Volume 2 - CH 14.3

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Chapter 14: Let’s Incite the Coward, Part 3

「Kya, kyaaaa, kyaaaaaaaa!」

Sofia runs down the corridor while screaming her throat out, but the roaring sound continues to muffle her screams down. It was the sound of a giant ice pillars falling to the ground from the ceiling.

It was as if hammers rained down on her from above.

Testing whether or not her invisible barrier could stop them was definitely a bad idea. Worst case scenario, she could even die crushed by the sheer weight of the huge icicles.

She could not outrun them by herself of course. To run, she used the cube to create a mobile footing that glided on the floor like a surfing board, she was charging ahead at high speed.

In addition to the ones falling on the floor behind her, new ones were also dropping in front of her, blocking her way forward. Surrounded from all sides by icy walls, she had nowhere to run anymore. And above her, more icicles were still incoming.

One of them landed on the floor with a thunderous roar and shattered in a million pieces, making white smoke raise from the damaged floor. Entering that icy smoke, Sofia muttered to herself.

「Please let me make it on time.」

She passed through the gap between the pillars and stretched the Dungeon passageway forward, making it thin and long. She then created a small room that was centered around her and moved together with her. Is she were to do it just a moment later, she wouldn’t have made it and she would have ended up crushed under the icy mass behind her.

She was relieved that her maneuver work, but all of a sudden her moving floor bumped on the road and she began to lose control over it.

「Wh, what?!」

She scanned the entire floor quickly. It was not made of stone or wood. It is made entirely out of ice and is crystal clear.

On such a floor without any bumps or scratches, the cube began to slip around uncontrollably, and she could not do anything about, because the floor was seemingly melting with the rest of the building like one big, conscious structure.

Barely maintaining control of the cube, Sofia made a sharp turn into the next corridor. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a slope, so she picked up even more speed.

「……..!」

Her breath was caught in her throat at the sight that was ahead of her. The corridor ends suddenly, and further ahead was only the dark night sky. If she proceeds further, she’s going to be thrown out of the castle. That wouldn’t be that much of a problem, if not for the fact that she was still relatively high and the fall from here could prove to be potentially fatal, as her barrier was ineffective against fall damage.

Sofia spreads the passages to the walls on the left and right in an attempt to stop herself from going any further, but it was useless. But they are made out of ice, so there isn’t any crack or irregularity that she could grasp onto, and she proceeds without slowing down at all.

If only she could sharpen the tips somehow. But that was also a no-go, as she could only shape the passages to be round or rectangular, and any kind of sharpening or other alterations were unavailable to her.

「Isn’t there anything sharp in the Dungeon itself?!」

Without time to think, she shouted as she was about to be thrown out of the corridor. In a hurry, she extends the path under her feet and connects it to the path that is about to end.

「…….! Ceiling with thorns!」

It was almost like a reflex reaction. The Dungeon had ceilings with spikes on them, which served as a tool for skewering the unwary adventurers. Sofia created it on both sides and rammed them into the walls.

Not that she had such improvised hooks, it looks like she’ll be able to go further without losing control over her course again.

But then the scenery before Sofia’s eyes distorted and changed. She looked at the thing in front of her and rubbed her eyes a few times to make sure she wasn’t seeing things, but no matter how many times she did that, the scene before her does not change.

「You’ve got to be kidding me!」

Sofia exclaims, but her sight was not manipulated in any way.

From the other end of the hallway, there was a giant ice ball coming straight at her without making a single sound.

「You’ve got to be kidding me?!」

But the reality was as merciless as it could be. The ball was so large that it blocked almost the entire corridor, leaving no gaps or spaces that could be used to escape it.

So what does Sofia do? She expands her cube to the maximum trying to create a wall that would stop it. Even though the cub was small, it could create a dungeon space many times bigger than its original size, but nevertheless, there was still a limit.

Right now the best she could do was to create two walls one after another and hope that it would be enough to prevent the ball form advancing any further.

However, they were not enough and the ball hits the walls and destroys them…. Except that it does not do that, because it emerges from the other side and continues to roll down the corridor without making a single sound.

「That was close. Way too close for comfort.」

The walls that Sofia created were not for stopping the ball, but for allowing it to pass through them. Basically what Sofia did was to fit herself between one wall and the other, and then she added the teleportation gates to them so that the ball passed through her without harming her in any way.

And when she heard the sound of the ball falling and shattering in the distance, she trembled again, but not because of the cold, or because of fear.

「THIS IS SO FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!!!!!!」

It’s because she was having a time of her life right now.

It was still frightening of course, but in a different way than those soldiers that attacked her were.

Further down the way, as she was in the middle of the corridor, a part of it caved in as if it was deliberately melted, and she was in danger of falling into a pitfall full of icy spears. To avoid that, she expanded the footing over the gap and passed through it without falling into it.

Until finally she came to a standstill at the ice wall that prevented her from going further down the spire.

The hall in which she was now as literally littered with transparent walls that blocked the path further, like a true labyrinth. Using the material from the cube as a stepping stone, Sofia scaled one of them all the way to the roof and destroyed it. Getting trapped in such an icy labyrinth certainly wouldn’t be in her favour, seeing as such a trap had no obligation to lead her to the exit. For all she knew, all the passages in that labyrinth could be dead ends with no road that would made it possible to proceed.

After a brief trek through the snow covered roof, Sofia entered the castle again through one of the open windows. When she came inside, what greeted her was a gust of cold air several times colder than the attack of that one soldier earlier.

Normally she would have paid it no heed, but now her cube was covered with a thick layer of snow. Snow melted into droplets of water, and that water was frozen solid in a matter of seconds in that freezing air.

This cube was her only means of defense, and now she was unable to melt the ice and peel off the frozen snow off of it. It still worked, but any more of that freezing gusts and it will be frozen solid.

And, as if reading the timing perfectly, an icy giant appeared in front of her. He reached towards her with its thick arm, but he was stopped by the invisible barrier that was still active.

「Arrow Slit!」

Then Sofia screamed and one of the sides of the cube opened, revealing a small magic circle out of which came a rain of magical arrows that pierced the giant’s body.

「Take that!」

When he lost his balance for a moment, Sofia created an icy hammer that crashed down on the giant and broke him down into tiny pieces.

Sofia can only manipulate her Dungeon. But her way of using he cube was slightly different from Aur’s, precisely because she was a Dungeon herself.

She was unable to take Zana’s castle for herself, but she could use its own materials against it. In other, more understandable words, she could add the material from this castle into the cube, and made that material her own.

Instead of simply melting the ice, she took control of it and processed it to make that hammer a second ago. Now that another obstacle has been overcome, there was no need for her to be here any longer. All she had to do now was to reach the room where Mari and the others were. If she can manage to do that, then surely they will all form a strategy against Zana together.

Lilu, Aur’s trusted right hand woman. Yunis, a Hero on whom he came to rely on more and more. Spina, a complete enigma. And Mari, Sofia’s most beloved mommy in the entire world.

If she just reunites with them, there’s no way for them to lose.

「Mama!」

Finally arriving in the room, Sofia opened the door with a sense of joy and accomplishment.

「I am sorry, child, I truly am.」

But what awaited her was not Mari’s warm embrace.

「But this little game ends right here, right now.」

It was the sight of her four frozen mothers.