341 Chapter 341: Caving In

Pushing up my glasses, I scanned the interior of the cave with nightvision, bu saw absolutely nothing. Even so, looks could be deceiving. Remember that Frost Serpent that snuck up on us a few minutes ago?

Yeah, I wasn't taking anything for granted.

Anastasia hung back, looking a little miffed that her poison techniques had no effect on the Frost Serpents. Even if she managed to penetrate their icy exterior – which was as hard as ice – with her poisoned dagger or short sword, the Frost Serpents appeared to entirely be made of ice. It was highly likely that her poisons would have little effect.

Even so, it wasn't as if Anastasia was completely helpless. Even without her poison techniques, she was a competent fighter, and earlier during the battle at the clearing when we were ambushed by the swarm, I had seen her cut apart Frost Serpents with her short sword, decapitating them or shattering them with brute force.

She was far from helpless, unlike a certain supposed-to-be-an-ex-Assassin-but-somehow-forgot-all-her-skills-and-turned-into-a-damsel-in-distress-so-that-the-protagonist-can-save-her character from a certain "Cheat" light novel series that had an awful anime adaptation. Not that the source material was not terrible to begin with…

We proceeded deeper into the cave, looking out for any threats and signs. It was unfortunate, but I wasn't able to perform any tracking spells. Even though I wanted to find the students of Lie Huo Academy, I had no idea how to do so. For all I knew, they might not have wandered into this cave.

"You can cast a basic fire spell to light up the place, right?" Anastasia asked when I admitted that to her. I nodded and complied, raising my hand and igniting a small spark of fire that illuminated the dark interior. I had seen Dong Fang Yue Chu do something similar in the past, and mimicked his example. Ana then took a step forward and observed the surroundings.

There wasn't much to see, to be honest. Whether it was my glasses' nightvision or the visibility afforded to us by my fire spell, it was the same scene. Nothing but rock for meters on end, and stalactites and stalagmites that jutted from the ceiling and floor respectively. I could also hear water dripping here and there, and most of the liquid had frozen over to ice over the cold rock, thanks to the extreme temperature outside.

Even inside the cave, it was hard to forget the numbing cold from outside. I adjusted my winter coat and marched on…only to stop when Anastasia knelt down to study something.

"Found something?" I asked conversationally. Ana shook her head, just as I expected her to.

"I'm afraid not. Whatever clues there are will be erased by the ice anyway." Her expression was one of frustration. "Unlike Lie Ren, I only know the most basic of tracking spells. They aren't enough to find any clues of the students who might or might not have wandered in here. That's more of an earth mage thing…"

"I'm surprised you know tracking magic at all," I remarked. Anastasia turned to smile at me.

"It's part of our training as Assassins. How are we supposed to take out our targets if we aren't able to track them down? Sometimes they would go into hiding and we'll need to look for clues as where they ran off to."

"That makes sense," I conceded with a nod. I was a fool for not having thought of that. Sighing, I glanced up and stared at the moist walls, most of which was covered in a think layer of ice. Honestly, they looked undisturbed, but then again, if the students went through here, it was entirely possible that they didn't touch the walls. Honestly, we weren't leaving any tracks while walking through the cave, so I couldn't tell if the Lie Huo Academy students had gone through here or not. "I guess we can only keep moving forward."

Given that I was the one who volunteered for this mission, I had no right to complain. Once again, I was reminded of how much I disliked the cold, even though I thought I had gotten used to it. One never really got used to the cold, no matter how long you lived in Minnesota…I guess.

I didn't know how long we walked for. Maybe hours. Perhaps just minutes. Time seemed to flow strangely in here, you know, in the same manner where time appeared to fly past like a bullet when you were in a hurry, or how the moments dragged on agonizingly when you just wished everything would be done and over with. I felt more like it was the latter case, hoping that I would run into someone soon, so probably less than thirty minutes passed while Anastasia and I walked on. And then…

"Stop."

Halting at Anastasia's instructions, I broke out of my scattered thoughts and glanced around. I realized the reason why she had called for a stop. Apparently we had reached a deadend. A wall stood in front of us, barring any way forward. Looking left and right, I saw that there were no alternative routes to take. We had reached the end of the cave. Anastasia strode toward the wall, undaunted, and rapped her knuckles against it. Not sharing her enthusiasm, and feeling weary, I sighed. Disappointment welled up within me at not being able to find the students, but I remembered that there were still plenty of caves to explore.

"I guess we'll turn back then."

"No. There's something strange about this wall."

"…huh?"

I raised an eyebrow at Anastasia's declaration, but since she was the ex-Assassin and a mercenary who had more experience than me in missions, I listened to her. The green-haired former Assassin was kneeling at the foot of the wall and reaching out with her hands to press along the length of rock, as if she was looking for something.

"What are you searching for?"

"A switch." Anastasia glanced up at me and smiled. "When I knocked on it, it felt hollow."

"Oh, right." I recalled Ana rapping her knuckles against the wall. Come to think of it, there was a strange sound when she did that, as if there was nothing behind the solid stone. "You think there's a hidden chamber or something behind the wall?"

"I don't think there is. I know there is."

"Do you need me to blast the wall open?"

Anastasia glanced at me, amused, but I was already preparing to cast a spell. Specifically, I was summoning Sagittarius and conjuring Anasl. Alarm washed over her face and she hurriedly waved for me to dismiss my Constellation weapon.

"Hey! Don't do that! You'll cause a cave-in and bury the both of us alive!"

"…oh. Sorry."

I obeyed immediately. I honestly wondered about that, but since she was the more experienced one, I listened to her advice.

"More importantly, we don't want to make too much noise and draw too much attention to us. I don't believe the Frost Serpent from earlier is the only monster lurking about. If I'm not mistaken, there should still be more monsters somewhere around here."

"That makes sense," I agreed. No, that made more sense than the excuse of a cave-in.

"Besides, why waste your mana and cause such a huge fuss when we can easily open it by finding the switch?"

"There's a switch?"

"I'm sure there is. I don't believe this cave was naturally hollow. I bet someone hollowed the cave out." Anastasia cocked her head to the side. "It's likely that the Lie Huo Academy students stumbled upon this, opened the wall, and went into the chamber beyond. How else did they do it if they didn't find the switch to open the wall?"

"That's assuming they came through here," I pointed out, not unreasonably. Anastasia nodded.

"Yeah. But how do we know they didn't? We have to check every possibility. Especially since they were hiding from a dragon…if I were them, I would be desperately looking for a place to hide. And this is a perfect hiding place."

Fair enough. What was the worst that could happen? If the students from Lie Huo Academy turned out to have not come through this way, Anastasia and I could simply backtrack and return to the rest of the squad. If they did, and we didn't investigate the possibility…then we were perhaps dooming them to the wilderness.

Stepping forward, I tried to help search for the switch. Even though I scanned the area with my glasses, I was unable to locate anything. As it turned out, Anastasia was the one who found the switch – more by skill than by luck, especially since she was trained as an Assassin. Somewhere on the wall, near the edge, she felt something along the sides that could be depressed, and she pushed the artificial block in. With a click, the wall began to rumble and move.

"Be careful," Anastasia warned as she withdrew to my side and drew her weapons. My hands were on the hilts of my swords, ready to draw them at any time, but I waited to see what the chamber would bring us.

Nothing.

"…"

I adjusted my glasses, switching between views to ensure I wasn't seeing things. But there was nothing residing in the space beyond except an empty corridor that led further down. Unnerved, I glanced at Anastasia, who merely nodded.

"Let's go."

"Okay."

We proceeded down the corridor and toward the room at the end. To our surprise, there was some illumination being afforded from the interior, as if someone had started a fire. We could also hear some murmuring.

"Did you hear that?"

"The wall just opened."

"Someone's here!"

"Is it a monster?"

"Idiot! Would a monster know how to open that wall?"

Anastasia and I exchanged glances and hurried in. As we burst into the room, we caught sight of three students gathered around a makeshift campfire, sharing in the warmth and light that the flames provided. The trio jumped, startled.

"AAAH!"

"Calm down!" Anastasia told them, raising her empty hands to indicate that she meant them no harm. The three of them stopped panicking, but they blinked rapidly as they struggled to comprehend what was happening. Presenting her best smile, Anastasia took a step forward. "Are you from Lie Huo Academy?"

She had to ask. The three students were dressed in the exact same winter gear as I was, their uniforms concealed beneath thick layers of synthetic fabric. It was best to confirm – otherwise it might turn out that they were not from Lie Huo Academy, and were from another school. Then we would have problems accounting for the numbers.

"Y…yeah."

"That's right."

"Um…who are you?"

One of the three students – the sole girl among them – stared at us, wide-eyed. Anastasia continued to smile reassuringly.

"I'm Anastasia. I'm from the Silver Wolves mercenary guild. We are here to rescue you." she glanced around. "Where are the rest of you? If I'm not mistaken, there should be seven more, correct?"

They nodded.

"We split up," one of the guys – a hulking one whose frame was barely contained by his thick winter coat – explained. "When the dragon attacked, we were forced to split up to divide its attention. We don't know where the others went."

"We wanted to go out and look for them," the skinny guy explained. "But we didn't dare to go out, not with the dragon still out there somewhere."

"Oh…don't worry about that. The dragon is gone." Anastasia maintained her smile and assured them. "When the Silver Wolves arrived, we didn't see any dragon. It's probably gone."

"Really?" The girl looked baffled. "But we can still hear it."

"Huh? What are you…?" Anastasia trailed off and tilted her head, as if to listen for something. As silence sank throughout the chamber, I realized that I could hear something too. A faint roar echoing somewhere. I met Ana's gaze, and she nodded before turning toward the three Lie Huo Academy students. "That's not from outside."

"…huh? It's not?"

"No…" I frowned as I focused on the sound. "Doesn't it sound like it's from inside this cave?"

At that, the three of them turned frightfully pale and leaped to their feet, looking around warily. The big guy, in particular, stiffened and his jaw dropped.

"They're right. The sound…it's coming from in here."

"But where?" the girl cried, backing away to a wall. She gazed around the interior of the chamber fearfully. I could only imagine what sort of horrors they went through to be so thoroughly traumatized. "I don't want to…!"

Click.

"?!"

The girl spun around when she accidentally hit something in the wall. Another switch, just like the one Anastasia found, that allowed us access to this chamber.

The roar grew louder.

"Kyaaaa!" the girl shrieked as she tried to fling herself from the wall. This time, the wall didn't rumble. It was the ground that appeared to shake.

And then it broke apart.

"NOOOO!" the girl screamed as she tried to sprint to safety, but the ground was crumbling beneath her feet. I dashed forward and seized her hand, pulling her up. However, I realized that we wouldn't be able to make it to safety in time. So I whirled around and flung her toward Anastasia, who caught her. The two guys, thankfully, were already next to Ana, having dove to her side in reflex when the tremors began. They would have rushed in to help their teammate, but I just happened to be the closest.

Not that that was going to help me.

The floor disintegrated beneath my feet and I fell through the disintegrating debris, crashing into the darkness below.

"Richard!" Anastasia yelled, and her terrified face was the last thing I saw before I vanished underneath a cluster of toppling rocks.