Chapter 170: of Unknown Promise: Beyond the Boundary

“Welcome to the underground of Fort Auria.”

With a big smile, Korwen opened the door leading us into a small cavern, just large enough that two wagons could stand in here side by side. Several doors led to other places, so it was hard to guess how large this place really was.

“This is the… below the fort?”

“That it is. One moment.”

Looking to my side, I could see Korwen holding a metal lamp in his hands, fiddling with it. A few seconds later, a bright light shone from its inside.

“Okay, now I can see something as well. Karen, be careful of the flooring. It’s unsteady.”

“Yes, Mr Captain.”

The surrounding walls, ceiling and floor might have been all paved but time had clearly worn them down. Holes in the walls, damaged floor tiles and the stone bricks in some sections of the ceiling had dropped down, piling up on the ground.

“Captain, rather than unsteady, doesn’t this look like it could collapse anytime?”

“The only damage we found was to the stone tiles. The walls and the ceiling themselves appear undamaged. It might be different if we go in deeper but I don’t think we’ll need to worry here.”

“Nn, if you say so…”

I had my doubts about this but… Well, it did survive up to this day without the entire tunnel collapsing. And looking around, the walls really seemed undamaged… for the most part. I could spy a few small holes at floor level in the walls.

“What about those holes in the walls?”

“Mh? Holes? Where?”

“Over there. And there. And there’s one as well.”

I pointed Korwen in the direction of the holes. Approaching one, he crouched down and looked at it. Ria followed him, looking over his shoulders at the hole..

“You’re right, there’s one. Mh, doesn’t look very big. Maybe some critters live here.”

“Mm… It looks… smooth… old…”

“You mean, it’s been here for long?”

“Yes…”

“Hm… Well, we should get it checked out before doing anything big in this part, then…”

Korwen stood up again and then checked the other two holes together with Ria. Once they were done, Korwen turned to ask me something.

“Yumi… Apart from those holes in the walls, can you see any other damage here?”

“Nn? No, it’s only that…”

“I see… If you spot anything, tell me immediately. We probably can’t spot it as quick as you.”

“Huh? Okay?”

“Good.”

He couldn’t spot it that quickly? But… Oh, right, I could see in the dark without the lamp even… He didn’t light the lamp because it’d get dark once we moved further in… It was dark already.

“That said, we won’t go far now. Keep this in mind mostly for when we are going to go deeper.”

“Nn, understood.”

“Good. Then, follow me.”

We walked down the small cavern, towards the door at one end of the cavern. Without hesitation, Korwen pushed it open and walked through, revealing another wide tunnel behind it.

“The heck is this place, Captain?”

“Hell if I know. If you want me to guess, it might be a storage facility. Or maybe some magic research facility. Heck, it might even be a place that had been used for secret trades by the government.”

“Secret trades? Here?”

“It’s hidden from the public’s eye and one of its tunnels might even lead all the way to Krohmea.”

“Huh.”

If he said it like that, it really could be…

“That aside, here we are.”

We stood in front of the door at the end of the tunnel. A large double door.

“... This?”

“This.”

Honestly, I had expected some small secret room. Not the room with literally the largest door of all of them.

“Let’s get in.”

“... Yes, Captain.”

Still a little surprised, I watched Korwen open the door. The room behind it… was large. Incomparably large. The previous cavern was nothing in comparison. Smooth walls and a smooth floor. No stone bricks to be seen, unlike the tunnel before.

“This is huge…”

“It’s the largest room in the immediate surroundings.”

“But why here? Wouldn’t a small room be enough?”

“Yumi, you need to think ahead a little.”

Ahead? So, there was a reason he chose this one, after all.

“Assuming things go well, we won’t be able to keep the whole thing under wraps. I already told you that before, didn’t I?”

“Nn, I remember that.”

“Good. So, if we can’t keep it under wraps anyway, then there’s no need to go out of our way to hide it anymore. In fact, rather than that, we can think about making it as useful as possible instead.”

“Huh… and that’s the reason for using this large room?”

“Yes.”

Korwen nodded, affirming what I thought.

“If your Space magic is successful, it means we will have a far easier time with logistics and travel. Logistics especially. We could move large amounts of supplies without a problem. But moving supplies in such amounts would be difficult if it was some remote corner in a hidden area, you see?”

“Ahhh… I think I get it.”

Moving a single crate would already become difficult if you had to somehow get it through a door. Moving many more crates would just become bothersome then.

“Furthermore, there is always the chance someone might misuse the magic. From what I have seen and what you told me, those doors connecting are static, right? This area is wide enough that we could set up some simple defences for that case.”

Someone might misuse it? I hadn’t even really considered it that much… The tentacles only really reacted to me, after all… But there was no guarantee someone wouldn’t be able to force their way through, huh… After all, Space magicians did actually exist. They were just very rare.

“It’s an unlikely case but it won’t hurt preparing for it.”

“Nn, I think I got it.”

“Great. Then, how about we start?”

“Nn, okay.”

The time… had come, huh…

“Captain, where should I do it?”

“At the end of the cavern. On that large wall.”

“Nn, got it.”

Basically, the furthest point from the door. I walked through the cavern, once more realising just how large this place was. I moved towards the middle of the wall, looking at its surface. It was smooth with hardly any protrusion.

“Nn, around here, Captain?”

“Yes. That’d be a good spot.”

“Okay.”

So, right here… Right here, I’d have to set up another tentacle door and then connect them. Just thinking about it made me nervous. Calming myself with a few deep breaths, I turned around to Karen, only to see her already holding a mana orb for me at the ready.

“Sis.”

“Here you go, Yumi.”

“Nn. Thanks.”

With a smile, I took the mana orb, holding it in my hand.

“Then, I’ll start now.”

“Do it.”

“Nn.”

After hearing Korwen’s reply, I held out my hand with the mana orb, drawing some mana from it and sending it into the wall to grow the tentacles. The wall was large, far larger than the wooden board I used back in the camp. Still, while I had plenty of space, I only grew the tentacle growth to around the same amount as said wooden board. Just in case different sizes weren’t compatible. Worst case, I could probably adjust it later anyway.

Once I finished with the tentacle growth, I commanded the tentacles to form the door.

“... Now comes the hard part, huh…”

I took a step back, looking at the smooth pink surface, surrounded by wriggly tentacles.

“Mm, can’t you make it any large, Yumi?”

“Nn, I can but… The door in the camp is around this size and I don’t know if there might be a problem if they are of different sizes. Also, if the mana consumption rises with the size of the door…”

“Ahh…”

Korwen nodded in understanding.

“But you can change it later, right?”

“I should be able to.”

“Then that’s fine. Go ahead.”

“Nn.”

That said, this was now the hardest part of it all… And I really didn’t want a repeat of last time.

“Sis.”

“Here you go.”

“... Thanks.”

Once again, Karen had already anticipated what I wanted, holding the bag with the mana orbs in her hand and holding it out to me. I took the bag and faced the door once more.

Well… Here goes nothing. Hopefully, Ria is watching properly.

If something went wrong, she was pretty much the only one here who would be able to do something… Not that I wanted something to go wrong.

I held the bag in one hand and held it towards the door before closing my eyes. With my eyes closed, I could concentrate on the mana in front of me. The orbs contained a tremendous amount of mana, after all. I gathered some of it and sent it to the tentacles, strongly thinking of the door back in the camp. Thinking of connecting this door to the door over there. And seconds later, the mana flowed.

“Something… is happening.”

I opened my eyes when I heard Ria’s mutter. The mana from the orbs flowed into the door, even without my intervention. It sucked it up all on its own. Last time, I had been too occupied to properly watch this but… The amount it absorbed was… dreadful. The bag in my hands was slowly getting light as one orb after another turned into dust. And it showed no signs of stopping either. It was a slow process but at this rate… It’d be only a matter of minutes.

“Hey, we… We do have enough… Right?”

“...”

Nobody answered me. What to do…

“Yumi… Put the… bag on… the ground…”

“Eh? Are you sure?”

“Yes…”

“Okay…”

I followed Ria’s advice, putting the bag down very slowly and then letting go of it.

“It still keeps going…”

The mana was still siphoned out of the orbs at a steady pace. The crackling sounds of the orbs disintegrating one after another echoed in my ears.

“... Yumi, Karen, Ria, to the back.”

“... Yes, Captain.”

“Yes, Mr Captain.”

“Mm.”

The four of us hurried to the other side of the room, far away from the door.

“Ria, what will happen if that door doesn’t have enough mana?”

“It will… likely… absorb mana… from its… surroundings… Without… care… for the… source…”

“... I guess that’s happened to Yumi before?”

“Yes… I assume… that is… the case…”

Well, wasn’t that great news?

“If it collects from its surroundings, what about us?”

“It probably… absorbs… the largest… source of… mana… in its… immediate… surroundings… It would… depend… how far… its range… would be… But… I doubt… we are… in range…”

“I see. Then, we’ll observe from here. If anything goes awry, we run immediately. Got that, Yumi, Karen?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Yes, Mr Captain!”

He nodded, satisfied with our response.

“Good. Let’s hope we won’t have to.”

So did I. But the door showed no signs of stopping with absorbing the mana. Even at the other end of the cavern, I could hear the mana orbs cracking and the flow of mana had gotten stronger and stronger by the second.

And then it all stopped.

“Huh?”

I couldn’t help but let out a dumbfounded sound. It just stopped all of a sudden. Abrupt and unexpected.

“Is it… over?”

“It looks… like it… finished…”

While I was still perplexed, Ria stepped forward, casually making her way to the door.

“Thank the spirits, this didn’t end in more trouble. I might have underestimated this a little, after all…”

With those words, Korwen simply followed Ria to the door.

“Hey, Yumi… Is it really over?”

“It… looks like it is?”

The two of us, maybe a little traumatised from the last incident, were watching Ria and Korwen warily. But even when they were right in front of the door, nothing else happened.

“I guess… It really is…”

“Should we take a look?”

“Nn…”

While I was still dubious, Karen and I approached the door. All that mana it had absorbed… Most of it simply disappeared. Or, at the very least, I couldn’t detect it. The only notable source of mana was the remaining orbs in the bag.

“Yumi.”

“... Nn? Captain?”

“Those orbs… were they all the ones you brought?”

“Nn.”

“...”

We brought as many as we could, after all. It wasn’t like we could carry the entire crate down here, so we filled a large bag with as many as possible. That said, I believed that it’d be overkill to bring that many. Now, I was standing corrected. The bag had barely any mana orbs left.

“How many are left back in your wagon?”

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“Nn? Err, I guess enough to fill the back two or three times more? I’m not quite sure. Sis?”

“That does sound about right.”

“Two or three, huh?”

Korwen stroked his chin, staring at the mostly empty bag with wide eyes.

“That aside… Did it work? Or did it fail?”

“Nn, well…”

The door was still closed so it was hard to know…

I put my hands on the tentacle growth and asked it to open the door.

“... Something’s happening.”

The tentacles and the door shivered, so I quickly stepped back to watch. Seconds later… The door, once more, siphoned mana from its surroundings. But far, far less than before. Then, the pink surface of the door shivered… and parted.

“... No way. It fucking worked?”

“... Nn.”

I stared at the door… Or rather, the place beyond the door. The insides… of a tent.

It was… Unbelievable. Even though… Even though I knew… had seen it… Back at our first attempt… I still couldn’t believe it. The wall… had a door now… leading to another place…

“Ha… Haha… Hahahaha! Yumi! I can’t believe it! Hahahaha!”

“Capt— Oof!”

Bellowing loudly, Korwen slapped my back, nearly making me fall over.

“This is wonderful! Awesome! Hahaha! This! This is it! Hahahaha! Just think of what this means! Think of the possibilities! We can do it! We really can do it! Yumi!”

I desperately tried to stay on my feet as he repeatedly slapped my back over and over again out of excitement. This hurt.

“Ria, she did it! She really did!”

“Mm… It is… astonishing…”

“It really is! Then, let’s try it!”

“Huh?”

Try it? What?

It took me a few seconds to process those words. A few seconds too many, as Korwen boldly stepped straight through the door without a care in the world.

“Captain?!”

And then… he was on the other side. He looked around, still wearing a large grin on his face, then went to the curtain and pulled it open.

“Huh? Captain?! What the?! What are you doing here?”

A familiar, albeit shocked, voice echoed over to us.

“Haha! You won’t believe it, Merim. It worked!”

“What worked?”

“Come in and look!”

“Eh?”

Korwen pulled the person, Merim, by the arm inside the tent. Bewildered, he looked around until his eyes fell on the literal hole in the room.

“... Yumi? Karen? Ria? Wait? What is this?”

I couldn’t help but crack a smile at his bewildered expression… Only now, it really sunk in… It worked. It really had. No accidents, no trouble. It simply… worked.

“Well, Merim! Take a guess what it is.”

“Ehh? Well, I… I don’t know?”

“It’s a door! A door from the fort to here!”

“... Captain, you drunk?”

“Ahahaha!”

Merim looked at Korwen, completely bewildered by his outright euphoric mood.

“Come and see for yourself, Merim!”

“Eh? Wha— Captain?!”

Pulling Merim again by the arm, Korwen walked once more through the door, returning to us.

“Where… is this?”

“It’s a hall below the fort!”

“We’re underground?”

“That’s right! We are!”

Merim observed the surroundings, illuminated only by the dim light of the lamp and the light shining through the door.

“This has to be a joke, Captain?”

“Spirits take me, it isn’t, Merim! It’s real!”

“... This is too crazy. Ahh, I know. I fell asleep again at work and this is just a dream. I see. That makes sense.”

“I believe we’ll need to talk about your work ethic sometime, Merim.”

Truth be told, I’d believe I was dreaming as well if I was suddenly pulled through a door leading to a faraway space.

“That aside. Merim. I have work for you.”

“Huh?”

“First, take this list. They’re things we couldn’t bring but might be useful. Also, get a few people to help you. Choose from the old guys, with a family. Someone we can trust. Have one of them take up guard and the rest help you with this. Got that?”

“... Eh?”

“Merim! You have your orders!”

“... Yes, Captain!”

Snapping out of it, Merim saluted and then rushed out. Through the tentacle door and the tent, of course.

“Mhm. Good. Good. Very good.”

Korwen watched as Merim left, with his arms crossed and a wide grin on his face.

“Ria! How long do you think this portal will stay open?”

“Mm… Hard to… say… It still… absorbs… mana… I think… around… an hour… at most.”

“I see… If we bring more mana crystals, will it stay open for longer?”

“That should be… the case…”

“Merim should also bring mana crystals. We’ll use them to extend the time it stays open. How much mana does this even consume?”

Ria pondered for a few a while before answering his question.

“Approximately… two medium-sized crystals… per hour… Assuming… the current… rate is… constant… Even then… it is… at most… an estimate…”

“An estimate is all I need. But that might be quite expensive, after all. Just activating it seems to use up a lot of it, too. It might be better to keep it open unless it will stay unused for a long period of time. Mh…. two mid-sized… Let’s say fifty a day…”

Korwen began mumbling some numbers to calculate the cost of keeping this door working. The moment he mentioned that it might be “at least one gold coin per day” was already enough to make me feel faint. Sure, it might be something affordable for the mercenaries but… That door devoured money…

“Ria.”

“Yes… Captain?”

“That crystal we got from that job in Lafria. Could it be used to power this?”

“Mm… I am… not sure… it could… be possible…”

“If it is, how would it be able to power it?”

“… I don’t know…”

Ria just shook her head, unable to provide Korwen with the answer he wanted. Or any answer at all.

“That crystal… absorbs from… its surroundings… I have… yet to… determine… how much… Depending… on that… It might… be able… to power it… indefinitely… But… at the very… least… it should… work for… a few… years…”

“Years! Now, that’s something I like to hear.”

I knew that crystal contained a lot of mana but… Years? So, a medium-sized mana crystal… that probably wasn’t small, obviously. With fifty a day… that’d be five hundred in ten days already… and five thousand in a hundred… It’d come close to twenty thousand per year.

Crap. That’s a lot… That’s seriously a lot…

Just the thought gave me shivers already.

“We’ll need to figure out if we can make use of it then. But before we can get to that, there are many other things we need to do first. We’re going to be quite busy. Hahaha!”

Why did I not like the sound of that?

“Yumi!”

“Y— Yes?”

“You did a good job!”

“Ah, yes.”

“Really! This opens so many possibilities for us. Ahh, we might really be able to expand our area of operations to the Beyond. Hahaha! This is the best!”

He really was ecstatic about this, wasn’t he? Jeez, watching him, even I was starting to share that excitement.

“That said, I can still barely believe it…”

I walked up to the door, stopping right in front of it. I look down at the ground. My feet were on the stone floor. A little further were the tentacles, forming the frame of the door and behind them was the beige tarp for the floor of the tent, with grass below it. It was crazy. Seeing this clear division…. Knowing that I was literally looking at two places far removed from each other…

“But it’s real, huh…”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I took a step forward, passing the threshold of the door.

After a few seconds, I opened my eyes again and turned around, looking at the ground once more. My feet were on the beige tarp, behind me were the tentacles, and further behind was the stone floor.

“It’s real…” I muttered once more.

It was just… just too incredible to believe.

I walked to the curtain of the tent and pulled it to the side, looking outside. There were wagons surrounding the tent and in the distance, I could see several mercenaries hurrying to and fro.

“Yumi….”

“Nn? Ahh, Sis…”

Behind me stood Karen, looking just as astonished as I was.

“Is this… really the camp?”

“Nn… It seems like it is…”

“...”

I stepped back, the curtain falling shut and barring the view.

“I guess… We just did something quite incredible.”

“You did, Yumi.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you, Sis. Without anyone here. Hell, it doesn’t really feel like it’s something I did. It’s the tentacles who did all that work.”

If you asked me about how this worked, I had no clue as to how to respond, after all.

“The tentacles are a product of your magic. Therefore, this is an extension of your magic. It’s your achievement and you should be proud of it.”

“Captain.”

At some point, Korwen had calmed down again and joined us on the tent side.

“In fact, you should be very much aware that this is your work. This ability is, frankly said, something that many would covet. I know I am putting a huge burden on you by making use of this ability. You will be in the public eye. People will know about this and a few may draw the connection to you. That is likely inevitable.”

“...”

“Are you scared?”

“A little.”

“Do you want to stop using it?”

“...”

Did I?

“No.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because this is part of my job.”

“... Ha… Ha… Hahahahaha!”

Korwen burst out in laughter once. Even louder than the previous ones, holding his stomach and bending over.

“... Captain, aren’t you exaggerating a little? It wasn’t that funny.”

Actually, I had been serious about it…

“Haha! Sorry! But it was just too unexpected. Haaa… Really.”

With a gentle smile, Korwen rubbed my head, with so much strength my head was jerked around.

“That’s right. It’s your job. And it’s my job to make sure that no one will take advantage of it. Ha! Let them come all they want!”

He finally released me from his furious rubbing, still grinning.

“I guess it’s true when they say that youngsters grow up faster than you can look.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Come, we still got work to do. And don’t peek out too much. It’ll be troublesome if someone spots you.”

“Ah, yes.”

I tilted my head a little, slightly wondering what he meant. I was growing up? Was I?

“Now then, we got the portal working. We should return to the others and see how they are coming along. Ria, you can stay here and look at the portal.”

“Mm… Will do…”

“Not that I expected anything else.”

Ria was crouching down next to the door, closely looking at the tentacles. She was probably looking at the mana if I had to guess.

“Just, don’t do anything to break it, yes? It’ll be a huge pain if you do. At least wait until Merim brings the mana crystals.”

“Mm… I’ll… try…”

“No, don’t just ‘try.’ Please don’t.”

“Mmm…”

He shrugged his shoulders as if it couldn’t be helped.

“Whatever… Yumi, Karen.”

“Yes?”

“Mr Captain?”

“Let’s leave Ria alone and check up on everyone else.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Yes, Mr Captain.”

With a nod, he turned around and began to walk to the exit… or rather, the entrance of the hall we were in. With a smile on my lips, Karen and I followed him.

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