For a time, the sound of Gaien’s hammer striking the metal was the only noise echoing in the cave.
“I wonder if Mr. Gaien has successfully consumed Salamander’s mana.”
I’d only been whispering to myself, but Kagali nodded. She could most likely see Salamander’s mana with her mystic eyes. She wasn’t looking at me as I spoke, as her gaze was fixed on Gaien’s hands.
“Miss Ellie! Monsters are approaching!” Misha suddenly yelled.
I leaped to my feet. I still couldn’t sense anything with my mana, but the place was so full of Salamander’s mana that it was throwing off my detection abilities. I trusted a catkin’s ears far more than I trusted my own ability to locate monsters at the moment.
“Misha, take Alice and stay close to Mr. Gaien! You stick with them too, Kagali!”
“Yes, miss!”
“O-Okay!”
Misha had indicated that the noise was coming from a different path than the one Tida had taken. I focused my attention on it and, sure enough, flame lizards started pouring through the entrance.
“Flame lizards!” Misha exclaimed.
“That explains why we didn’t see any outside,” I said.
I couldn’t help but feel like it was strange that they had hidden inside the cave if they were wary of Salamander’s inflated mana. Perhaps there were so many galleries down here that they’d come from quite a distance. Flame lizards could even move freely through lava. They might have been hiding in the depths of the mountain and entered passages that were connected to this cavern.
“Misha! Older flame lizards can breathe fire! Have Heal and Water Wall scrolls at the ready!”
“Got it!” Misha left Alice in Kagali’s care and started taking out scrolls. She also held her guardian dagger at the ready.
If the flame lizards attacked one by one, they wouldn’t be a threat, but if a group of them used Fire Breath all at once, they might be able to breach my defenses. Outside, I could have used a wide-area spell and killed them all at once, but destructive spells with a large radius weren’t an option underground. Another issue was that ice spells weren’t very effective on flame lizards. I could increase the power of my magic to freeze them regardless, but I risked harming Gaien, Alice, and Kagali since they were so close. This left me with only one option...
“I shall stick to the most reliable method.”
With a flick of my wrist, the head of the first flame lizard fell to the ground. Each time Flügel sliced through the air, another corpse joined the pile. I figured the bodies would soon get in my way, so I started kicking them to the edge of the cavern as I fought. I wasn’t necessarily struggling, but there seemed to be no end to the flame lizards’ reinforcements.
The flame lizards had registered me as an enemy. They crowded around me, jumping at me one by one without faltering despite how many of their fellow creatures’ carcasses lay on the ground.
Suddenly, I noticed the larger specimens around me lifting their heads in unison.
“Ice Sphere!”
I’d only just finished creating a ball of ice around my body when the flame lizards unleashed their Fire Breath in unison. The heat of the flames was such that, without protection, a person would be carbonized within a few seconds.
As the surface of my ice melted away, I poured more mana into the sphere to reinforce it with additional layers. After a while, the intensity of the Fire Breath finally died down. The moment it stopped entirely, I let my ice shatter and simultaneously used Quick Motion to close the distance between me and the monsters. I quickly reacquainted Flügel with their necks.
“GRAAAAH!!!” A flame lizard at the back let out a loud, shrill cry as I cut off a few more heads.
The behavior of the entire group shifted. They seemed to have chosen retreat. However, the issue was the direction they went in. Since I’d stepped into the gallery they’d come out from to kill more of them, they didn’t have the option of retracing their steps.
In this situation, younger flame lizards might have simply run off toward the innermost part of the cave where the mana concentration was dense, but I could tell from their coordination that the one leading the pack was an older individual. At their leader’s signal, the flame lizards all started running toward the path that led outside—and Alice, Misha, Kagali, and Gaien were in their way.
“This is bad! Misha, use Water Wall!”
“Water Wall!” Misha activated the spell right before the monsters’ Fire Breath reached the group. As the fire and water clashed, steam rose, enveloping everything.
I’d messed up. My attempt to put as much distance as possible between the unconscious Alice and the fight had led me to move too far away from my companions. With all of the vapor blocking my vision, I could only close my eyes and rely on my mana detection skills to keep killing flame lizards.
I could sense Alice’s and Misha’s mana behind the Water Wall. Gaien was still swinging his hammer despite the chaos, and Kagali...
“Dad!”
“You idiot!”
Kagali had just jumped out of the protection of the Water Wall to defend Gaien, who was outside of it and defenseless. The leader of the flame lizards was heading straight toward them, and Kagali’s sudden movements had seemed to provoke it.
“Kagali!” I screamed.
But it was too late. The flame lizard had already opened its mouth. I tried to cast a Water Wall of my own to protect them, but I was too far away, and the flames reached Kagali before I could do anything.
“Kagali!”
I suddenly remembered an item I had in my pocket and took out a small vial, opening it in a hurry. It was filled with crystal thread, a magic item made out of aqua silk that had the properties of both thread and water. While water and ice weren’t very effective against flame lizards, a slash attack using this thread might work.
“Water Thread: Slash!”
I poured my mana into the crystal thread and transformed it into a keen blade. I’d only recently learned water thread skills, so my control was a bit off. However, using crystal thread sped up the process compared to creating water thread from scratch with my mana, and I was able to cut off the flame lizard’s head in the blink of an eye.
“Water Thread: Dispersion.”