Wolf and Anna cautiously followed a burly man and entered the coal mine. Anna’s mouth twisted with displeasure at the sight and smell of the musty tunnel, the cobwebs in the ceiling, but most of all she hated the creepy crawlies scuttling about. The dull white glow which came from Light Stones studded into the walls every three meters didn’t help with the atmosphere.

“Don’t be afraid. We’ve already passed this place yesterday,” Wolf softly whispered, trying to reassure his beloved.

Anna nodded, but still held the hem of Wolf’s robe. She wasn’t afraid one bit, most certainly not. She was simply disgusted by the crab-spiders and the moldy smell. But if she said something like that to the block-headed man of hers, it would only result in him thinking she’s trying to act tough.

“We can expect to see corpses once we enter the abandoned tunnel,” Wolf subvocalized a warning. “If you can’t handle it you can just head back. However, if you want to go deeper you have to stay next to me. I’ll form a wall of wind which will keep any poisons away from us and allow us to breathe fresh air.”

Wolf’s voice was barely audible, but Anna’s senses were keen enough even without awakening them. The youth was quiet out of consideration. He didn’t want to embarrass Anna in front of their guide. Still, he had to prepare her for the decomposing bodies he’d seen yesterday when he’d scried on the sealed tunnel.

The laborer who led the way stopped and lifted the large crowbar he carried. With a couple of deft motions the muscular man unsealed the tunnel and stepped back.

“That’s as far as I go. Yoki gave you the map. Good luck.” The man’s tone was respectful and his words to the point, probably on his boss’s order.

“Thank you. Just wait for us at the end of the tunnel,” Anna smiled and thanked the man for his effort while Wolf started chanting his spell.

“Are you sure that wind wall won’t pick up dust and bugs from the ground and throw them into our face?” she asked Wolf after the guide had left.

Wolf really wanted to, but couldn’t answer the question while muttering the chant. Arcana for Detached Eye was complex and took over two minutes to cast and properly connect the eye with the floating Soul Force sensor.

Finally having manifested a silvery-purple floating eyeball the size of an apple, Wolf was free to speak.

“The person who created the spell had already thought of that,” he replied, his right eye closed and giving off a faint purplish glow. “There’s dust and bugs outside too, and filling your face with them would impact your ability to cast spells. Now, come over here and remember to stick close to me.”

“Men.” Anna snorted, her voice laden with derision. “You just want girls to cling to you, don’t you?”

“What’s wrong with girls clinging to capable men?” Wolf asked with a smug smile.

“What’s wrong with men clinging to capable women?” Anna cocked her brow as she retorted, instantly shutting Wolf’s mouth.

“Didn’t you say something about it being impolite to answer a question with a question?” Wolf asked in a cheeky tone as soon as he recovered his wits.

As a reward for his wittiness, he ended up with his side pinched by Anna once more.

“Ouch,” Wolf said out of courtesy before casting the Hurricane Wall, and leading the way down the unsealed tunnel.

The feeling of having a miniature cyclone swirling around her was quite novel to Anna. The fact that the spell managed to eliminate the musty smell pleased her even more. She wanted to jokingly curse Wolf for not using it earlier. Anna was about to open her mouth when the pair turned a corner. The young lady gasped, her face turning pale.

A dozen meters in front of the pair was another fork, with two rotting corpses lying on their backs. Their skin was green, marbled with black.

Fortunately for Anna, Wolf already knew what was in store for them, so he’d made his preparations in consideration of her nose.

“We should wait here for a bit. I want to see what’s further ahead,” Wolf suggested while sending the faintly translucent, purplish eye towards the left corridor.

“That’s a Fifth Order spell, right?” Anna asked, trying to take her mind off the greenish bloated mess.

“Yup,” Wolf replied, oblivious of why Anna had just asked the question.

“How come you know all these odd spells nobody ever uses?” Anna asked again, this time with a question which would hopefully elicit a medium length lecture from Wolf.

“What do you mean nobody ever uses them? I personally saw someone use Hurricane Wall before. They used it to block arrows, but it’s just as useful for blocking stench and poisons,” Wolf replied seriously, starting into a long winded speech Anna appreciated perhaps for the first time.

Still Wolf mentioning this sparked her interest. When had he seen a Fifth Order Mage use this spell to block arrows? She wanted to learn more, but stopped herself, respecting Wolf’s wishes and privacy.

“Detached Eye is quite useful by the way,” Wolf continued passionately. “It should be one of the first Fifth Order spells you learn. Knowing what’s waiting ahead without exposing yourself to danger is very important when you know something fishy is going on.” Wolf spoke leisurely as the eye floated above a dozen or so corpses.

The bodies were green and all the blood vessels had turned black. Despite the number of bugs and crustacean creatures scuttling about outside this tunnel everything inside was dead and nothing had touched the bodies.

From what he could see, Wolf didn’t believe they died to a Monster Beast, but it wasn’t impossible for this unknown monster to have poisonous breath or something. However, a beast would’ve eaten its prey.

That only made matters worse. Wolf began considering high Order spells which could kill masses without leaving wounds and alchemical poisons which could immediately kill people with only a drop. He wanted to use Detect Poison, but couldn’t through this artificial sensor.

As he was thinking this Wolf never stopped talking.

“Dad told me to always scan the room from just below the ceiling. Manlings and Monster Beasts alike have a tendency of looking only at the height of their eyes and below–” Wolf abruptly stopped talking, realizing he’d just misspoke.

Anna looked at his pained face and finally understood some things about Wolf. The man who cast that Hurricane Wall and protected him from arrows was most likely Wolf’s father. She guessed the man died protecting his son after which Wolf hid among beggars.

What am I supposed to say? Should I say I’m sorry? Should I just remain quiet? Anna’s mind raced as she tried to figure out what was the right thing to do under the circumstances and she had no idea.

During this awkward moment of silence, Wolf’s Detached Eye floated through the mine shaft, slowly nearing the dead end.

The tunnel ended with a solid wall entirely made of silver. When the magical sensor was some three meters away from the silver wall Wolf saw fine details.

The exposed silver surface was damaged by picks, but the marks were off. Silver is a very soft metal. Steel picks should normally be able to tear through it with extreme ease, knocking off huge chunks of metal. However the marks on the silver wall told a different story. Picks barely left scratch marks on the surface, while the ground was littered with silver chips and fragments of broken pickaxe heads were everywhere.

But that wasn’t all. The exposed silver surface was as tall as the tunnel and just as wide. In fact the tunnel widened where it reached the so-called silver vein to accommodate twelve now dead miners working at the same time.

“There’s something strange going on here.” Wolf muttered to himself, using this chance to change the topic.

“What’s wrong?” Anna asked, going along with Wolf’s misdirection.

In reality she burned with questions she wanted to ask. Otherwise just looking at Wolf squint there without moving would’ve been eating at her from the inside. This was supposed to be her mission, yet she hadn’t done anything so far.

“The silver in this vein and even the vein itself are all wrong,” Wolf answered. “In general ore veins aren’t this big and uniform and silver’s nowhere nearly as tough as this wall is. Actually, now that I think of it, this looks exactly like a giant reinforced wall made out of silver.”

Wolf paused thinking about the scene before him, silently cursing the inadequacy of the Detached Eye. If only he could use the Seventh Order version, The Fearsome Eye, then he’d be able to take in the finer details and even use spells through the Soul Force sensor.

“The miners dug out about two meters of it at the center of the shaft and dented it quite a bit in several other places. Wait, what’s this?” Wolf suddenly frowned as Detached Eye floated to less than half a meter of the deepest part of the excavation.

Right in the center of the area where the largest amount of silver was excavated there was a tiny hole. The floating eye shifted its gaze down and saw a rotting corpse holding a pick. The hole was about the same size as the tip of the pickaxe.

After hesitating for a moment Wolf sent the ethereal eye towards the orifice, wanting to see if it could be used as a peephole. The sensor closed in on the tiny gap and Wolf saw a flash of white.

“Aaaaargh!” he screamed as the Soul Force eye exploded.

Wolf pressed his hands against his eyes, momentarily blinded.

Startled, Anna jumped back, leaving the protection of Hurricane Wall. Storm-force winds buffeted her hair and robes for a moment, but it only lasted for an instant and the winds failed to do any real damage.

As soon as she’d left the insulating barrier Anna felt the revolting stench of rotten flesh. The young woman gagged, but managed not to embarrass herself any further. She simply pinched her nose and hurriedly walked over to Wolf’s side.

“Are you all right? What happened?” Anna checked with a sour expression.

She was relieved to see her boyfriend wasn’t injured and only kept frantically rubbing his eyes. However, she couldn’t help the instinctive grimace she’d made out of disgust.

“I think we shouldn’t be here,” Wolf said as he lowered his hands and tried focusing his eyes. “Scratch that, I think we should get the hell out of here, right now.”

Wolf was still blinking in an exaggerated manner before confirming that there was nothing wrong with his eye. Whatever had happened overloaded the Detached Eye, which in turn overstimulated his own mind.

Having reached these conclusions and confirmed his eyes were functioning normally Wolf grasped Anna’s hand and pulled on her. “Let’s go.”

“Stop! Let go of me! What about the mission?” Anna hissed while gritting her teeth in pain and irritation.

Wolf treated Anna like she was a doll. That fact alone was enough for her to stubbornly refuse to go along with him. Not to mention that this was her mission, not Wolf’s. She should be the one making the decisions.

“Who gives a damn about the mission?” Wolf was frustrated and afraid.

It had been a long while since he found anything to be menacing and dangerous, and this corpse-filled tunnel had a really ominous feel to it. He had a feeling that whatever was beyond the silver wall could easily kill him. And even if he could get away with his life, he wouldn’t be able to save Anna. That thought terrified him.

“I give a damn about this mission! It’s my mission, not yours! Now, thank you for helping out and trying to protect me, but I want to see this through.” Anna was upset, but quickly calmed down. She understood that Wolf wasn’t acting randomly and that his overreaction was out of concern for their safety.

Wolf didn’t care as much about Anna’s crazy motives. But since she’d calmed down and there was no imminent danger, they could talk. He just hoped nothing would come after them because they tarried.

Crazy woman! he cursed inwardly. Who knows what’s behind that boundary! Wait, it really could be a boundary? Or a part of an extremely advanced sealing Spell Formation? That would explain silver’s toughness. Whatever it is, it was obviously used to keep something inside and making a hole the size of a pinky nail killed everyone near it.

“Wait. Your mission is to find out what happened and if possible to resolve it. Right?” As his mind raced, Wolf came up with all sorts of scenarios, but he still focused on his first priority which was to get Anna and himself out of here in one piece.

“That’s right,” Anna confirmed.

“In that case we know what happened,” Wolf blurted out in a no nonsense manner. “The miners punched through the silver vein, there’s an open space on the other side. Once they made that hole they somehow died. There, you know what happened, now let’s go.”

He was about to pull Anna towards the exit. Regretfully, reality was rarely so simple and straightforward.

“Wait,” Anna exclaimed. “Is it still dangerous there?”

“Naturally, there are remains of around fifteen people there. Corpse gas is quite toxic in closed space.”

“Stop fooling around,” Anna barked in annoyance. “I’m asking whether whatever killed them is still there!?”

She had lost patience with Wolf’s silly antics. Corpse gas couldn’t hurt them if they are protected by the Hurricane Wall.

“I… don’t… know?” Wolf said hesitantly.

He wanted to say that whatever had killed the miners was naturally still there, but he didn’t know for certain and when he was about to willingly utter the lie he felt a tug on his soul. This made him calm down and think.

Wolf actually felt no danger right now. He was simply awed and afraid of all the unknown terrors which could potentially be on the other side of the silver wall.

“If you don’t know, why are you panicking?” Anna asked with a forced giggle, trying to defuse the situation.

“Because it could be dangerous,” Wolf answered seriously.

He didn’t mention that his father had told him that the thing one should fear the most is the unknown horror. And the situation they were in was exactly that. The best course of action was to simply walk away. Even if this was a failure, and Anna suffered an Academic Credits penalty, so what? Their lives were more important than a handful of gold.

“But it could be completely harmless. Whatever happened could have ended a long time ago, and if it was a Monster Beast it could be long gone.” Anna said, making Wolf think how she had to talk reason now of all times.

Why can’t you be like a regular girl and just scream and run away when you see a dead body? Wolf thought without even realizing that one of the things which he admired the most about Anna were her strong will and courageous heart.

“And how do you want us to test whether that tunnel is safe?” he asked, wanting to beat her with reason. “We can’t just walk into a potential death trap that has already killed so many people.”

“How about we use a canary? Miners use them as well, so there should be some around. We can just ask that foreman they sent to act as our guide,” Anna gave another reasonable suggestion.

Wolf itched to say no, but there were no problems with her idea.

“What if whatever killed those miners gets triggered again by the canary?” Wolf asked, coming up with an unlikely scenario.

“You’re pushing it. The miners died in that tunnel over there, right? If we don’t enter the tunnel until we know it’s safe nothing bad will happen to us.” Anna spoke with great confidence.

Really? You want us to gamble our lives on such a flimsy assumption?