Chapter 126.

Really didn’t want to go in there, but it couldn’t be helped. I took a step forward.

“Get in there.”

“Wait.”

Winter stopped me and was silent for a moment. I looked at him in surprise.

“Put this on.”

He suddenly took off his shoes in front of me. The situation was so urgent that I forgot the fact that I was barefoot.

I looked at Winter’s big shoes in silence and immediately refused.

“Never mind it’s already soiled.”

“There could be sharp rocks at the bottom of the cave.”

“They’re too big for me anyway, they’ll fall off if I walk. And if I wear this, what about you?”

“Magic that adjusts to the size of the wearer’s feet is applied. And I applied reinforcement magic to my feet, so it doesn’t matter.”

He rejected my words again with a strong tone.

“If you want to enter the cave with me, wear it.”

It sounds like you can’t go in without wearing it. Really today, I feel as if I’ve seen many sides of him.

“…… Got it.”

I reluctantly put on the shoes he gave me. The shoes, which had been much larger than my feet a moment ago, gradually shrunk to the size of my feet.

The rabbit mask, the black clothes, and the bare feet, it was a strange look. If anyone had seen it, they would have accused him of being crazy. Winter surveyed me with satisfaction.

“Let’s go.”

We walked straight to the front of the cave. Sure enough, it looked unsettling and suspicious from the outside. There were stairs in the cave, not just any cave, but underground.

At that moment, Winter took out his cane from his arms.

With a “Bare-” sound, a little bright light appeared there.

“It might be slippery, so be careful.”

He walked up the stairs first, and I followed cautiously.

Tick tock tick tock. I don’t know if it leads under the sea, but cold and salty drops of water keep falling from the ceiling of the cave. Being hit by the drops with a sad face, I looked up at the illuminated path as Winter walked silently and I asked.

“There’s no time for a brief explanation of the combat.”

Wynter looked back at me all at once. His pupils were briefly in an awkward state.

“…… There’s no separate battle plan?”

I asked back with an absurd face.

“What did you say.”

“The kidnapping of Lavon in order to track down the base of the New Kingdom’s remnants was planned from the beginning ……”

“I also didn’t expect them to show up today and kidnap all the children.”

“You really …… came to test me.”

Re-comprehending, then suddenly thinking, he frowned.

“And in the meantime, you’re trying to bring me back to the capital? Really crazy?”

“Sounds like a defense, though.”

Winter was silent for a moment, and spoke hesitantly.

“But the lady was surprising enough not to panic, but to cast a spell to save the children as soon as they appeared out of nowhere.”

“It was confirmed according to the purpose that you are not related to Leila’s new country in any way, but regretted bringing you here in haste.”

I looked back at Winter with wide eyes. A moment ago, he was as composed as someone who had anticipated everything.

“At that moment, all I could think of was returning you to where you were.”

But telling the truth didn’t make him look composed at all. He turned his head and locked eyes with me for a moment.

“You wouldn’t understand me like that.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t understand either, ma’am. I can’t understand myself either.”

His ever-sober eyes were bloodshot, compulsively skeptical of everything. Alert all around, he was a little tired, as if he was crazy.

I sighed deeply at his words. Suspecting me of being a remnant of Leila’s new country, testing me, made me angry. But being alarmed at the sudden arrival of people and worrying about the children made sense.

“…… Why did the Layla New State Remnant Party kidnap the children?”

Personal feelings were put aside for the moment, and I decided to focus on the problem I was encountering right now. To the topic of change, Winter was silent for a while and replied.

“To use magic by utilizing the children’s magic power.”

“I’ve heard that the only way the true Emperor will appear is if there is no magic. But why would they use magic?”

“The current remnants of the party are just Leila’s followers, and there is no one who truly possesses Leila’s power. In order to get rid of the magicians, they steal magic power.”

“Steal magic power?”

“It means using it to transform and manipulate magical objects. Like on the eve of a hunting contest.”

That’s really shitty. I frowned.

“What’s their ultimate goal? To wipe out magicians from the world?”

“To resurrect Leila in a world without wizards.”

“…… Resurrection? How do you resurrect an imaginary god?”

The atheist in me found their ideas absurd. But Winter dismissed it with a heavy voice.

“Leila is not a god.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s an ancient minority with magic-like powers.”

“A minority race ……?”

“Wizards use magic and nature as a medium to use magic, and they expend their lives casting similar powers.”

Not wanting to exhaust their lives, they began to crave the lives of others and use power. They built Baltar in order to accumulate power and take over the world. But I heard that Baltar was a country founded by magicians ……

I mumbled in confusion. The Crown Prince also knew that the suppression of the magicians started from Baltar. But what Winter said was like a completely different fact.

Seeing the puzzled me, Winter added.

“When Leila was sealed by the ancient magicians, they left behind a curse that changed history.”

“A curse ……?”

“The magicians who stopped those who wanted to take over the world and sealed them in Baltar were forgotten. Because of the curse, the descendants of those magicians were ostracized.”

I was shocked at the fact I just learned. If that was true, then weren’t the magicians, including Winter, fighting an uphill battle?

There turned out to be such a sophisticated setup in the difficult mode.

In the next part of the story, I felt creeped out for some reason.

It was that time. Wynter suddenly stopped in his tracks. Without realizing it the stairs broke. Under the stairs, a deep and dark path stretched through the cave.

It seemed to be almost there. There were sparse lights hanging in the aisle. A cold wind blew from over there. It was much brighter than the stairs, which were completely shrouded in darkness, but it felt more dangerous.

It was Winter who made the first move, and I followed him into the aisle before I was mentally prepared. Moving at a fast pace, Winter suddenly said.

“I have to stop what they’re doing, ma’am.”

Like a plea, pleading and desperate voice. It was a mission I hadn’t felt in normal mode, feeling a sense of crisis one after the other. Carefully, I asked.

“…… What happens when Leila is resurrected?”

“If Leila is resurrected in the world where magicians disappear ……”

“The end of the world comes.”

At that time. Brush – all the lights in the cave went out. Darkness descended.

“What, why did you do that? Fire, light the fire ……”

I panicked and looked for Winter. But it was strange. Out of the blue, the light on his cane disappeared, nowhere to be seen.

“…… Hey.”

I snapped around and went back to where Winter had been a moment ago. But there was nothing to see. I groped and reached out into the darkness. It touched the cold, bumpy wall, not Winter’s arm.

“Damn, this is ……”

I took a deep breath and started looking for Winter. Caught up in the panic, and not paying attention to hiding his true identity.

“Winter!”

While looking around in the darkness, something glowed below. I ducked my head at the sudden light that arose. Then widened my eyes.

“The necklace ……”

Yellow light emanated from the necklace that Winter had given me.

–That necklace not only detects poison, but also changes caused by magic fluctuations.

–The more pronounced the color, the more dangerous it is, so please avoid it immediately.

His words describing the necklace swept through his mind.

“Then it’s dangerous now ……”

“Ma’am!”

That instant. A voice calling me came faintly from the rock wall there.

“Winter? Winter!”

“Are you all right?”

“Where are you-!”

“Seems to have fallen into a trap. They’ve set the cave structure to double ……”

Winter’s voice buzzed. It seemed to be coming from far away. Therefore, I desperately pressed close to the wall and listened to the sound.

“That, what should I do? Go straight ahead?”

“I’ll think of something, up to here, for now ……”

Suddenly, Winter’s voice cut off.

“Hey, hey!”

I kept calling out in fear. After a while, his voice came back. With bad news.

“Ms. ……, there’s a surge of demons here right now. How is the situation on your side?”

“It’s still fine here ……”

Grunt-

Suddenly there was a piercing and unusual sound. I jerked my head around, and a strange rumbling sound came from the dark side. I froze.

“Ma’am ……?”

“Clunk!”

Winter called out to me anxiously. At the same time, the sound echoed closer.

“Ah. There are magical creatures here too ……!”

With a trembling voice, I told him that there seemed to be magical creatures appearing here as well. Suddenly there was a flash before my eyes.

[System] Unexpected event! An excited swarm of demonic creatures appeared!

Chant a spell to get rid of the demonic creatures and go find Lavon! Shall we proceed? [Reward: Wynter favorability +5%, Lavon’s whereabouts]

[Acceptance/Rejection]