Chapter 30: Chapter 27: Day 1 Exploration

It was now early in the morning, but the stars were still visible, and the sun hadn’t risen yet. Everyone was getting ready and preparing to enter the ruin. 

The raid team would be the first to enter, and the next up was the investigation unit, followed by the collectors. 

Night Ouen, Phantom Dusk, and Crystal Drakes met up with the researchers beforehand. 

There were two investigation units and although they did the same thing, splitting up and collecting data separately was more efficient. And it wouldn’t be very dangerous for them since they were being protected by the adventurers. 

After a while, after the raid team had entered, it was the investigations unit's turn. 

As Alum entered the ruins, he could instantly feel the difference. He looked around and could see loads of monster corpses and the sound of an ongoing fight deeper into the ruins. 

The researchers were told to be careful in the case of something still being alive. And from there, they split up. 

They took many samples and lit up the dark areas that hadn’t been lit by the raid team. 

They heighten their senses and carefully eye their surroundings and the researchers. 

“Nothing out of the ordinary so far,” Jan commented.  

Jan, Dalen, and Nela acted like scouts and looked around inside the ruins to ensure the raid team hadn’t left anything alive. While also disabling the traps that may still be active. 

Alum also made sure to always use [Static Field] to make sure nothing gets past him. He had been practicing many of the spells he thought up and was well on guard as any other adventurer. 

Since he was already cautious, he knew that his sight, smell, and hearing could easily be fooled with illusions. 

But other adventurers around him seemed more relaxed than he was, but, unlike him, they were used to this. Since it was the first floor out of many that were depicted and thought it wasn’t something to worry about. 

And looking at the monsters in the first chamber, it was clear as day why this was a C+ expedition. 

The monsters were all D or higher; in this case, there were many of them, and in the case that they escaped the raid team, they had to be extra careful since there were people who couldn’t fight. 

— :::: —

After a while, the collector group entered, and they started to collect all the materials left by the raid group. There were many workers and some adventurers among them. 

Advancing deeper into the ruins, they came across a chamber that seemed untouched by the raid team. This alerted everyone, and the researchers had to stay back with the support mages. 

Two researchers were standing close to Alum, and he felt his eyes drawn to them for some reason. He wasn’t sure why himself, but they were beautiful people. 

But he didn’t think too deeply about it. 

Stepping inside the chamber, everyone had prepared a barrier core. 

And since Alum’s [Static Field] could penetrate even behind walls and floors, he found some traps. 

Signaling everyone that he found traps, they all stopped moving. Jan, Dalen, and Nela went to the locations Alum told them about, and to their surprise, he was right. 

Jan took out some disposable daggers they had purchased from the storage bag that Amethely had gifted them and used the daggers to activate the traps. 

Dalen, on the other hand, used shadow magic to pass the trap's activation sensors and disabled the traps from within. 

Alum wasn’t sure what Nela had used, but it seemed to be an artifact that destroys magic circuits. Which intrigued him. 

He knew for sure that those were used in the military, but it was strange to see them in use here since it was so hard to get hold of. 

But he wasn’t going to pry and just watched. 

“Are there any more traps?” They asked. 

“No physical ones, as far as I can sense.” 

Jan and Dalen nodded, and Nela looked at him a little awkwardly. 

“... What is it?” Alum asked her. 

“No… sorry about yesterday.”

Looking at her and the other members of the Crystal drake, he noticed that they seemed to have shifted their opinion on him and were genuinely apologetic. 

“Don’t mention it,” Alum replied softly. 

And as he said that, he could feel someone pulling on his coat. 

It was Lyn. And compared to yesterday evening, she seemed to have returned to normal. 

“Hey, Alum. You seem a little tired….” 

“You’re right. Sorry to worry you.” 

She gave him a soft smile and shook her head. 

“You can afford to let your guard down a little, you know? Constantly using magic like that will mentally exhaust you.” 

She was right. Since they entered the ruins, he had been using [Static Field] the whole time. Although mana usage wasn’t that high, he had slowly become exhausted due to the constant barrage of information he received from the spell. 

But… Alum shook his head. 

“I can still manage,” he replied. 

“... Okay.” 

— :::: — 

While Jan, Dalen, and Nela slowly disarmed the magic traps Alum couldn’t detect, they all wandered where the traps had been disabled. 

The camber was relatively large and well-lit, and the pillars and walls had a bunch of depictions. 

Looking around, they could also see treasure and weapons…. 

And walking further in, there was a hall of giant statues. 

Sarie was the first one to stop everyone from moving forward. And rightfully so, the statues were awfully suspicious. 

The statues were coming to life and were of many sizes larger than them. They also wielded different weapons, the path behind them had also been blocked, and they had no choice but to fight. 

One of the statues that held a spear stomped on the floor so hard it shook the whole hall, and a spear made out of unknown metal was flying toward them all. 

The support mages had cast a strong barrier around everybody, and Turen, Keelen, and Enio were ready with their shields. 

But before the spear could come close to them, Sarie jumped toward the projectile and disintegrated it with her powerful lightning magic. 

Following behind her, a strong gust of wind followed as Sarah dashed toward the statues and activated the magic traps in the hall. 

Keelen and Dalen, as well as Lyn, clicked their tongue. 

As they followed her, Lyn gave her a protective barrier and more strength enhancements. Dalen would cover her blind spots and tie the statues down with [Shadow Bind].

Keelen was trying to keep up with her tempo acting as her shield as she dashed freely between the statues and sliced through them with her glowing red blade.  

But unfortunately for them, the magic traps Sarah had activated earlier made the hall much broader, and many more statues appeared as a result. 

They were now being surrounded from all directions. 

The members of Crystal Drake fired spells, and their tank Enio stood by the mages in case of an emergency. 

And the only mele fighter in their party seemed to be Sarie, who was cutting the statues down like it was child's play. 

Phantom dusk was taking care of the north, and Sarie handled the ones from the east by herself. 

The rest of Crystal Drake fired high rounds of magic and arrows to the west. Which left the south for Night Ouen. 

Turen was in the middle of the soup, drawing the statues toward him as Jan dashed around between them and planted magic traps on them by infusing the disposable daggers with wind magic. And left them as he waited for the statues to wear down so that he could activate the magic circles. 

And as long as the statues were destroyed before they could activate any magic, they would be completely fine. 

Although they were awfully durable. It wasn’t a huge issue since they had so many members capable of dealing significant damage before the metallic statues could become a threat. 

But if the adventurers didn’t have this kind of firepower, they would be very dead. 

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Jua was doing a fine job covering for Turen and Jan by firing magic arrows that penetrated the statues while also exploding upon breaking.  

Nuli was shielding them from all the explosions created by Jua’s arrows, and it didn’t seem like they needed Alum at all. 

But that didn’t mean he didn’t do anything. He froze the legs of the statues, which of course, didn’t completely stop them, but that wasn’t his goal. Since that was to spread the frost effect, which significantly slowed down their movements. 

Not only did it slow them down, but it also cracked their armor which left them more vulnerable. Enough so for Jan’s magic trap to finish them off with a bang. 

He had also created 4 giant walls of ice, splitting up the battlefield so that the statues wouldn’t be able to group in one place. 

But unfortunately for them, they still kept piling up, and some dropped down from above and morphed into flying beasts.

Sarie and Alum were the first to notice, and she sent him a signal telling him that she’d take care of the ones from above while he would buy her time. 

Switching his attention to the east, he cast a large AoE spell that froze the ground. 

And when the statues walked on that crystalized mana, they started to completely get frozen and would crack and break while the radius of the spell grew. 

It was a spell he came up with that would fully use his mana skills. 

First, it converts the mana from the source that steps into the ice field into Alum’s mana. In other words, it drained their mana while fueling the spell further. 

Realizing this, they stopped advancing, and… their weapons morphed into bows. Behind the statues on the east side opened a gate, and elemental golems came out from it. 

They infused the statue's arrows with elemental magic, and so the arrows were fired. 

Everyone at the center realized they were in deep trouble. They cast a protective barrier, which stopped the first rounds of magic arrows. 

Meanwhile, Sarie was in the air jumping around between the statues and ultimately destroying them so that there would be nothing left of them. 

And after a pretty long way up, she finally managed to strike the ceiling with so much electrical energy that it broke the mechanism that summoned the statues. 

Alum, on the other hand, was in a bind. 

There were so many golems that had come out from his side. And the statues had gone ranged on him and were firing arrows at them constantly. 

Alum decided to use his mana for offense and released a toned-down version of [Droplet Bomb] called [Scattered Drops] and covered the east side with [Abyssal Depth]. 

As soon as [Scattered Drops] exploded. Tiny condensed water droplets were sent everywhere, bouncing back and forth inside the barrier. Each bounce gives them more energy, tearing everything inside to pieces. 

And, of course, it drained his mana very rapidly due to him feeding the barrier more mana so that it doesn’t break and send the droplets everywhere. 

And as everything inside was gone, he released the mana that condensed the droplets. And they exploded, filling the barrier with water. 

Freezing all the water inside the barrier and completely sealing off the east side with ice. Alum fell to his knees, panting profusely as he had overused his mana. 

And from the looks of it, every side had finished their work and sighed with relief as they all could finally relax a little. 

Alum was about to faint and had pulled out Depth Cutter to drain some mana he had stored. 

With this, he managed to stay conscious but was still exhausted from the overuse of spells. 

— :::: —

After the fight, everyone was tired and had set up a camp inside the chamber. 

At first, they were planning on heading back, but there wasn’t any way back, and they soon realized why this place was untouched by the raid team. 

As it turns out, they had walked into a shifting corridor that led them here. 

No one had realized this and was frustrated by the fact that they had been so careless. 

The researchers took a closer look at the golems and statues and found their broken operation cores. 

Alum overheard their conversation a little about being able to reverse engineer them. They also collected unknown metals in the hopes of making better golems or weapons that could change forms. 

Lyn and the rest of the support mages were taking a nap since they were the ones protecting everyone. 

And except for Alum, they had used more mana than anyone.

Alum was half asleep in a sitting position and had recovered more than half his mana in the past hours. 

Sarie sat beside him, looking at him with a soft smile on her face. Which shocked everyone. 

Especially her party members. They had never seen their leader with such a gentle smile on her face. 

She was usually very expressionless. And this was a rare sight to behold, so they said nothing. 

Alum felt a little awkward since he was being stared at.

”… Is there something on my face?” 

Sarie shook her head.

”No, there isn’t….”

She then took out a pendant and handed it to him. He carefully opened it, and… his eyes widened. 

Sarie looked a little embarrassed and fidgeted. 

”You see… I’m… not very good at expressing myself.” 

Alum waited for her to continue since he didn’t know what to say himself.  

“My sister… is really grateful to you, and so am I. And I want to sincerely thank you… so….” 

She looked at the floor and had turned bet red. 

“... So… I will do anything… you ask.” 

“.....” 

“.....” 

“Then… how about you tell me what happened to the boy she was with?” 

“... Huh? Are you sure that’s all you want?” 

“Yeah. You said anything, right?” Alum replied with a smile. 

Sarie seemed relieved by his answer and had turned to her usual self. And mumbled something in a low voice he couldnät hear. 

“I thought men were more….” 

But she then shook her head and faced Alum. 

“Since that day, Dhel… oh, that is the boy's name.” 

“I see,” Alum nodded. 

“Anyhow, Ameth and Dhel have gotten quite attached after the incident…. Since he was an orphan and I didn’t want to split them apart… so I decided to take him in.” 

Alum was glad and chuckled a little. 

“I’m glad,” he said with a smile. 

Sarie was giggling as well and had a soft expression on her face. 

“He also gets along well with Landen… oh, that's my brother.” 

The two chatted for a little while. And at some distance away, Lyn looked at Sarie with a concerned face. 

(I hope he doesn’t create another victim….) 

— :::: —