[Ding! The mana in the surroundings is becoming more chaotic!]
[Warning! The chaotic mana can cause dangerous magical phenomena to manifest!]
...
Outer Area, Above the Lava Valley.
Link and Liam found themselves falling from the sky.
"What the!?" (Link)
A few seconds ago they were still standing in a forested area, and now they were falling from the sky all of a sudden.
Of all the students from the party, Link and Liam were the ones who got teleported in such a dangerous way.
Without wasting a single second, two big shadow wings appeared behind Ellie, and she immediately caught Liam in her arms. (It is reverse princess style, Ellie is carrying Liam in her arms like a princess…)
Since Liam didn't give Ellie the order to save Link, she didn't even bother looking at him, which directly caused Link to fall into the valley below. The valley was filled with hot magma.
Liam and Ellie landed on the ground nearby. Liam hurriedly got down from Ellie's arms with an awkward look on his face.
"Ahem! UH…. Is that guy dead!?" (Liam)
Liam glanced down the valley with a bewildered look on his face.
Just when he was thinking that Link was burnt to a crisp, a loud sound of something hitting the ground sounded and the magma in the valley shook.
Link jumped right out of the magma and landed on the ground near Liam. (Friendly warning- Don't try this at home.)
Link's clothes had been burnt away by the magma, but he looked fine. He didn't even have a single scratch on his body. Instead, he had a broad smile on his face.
"Ah, that was a nice bath….Oh! My clothes!" (Link)
Link hurriedly brought out a new set of clothes from his space ring and wore them. He glanced sideways and confirmed that the other two were not looking at his majestic younger brother, so he immediately got dressed.
Actually, Link could have changed his trajectory mid-air with his dragon arts, but he didn't care and wanted to test his defensive abilities by jumping into this magma-filled valley. (His thought process is crazy…)
Link walked over towards the other two with a proud smile on his face and said in a loud voice:
"Haha, not even Rio could do something like this! Right? If that guy were here, it must have been a great show off! His face would be funny to watch! Hahaha" (Link)
Hearing Link bragging about his feat of diving in the hot magma and making it out alive without any damage, Ellie looked at Liam and said via telepathy:
[Master, Uh… is this guy perhaps have a screw loose or something….]
Pfff!
Liam nodded his head at Ellie's question and tried his hardest not to laugh but couldn't stop it and ended up laughing a little.
Link took Liam's laugh as if Liam had agreed to him being better than Rio. The grin on Link's face widened even further. He stretched out his hand and patted Liam on his shoulder with a smile.
"You are not bad either; I am quite sure you can hold your own against Rio too… hahaha unless you bring Lia into the matter of course! Bahahaha" (Link)
With each pat on Link's hand, the ground under Liam's feet cracked.
'Ugh! My shoulder! This barbarian!' (Liam)
Seeing that Link was planning on breaking his shoulder with those pats, Liam hurriedly slid away.
All of a sudden, the smile on Link's face solidified, and he looked at the engagement ring on his ring finger.
'What!? For a moment, I sensed Riya's life in danger! But now it's stable? Strange….' (Link)
Link glanced at Liam and asked in a serious tone:
"Hey, I can track the location of Riya; how about we look for her first and then go find the others? With your dragon, we can search for others easily… what do you say?" (Link)
Hearing Link's remarks, Liam glanced at Ellie, and seeing that Ellie agreed to carry Link, Liam nodded his head.
(Liam doesn't dare to force Ellie to do anything for him, even if Ellie is Liam's summoned beast, Liam respects her as an equal individual and always asks for her permission whenever he needs her favor. Ellie and Liam both respect each other a lot.)
"Okay then, let's go!" (Liam)
At Liam's command, Ellie turned into her original shadow dragon form.
Liam and Link both sat on Ellie's back and let her carry them. Link informed Liam about the direction where Riya was, and they took off into the sky.
Ellie flapped her massive wings and flew into the sky at a very fast speed.
While flying in the sky, Liam glanced back at Link and asked,
"By the way, I have been meaning to ask, what is that 'Red Ball' floating around you?" (Liam)
Link tilted his head in confusion at Liam's question:
"What ball?" (Link)
Seeing that Link was clueless, Liam frowned a bit and pointed his finger to the 'Red Ball' floating behind Link's head.
Link hurriedly looked back and sure enough, there was indeed a ball floating behind him.
Link stretched his hand out and took the orb in his hand. The orb had a similar color to the magma filled in that valley.
Link held that orb in his hand without any effort, but even he could feel that the temperature of this orb was extremely high.
Even Liam and Ellie could feel the scorching hot temperature of that orb from just looking at it.
Link frowned a bit and asked in confusion:
"When did this thing start to follow me? Was it when I entered that magma?" (Link)
After staring at the orb a few more times, Link shook his head and decided to put it into his space ring.
'I will ask Rio if he knows something about it…' (Link)
(Link believes that Rio has vast amounts of knowledge stored in his head, and he might actually know about this too…)
Liam glanced at Ellie and asked her:
"Hey, do you know anything about this orb, Ellie?" (Liam)
Ellie is a dragon, and dragons have vast amounts of knowledge inherently from birth.
But to Liam's surprise, Ellie shook her head and replied:
[This is the first time I have seen such an object…]
[This orb contains a dense flame aura condensed to extreme levels; perhaps this is formed by the effects of this chaotic mana in this dungeon…]
"Is that so…" (Liam)
'Well if not even Ellie knows about this, then it might be a byproduct of this chaotic mana, strange things happen whenever the mana in an area is extremely chaotic and disordered….' (Liam)
Hearing Ellie's remarks, Liam decided to put this matter behind for now. There's no point in dwelling on things that are clearly unsolvable at the moment.
Perhaps they will find out the answers as they conquer the whole dungeon.
…
Outer Area, An Underground Tunnel.
"The F*ck! How did we suddenly arrive at this dark and damp place!?" (Fade)
Fade's expression twisted with anger. He was in a very bad mood right now.
Not to mention he got injured the very first moment he entered this dungeon, he even ended up teleporting in this horrible-
looking place.
'If only Kira had used that artifact to protect me a bit earlier! I wouldn't have been laughed at by those rich bast*rds! F*ck!' (Fade)
[Basic Flame magic: Guiding fire!]
Ignoring Fade's shouts, Kira cast a fire spell to light up the area and help them see the surroundings.
A small blue fireball floated around Kira's shoulder and lit up the surroundings.
Fade looked at his feet and found himself standing on the carcasses of dead monsters.
Everywhere they looked several monster corpses were scattered and the rotten stench in this enclosed tunnel was horrible. (All the dead bodies looked in similar condition to what Rio had seen...)
Ugh! Vomit!
Since Fade was already injured earlier due to mana deviation and right now his defense was low, he immediately ended up vomiting from this horrible stench entering his nostrils.
There are hundreds of corpses rotting in this tunnel; the smell here is more horrible compared to the smell in a city's sewers.
(A friendly warning: Don't try adventuring in the tunnels without gas masks, who knows where a sewer would open, the smell in a sewer is horrible, so don't try jumping into it.)
"Fade! Are you okay!?" (Kira)
Kira hurriedly brought out a healing potion from her space ring and tried to stabilize Fade's condition. A concerned look appeared on her face.
"Ugh! I feel like dying! Ugh!" (Fade)
[Basic Wind Magic: Repulsion Wind!]
Kira hurriedly cast a spell to sweep the stench away. She helped Fade to stand up and shouldered him to walk out of the place.
"Let's go, we can't stay here…" (Kira)
"Yeah, ugh…" (Fade)
Fade was supposed to retreat from this dungeon at the very moment he had a mana deviation, but now that things have changed a lot he has to suffer even more before he can finally make out of this horrible place.
This place would stay as one of the most horrible experiences in Fade's memories.
…
…
Author's Notes.
Yo! Your Beloved author is here! It's the 27th day of continuous updates! Let's go!
Question of the day.
Would you like to have the majestic body of Link?
1. Yes (Who wouldn't want a majestic younger brother… cough!)
2. No (It might decrease the 'int' stat though…)
3. Others (Tell me in the comments.)
By the way, don't forget to use those power stones and also leave a review if you like the story. Comment your opinion about the chapter. Your support is my motivation.