Episode 45.14

Multiple mages are fighting.

All of which possess monstrous amounts of mana.

Even from this far, the lights emitted from the magic shootouts dazzle the eyes.

Explosions keep occurring intermittently. Clashes between magic would happen in between those explosions, but the extent of Lecan's knowledge was unable to discern what kind of magic were shot.

He once bore witness to a fight between dragons in his previous world, and what's happening now reminds him of exactly that.

(Oh. Something's flying off.)

Something flew off the site of battle toward Mt. Suringa.

It's a winged creature.

(A flying dragon?)

According to <Life Detection> there's one magic beast with two humans riding on it. Then another magic beast and one human followed behind them like they were giving chase. But the leading party shot a magical light that hit the pursuer whom then crashed down.

(Oy oy.)

A huge amount of offensive spells were shot out of the Magic Research Institute, but the flying dragon was already outside their range.

<White Necked Dragons> are said to be the only type of flying dragons that can be tamed by humans. The approaching dragon does have a white neck. Jiza and Ui are riding on it.

The White Necked Dragon quickly arrived at Mt Suringa, slowed down near the tree Lecan was on and just floated there while flapping its wing. Strong gusts of wind swayed all the branches. Lecan got blown off the tree as well.

"<Wind>! <Wind>!"

He decelerated with <Gust> and made a soft landing. For something that needs quick reflexes like this, <Gust> is best after all. Both <Float> and <Move> requires him to knead his mana and concentrate during their activation, but <Gust> can be cast near instantaneously.

Jiza and Ui got off slightly far from Lecan.

"Lecan-chan! We're going in the dungeon! Hurry up!"

Lecan had detected two flying dragons coming from the Magic Research Institute. That in addition to dozens of enormous presences of magic. An aggregation of massive amount of mana that even sends the chill to Lecan's spine. There's just no way to go up against that even if there were two, or three Lecan.

The group got into the dungeon with Ui leading the way.

"Alright. This spot should do. All of you, join hands together!"

With Ui's instruction, everybody joined hands. Ui took Jiza's hand, Jiza took Julius's, Julius took Lecan's, Lecan took Eda's and Eda took Arios's.

"Ah."

<TLN: Catch the latest updates and edits at Sousetsuka.com >

Just when that got blurted out, Ui recited <Floor> and <Warp> spells.

They arrived on floor 1.

"Phew. Now that we're here, our pursuers won't get us. I see that gentleman over there hasn't been to Dungeon Palcimo yet. I could only pick floor 1."

This gentleman being Arios.

In this dungeon, Palcimo, people in different parties can't run into each other. Neither will you ever come across traces of battle or leftover items from previous party on any floor. Thus it's been hypothesized that the dungeon would generate a new room whenever a party warps in. Once they're inside the dungeon, the pursuers can never catch up.

"Arios was only here to see us off. He wasn't going into the dungeon."

"Oh, I see. That explains his luggage. Then he should leave here. I don't think our pursuers will arrest those unrelated to the matter. Though they might interrogate him about his circumstances for a bit."

"That's fine, but does that mean we only got me, Obaba, Ui, Eda and Julius? Eda and Julius must stay in a group, we're short of one person."

"I'll leave Boruk-chan to Eda-chan. Can't Julius-boya shoot magic? Seem s he's got enough mana at least."

"Boruk-chan?"

"It's an Artificial Wrinkle Man, you see. I've got it stored inside my <Free Box>."

"Hmm? Before that, can you explain the situation."

"Ah, right right. I sure am perched though. Let's have some tea with it, shall we."

They all sat down and took it easy in that spot. After drinking tea she brought out of her <Free Box>, Jiza explained their circumstances.

According to her, the board of directors turned out to be much more vigilant of Jiza than she originally thought. They have been monitoring her whereabouts all this time. They had put the three mages and three physical types Jiza was planning to bring into the dungeon under heavy surveillance, one of the mages and one physical type among them were even covert agents planted by the board of directors.

As such, the board of directors were quickly made aware of the dungeon diving plan she had been making behind the scene. And they decided on a drastic measure of confining Jiza.

The group arresting her consisted of 100 mages including Guide-class mages and five Magic Knights. They attempted to wrench down Jiza's magic through sheer number, capture her with Magic Knights' physical prowess and neutralize her with powerful magic tools.

Jiza fled into a room inside her laboratory and successfully stopped anyone from entering, but neither could she escape. That was when Ui was allowed inside to negotiate.

Ui put forward an unexpected proposal. That she would ally herself with Jiza if Jiza allowed her to accompany Jiza in the dungeon conquest.

Jiza took up on her offer.

Ui left the room with a nonchalant look and told the board of directors that it would be best to give Jiza some time before she continued her persuasion, then she left the Research Facility, prepared herself for dungeon diving, and brought a White Necked Dragon from the dragon tamer before proceeding with their plan and going back into Jiza's room while pretending to resume her persuasion.

Then the two broke through the siege with their powers and came to the dungeon.