Siegfried Fors
"So this black thing connects to another time?" I asked, standing before the black veil at the tunnel's end. The surface drank in the light, giving nothing back. Nothing beyond it was visible. It was that same hollow, absolute nothingness we had encountered when we first stepped into this dungeon.
"That's right," Granny said, her voice echoing slightly against the glowing walls. "We were in another time entirely before we found you."
"We can't sense anybody else's mana in this vicinity. The others must be displaced in a different era. Finding Sis has to be our priority." Uncle's expression was grim, his eyes scanning the veil.
"But the source of the Darkness is right here," Aifa countered, her gaze lingering on the path behind us. "Should we leave it like this? I mean, will we even be able to find our way back to this specific point?"
"This black membrane that bridges the different times works both ways, does it not?" Granny asked, hovering her hand just inches from the veil, sensing the flux of mana. "We should be able to return. You have been marking the path, haven't you, Aifa?"
"I have been." Aifa nodded, though a shadow of uncertainty flickered in her eyes. She must be worried whether she would be able feel her markings after jumping through time. I can't say I blame her.
Granny gave a firm, decisive nod. "Good." She turned her back to us and faced the black veil. "Let's move."
I hope the others are holding their own. Mother should be fine, but the other three... If the Darkkin are appearing there too, time is a luxury we don't have. I tightened my grip on my wand and prepared to step once more into the unknown.
"Here." Aifa held out her hand. Without much thought, I took it.
Uncle moved in first, disappearing into the black. Granny looked at me, and I nodded in response before she too stepped through. After a few seconds, Aifa and I followed, plunging into the void. The world immediately twisted and turned, a sickening whirlpool of colors and sensations. I squeezed my eyes tight, trying to ground myself against the crushing dizziness.
Agh, what a miserable sensation. My head feels like it's being wrung out like a wet cloth.
"Sieg, how are you feeling?" Granny's voice reached me from ahead.
I opened my eyes to see her leaning toward me, concern clear on her face. "I'm fine." I steadied my breathing and looked around. The surroundings looked exactly the same. "Did we actually move to a different time?"
"The dungeon was built in a waterfall cave, what were you expecting? A grand hall with statues?" Uncle crossed his arms, looking entirely unimpressed by my confusion.
"Right, my mistake for having some taste." I shrugged my shoulders, trying to mask the lingering tremor in my hands with a bit of humor. If nothing has changed, how will we ever know if we're moving closer to Mother or just walking in circles through time?
As if the dungeon had decided to answer me, a sudden pressure brushed against my senses. I felt three powerful and familiar mana signatures radiating from somewhere deep within.
"That's..." Aifa looked forward, her eyes narrowing as she focused on the path ahead.
"It belongs to them." Uncle Erik's voice was low, confirming what I felt.
"Erik." Granny called out, and Uncle nodded in silent understanding. Suddenly, the weight of the world vanished. All of our feet left the ground at once.
"Wow." I found myself rolling in the air for a brief, disorienting moment as gravity lost its grip on me.
"We are moving," Uncle declared.
The next second, my body stopped tumbling and straightened out in mid-air. We were launched through the tunnel in an instant, soaring at an incredible speed that made the glowing walls blur into streaks of light, wind screaming past us. "Fuuuaaaaaa." Faux on my head was clearly enjoying it.
He lifted all of us without even a whisper of a chant, and he's maintaining this kind of velocity. As a mage, he is actually capable; he didn't reach the Epsilon stage by luck alone.
Suddenly, our momentum died, and we came to a jarring stop. I couldn't see a thing because Granny was anchored right in front of me, her body blocking the sight.
"Ma, what is this?" Uncle asked in confusion.
Granny shifted forward, and as she moved, the view opened up. Something was blocking the mouth of the tunnel, a massive barrier of matted white.
Granny reached out, pressing a single finger into the mass. The white surface yielded, swallowing her finger deeper the more she pushed.
"It looks like web," Granny said, her voice dropping an octave as she pressed her entire palm against the substance.
Web? This big?
"Web as in the liquids produced by black spiders?" Aifa asked from beside me.
"The mana signatures are coming from behind it," Uncle grunted. He didn't wait for a plan. He summoned his axe in a flash of light and swung with a heavy, powerful arc.
The blade hit the white wall with a dull thud, but instead of slicing through, the metal simply sank into the fibers and stopped. It didn't leave so much as a scratch.
"What?"
Uncle yanked the weapon back, his eyes darting between the pristine white web and the heavy steel of his axe. He looked completely shaken, unable to process how his strength had just been swallowed whole.
Granny crossed her arms and shook her head.
"Don't try to brute force everything." She floated forward, once again pressing her palm against the sticky barrier. "The harder you hit a web like this, the more it pushes back. It reacts to the force you apply. That is why..." Her hand pressed forward, the surface yielding slowly. "You have to be patient. You need to take your time and cut through it patiently."
"I am sure we don't have time for that," Uncle countered, his grip still tight on his useless axe.
"That's right," Aifa chimed in from beside me. Her voice was small but urgent. "Captain Tavian and the others might be in danger."
"True. So we can..." Granny reached into her magic pouch, her fingers rummaging for a moment before she pulled out a glass bottle filled with a dark, swirling red solution. "We can use this."
She uncorked the vial and poured the liquid onto the matted web. A harsh, sizzling sound erupted, and the web began to bubble and dissolve, melting away like wax against a flame and flowing down the sides of the tunnel.
"Wait! You had that this whole time? Why didn't you use it before?" Uncle asked, a flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck.
Granny didn't even look back at him. "How is it my fault? Before I could even reach for the bottle, you went all Valka on it."
"... right." Uncle's shoulders slumped. He tucked his chin toward his chest, the fierce warrior replaced by the image of a guilty child getting a lecture in front of the neighbors.
He looks like a scolded child.
Watching the exchange, Aifa and I shared a glance. A soft sound escaped us, and we couldn't help but chuckle. Uncle shot us a glare, and we both turned away quickly, unable to wipe the lingering smiles from our faces.
"Enough chatter. Let's continue." Granny turned back toward the tunnel mouth as the last of the webbing dissolved.
The entrance to the next cavern opened wide, and a wave of a truly nauseating stench rushed out to meet us.
"Ugh, what is this?" Uncle immediately pinched his nose, his face contorting in disgust.
"It's like something is burning," Aifa said, her hand already covering her mouth and nose to filter the air.
It smells like charred meat and some chemicals.
Then, familiar voices drifted through the foul air. "Captain Tavian, don't give up!" Ashar's voice was high with urgency, a sound of pure desperation.
"Captain. Please try harder." Blake's voice followed, still monotone but carrying a heavy, leaden weight that suggested things were dire.
"No..." Aifa didn't wait for another word. She ran into the cavern in a frantic hurry. Without wasting a second, the rest of us followed right behind her.
We burst into the cavern, the space opening up into the largest chamber we had encountered yet. It was a nightmare of silk; thick, sticky webs draped from every corner like tapestries. My gaze was immediately pulled to the massive, furred corpse of a spider slumped in the center. Its head had been severed, and a thick, acrid smoke curled from its open maw, the primary source of that stomach-turning stench. The sight of its eight lifeless, clouded eyes sent a violent shiver down my spine.
"What is this?" Aifa's voice was barely a whisper as she slowed to a halt a few paces ahead.
I looked past her, and the sight was so absurd I could hardly process it. Tavian was pinned high against the cavern wall, completely ensnared in a massive cluster of webbing. Ashar and Blake were on the ground below, straining with all their might as they tugged on the strands to pull him free.
"Pull harder, Blake!" Ashar grunted, his face flushed with the effort of the haul.
"I am doing that," Blake replied, his voice flat as ever despite the visible tension in his arms as he yanked on the silk.
For a moment, all of us stood there, the tension of the journey clashing with the sheer strangeness of the sight.
We were worried they were being slaughtered, and instead, we find them in a tug-of-war with a wall. Aifa finally broke the silence, her voice echoing our collective confusion. "What happened here?"
All three of them snapped their heads toward us. "Young lord!" The exclamation burst from them in unison. Ashar and Blake instantly released the webbing, the strands snapping back as they sprinted toward our group.
"Are you alright?" Ashar asked as he moved toward Aifa.
"Don't worry. I am—" Aifa started, but both of them ran right past her without stopping. Both of them crowded into my personal space, leaning in with intense focus, eyes scanning me from head to toe. "Young lord, you are not hurt anywhere, right?" Ashar asked frantically, while Blake hovered just behind him, a rare look of genuine relief breaking through his usual mask.
"I am..." I peeked past their shoulders to see Aifa standing perfectly still, her face twisted in a look of comedic shock, her mouth slightly open at being so thoroughly ignored. "...Fine."
"I too am glad you are fine, young lord," Captain Tavian called out from his undignified perch on the wall.
"Uh, are you okay?" I asked, lifting my head up to look at him.
At my question, his face flushed a deep, painful crimson. "Apologies. You have to witness such a sorry sight of me," Tavian murmured, staring down to avoid our eyes.
"So, what exactly happened here?" Granny asked, stepping forward with her hands on her hips, her eyes scanning the carnage of the room.
The story that followed was a chaotic mess of bad luck and desperate survival. After being separated, the three of them had wandered aimlessly through the shifting times of the dungeon, searching for me until they stumbled into this nest. Tavian had been taken by surprise, launched through the air and plastered to the wall by a massive ball of webbing. Ashar had nearly been swallowed whole, only managing to survive by incinerating his way out through the spider's throat from the inside. Blake had finally ended the nightmare, seizing an opening to sever the beast's head while it was distracted by the internal fire.
It sounds like they went through a different kind of hell while we were dealing with the Darkkin. Despite the absurdity of the scene, a lump formed in my throat. They had been through all of that, and their first thought was still my safety.
Looks like I ended up too lucky in this life to have such caring people.
The thought warmed me far more than the glowing walls ever could.
While Granny worked on dissolving the sticky mess holding Captain Tavian to the wall, my attention drifted to a massive, dense pile of webbing tucked into a far corner. I walked over and knelt before the heap. I poked a finger into the mass, and just as Granny had described earlier, the surface gave way easily. Seeking to test its limits, I pulled my fist back and struck it.
"Ow." My knuckles throbbed as if I had struck a mass of reinforced steel. It was deceptively solid.
The tensile strength must be incredible. I pulled a knife from my belt and began a slow, methodical saw at the edge, eventually freeing a portion from the corner. I tucked the sample away into my pouch, certain it would be worth studying later.
"Young lord." Aifa's voice called out to me. I stood up, dusting off my knees, and walked back to join the others who were now gathered around the carcass of the monster.
".... A Furred Makra. This is so unexpected to see another almost extinct beast here..." I heard Granny murmuring, her voice a mix of professional curiosity and genuine unease.
I looked up at the dead beast and the scale of the thing finally hit me as I stood beside its head. It was enormous. One of its eyes alone was nearly my size. Even lifeless, the thing radiated something dreadful. The eight dull eyes stared in different directions, empty and unsettling.
Ugh, I am going to have nightmares just by looking at this thing. I stepped back, the sheer size of the beast making my skin crawl.
"As much as I would like to collect all this web..." Granny's gaze shifted from the glistening strands back to me, her expression turning practical. "We don't have time for that. Sieg, open your magic pouch. Erik, throw the body in it."
"Hmm?" Uncle frowned, glancing at my waist. "But he hasn't brought his usual pouch. I don't think the two on his waist have enough space for something this massive." Uncle gestured toward the two small satchels hanging from my belt.
"Knowing his personality, he brought it anyway, didn't he?" Granny said, her lips curling into a knowing smile.
I let out a long sigh and reached into the left satchel, the one where I kept my alchemy vials. My fingers brushed past the glass and pulled out my primary, high-capacity magic pouch.
How does she always know?
The fact that a magic pouch could be stored inside another still felt absurd. Convenient, but absurd.
"Wait!" Uncle said, squinting at me. "If you were going to bring that, why even wear the satchels?"
"I mean..." I glanced down at my clothes. "They go better with the outfit." I shrugged. It sounded a bit vain, but that was exactly what Mother had told me while she was helping me dress for the expedition.
"…I guess that's fair," Uncle said, looking at the intricate embroidery of my outfit.
"Enough wasting time, put it in the pouch already!" Granny said, punctuating her command with a sharp slap to Uncle's shoulder.
I held the mouth of the pouch wide as Uncle began the process. One by one, he hauled the massive, bristling corpse and the severed, smoking head into the enchanted space. I absolutely hate the fact that such a gross, hairy thing is sitting in my pouch right now. Still, the potential materials from a beast that shouldn't even exist in this age were far too valuable to leave behind.
After stuffing everything inside, I hurriedly pulled the strings tight, sealing the pouch, then shoved it deep into my satchel. I did not want to think about what was packed away in there.
"So, where do we go now?" Ashar asked, glancing at the many tunnels branching off in every direction, most of them choked with sticky white web.
"Can any of you feel Valka's mana?" Granny asked.
The others shared uneasy looks. "None of us are capable of sensing Lady Valka's mana, so we can't be sure if she is here in this time period," Captain Tavian said, his posture stiff and apologetic.
"It's the same for me," Uncle added, shaking his head slowly.
The realization sat heavily in my gut. To think that Captain Tavian, who had reached the Delta stage, and Uncle, who was at the Epsilon stage of the Soul Crucible, were both unable to detect her...
I always thought it was just me because I am still so weak.
Still, something felt off. From what I had studied, when a person reaches the Delta stage, they are enveloped in a cocoon of mana that rejuvenates and reforges the body, increasing strength, mana, and senses tenfold. I had heard the sensory heightening was so extreme that even the ticking of a clock could sound like nails scratching on a blackboard. To think people with such sharpened senses couldn't detect my mother meant the problem didn't lie with us. It's Mother. Her mana itself must be undetectable, or she suppresses it so perfectly that she's left no trace in the air.
"Aifa, Blake," I said, forcing the worry in my chest into words. "Leaving detection aside, can you not feel Mother's presence? I was able to feel her once before. With Swordmaster and Hawkeye Arcana, you should be able to, right?"
Aifa hesitated before answering. "If Lady Valka stayed in one place, it might be possible. But whenever Lady Valka moves, it feels like she disappears from the world. The reason the young lord was able to feel her presence before was because Lady Valka was sleeping at the time."
Disappear from the world? My eyes shifted to Blake, seeking a second opinion, and he gave a curt, solemn nod. "Same for me."
That explanation settled badly in my chest.
"No choice, then," Granny said. Her staff struck the stone floor with a sharp, final sound. "We will search for a while. Even if we can't sense Valka, she should be able to sense us. If we don't encounter her after a thorough search, we will move into a new time period."
Her eyes turned to Aifa. "Keep marking the way."
Aifa nodded without hesitation.
"Then let's move out," Granny declared, her voice echoing with a finality that brooked no argument.
We stepped forward, deeper into the webbed tunnels and fractured time, chasing a ghost who left no trail and moving through a dungeon that defied the laws of the world.
Mother, if you truly can sense us, I just hope you find us before whatever is hiding in the darkness finds us first.