Chapter 182: Drowning in the Wave – Part 1

Chapter 182: Drowning in the Wave – Part 1

I send three light-Ciels into the dark abyss, one up, one forward, and one down, but this is starting to drain me too much, so I retreat back to the fortress with Lina and keep her company while she resumes her enchanting work. It makes me feel uneasy not being there with the wives, but this is a small concession in exchange for a great increase in our scouting speed.

But now there's nobody to talk to, so I get a bit distracted, and then I overhear something that makes me interested in the conversation between Lina and the enchanters.

The elderly eagle-headed man slowly shares his opinion, his voice slightly hoarse but still a lot stronger than his visual appearance, "I've seen damage to the back of the brain impair one's ability to interpret images and even make them immune to [Illusion Magic], so I believe that sending the image directly into that area will be more efficient."

And the hairy, opossum-headed enchanter slowly nods along while making old-people noises like, "Uhum, uhum..."

Then my little Lina boldly makes a counter-proposal, "It's in the central part of the brain that we process functions like memory, so I believe that sending the image there will help us in truly understanding the extra-dimensional geography of the area we see."

The two elderly enchanters share a look, and then they both lower their heads as the eagle declares, "Very well, we shall go with your proposal, Your Highness."

But that annoys her, so she more sternly clarifies, "No, I want you to consider it. My proposal might not actually be helpful in combat, but there might be other situations where it's more useful, so I'd like to study these two approaches."

I love seeing her being so assertive, so I fawn over her cuteness as I pat her head.

"How... how may we actually carry out this study, Your Highness?" the opossum slowly questions, perhaps a bit stunned at the adorableness before his eyes.

So she breathes in deeply to give her time to gather her thoughts, and then I give her a little hand to help her explain, "We gather a group of people to test the enchantments for us in as many situations as we can imagine, then methodically write down their experiences and compare the results to find out which enchantment is more effective under specific conditions."

The opossum passively mumbles his "uhums" along with her explanation, but the eagle enchanter has a sharper gaze, though he doesn't seem very eager.

"Very well... we shall follow your request, Your Highness," he states with a neutral tone as he bows.

The two have been very careful with their phrasing. They just want to defer to her and treat her words as orders, but they also don't seem to actually want to methodically test the enchantments. The former is probably because they've been conditioned to please royalty, and the latter might be because they aren't familiar with the principles of the scientific method.

The fact that she's a little-girl-Queen giving orders from the lap of her boy-King husband certainly doesn't give a very convincing image of authority. But right now, we don't need to look imposing. We just need to show them the results.

Or rather, she needs to. I'm just here to give her moral support while I focus on the summons.

And talking about them, the light-Ciels are starting to run out of mana, but instead of replacing all three, I have one return its enchantments to me and then allow the plank it carried with the [Gate] coordinate to just fall down into the nothingness. After a minute of waiting, I try to open a [Gate], but I realize that the coordinate has disappeared.

I blink blankly in confusion, then open a [Gate] on the planks of the other two elementals, and they appear, as expected, so it doesn't seem like a scrubber has affected them.

"Officer Alcander!" I exclaim as I put Lina down on my seat and dart after him.

"Y-yes, Your Highness?" he stiffly replies as he immediately turns around, surprised at my hurried tone.

I'm actually feeling very disturbed, but I use [Acting] to hide my tone to not frighten the men, "A [Gate] coordinate I put on a plank has disappeared. What could've done that other than a Scrubber?"

"The plank was destroyed?" he tentatively suggests.

I frown thoughtfully and rub my chin with my padded claws. "That's... a possibility. Anything else?"

He shakes his head. "Not that I know of."

But I insist, "What about distance? Or the plank being sent into another dimension?"

"You would still be able to start casting [Gate]; it'd just cost so much mana that you wouldn't be able to finish the spell," he calmly exclaims.

So I sigh dejectedly as I shake my head. "No, the coordinate has disappeared from within my mind."

"Then it's either a Scrubber, or the plank was destroyed," he states matter-of-factly.

But that just makes me even more concerned, so I recompose myself and soberly declare, "I've never heard of monsters with Scrubbers. If they really have some, then we must prepare for being ambushed."

And the mature imperial man nods and hums in agreement. "Indeed. I'll send the court mages out to drop backup coordinates away from the fortress."

But I get an idea. "I can send a couple to my wives, and they'll escort the mages for a while."

So he smiles and lowers his head respectfully. "Your help is appreciated, Your Highness."

I nod, and then I return to my lap loli after sending two Space mages to the wives. We already know that the dungeon can teleport the portals away, and if the monsters activate a Scrubber that covers the fortress, we could potentially be left stranded, so having backup coordinates is paramount to our safety.

I send two more light-Ciels after the plank, but a couple of minutes later, I come to the conclusion that it was destroyed because the same happens to the first two elemental-wives. They're suddenly attacked by an invisible force that rips them apart into thousands of little pieces, and then the sense sharing is cut off as they die.

Then the last two light-Ciels also die in the same way two minutes later. It seems like there's a "killing sphere" around the bridge at the end of the corridor of skulls, and now I don't really want to fully explore the extent of the sphere because we've already lost four sets of enchantments without any gain.

In the end, the only good thing that happens this morning is that the little pigeon Gify brings to the fortress doesn't die of its mind being blown. It's stunned at first, but it soon recovers and is filled with a child-like wonder.

It even attempts to enter the 4D training area, but since it lacks both the helmet to see and the necklace to move in 4D, it gets dizzy and backs off. But this brief experience just increases its curiosity, so it spends all its time inspecting every inch of the 4D floor it's stepping on, then the men inside the training area as they get used to the extra dimension.

"This is the sixth tunnel of skulls," Urmeie grunts impatiently.

"Wolfy says that the previous ones all end in a suspended bridge into absolute darkness," Alissa stoically replies.

"I think it's time to do that Thread thing again," Lily suggests, also starting to sound impatient.

"It's quite a lot of strain that we're putting on our husband," Yunia calmly points out.

But Lily just shrugs and shakes her head. "Sucks to be him, but he's the only one who can do it."

And that ticks Alissa off. "You could've said that with a lot more delicacy and respect," she sternly states as she glares at the rude loli.

"I'm sorry; I'm still learning," Lily apologizes, yet we can hear the shit-eating grin in her tone.

So all she gets are unamused frowns.

As the only one not glaring at Lily, it falls to Ciel to announce, "We'll attempt to use his Thread after lunch, once everyone's had some time to rest."

"So, can we go back now?" Sam-sam immediately asks. It's understandable that he'd tire of walking first since he has toddler-like legs, but he's probably just being lazy.

And Roxanne remains absolutely silent, even though she was about to ask the same thing as him.

"We must finish escorting the Space mages first," Yunia soberly points out.

"Awn..." he whines like a child, which would be cute if he wasn't a disgusting goblin/imp.

So Roxanne whines internally to satisfy my desire for cuteness, "Awwn~..."

So Ciel sighs and calmly chastises her, "Alissa, don't insult the Oracle. She's just... eccentric."

"Hmph...!" my loyal little fox stubbornly grumbles and looks away. She doesn't like the fact that I had to "sully" my completely spotless reputation and apologize because I made the Oracle orgasm with just my [Sense Soul].

I slowly bring my Thread out of my chest, which doesn't make much sense since the "watery sensation" was inside my head, but whatever... And now it's time to meditate and "access" my Thread.

So I close my eyes and focus on it. Then I feel a familiar itch, like that of the "cursor" inside my mind, and I latch onto it. This time, things go much smoother, and I quickly enter my "Thread," and then my whole life starts to flash before my eyes.

But when I reach the present, my life flashes again, even faster. Then a third, then a fourth, then a fifth, and it goes on and on, each time moving faster and faster until it all turns into a wild blur.

This is all just a cool effect, though, so I just continue forward and get past the "screen." Then I find myself staring into a black void, completely empty except for a short length of white string, which floats completely straight and ends in nothing.

So now, I grab that, and then I feel a tug, which gives me a sensation of distance and direction, just like with the fellowship bond.

Then I open my eyes and smirk as I announce, "Alright, it's time to find that goddamn portal again."

Predictably, it takes us to a corridor of skulls, but it's one that we haven't explored and is suspiciously in the exact opposite direction of the last corridor that we encountered. So, we've barely started the day's expedition, and we're already getting a really bad feeling about this.

"Is everyone ready to do this?" I ask out loud, my tone assured and authoritative to inspire confidence.

"To die in an obvious trap? Yes," Lily sarcastically replies, but there are two clear sides with opposing opinions about her sense of humor.

"Put your war faces on, everyone. We don't know what to expect here," I soberly reply, deliberately not addressing her directly.

"I'm always ready!" Hana exclaims with a fearsome grin, and her powerful voice infects the mood of the Companions.

"For the Ryders!" a girl cheers.

"Blessed by the light!" another follows.

"Blessed by the light!" they all repeat our motto.

"That's so corny," Alissa overhears Lily whisper to Thant.

Oh, but we're proud of that! We're corny... to the bone!

"Be brave!" I shout with [Godly Language].

And everyone suddenly cheers, "URAA!"

Now we're ready, and not even the wives are afraid of the corridor of skulls anymore. But we won't let overconfidence blind us, for it's a slow and insidious killer, and we're the ones doing the killing here.

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