-What… You… When did your mana circles…

As if Davey had ripped open a door that didn't open, two rings—the 6th and 7th circles—of the circles rotating within his body were moving slightly.

“They are temporary circles. They’ll disappear soon, but I won’t die because of this.”

Although he had to be careful of the aftermath, Davey wasn’t going to die. He had also lost a third of his power that he could use.

“Groan…”

Sio Howl, who had been screaming and moaning in pain, was actually in better shape; however, Lucia, who was very traumatized, was in a very bad condition and needed to be looked at right away.

“Wheeze… Wheeze… L… Lady… Lady Daphne…” Lucia wheezed. Even in this situation, she was looking for the Saintess; perhaps it was inevitable as she had more faith in Daphne than Goddess Freyja.

‘Okay, so the woman you’re looking for doesn’t know who you are.’

When Davey released his holy power and enveloped her with it by hugging her, Lucia’s holy power reacted and also began to move.

[Reinforce the Mind]

“Ah… Ah…”

Davey had cast [Reinforce the Mind], an advanced holy magic spell, to strengthen Lucia’s mind. This was one of the reinforcement spells he had poured onto the territory’s militia members to get rid of the goblins before.

“Ah…” The holy power initially moved very slowly, but gradually calmed Lucia. She was so pale, struggling to even breathe.

“It’s okay. You’re alive,” Davey comforted Lucia.

“S… Sir Davey?”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“I’m…alive?”

It was a relief that Lucia didn’t die from shock as she had fallen from a height that was easily over a hundred meters. There was no way of knowing how a space like this existed beneath an ancient ruin, but Davey was already familiar with the fact that ancient ruins did not obey common knowledge.

“Everything is fine now.”

“Ah… Ah…”

Davey couldn’t do anything but comfort Lucia, who was moaning with tears in her eyes, when she began to cry.

* * *

“Keugh!!”

Davey stepped away from Lucia and approached Sio Howl only after some time passed, since he waited for Lucia to calm down on her own. He could tell that Sio also wasn’t in his right mind; perhaps it was because of the pain from his broken arm and the trauma from the fall.

Of course, Sio at least endured the trauma better than Lucia, who was surprisingly fragile despite her outgoingness. He was much stronger than her.

“Get ready,” Davey said to Sio. He grabbed Sio’s twisted arm tightly without even casting a pain relief spell. He could almost see how bad Sio’s internal injuries were just by touching him.

Crack!!

“Aghh!!!”

“Bear it.”

Crack! Crackkk!

Davey fixed Sio’s displaced bones by force and cast a simple recovery magic later on. Since a splint had to be placed until the bone fully healed, Davey pulled out a couple of steel plates that could be used as a splint from his expansion pouch and tied it to Sio’s arm with cloth he ripped from his robe.

“D… Davey…” Sio noticed Davey and called his name even while he was drooling all over the place from the panic. “W… Why did you…”

“…” Lucia, who was staring into space while sitting on the ground, turned over to look at Davey. He was walking over to her without answering Sio.

“…” Lucia’s gaze was full of emotion. Davey could have chosen to just pretend like nothing had happened without saying anything, but it would be better for him to clear the air rather than letting them ponder over those questions.

“Keugh…” Sio stared at Davey, waiting for an answer.

Davey silently pointed at the ceiling. “I think you fell more than one hundred meters. You would’ve both become meat pancakes if I was even a little late.”

“H… How…”

It seemed like they themselves didn’t understand how they had survived.

While repressing a pain similar to having his organs all twisted up, Davey let out a short, raspy sigh and gave each of them a light magic that appeared beside him. “Follow me. We’re going to find a way out.”

Then, Lucia shouted from behind, “S—Sir Davey! Were you the one who rescued us?!”

“Well, for now.”

“How…”

The question Lucia had in her eyes was how Davey had done it when he was an alchemist with barely any mana. Sio was also unable to hide his confusion.

“All I did was use reverse gravity magic.”

“[Reverse Gravity]… It’s a 6th circle gravity-type magic. No way…” Sio Howl mumbled over and over again in disbelief.

Davey did actually use a 7th circle [High Reverse Gravity] spell, which was higher than what he had said, but he didn’t bother explaining. He then urged the two, “Get a move on; the ancient ruin keeps changing. It’s not my responsibility if you get smushed to jerky by the wall.”

Lucia and Sio stared into space for a while, then slowly lifted themselves up from the ground.

* * *

The silence went on for a while. Lucia had calmed down, but she looked around with a blank stare like she had yet to fully recover from the trauma.

“Hm… I guess we won’t turn into jerky yet,” Davey commented while examining the wall.

Sio looked at Davey in confusion. He asked, “Why did you save me?”

“What?” Davey replied.

“It’s exactly what I asked. Why did you…”

“You just happened to be there, you ass.” Davey quickly put a stop to Sio’s questions, which were seemingly never going to end if he did nothing now.

“…” Although Davey spoke to him like that, Sio said nothing more. He knew that Davey was the only reason why he was alive right now.

Unlike the other trainees, Davey didn’t really care if Sio lived or died; he just happened to rescue the boy along with Lucia, who had also fallen.

“I can barely feel any mana from you. If so, it’s just about the level of an ordinary person. But how… How were you able to use gravity magic, which is a highly advanced type of magic?” Sio asked.

Davey, who was walking in front of Sio, pulled out Red Ribbon from his waist and he knocked on the walls. He aimed for the other side of the dark hall and slashed his shining red sword. “I use it because I can.”

Slice!! As Davey spoke, the horrifying sound of something being cut was heard from the other side of the dark hall.

Thud!! At the same time, they heard the sound of something heavy falling to the ground after being sliced.

“That could never make sense…”

As Red Ribbon left dozens of red marks in the air, dozens of heavy things were cut once again.

“Does my mana feel weak to you?” Davey asked Sio.

“…”

“If so, it only means that is all you are able to see,” Davey said. When Sio gasped in surprise, Davey went on, “Life is real experience, you ass. Even if you don’t want to believe it, something is real if you can see it. And…”

‘Damn, there are so many guardians,’ Davey thought and boldly took a step forward.

“You want to find out the truth in a situation like this? Just follow me with your mouth shut if you can. You speaking alone just frustrates me.” Davey said what he had been wanting to for a while now.

-I don’t know why you had so many things you wanted to say…

‘You have to take the opportunity when you have it.’

Reading his mind, Perserque chuckled hollowly.

The thing that emerged from the darkness was none other than an enchanted golem. They were the exact same kind that was in the ruins in the Heins Territory. Davey could feel the rebound since he was releasing his mana again, but he didn’t feel as though he was running out; perhaps it was because he had already gone berserk once.

“Follow me and stay close. I’ll let you escape without a scratch.”

Davey wondered why he was training this hard back when he was at the Hall, but he felt that he was being rewarded for his efforts in situations like this.

* * *

“Davey!!”

Clang!! Screaming, Illyna ran toward the firmly shut doors, but was soon blocked by the huge guardian golem, the Megatron.

“Move!!” She shouted angrily, but the golem just silently stood in her way. She yelled again, “Did you not see your master fall?! I said, ‘Move’!!”

Illyna shouted at the Megaton as she pulled out Caldeiras instead of her regular longsword, but the Megatron silently stood in front and blocked her. Its eyes continued to shine blue. Of course, she wasn’t nice enough to just retreat.

“You damn lump of metal!!” As Illyna menaced and was about to charge at it…

“Illyna, no!!”

“Stop!”

Heg and Shayir Renda ran out reflexively from the crowd and stopped Illyna.

“Stop! It's already closed!”

“Let me go! I have to go find them!”

“What are you going to do when you get there?!”

Illyna shouted wrathfully, but the two were determined to hold on and keep her here.

Boom!! Whirr!!!

Kahh!!

Then, a battle ant that had snuck in during the chaos was violently ripped apart by the Megatron’s electric chainsaw.

[Megatron!! Release output limit and protect everyone!]

A golem with no consciousness only moved to protect everyone that was left, according to the orders that its master had left behind.

* * *

The enchanted golem was four meters in height and was huge. It was human-like, but had distinct stones all over its body, along with a jewel on its forehead.

-Whirr!

Bzzz!!

The golem’s eyes turned red and shot extremely hot rays of light toward Davey like they were Superman. The infrastructure held up since the walls withstood even the slashes of [Aura Blade], but he could still tell that the rays were very powerful.

Slice!! On the other hand, the sword energy of Red Ribbon ruthlessly cut through their large bodies while slashing the floors even though Davey hadn’t strengthened their precision abilities yet. Red Ribbon had the power to ignore the resistance of anything it touched; seeing it again, he was reminded of how stupidly strong it was although it seemed simple. Of course, there was the disadvantage that more mana was used the more durable the opponent was. The fact that he could ignore defense skills was useful in various ways.

Davey was swinging his sword and killing whatever touched his sword like he had gone berserk, but it didn’t seem all too effective in reducing the number of monsters.

‘But I can’t get rid of them like before…’

Davey had survived a huge danger, but that didn’t mean he was in good shape.

“Kyahh!!”

As Davey was completely in the zone and slashing the monsters that were swarming toward them, one of the golems popped out from the wall and slammed down his fist toward Lucia.

“[Freeze]! [Ice Wall]!”

Sio Howl immediately reacted and built a wall by releasing ice, but it seemed like he knew that his wall, which was made quickly, wasn’t going to stand a chance against the golem’s attacks. In a short second, the golem’s fist flew toward her after breaking through Sio Howl’s ice wall. However, its attack was not able to reach the target as Red Ribbon had gone into the air in seconds and cut its arm off. Then, Blue Ribbon soon followed, leaving a blue afterimage, and pierced its body to slam it against the wall.