‘Where am I?’ I had hurled myself after the lass—the dragonia Lakoroïa—under the altar, but I felt beaten up all over. I opened my eyes in pain. ‘What is this place?’
I was sure that since I had thrown myself into an underground chamber of the pyramid, I would find myself inside a pyramid, but I was lying inside what appeared to be a huge underground cave. Thanks to the light-emitting jewels encrusted on the ceiling, I could dimly make out the inside of the cave.
‘I have to find the girl!’
There was no time to idly check out the cave—I surged to my feet.
“Guh!”
However, as soon as I got up, my body was slammed with bone-crushing agony that threatened to blow me up if I moved even a single step.
“W-What’s wrong with my airplate?”
I had no idea what happened inside that black hole-like hole, but my airplate was so dented that it hindered my movements. It looked like an ogre went all out beating me with a steel rod.
Click.
I took off my broken airplate.
“For now, with magic…”
After throwing off my airplate, I wanted to use Heal to treat my injuries, but chilly horror suddenly swept through my body.
“I-It’s gone. Uwaahhhhhhh! My mana! It’s gone!!!!!!”
It was true.
The mana flowing like an uncontrollable Hulk in my mana core up until just a few moments ago had completely vanished.
‘What the fuck is this! How can my mana just disappear?!’
It was like a dude smugly agreeing to buy a girl a brand-name bag, but being told very kindly by the female employee during check-out that he had exceeded his card limit. Not just my mana, but my mana circles and core itself had disappeared. My whole body had transformed into an empty box, as if I had never learned magic at all.
‘Just what the hell is this place?!’
I looked up and stared at the ceiling, but maybe because it was really high, I couldn’t see anything.
‘No sword, no mana, and no idea where this place is. Argh, fuck, I knew this would happen.’
There was a problem with the motto I’d picked for today, too. Why the heck did I choose “bravery,” of all things? It turned out that I would really have to see things through with this damned bravery.
‘But where did the lass and the black mages go?’
I was certain we didn’t end up in the same place. If we had, those black mages wouldn’t have left me alive.
‘It’s like one of those legendary dragon lairs… Eh? Is it really a dragon lair?’
I had the unconscious thought that the cave was like a dragon lair and inspected my surroundings with disbelief.
‘There are artificial traces.’
Unnatural traces could be seen in the dim light. The dragons in the history books were apparently hundreds of meters large when fully grown, which was obviously a pack of lies. Upon closer inspection, everything here looked like the perfect size for a dragon to play.
‘Come to think of it, the kiddo’s a dragonia, the descendant of a dragon!’
It made perfect sense. It was possible that a dragon might have prepared something for their human descendants.
My feelings suddenly grew more complicated. The lass was a problem too, but the appearance of evil black mages was an even bigger issue.
I couldn’t stand around like this. My family taught me that if you don’t have teeth, then bite with your gums. Dragging my creaking body, I slowly walked through the cave.
‘If this is a dragon’s lair, then does it also have a guardian?’
Since ancient times, dragons were treated like impregnable fortresses. There were plenty of glorious(?) stories recorded in the history books about overconfident mages and human warriors who tried going up against a dragon, only to be wrecked by the guardian and turned into the guardian’s poop.
I suddenly felt a foreboding aura behind me.
‘Dammit!’
An unlucky bastard would end up breaking their nose as a bonus when falling backwards. It seemed today really wasn’t my day—just when I thought about the guardian, I felt a chilly energy from behind me.
Gulp.
Cold sweat ran down my back. If I went up against an invincible dragon guardian without mana or even my sword, I would… I didn’t even want to imagine it. It would simply be game over, and I would be taking a one-way taxi to the River Styx.
Haa, haaa.
‘You dirty bastard! If you’re gonna kill me, do it fast, why breathe down my neck like a creep!’
It seemed I met a real nasty piece of work. Instead of sending me off with a single, clean strike, it felt like this guy wanted to sink its fangs into my neck, drink all my blood as a tonic, and roast my bones into a nourishing bone soup, the most evil guardian among all guardians.
‘Shit! Fine, let’s at least see your face before I die. When you come down to hell later, I’ll have my revenge with a hundred jabs up your damn ass!’
I never expected to be sent to heaven—I hadn’t accrued the qualifications to do so anyway, so I preemptively bought my ticket to hell.
Gritting my teeth, I made a decision. A man should die screaming ‘Bravery even in death!’
‘Three, two, one!’
After counting down in my head, I whirled around.
“Oi, you little—”
“Kyaaaaaaaaaa!”
I was about to yell ‘Oi, you little motherfucker!’ but someone screamed before I could finish.
‘Gaaah, what the hell is going on this time!!!!’
I fully expected to see a beast with protruding fangs or an ogre holding an iron rod that could send my head flying off with a single blow, but the person I saw completely dashed those expectations.
‘A, a girl?!’
To my shock, it was a woman, a golden-haired woman wearing ancient-looking golden clothing with unknown patterns embroidered on it.
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‘WHY? WHY IS THERE A GIRL HERE?’
I looked all around me, but this place couldn’t even sustain a frickin’ slime, a creature with extreme resilience.
Despite that, there was a woman here. She screamed in surprise, but even then, her noble appearance was obvious to the eye.
‘Golden eyes?’
In addition to her uniquely intense golden hair, her eyes were also golden.
“Who are you?” I mumbled unconsciously.
“…?”
Closing her mouth at my query, the woman blinked her mysterious golden eyes at me.
‘Mentally disabled?’
That’s what occurred to me at that moment. Because her eyes were completely empty, devoid of any kind of human emotion.
“Are you unable to talk?” I asked, pointing to my mouth. Instead of responding, the woman simply blinked her big eyes at me.
‘Just who the heck are you?’
I was relieved she was a beautiful, golden-eyed lady and not some ferocious guardian, but I also had more questions than before.
Craaaaash!
“Geh!”
Just then, I suddenly heard an explosion coming from far away.
Swish.
Without saying a word, the woman disappeared, her golden hair streaming behind her. She was so fast, I couldn’t catch her. The woman raced off at an incredible speed, as if using Haste magic.
“W-Wait for me!!!!”
If the vanishing woman was a cutting-edge sports car, then the mana-less me was a fucking tricycle. I found myself desperately chasing after a woman’s back for the first time in a while.
My instincts were screaming at me, saying that right now, all I needed was speed.
* * *
I sprinted for who knows how long, chasing after the golden-eyed woman. At some point, she disappeared, and after a nearly 2 km sprint, my lungs were busy sucking and puffing out air like a broken train.
‘What is this place?’
After running like a wild-eyed bull, I suddenly found myself in front of a stone building. Surprisingly, there was a stone building of ancient design inside the cave.
Whirr, whirr.
And mana was flowing from the building. Cold and frosty yin-attribute mana so pure that any black mage would go crazy with desire to absorb it was whirling around the entirety of the stone building.
Swish swish.
‘Eh?’
That wasn’t all. As I breathed in, still panting roughly, the yin-attribute mana floating around like a cloud was drawn in and began to accumulate in my body.
‘What kind of marvelous phenomenon is this?!!!’
As if the loss of mana in my body was all a lie after all, the yin-attribute mana began to gather inside my body.
“Huu, huu…”
As I absorbed the mana, my trembling body stabilized. In any case, both yin and yang were, in the end, both forms of mana. Moreover, my mana breathing technique was an unparalleled method that could absorb every kind of mana out there. As the yin-attribute mana continued to accumulate with every breath I took, my mood skyrocketed, and the mana refreshed my entire body to the point that I could understand why drug addicts simply couldn’t quit.
Whiiirrr.
‘M-My mana circles are returning!’
To my shock, with the accumulation of yin-attribute mana, a 1st Circle mana core quickly took shape, something I could hardly believe.
Step.
In order to absorb even stronger yin-attribute mana, I unconsciously moved closer to the place where the yin-attribute mana was whirling around.
“Haaah…”
Exhilaration filled me. The more breaths I took, the more yin-attribute mana I was able to draw in.
A 2nd Circle mana core rotated around my waist, drawing in a large amount of mana.
Step, step.
And unbeknownst to me, drunk on mana, I walked into the stone building at the promise of even more yin-attribute mana.
Crunch.
Broken shards crunched under my feet as I entered the enormous stone building.
“Huu, huuu…”
My mind grew hazy, intoxicated by the breaths of mana.
This was my first taste of mana recovery. The moment I entered the building, 3rd Circle mana came to life within me, cold and refreshing yin-attribute mana that I had never experienced before.
Step, step.
My footsteps did not cease.
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The mana was whispering to me, urgently luring me deeper inside.