SML Ch 99

Chapter 99

“Th-the floor…?!”

Shining the torch onto the ground, Reynald could not believe his eyes. Moments ago it had been ordinary stone like the rest of the cave, but now it was turning translucent in an instant, like ice.

The change originated where the lift had stood. With the lift risen, a magic circle of intricate, ornate sigils blazed on the exposed floor. It seemed designed to trigger automatically once the lift ascended and no longer covered it.

“The magic is turning the floor into ice, isn’t it? Uh, that’s dangerous, right?”

“Of course it’s dangerous—this isn’t just turning into ice, it’s cracking because it can’t bear our weight!”

While it had been stone, its thickness was impossible to gauge; as ice, the truth was obvious. The flooring was absurdly thin. At its thickest, perhaps two or three centimeters.

There wasn’t water beneath, like a lake—there was no way such thin ice could safely hold two grown men. And then…

“Ah—aaah?”

The yetis were no less startled by the transformation. In sudden confusion, they scattered and ran in all directions; without malice, yet their chaos accelerated the floor’s collapse.

“My lord, the floor’s giving way!”

“It’s too late to run! Damn—was this that clockwork brat’s plan all along?”

Reynald remembered the doll’s claim that the path to the first level was easy to find. Of course it would be—if the floor collapsed the moment the lift rose, those left behind would fall straight down to the first level on their own! The problem was that it was anything but safe…!

“Grr—Hrrraa!”

Sensing the threat, the yetis started to flee, but it was already too late. As the floor fully gave out, the yetis, Reynald, and Volant all plunged downward.

Below lay nothing but a yawning abyss. Fierce winds and pitch darkness swallowed them.

“My lord! My lord!”

With a near-sobbing scream, Volant clutched Reynald’s waist tight. Reynald gripped the youth firmly as well, but that alone would not conjure a way to save him.

“This is bad. At this rate, we’ll both die on impact—no body left to gather!”

The mere image of Volant’s corpse, skull pulp and brains running, made Reynald’s spine ice-cold. If only there were a way to save at least the youth. He wrapped both arms around Volant’s head and neck, but from too great a height, even that would not help much.

He raked the walls around them with his eyes for any handhold. But the excavation-magic-sheared walls offered not even a crack to wedge a fingertip into.

He tried to spot a safer landing, but it was no use. How deep was the first level? No matter how long they fell, the ground did not seem nearer. Only unending blackness.

Winds buffeted from all sides, stinging his face and making it hard to open his eyes. The fall went on so long it felt less like dropping and more like hanging weightless. The scenery hardly changed—if it could be called scenery at all.

“Wait—what?”

Then clarity crashed over Reynald like cold water. The wind on his face was wrong. At first he’d assumed the rush was from falling—but listening closely, that wasn’t it.

Wind was blowing from either side, and from above down. If it were the fall, wind should rise from below.

“Are we even falling?”

At that thought, he craned his neck and looked up—and realized the situation was not as dire as it seemed.

“Of course. Illusiongrass.”

Though the ice had all collapsed, the glowing magic circle remained in place, giving enough light to make out what lay above.

Given the time they had “fallen,” their original position should have been impossibly far. Yet the circle—the light source—and the passage mouth where Reynald had chalked a big X were still, considering their fall, suspiciously close.

Moreover, the dozens of yetis who had started to fall before the two of them were drifting down like round balloons—slowly, leisurely. They flailed and screamed, still failing to grasp the situation, but to an outside eye they were no more threatening than clouds bobbing in the air.

The surreal, ridiculous sight was the work of Illusiongrass—because yetis were larger, “heavier” beings than humans.

“I said it myself and forgot. In this cave, a feather light as nothing is heavier than a rock…!”

Illusiongrass most powerfully distorts heat and weight—or more precisely, anything tied to “falling.” In its domain, large and heavy things descend slowly, and small and light things drop faster. It flouts physical law outright; but then, it’s magic altering reality, so analysis is pointless.

If the Illusiongrass here is strong enough, their fall would not be that fast at all. This felt like a mischievous trick exploiting the plant’s properties. The winds from every direction were illusions to scramble distance sense.

“If we can land on level footing, the impact won’t be severe. If the effect is strong, it’ll be like jumping from a few meters at most.”

To arrive safely, as the doll had said, might not have been a lie. If they fled quickly before the drifting yetis touched down, they might slip away unharmed. Caution was needed, of course—a misstep, a head struck, and it could still be deadly. Heart easing, Reynald began searching for a good landing.

So focused on landing safely, he noticed late that something was wrong with Volant.

“I don’t want to die. I—I don’t want to…”

“Volant, it’s okay! Hold on tight! It looks dangerous, but we can land safely! We won’t die!”

“Mother and my little sibling said that, too. They said we wouldn’t die. Th-that everything would be fine. Really, truly—don’t worry…”

What? Only then did Reynald realize something was terribly off. He had assumed the fear came from the height; it didn’t.

Fear of death was natural, but Volant’s voice burned with a strange heat, as if entranced—like someone whose mind had gone elsewhere.

“Volant—focus! Volant!”

“I didn’t mean—didn’t mean for this. Not really, my lord. Please believe me. I—I just wanted to live. I just didn’t want to die. That’s all…”

“You’ll live! Even if we fall, we won’t die! Volant, listen to me! What’s happening?”

Reynald shook his shoulders, shouting, but Volant only muttered in a voice not entirely his own. He ransacked his memory—did Illusiongrass cause delirium? He was certain it didn’t. Then it was Volant’s own problem…

What truly unnerved Reynald wasn’t the muttering. Crack—Volant’s body convulsed hard, bones warping audibly. Not from impact; the sound came from within the youth’s body.

“A-aaagh!”

“Volant? Are you all right? Is something wrong with your body?”

Reynald tried to look closer—but the lantern glass shattered and went out. There had been no blow strong enough to break it; magic or some paranormal force, certainly. In the faint glow of the distant circle, it was hard to see what Volant had become.

“I’m fine—fine, my lord. It’ll be fine? Probably? Not like before, right? This time it’s really fine? You—you’ll trust me, won’t you?”

His voice was anything but fine. The creak and grind of bones reassembling continued within him. Illusiongrass never did this.

“Speak clearly, Volant! What is happening to you?”

“I—I don’t really know? No one explained anything, and even if they did, I forgot it all? But it must be nothing, so don’t worry, my lord. Okay? I—I’m really, uh, fine, so just close your eyes? The light’s out, right? You can’t see? Then it’s fine. Really fine—just hold me tight? We’re not going to die. We’ll be okay. This time, really, everything’s fine, and no one will die, and then I can forget it all again…?”

Reynald wanted to ask whether he had extinguished the lantern—but couldn’t. An indescribably sharp stench burst from Volant.

Why did that smell… drag back the dragon hunt? The reek of curdled, clotted blood from the greedy red dragon was exactly this. Dragon blood is lethally toxic; ordinary knights had fainted outright from the smell alone.

“It’s okay, my lord. I’ll handle this somehow.”

Something struck the back of Reynald’s head hard. He lost consciousness at once.

The last sound he heard was the flutter—like wings unfurling.