Chapter 158 - What Are You Doing?

The snowy hill rapidly melted before becoming a flat stone platform. The bones of the skeletons remained on the ground. Then, the floor below us rapidly began falling. Clear scraping sounds of stone reverberated through the air.

Osric widened his eyes and looked at me.

"...You weren't lying."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Guess not."

Leon rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

"Have you been here before, Jay, was it?"

I tilted my head to the side.

"In a certain sense, I suppose."

I turned to Osric.

"Anyways, this is a great time to introduce ourselves to each other since we are waiting anyway. My name is Jay, king of lizards. What about you?"

Leon similarly turned to Osric.

"My name is Leon, the Earth Emperor. Nice to meet you."

As for Osric, he nodded a little absentmindedly, far less aggressive than how he was moments ago.

"Hello, Jay and Leon. My name is Osric, the king of wolves. It is a pleasure to meet you."

He then looked at me and looked a little dejected.

"Is there really nothing here?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Not anything worth that much, really."

Osric clicked his tongue.

"Shame."

Leon chuckled.

"Anyways, we have two kings of beasts here. May I ask how it is like to be the king of a species?"

Osric sighed, seemingly still in the afterglow of disappointment.

"Even I imagined that being a king of wolves would be more eventful than it is now, but nothing truly occurs. There was a time I gathered the wolves as an army, traversing the forest."

The corner of his lip twitched.

"But then it occurred to me that there wasn't exactly anything for us to attack. Our only realistic enemy was the wildlife in the forest, but it was the wolves attacking them, not the other way around."

Leon smiled awkwardly.

"You didn't lay siege on any villages or cities?"

Osric waved his hand dismissively.

"For what? It is easier to hunt wildlife for food, and other than that, I doubt any of the smaller settlements have anything valuable. As for the larger places, they are more likely to have something, but they also have incredibly large and powerful armies to protect them."

He sighed.

"The only purpose of laying siege is to waste our time or end our own lives."

Leon laughed awkwardly.

"That is true. At least you are sensible enough not to attack simply because you are bored."

Osric rolled his eyes.

"My intelligence isn't so low that I would do something like that."

Leon turned to me.

"Well, do you have a more exciting story to tell us?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"It will probably be hard to take an example from my experiences."

Leon raised an eyebrow.

"Is it as uneventful as Osric's story?"

A laugh escaped me.

"In a certain sense, yes. There is not exactly an army for me to lead. The method by which I acquired this crown was by killing the previous lizard king. The lizard king threw a rampage as it died, killing all of the other lizards."

A bitter smile formed on my face.

"So it simply leaves me with what is essentially an empty title."

Osric's eyes widened slightly.

"...Oh, it appears that you are not truly a king of lizards."

I scratched the back of my head.

"Is that not right?"

Leon chuckled.

"Under normal circumstances, people that claim to be the king of a species are able to exert their influence on a significant number of that species to follow their command."

I blinked a few times.

"I see. That is my error then, I am not a king of lizards."

Osric shot me a strange look.

"Then what is your title?"

I tilted my head to the side.

"I'm not sure... I suppose I don't have one."

An awkward silence descended. Right when it was beginning to feel uncomfortable, a deafening slam rang out.

The stone platform abruptly stopped descending, reaching the floor.

My knees buckled slightly, but other than that I was fine. The other two were also not in any panic.

I cleared my throat.

"We are here. Is there any path you guys wish to start with?"

Leon and Osric casually glanced around at their surroundings, looking at the four paths laid out around us. Then, Leon turned to me.

"Do you have any recommended path you wish to go on?"

I scratched the back of my head.

"Since we are here to sightsee, we may as well go down that way. It is a little disturbing though."

I pointed down a dark pathway. It was the one where the original owner of this place experimented with people, killing them before trying to bring them back to life.

Leon shrugged then began walking.

"It is quite dark..."

I nodded.

"Ah, I can help."

I was about to have the crystal stop rotating so that I could cast mana, but remembered the skeletons. The corner of my lip twitched.

"Wait, could you guys carry the bones for me while remaining within range of my crystal?"

Osric furrowed his brows.

"Why is that?"

An awkward laugh escaped me.

"If they don't remain within the range of my crystal, they will be quite annoying."

Leon looked at me for a few seconds before picking up most of the bones.

"Alright."

Osric hesitated for a moment before picking them up as well. With that, I stepped out of range from the others then began casting the fire spell. However, halfway through I stopped myself.

Instead, I gathered mana as fast as I could.

My initial expectation was that my skin would tear and some wind would pick up. However, that did not happen. There certainly was a considerable amount more mana coming into my body, but it was probably too thin to create such a reaction as it would above ground.

With that mana, I casted the modified firebolt spell. First, a tiny flame appeared above my hand.

Osric's eyelid twitched.

"Um, that does not provide much light. Perhaps I can take that role?"

I waved my wooden stake dismissively.

"Don't worry, just wait a little while."

The small fire gradually expanded to the size of a normal fire spell. Then, it continued to grow larger. Once it nearly reached my size, the fireball lit the way forward like a pocket sun. Before, it was dark and dreary, but now it was just dreary.

Leon nodded approvingly.

"That is an interesting method to cast spells."

The corner of my lip turned up.

"Thanks."

With that, we walked down the pathway, greeted with stone platforms covered with dried blood along with experimental log sheets. Leon picked up one of the papers with a frown. Osric looked over and similarly frowned.

"This... who did all of this?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Someone desperate, I suppose."

Leon shook his head.

"Hopefully they did not take this too far."

A bitter smile formed on my face.

"...Unfortunately, they have taken it even farther than I knew was possible."

Leon raised an eyebrow.

"What? You've already seen what is up ahead?"

A small sigh escaped me.

"...Yeah, it is not good."

We continued walking, reaching another room. The only difference being it was bigger, with more bloodied stone tables and more experimental logs. Due to the light of my fireball, it was very easy to see the entirety of all the blood.

After glancing around, both Leon and Osric went up to one of the wooden tables and picked up the experimental logs.

"It appears there is no return for this man."

A small sigh escaped me.

"It truly seems that way."

Osric furrowed his brows.

"When did this man do... this? It must have been quite a while, no?"

Leon nodded.

"From how worn everything looks, that is definitely the case."

Once more, we reached an even larger room. Osric sucked in a cold breath as he looked around.

"...It appears some people have too much time on their hands."

Leon narrowed his eyes.

"Yes."

There was a persistent frown on his face, though that was reasonable given the story of what happened here. I glanced over my shoulder at the two who were looking over the scattered papers.

"Are the two of you done reading? There isn't that much on those things."

Osric looked up from the papers and to me.

"It probably is better to look less at all of these."

As for Leon, he simply remained rooted to the spot. His frown deepened.

I blinked a few times.

"Are you ok Leon?"

From what I remember, he was fine the last time we were here. Why was he suddenly starstruck?

Leon did not look at me. Instead, his eyes shifted towards Osric.

"Throw the bones out of range."

Osric raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

Leon snapped.

"Now."

With that, he threw the bones far off into the distance, while Osric followed a second later. They clattered before sinking into the ground.

I furrowed my brows.

"What are you doing?"

Leon pointed at me with a deadpan expression.

"I should be asking you that."