Chapter 24

Chapter 024

It died in one blow.

I stared blankly at the collapsed Aragos.

As if proving that its breath had been cut off, it even spat out a Mana Stone.

“You...... How did you......?”

Persica called to me in a dazed voice.

Well...... I was just as bewildered.

With my head still hazy, I sorted through the situation.

‘That was definitely...... my Unique Ability.’

I had never received an exact explanation about Unique Abilities.

But instinctively, I knew that the phenomenon just now was the Unique Ability possessed by Possessors.

‘Am I screwed......?’

Although I had used it for only a very, very brief moment.

If Gordon or Persica had felt something strange from that.......

‘Inquisitors...... torture.......’

Gulp. I swallowed dryly.

I did not know the circumstances behind its awakening, but the timing was terrible. No, why did it have to awaken when there were so many people watching?

“This is, well.......”

─Kiiiiik!

These bastards really did not give me a moment to rest.

Enraged by the death of their leader, the Arachnes began to swarm in.

This pattern was annoying.

Was it not the rule that subordinates were supposed to run away when their leader died?

“First, those things.......”

As I tried to move, my knees buckled.

The scenery before my eyes distorted, and the sounds around me grew more and more distant.

Perhaps the poison had spread throughout my entire body, because my paralyzed body showed no intention of moving.

‘I have to run.......’

BOOOOOOM───!!

At that moment, as if sweeping away all my worries, a dazzling cluster of flashes swept through the area.

A roar and an explosion.

By the time I realized that all of it had been a single “sword strike,” the hundreds of Arachnes had been vaporized along with the forest.

“......You should have done that sooner.”

Gordon had come.

The moment I felt relieved by that fact, a sharp pain surged through my head.

An agony as if a great nail had been hammered into my temple.

Then my heart began pounding as if it had broken.

Something felt damp, so I touched my face and found blood streaming from my nose.

“Isran!”

I collapsed on the spot before I could answer.

***

Isran collapsed.

Persica rushed over in alarm, caught him, and checked his condition.

“Hey! Come to your senses! Why are you suddenly like this!?”

His body was convulsing as if he were trembling like an aspen leaf.

The nosebleed showed no sign of stopping, and his eyes were nearly rolling back.

And that was not all. His gasping breaths seemed as if they might cut off at any moment.

“My lady. Please step back for a moment.”

“Gordon! Where the hell were you, and what were you doing until now......!?”

“Later. Right now, I will look at Lord Isran first.”

Gordon, who had arrived before she knew it, examined Isran’s condition.

‘He is a complete wreck.’

The poisoning and internal injuries were serious, but whatever he had done to his body, his brain and heart had been placed under tremendous overload.

His Mana flow was also badly tangled, and if he were left like this, he might truly die.

“W-Why is he like this? Is it because of the poison?”

“......I do not know.”

Poisoning was obvious just by looking.

The reason he answered that he did not know was because of something else.

‘What does one have to do for a body to end up like this?’

Judging by the symptoms, it was similar to the aftereffects of Overclock Magic.

When one released one’s limit in order to unleash something beyond one’s own capacity, this kind of backlash often came.

However, there was no way Isran possessed such magic.

‘It feels as if...... something entered him and then left.’

Occasionally, people who fought by having the soul of a powerful person possess them through a shaman showed similar symptoms.

However, that also made no sense, since there was no shaman nearby.

“......For now, I will treat him first.”

He fed him a Potion, an Antidote, and a Sedative in order, then straightened out the tangled flow of Mana.

What was strange was that, just as the symptoms had come suddenly, he also stabilized quickly.

Gordon’s eyes narrowed further.

“Gordon, you had better answer properly this time. I am truly angry.”

“I will explain.”

There were suspicious points, but first came the explanation.

“Aragos was a test. I wanted to see the limits of the two of you.”

“We almost died.”

“I intended to step in at a dangerous moment. Although it was resolved before that.”

Just as Isran had expected, Gordon had watched the two of them while gradually destroying the nest.

He had used the fact that the boss Aragos would appear once more than half the nest was destroyed, intending to test how far the two of them could go.

Of course, he had been confident that he could handle the situation.

Gordon was a sixth-floor adventurer, and he could use Aura.

“Hah....... Even for you, this was too much.”

“I apologize.”

“So, what do you think that was earlier?”

“I wonder.......”

Isran had not only broken through Aragos’s Aura attack, but had even killed the boss in a single blow.

No matter that he had stabbed its weakness, it made no sense.

Persica seemed utterly unable to understand it, but Gordon had seen it.

‘That was definitely Aura.’

It had been an instant, less than even a second.

But the radiance flashing from his sword had definitely been that of Aura.

Gordon knew that well because he himself used Aura.

‘But...... how?’

How was such a thing possible?

And from an apprentice who had not even graduated from the Selection Grounds a month ago?

“Gordon, you do not know either?”

“There are some points I suspect.”

As far as he knew, there was only one thing that could produce such sudden power.

The Unique Abilities of Possessors.

When he first saw the Aura, he had certainly thought it was that, but he could not feel the strange Mana unique to Unique Abilities from Isran.

“At first, I wondered if he might be a Possessor. I thought it was the Unique Ability they used.”

“Isran is─”

“But I could not feel the Mana unique to a Unique Ability. That is why it is even more puzzling.”

Aura was the final ultimate technique that one could barely acquire after training each Trait to the extreme.

Even Gordon had only managed to learn it after entering the sixth floor, yet Isran had used such a technique while still at the apprentice stage.

Was that all? He had even broken through Aragos’s large-scale technique using Parrying, a technique said to be extremely difficult.

‘And his body was placed under tremendous overload.’

As though he had drawn a realm from the distant future into the present and unfolded it.

“What exactly is this person.......”

His skill was far too outstanding.

Judging by Persica’s experience, he had already been outstanding from the Selection Grounds.

‘The person who taught my lady.’

Persica had met Isran at the Selection Grounds, and her skill had jumped by several levels.

Gordon had taught her for eight years, but Isran had changed Persica in only two weeks.

It had seemed as though he had used magic.

The real reason Gordon had come on this dungeon trip was because he wanted to see Isran.

He had wanted to meet him and confirm it himself.

And as a result, his questions had only grown larger.

‘At this point, it would be stranger if he were not a Possessor. What kind of person is he?’

Where had he built up such skill?

And what was the power he had just shown?

His questions continued to lead into more questions.

He was a living, moving mystery itself.

“Would it not be better to inform the temple?”

“No.”

When Gordon said that perhaps Isran should be examined at the temple, Persica firmly dismissed it.

“Leave him alone. Do not touch him.”

“.......”

Her glare turned toward Gordon.

At that unmistakably warning gaze, he closed his mouth.

He had thought this before, but why was she protecting him so much?

It was too much to simply call repayment for helping improve her skill.

‘......Could it be?’

He knew the reason Persica was trying to descend below.

And he also knew that “it” awaited her on the floor she was aiming for.

‘For the sake of that?’

Perhaps Persica thought Isran’s existence would help kill “it.”

Because she believed he could help her journey to the Deep Floors.......

“Yes.”

Having thought that far, Gordon nodded.

“There is no need for that.”

If someone was suspected to be a Possessor, one had a duty to inform the temple.

However, he was a person of Ortanis, and of Persica.

He would not do what she did not want.

***

When I suddenly opened my eyes, I was inside a small tent.

I clearly remembered feeling intense pain in my head, and then...... did I faint?

‘I feel like I dreamed about something.’

Seeing as I felt like garbage, it seemed an old memory had appeared in my dream.

My body was all right.

Since the pain had all subsided, Persica must have done something for me.

“......How should I explain this?”

The technique I had used back then.

No matter how I thought about it, that was my Unique Ability. Otherwise, there was no explanation.

No matter how much I struggled, I was not yet at the level where I could knock away an instant-death technique with Parrying.

‘Why did it have to awaken then, of all times?’

I did not know what conditions had been satisfied, but the timing had been terrible.

By now, Persica and Gordon had probably both realized everything.

Should I run away even now?

As I slowly began to move, Persica suddenly stuck her face into the tent.

“Ah, you are awake. Come out once you have your senses back.”

“My condition is still a little.......”

“I know Gordon already fixed you up. Stop trying to pull something and come out quickly.”

“.......”

Damn it. So that bastard Gordon had fixed me up.

It seemed he had come and taken measures because I was about to drop dead.

Fine...... So there was no room to escape.

I sighed and went outside.

“You are here? Then come this way. We have to collect the spoils.”

“......?”

But even after looking at me, Persica did not ask a single thing about Possessors.

“You do not have anything to say to me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like how I defeated it.......”

“What, do you want to brag?”

“That is not it.”

For some reason, Persica did not suspect me of being a Possessor at all.

This was too frustrating.

I decided to ask directly.

“I thought you would ask if I was a Possessor, or if I used a Unique Ability, something like that.”

“What? Hah...... You really are praying to get yourself hanged.”

“.......”

Persica sighed and spoke.

“I have never once heard of a Possessor becoming a fairy, you know?”

“.......”

“And Unique Abilities come with their own distinctive Mana. If you had used one, there would be no way not to know, but you had none of that.”

“Ah.”

Unique Abilities of Possessors used a distinctive Mana...... That was something I was hearing for the first time.

But before I could be surprised, the moment I heard that it had not been felt, I quickly looked at Ishara.

Back then, before the Unique Ability activated, Ishara had sent me a great vibration, as though resonating with me.

The strange power was felt after that.

And even then, it had felt less like a power manifested from me and more like someone else’s power being overlaid onto me.

‘Could that be why?’

I was not certain, but that was the only thing I could suspect.

Could it really be related?

While I sank into thought, Persica lightly tapped my shoulder.

“If you understand, come this way. We have to collect the spoils.”

She took me to where Gordon was.

Of course, Gordon was the same in that he did not suspect me.

‘What kind of ability was it?’

It had felt as if I had become someone else.

Should I call it the sensation of a realization from a realm higher than my own seeping into me like divine possession?

I did want to try it again, but not here.

This time, I might really be caught, and above all, the side effects seemed far from ordinary.

“This is where Aragos came out.”

The place they led me to was Aragos’s burrow.

As befitted its filthy huge body, the burrow was large as well, and in the room that seemed to be its hideout, bones and equipment were scattered messily.

Gordon was examining them one by one.

“These seem to belong to missing adventurers. It appears they were eaten here.”

After offering a brief prayer, Gordon collected their proof badges.

I did want to take the equipment too, but all of it had already melted and corroded, losing its proper function, so I cleanly gave up on it.

Even if I took it, I would not be able to sell it, and I did not feel particularly inclined either.

‘Come to think of it, I remember there being one more path here.’

Recalling my memory, I wandered around the burrow here and there, and before long, I was able to find a path leading outside.

“This is a path to the outside.”

It was a clearing filled with blue-white flowers.

Gordon and Persica seemed not to know this place, but that was not strange.

Aragos itself had strict encounter conditions, and the burrow was very maze-like, so finding the way was not easy.

I had also come out while pretending to have found it by chance after wandering around here and there.

“There is no sign of monsters. It is a safe zone.”

“Wow, there is a huge river.”

“It seems to be a tributary of the Styxia River.”

The Styxia River was a river that wound its way through the dungeon.

What was strange was that it did not flow from top to bottom, but from bottom to top.

It began from the lowest floor of the dungeon and flowed all the way to the surface, and thanks to that, it served as an important water source that supplied Ebla with drinking water.

‘If one followed it downward against the current, one could skip the boss and go to the lower floor.’

Of course, it was not something worth attempting.

Extremely powerful aquatic monsters swarmed there, so one usually died before arriving.

I had tried it a few times, but it was truly not something a human should do.

‘But there is nothing here.’

The flowers were pretty, but they were useless weeds.

Instead, this was supposed to be a place where a huge pile of Mana Stones the spiders had stockpiled would be stacked.

But whether someone had already taken them or not, it was empty.

Nothing was going smoothly at all.

“Other than being a safe zone, there is not much to see......?”

But Gordon, who had been searching the clearing, found something among the flowers.

When he cleared away the thickly grown vines, there was a stone monument resembling a memorial, and a small box.

“This is the crest of House Rosetta. It seems to be a marker that the Possessor Enlil passed through here.”

“Do Possessors have houses too?”

“It is the house of the original body’s owner.”

Enlil’s real name was “Enlil Grace Rosetta.”

She was said to have been the youngest daughter of House Rosetta, a house that had now disappeared.

‘Did that person take all the Mana Stones too?’

What was this, pulling up the ladder after climbing it?

Was that not a little too much?

“What is the box?”

“I do not know. It does not seem dangerous.”

Persica was more interested in the box than in the stone monument.

Since that was the only thing left, I also turned my attention toward it.

“This is.......”

Inside the box was a single book.

“It is a secret manual.”

A Relic rarely found in the dungeon, a secret manual.

The fact that we had found one was surprising enough, but its contents were even more so.

<Mysticism: Introduction to Victory Studies>

“.......”

A Mysticism-type secret manual.

And it was the exact secret manual I had been trying to obtain first.