true strength when it had killed my companions as if they were nothing more than insects.

It was an entirely different story now. Moving as nothing more than a dark blur, its fists rained down upon me, each strike making my sword ring from the reverberations of the impact.

I swung my blade forward, intending to hammer it away again, but its body softened, flowing around my sword as I spun wildly from the momentum of my failed swing.

When its closed fist caught me between my shoulder blades, it was I who was sent flying. At any other time, the force with which I tumbled across the floor should have destroyed my body, but rolling out of it, I simply brushed it off.

Not only was I relatively unharmed, but the void-like body of the Hollow had failed to instantly dissolve me as it had with everyone else. I looked down at the golden thread still attached to me from the barrier before looking toward the golden mana and giving it a nod of thanks. It wasn’t my first time being thrust into a situation where I suddenly found myself capable of punching far above my weight class.

The Hollow came at me again, its hand transforming into a clawed paw meant to rake me down the chest. Intercepting it on the flat of my blade once more, I heard an explosion of noise as the talon-like claws pushed back against the straining mana-silver sword. I lashed out with a boot, kicking it away, and not a moment too soon, as the sword, made of the most potent stuff an adventurer could conceivably get, exploded, the stress it had been put under an entirely different league from what mortal humans should ever face.

Two of my three swords had been destroyed, and the fight had just begun by all rights.

If my swords keep breaking, and I can touch it without dying…

I looked down at my fists, noticing a golden aura surrounding me.

Right. Well, that makes this simple.

When the Hollow came at me again, rather than meet it with my blade, I caught it by surprise as instead, it was my fist that struck it square where a face should have been, slamming the Hollow into the ground, the force of the impact forming a miniature crater around it. I attempted to stomp the Hollow out, but its body suddenly turned liquid, flowing out of the way before reforming as we charged each other head-on.

Without the ability to simply erase me as it had the others, we went blow for blow, the Hollow opting to emulate the favored fighting style of humans worldwide.

Pure brute force violence.

A fist struck me across the cheek, sending me before an appendaged shot forward from its midsection, the Hollow capable of forming extra arms on a whim. I was thrown into the cavern’s wall, but I had no intention of letting it get the upper hand on me that easily. As it attempted to follow its assault further, I lunged forward, grabbing its ‘head’ before slamming my own head into it, the force of the headbutt shoving it back. My foot kicked straight up, a feat of flexibility most men would recoil from, as the Hollow was knocked straight into the air. Watching it fall, I reared back, tensing up with all my strength before my fist connected directly with its face, launching the void fiend across the room.

I’m on fire.

No, really. My body felt as if I were burning from the inside out; the golden glow was no longer simply around me. It was beginning to shine out from within me as well.

Too much.

My body physically wouldn’t be able to keep up with the potent mana coursing through me all at once, even the dragon mana I had channeled atop the summit of Sun-splitter peak couldn’t compare to this. I had surpassed human limits, exceeded even superhuman limits.

This was the realm of things that humans couldn’t, shouldn’t, operate within.

But it wasn’t as if I had a choice.

I’ve got to end this now.

The Hollow came at me, again and again, and again. While neither of us seemed to be gaining an edge, I was sure I would be the one to hit their limit first. My body would eventually fail me, breaking down as the sage mana continued to blaze in its golden glory from within me.

Looking at the Hollow, I wasn’t sure if it even had a breaking point from conventional means.

But how?

I threw another fist into its ‘face’ as the Hollow landed near a patch of melted stone.

Melted stone… Wait, that’s it!

The Hollow wasn’t immune to magic, Tez had made that clear, and the bubbled spots of tar-like flesh hadn’t gone away, no matter how much shifting and reforming it did.

Meaning a strike with sufficient magical power would be able to overcome it. My fists, glowing with golden mana, were simply blowing it back.

What I needed to do, was cut it down in a single strike.

I reached for my rapier but stopped, hesitating.

No. That’s not the answer.

The rapier lacked the weight needed to deliver the decisive blow, and my next strike would be my last if there was any chance of me surviving this, gauging from the way I was starting to smell the scent of my flesh being burnt away by the power within me.

There was one idea I could try.

It wasn’t a good one.

Still, it was an idea.

I sprinted across the room, covering the distance what felt like instantly, where I stood once more in front of the platform, my back to Iris and the others.

Can’t have them getting caught up in this.“C’mon, you stupid blob of swamp shit!” I yelled.

Whether the Hallow understood words or not was unknown, but sometimes provocations transcended language and species barriers. The Hollow appeared across from me, standing to attention, as its arms began to reform for what would be a final time transforming into two savage-looking scythes like that of a praying mantis.

It, evidentially, was looking to end this as well.

Then, after only a brief pause, it shot forward at what must have been a speed impossible for the ordinary human to track.

But as I was now, I was far from ordinary.

Time dilated as I closed my eyes, raising my hands held one above the other over my head.

I’m going to die.

I could sense the Hollow, its scythe-like arms nearing the sides of my body as it meant to cut me down in two.

We’re all going to die.

I could even feel the hairs standing on end at the back of Iris’s neck; her face, a stone mask that usually hid her emotions, an open book to me.

But not today!

Doing what was likely a terrible idea, I called out, the crescendo of a single word reverberating through the cavern.

“Rainsplitter!”

My body erupted in agony, as from my incomplete sage ring, I called upon its true power, the power to create magic from mere words. My eyes blazing open, I brought my hands down, now holding a nebulous sword of pure light between them, manifested through the incomplete ring.

Incomplete as it was, it didn’t change the brilliance with which it shone. Slashing down with a strike that felt like it could split the heavens, I cleaved through the Hollow, but the strike didn’t end there. The blade of light extended across the cavern, slicing a massive rift through the ground, and even splitting through the golden barrier blocking our original entrance into the cave.

I remained where I stood, unable to move, staring at where I had split the Hollow down the middle.

Don’t get up.

Seconds passed by.

Don’t get up.

I held my breath, expecting the worst until, in horror, I saw the inky black material of the Hollow tremble.

It’s over. I can’t go on any longer.

I didn’t have the constitution to fight; even if I did, the blade of light within my hands had vanished, the incomplete sage ring unable to maintain its continued manifestation.

Perhaps our only stroke of luck since we entered the cave, the Hollow, rather than reforming and continuing the battle, its trembling black body liquefied. The black ooze collapsed in on itself, twisting and reshaping until it finally solidified in a shape my brain was too exhausted to make heads or tails of it.

It’s done.

At last, I felt a tired smile of relief cross my face.

It was over.

I’d beaten it.

My legs finally gave, buckling under me, but before I could fall on my face, I felt an arm wrap around me, hauling me back to gently lay me on the steps of the platform.

“Zero? Hey, hey Zero, are you with me?”

Everything’s so loud.

“Zero! Hey, somebody, help!”

I’m tired.

“Zero, damn it stay with us!”

I think I’ll take a nap.

Eyes closing, everything disappeared; the last thing I heard was the distant sounds of a voice and a hand slapping me across the face.

-----------------------------------------------

“Really now. While I foresaw many possibilities, I can say that this was not one of them.”

I was floating in a void of fog, a woman direct-

“First off, this isn’t a ‘void of fog’ as you would so crudely call it. But as you lack any familiarity with dream constructs, I suppose that will have to do.”

I stared at the woman in front of me, confused, unable to make her out.

“Mom?”I questioned, my voice sounding weirdly detached from me.

“No, by the Greats, or I suppose I should say by myself, I would never choose to have natural children.”

I felt my eyebrows scrunch up in confusion, but the obscured woman waved it off.

“Don’t go thinking about it too hard now. You’re still recovering.”

“I’m still what?”

“Recovering.” While I couldn’t exactly ‘see’ the woman, I had the distinct impression she was not impressed with my question. “I admire the willingness to try anything, but the thing with you young sages is you so often fail to understand that you’re not invincible.”

Young sages?

“Yes, young sages.” The woman answered my thoughts again as if reading them. “You haven’t even properly formed the third ring, and there you go trying to acclimate to the mana of another Great. Not just that, you proceeded to attempt a premature Call of all things. Even I was never arrogant enough to try that.”

“A, what? A Call?”

The woman obscured by the fog sighed again, even louder this time.

“Give me a moment…. Ah, yes, ‘word magic’ as you call it. A little on the nose, but an apt name nonetheless.”

I was confused, my thoughts a disheveled mess of half-formed ideas and memories.

“Don’t think about it too much. All you need to know is that until you fully form your third ring, do not, I repeat, do not go attempting that Call again. I have zero intention of intervening, as I already have. In fact, I may have just let you die if it were not for the fact that you weren’t supposed to end up there in the first place.”

There? Where was there? I had too many-

“Enough.” The woman cut off my thoughts. “Even if you were fully in the right mind space to freely converse, I doubt it would matter as I already grow weary of this. To ensure you don’t attempt that Call again, I’ve taken the precaution of locking it until the time comes when you can safely utilize it. Now, out with you.”

Her arm swept through the fog, and suddenly I fell, falling through the darkness until….

----------------------------------------

… until I woke with a start, bolting up from where I was laid.

“Zero?” A surprised voice called out to me from my side, but I ignored it.

What was that?

I’d had a dream that had felt so real, with a…

With a what?

I knew I’d had a dream that felt confusingly real, but it was as if I couldn’t recall it for whatever reason.

“Zero?”

The voice called out to me again, and finally, turning my attention outward, I took stock of where I was. I was lying on sand soft as silk within a cave filled with luminous glowing crystal, a pond of crystal-clear water to my right. To my left, a woman was looking at me with concern.

“Elsmere?” My mouth felt dry, words painfully tricky to form.

“You’re awake!”

“I…am.” My thoughts were still clouded from the dream I was sure I’d had, part of me wondering if this too was a dream.

“Here, drink.”

Before I knew it, a small earthenware cup pushed in between my lips, and desperately cold water poured down my throat.

It was like night and day. My head which had been aching, felt as if it were pulled free from a vice grip.

“Better?”

“Better,” I confirmed.

Elsmere sighed, reclining with her arms propped up behind her. “Honestly, I thought you weren’t going to make it.”

“What happened?” I waved around us to the crystal cave that reminded me oddly of the Pond of Elvermarzon. “Last I remember, we were in that cave with the Hollow.”

“Good, I was afraid you wouldn’t remember anything that happened there.” Elsmere seemed satisfied before looking off to the side. “After you…killed it, I guess, the barrier around the obelisk disappeared, and the entire thing floated down just above the platform. Iris suggested we move on immediately, but it took convincing, as you weren’t exactly in great shape. If we ended up in front of any other dangers, well….”

I could imagine.

“It wasn’t until Iris made it clear that you would likely die if we remained there that we took the chance of moving on. She was right about one thing, if we hadn’t, you probably wouldn’t have survived. When we went through, well, for whatever reason, you and I ended up here. Whatever it was you did, you were burning up after the fact; almost literally, you had a fever straight from hell. I’ve been doing what I could to help keep you cool, but it shouldn’t have been enough, speaking honestly. About an hour ago, it suddenly broke as if it had never been there in the first place. Since then, you’ve been resting normally, save for occasionally muttering in your sleep.”

I frowned. I felt like I should know why my fever had broken, but I couldn’t seem to sift the explanation out from the muck of my mind.

“Can I ask you something?”

I looked at her oddly; our interaction now was entirely different from how it had gone the last time I’d spoken with her.

“What?”

“What was that from earlier?”

“What was what?”

“That.” She waved her hand, swinging them down as if miming the swing of a sword. “You were all glowy, and the way you fought… It wasn’t normal, if you’ll excuse me saying.”

“It’s fine.” I shrugged it off.

“So… what are you?”

“I’m… me?” I wasn’t sure I got what she was trying to ask.

“Silver adventurers don’t do that. Gold adventurers don’t do that. I’m pretty sure even Nizeium adventurers don’t even do that. What magic even was that? Or was that even magic in the first place? Are you even a human? No, wait, don’t tell me. Could it be, are you one of the Heavenly Arbiters? Could it be that-”

I cut her off; the woman had begun to ramble a little too excitedly.

“No. I’m just me. A human. What you saw was magic. I managed to tap into the mana that formed the barrier around the obelisk. It just happened to be a lot more…. Intense than I expected.”

“What about those?” She pointed toward my arm.

Aw shoot.

My arm was utterly bare, the divine cloth that usually hid my rings missing.

Right. I released it earlier.

My body had been burning up with so much mana I had thought I’d try to give myself as much relief as possible, the cloth only trapping in the mana further.

Looks like that was a mistake.

“Uhm.” I looked up for a moment, trying to think of something. “They’re, uh. Tattoos.”

“Tattoos.”

“Yeah.”

“That you just happen to keep hidden beneath an arm wrap that I’ve never seen you without before?”

“You haven’t been around me that long.”

“I think you’re being awfully evasive.”

“And what do you want me to say? That I’m blessed by some higher power or something?”

I laughed it off, but the laughter died away when I found Elsmere staring at me with dead-set eyes.

Does she really think that?

“It’s a mark for my family.” The lie came to me quickly, surprisingly fitting. “It represents my mother and me. We’re the only two left.”

“What about the half-finished tattoo?”

“Half-finished-?” I looked down at my arm, nearly swallowing my tongue in surprise.

Well, that’s new.

There, just below my second sage ring, a third had formed, only half-formed compared to my two completed sage rings.

Damn.

During the hectic chaos of the encounter with the Hollow, I’d taken the mana over-flowing within me and used it in any way I could possibly think of, which had included the rapid development of the ring; I just hadn’t taken the time to examine myself before I’d collapsed from the toll the effort had taken on me, never noticing the half-formed ring wrapped around my forearm.

“It, uh, it’s for my father.”

“I thought you said you only have you and your mother.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why it’s only half there.” I nodded as if that had always been the story and wasn’t making it all up on the spot. “He died when I was young.”

Look, I wasn’t really lying. My father had died when I was young, after all.

For good measure, I grabbed at my arm, right where the third ring was forming, shaking my head in feigned grief.

“It’s just… tough to think about even now.”

Elsmere looked away, uncomfortable with the sudden awkward atmosphere brought on by the conversation.

See. No one ever wants to talk about family issues.

“Oh, uh, by the way. This belongs to you.”

I looked at Elsmere with curiosity as she pulled out something from within the folds of her shirt.

What is that?

In her hand was what looked like some strangely geometric black crystal, a composition of diamond-like cells that wrapped around in a strangely familiar-

My eyes bulged as I choked back a sudden gasp of recognition.

I’ve seen that before.

Within the Sage of Wisdom’s research workshop, there had been a diagram of sorts, notes scribbled on it about a ‘mana matrix,’ a data crystal that seemed to be surrounded by some kind of unknown lattice structure.

So, of course, that ‘unknown lattice structure’ was precisely what was sitting in the palm of her hand.

I couldn’t help it as a laugh, a pained, excruciating laugh, escaped my lips.

“What’s so funny?” Elsmere was watching me as if I had suddenly lost it.

And perhaps I did.

“Nothing.” I wiped the smile from my face, a smile that came from no place of positive emotions, before quieting my laugh.

I couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t tell her that the ‘trial’ we had faced, the loss of so many of our expedition members, had been nothing more than an accident.

“…you and your little group weren’t meant to end up there in the first place.”

The words seemed to rise from the depths of my mind on their own whim, familiar as if I’d just heard them. Whether they were my own didn’t matter, not really. At the very least, they confirmed what I suspected.

The lab, the trial with no apparent way out, the Hollow that had killed so many of us. They never were meant as a trial to be cleared as was supposed to be the norm in a dungeon.

It was a production site used for the fabrication of black crystalline lattice. The Hollow was nothing more than a single component in the grand mechanisms of the Sage of Wisdom. The fact that we ended up there had been in error.

So they died for nothing.

Staring at the black crystal structure, I was tempted for a moment to throw it as hard as I could against the ground in refutation of its existence. Our fellow adventurers, living people with their own hopes, dreams, and aspirations, had all been cut short. We didn’t even have a way of reclaiming their bodies.

Because they had become a part of the dark crystal.

“Zero?”

I lowered my hand after a moment.

Think about it, Rook.

If they really had been incorporated into the black crystal structure, as horrible as it sounded, wouldn’t throwing it away be like throwing away their lives for a second time?

“Sorry.” I apologized after a moment. “I, uh, -”

“It’s fine.’ Elsmere shook her head. “We came to the same conclusion as you.”

Meaning she knew that and still decided to give it to me.

“Why?”

“Call it the spoils. One, unlike with the data crystals, there was no way of splitting it up. Two, it’s not like the rest of us did anything useful. Third, and most importantly, I don’t think we could bear the weight of taking it knowing that we failed to do anything. The only person who could do that is you. You’re the only one with the right to carry their lives.”

I knew she hadn’t meant it in any sort of pointed way, but laced within her words was a venom, bitterness not toward me but herself.

They had been powerless.

I can understand that feeling.

“The only other person who was useful, Scarlet, made it abundantly clear she didn’t want to try to lay claim to it either. In her exact words, she only ‘gave it a glorified sunburn.’”

I held it up in front of my face, examining it.

There’s no doubt about it. It’s one and the same.

“Could I… could I have a moment?” I asked, turning my head to look Elsmere in the eye.

“Sure.” She nodded, standing up and dusting some of the sand off her clothes. “I can understand if you need some time to digest everything.”

I did, but not for the reasons she suspected.

Waiting until she had gone several steps away, her back to me, I pulled out my data crystal from where I had pocketed it.

That’s new.

The data crystal had changed. No longer crystal clear, it was now a reddish-pink hue, and most striking was that within the crystal, a gold nebula was contained, gently swaying like a cloud in the sky.

Is that from me?

I couldn’t be sure, but my best guess was that while supercharged with sage mana and looking for anywhere to vent the mana, I had indirectly poured some within the data crystal.

No idea if that’s a good or bad thing.

The problem was that I was out of pocket unless I wanted to carry the black lattice everywhere. In that case, the easiest way of dealing with the space problem, or lack thereof, I had realized, was by putting the two together like I’d seen in the diagram.

Except.

Except I had no idea how. The black geometrical lattice was rigid and dense like a diamond, and I sincerely doubted I could simply smash the two together.

With the data crystal in one hand and the lattice in the other, I held them together in front of my eyes, trying to see if perhaps there was something I was missing, some sort of overlooked clue.

Instead, what I got from it was a surprise, my heart jumping as the black crystal suddenly bulged and twisted. Biting my tongue to hold back the startled yelp, I watched as the lattice warped, tendrils of black latched onto the data crystal before reforming into its original shape, now with the data crystal neatly nestled within.

Aside from the sudden surprise of the dark crystal changing its physical state and reacting on its own, the entire thing was surprisingly… anticlimactic with how easy it had been. One data crystal, one black goop crystal lattice, then poof, a mana matrix.

That was, of course, if one ignored the cost, which had been thirty-odd lives of my fellow adventurers, plus the knowledge revolving around the mana matrix that the Sage of Wisdom required to make the discovery in the first place.

Now what?

I had the mana matrix, or at least what I assumed was a complete mana matrix.

But, I had no idea what I should do with it. Doing the only thing I could think of, I placed it back within the folds of my pocket before standing up and feigning as if I were wiping at my eye.

“I’m ready now.”

Elsmere looked back at me, nodding to me as she noticed me wiping at my eye.

I wasn’t as shaken up as I let on, but it had made the perfect opportunity to ensure Elsmere wouldn’t be watching me. I’d already come to terms with death. While this instance had been rather… egregious, I wouldn’t bend or break that easily, even when faced with its raw brutality.

“Good. From what I’ve gathered, we only have one way forward.”

She pointed at the far end of the pond, the water coursing into an underground river.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure if we try to swim through that, we’ll go into shock, plus who knows what might be lurking in there.”

“That’s why we won’t swim.” Elsmere pressed a palm to the ground, closing her eyes.

“Rentar.”

Instantly the ground began to shift as, from the soft sand, a raft of stone was pushed out from the ground, the edges turned up slightly.

I stared at it before switching to looking at Elsmere, raising an eyebrow at her.

“What?” She questioned, arms folded over her chest.

“You do understand rocks don’t float.”

“This one does.”

“How?”

“Do you think I was invited to join Sunju for no reason?” It was her turn to raise an eyebrow at me as if wondering if I was being serious.

“Well, I mean, I-” I was floundering, unsure what to say before Elsmere shook her head.

“I may not have the insane attack potency of Scarlet, the intricate Kin magic of Iris, or... whatever you do, but I’m confident in my control over earth magic.”

I walked over to the raft, giving it a light nudge with my foot.

She wasn’t kidding.

It was made of stone precisely as she said, but its weight and feel were entirely different than what one would assume just by looking at it. The stone raft was light, density far less than the surrounding stone.

“How did you do it?”

“Tall versus wide.” Elsmere pointed to the raft. “In this case, I’ve always gone tall.”

“None of that made any sense.” I stared at her in confusion.

“Tall versus wide. In other words, the approach to how we use magic. Most take the wide approach, refining their mana core so that they can store greater and greater quantities of mana, more mana, more power, right? Going wide, in other words, literally ‘widening’ your mana reserves.”

“And going tall?”

“Think of it like this. Unless you have that natural predisposition for it, or the resources to get your hands on core refinement aids, the wide approach reaches its limit early on. Take me, for example. I can’t exactly conjure a house made entirely of ordinary stone, but what I can do is manipulate the properties of the stone. While I might not be able to create a house made of stone that was as strong as ordinary stone, by lessening the density, for example, I could make it so that even though I lack the raw ‘magical muscle’ if you will, I could still make a stone house. In that sense, I can go tall rather than wide; refine the process of manipulating mana rather than refining a limited capacity to harness more, as useless as trying to squeeze water from a rock.”

“Okay, I think I can understand where you’re coming from when you phrase it like that,” I answered with a nod, the explanation making enough sense.

“Would have thought you’d heard it before, considering you don’t seem to have all that much mana yourself, but then again….” She frowned, looking up. “I’m still not even sure that I buy that you aren’t a Heavenly Arbiter come down to judge us.”

“I’m pretty sure the Arbiters are just a myth.” I countered.

“Sounds like something an Arbiter would say to try to deflect suspicion.”

“Whatever.” I shook my head, no longer trying to argue the point. “Let’s just get in the boat already.”

“If that’s what the Arbiter wishes, then so be it.”

“Now you’re just screwing with me.” I eyed her, but she shrugged it off, stepping into the raft as I followed.

Taking a seat behind her, I grabbed my still sheathed rapier, using it to leverage our raft of stone forward into the pond.

“One second.” Elsmere closed her eyes, pressing a hand against the stone ceiling only a heads height above us, before, with a murmured word, the stone seemed to flow as two paddles of stone seemed to melt out from the rock, falling into our laps.

“Convenient,” I observed.

“Happy you think so,” Elsmere smirked. “Because since you’re in back, you’re paddling.”

“Don’t have to.”

“Excuse me?”

It was my turn to show off if you could call it that. I pressed my hand against the boat, whispering with my own magic.

“Aulous.”

As if it had a mind of its own, our tiny little raft began to float forward, guided forward by my magic.

“You know, I didn’t expect something that… simple from you.”

“My affinity first and foremost is water, which isn’t exactly difficult when it’s something this simple.”

I hadn’t lied. The magic I’d just performed really wasn’t impressive. It wasn’t like I was conjuring giant water geysers or holding back a raging river. In fact, all I had done was made it so that our little craft would slide through the water on its own. The latent mana my sage rings generated was more than adequate to sustain it indefinitely if needed. While it wouldn’t precisely be quick, it was perhaps for the best, given we were about to sail off into the dark depths of an unknown cave river. The last thing we needed to do was zoom through the dark and end up colliding headfirst with something.

“If that’s the case, time for us to set sail into damnation and the fiends that it may hold.” Her eyes twinkled more than they should have given what she had said.

Maybe she’s the one with a screw loose.

Elsmere noticed my reaction, flipping her hair as she shrugged at me.

“What?”

“I think I preferred when you weren’t cracking jokes.” I stared at her, wondering where the humor had come from.

“And who said I was joking?”

Silent as I let the words sink in, my eyes shifted from the back of her head to the darkness we floated toward.

Please, at the very least, just let there be no eels.