All of us pa.s.sed through the door after clearing our final trial. The door led us to a dark pa.s.sage with no sign of lights anywhere. Right after all of us entered the pa.s.sage, the door behind us slid close. The visibility was poor, so I created a small fireball to light the way."Oh look, our bags," Princess Anna said pointing towards a rock near which our bags were.
All of us grabbed our bags. They were torn and all the food inside was missing, but fortunately, the hunting knife that I had brought with me was still there.
"All that"s left in mine is this," Princess Anna said while showing her wand.
"Yeah, same in my case," Princess Eliane said while showing hers.
"What?! Both of you brought those?"
Both of them had brought their wands while I, myself had completely forgotten that I even had one.
"Well, you kids have fun. I need to take a nap," said Zagan and disappeared.
"I think we should get going too," I said while making the fireball a little bigger so that we could see a little bit further.
"Yeah, but do you know the way?" asked princess Eliane.
"I think I do. This whole labyrinth is like one big maze, and the paths are continuously changing. But I think I have a pretty good idea of how it works," I replied. Since I could sense the mana of the whole labyrinth, finding the right was like solving a maze in my head.
"Guys, do you smell that," Arica said while sniffing.
"What?" Princess Anna turned towards Arica and asked in a confused tone.
"It smells like a rodent, turn off the fireball," Princess Eliane in a hasty tone after a few sniffs.
"But shouldn"t we be making it brighter to chase it away," I replied.
"No, they are attracted to-"
Before Princess Eliane could complete her sentence, a creature that looked like a big rat, jumped towards Princess Anna. Arica, who was standing near, took out the sword from her sheath and chopped it"s head off.
"Man, that was close."
I quickly turned the fireball off. I thought the rodents here were similar to the ones from my previous world. But compared to what I just saw, those nasty looking rats that I used to see in my house were cute.
"Phew! thanks, Arica," Princess Anna said in relief to which Arica just responded with a smile.
"Guess that explains why our bags are in this state," Princess Eliane said while throwing the bag and keeping only the wand with her. Everyone else, including me, threw our bags too since they were no longer usable.
"Okay, let"s move quietly until we reach the central part of the labyrinth," I said.
Fortunately, I couldn"t sense any more rodents in the area, so that one was probably wandering around for food alone.
The lower part of the labyrinth had low concentration of mana. The bigger monsters preferred places with high concentration of mana so this place wasn"t exactly suitable for them. But it was just perfect for small monsters. And due to the lack of predators, the population of small monsters must have grown significantly. So, it was wise to avoid them as much as possible.
All of us quietly walked from there. Everyone stayed close to me since I could sense the mana in the vicinity. I tried to avoid running into a herd of monsters as much as possible but...
"Guys, we have a colony of big buzzing bees ahead. And that"s the only path that will lead to the central part of the labyrinth. We will need to face them and break through," I said after we reached near the central part of the labyrinth.
This place was filled with large light crystals. Light crystals were expensive since they were used to create magic lights. The quant.i.ty that was in front of us was probably enough to light the whole Singha City. But unfortunately, we have no means to carry them.
"I will need to learn how to create a separate s.p.a.ce after all this is over," I thought. I wasn"t sure if it was possible for me to create one or not. But since Zagan had one, I could ask him more about the separated s.p.a.ces.
Magic attacks like fireball could be dangerous inside a place like this so we would need to rely on our weapons and precision. This could be a wonderful opportunity for the princesses to test their wands.
"Okay Princesses, you can attack them with long-range attacks. Arica and I will deal with the ones that come towards us."
Both of the princesses nodded while Arica just smiled. Arica took out her sword from its sheath and used "Flame blade".
Princesses started attacking them with "fire arrows" which was the smaller version of "fire javelin". It consumed a lot less mana than fire javelin and could be fired rapidly like machine guns. The wands improved their precision a lot. For princess Anna, it was like two bullets, one bee, while for Princess Eliane it was one bullet, one bee.
"Eliane, you are seriously good at this," Princess Anna said in an excited tone.
"You are not bad either," Princess Eliane replied.
"Looks like they are having fun. Time for me to get started too."
There were hundreds of them coming towards us at once. So, there was no way they would keep up with them. Fortunately, they were only coming from one direction, so it was easier.
I used physical enhancement to jump up and chopped off the head of one of the bees that were coming towards us.
I then moved a little forward since Arica was dealing with the ones that came closer to the princesses. The only risk of fighting in the front was the friendly fire but as long as I stay out of their way, I could do large scale attacks and decrease their number significantly while defending myself.
I clad my sword in dark flames. It was time to test some long-range attacks.
"Dark slash."
With those words I swung my sword twice in the cross shape. I was trying to do something similar to wind slash but...
"Huh?!"
Everybody"s eyes widened, but I was probably the most surprised one out of all. The pa.s.sage in front of us was frozen solid from the point where I was standing. The bees that were coming to attack us fell on the ground, frozen.
"W-what just happened?" Princess Anna asked in confusion.
"I think I definitely need to get a separate s.p.a.ce," I thought. But this wasn"t the time to be thinking too deep into that, everyone was looking at me for the explanation.
"Well, guys you see this was just a combination attack. Like the wind-water bomb... hha."
"This was, by no means, "just" an attack. The whole pa.s.sage is frozen, and it"s freezing in here," Princess Anna replied while gazing at me fiercely.
"But I thought I was only using enough mana to make two "wind slashes". No, wait..."
"Did all that manipulation of surrounding mana increase my mana handling capacity?"
"I guess I will need to be more careful," I replied. This was the only way to escape those fierce gazes.
Next Chapter: Climbing up - Part 2
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