The veil of darkness lifted up, as colors filled Asher’s eyes. The once melting surroundings, now seemed to be in perfect condition. He seemed to have realised. Did I hallucinate because I opened the chest? He had been laid down on a corner of the room, and in the distance, he could see people discussing something. All of them wore identical expressions which screamed distress, so he called out to them.

“Huh, Asher… Wait! Asher?!” Sevlina rushed to him in disbelief. “Are you alright?”

He checked his body before confirming, “Yeah, I’m well.” Still, he wanted answers. “What.. happened to me?”

“Right after opening the chest, you began screaming uncontrollably, so we restrained you and gave you a sedative to calm you down, but the sedative seemed to have side-effects which made you relive your traumatic experiences.”

These idiots… Did they seriously give me another drug to make me hallucinate even worser events to ‘help’ me cope with the current one?

In the end, Asher could only sigh and forgive because he was grateful to them in a way. Because of them, he could resolve his trauma and look forward to his future. He was reminded yet again that he take this world with appreciation.

Now that they had completely surveyed this area, it was time to move on. “Let’s move on the next location,” he declared.

They thought astutely about the next location. Would it be the waterfall, the lake or the green forest? There had already been teams dispatched to these locations, and it seemed like the waterfall and the lake would be easy enough, so it wouldn’t take all that much time, although it posed the risks of encountering a high-level aquatic monster.

“We’ll go with the green forest then,” suggested Sevlina.

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In the crystalline cave, deep suited within the green forest, was the trapped Andreas, currently struggling for his life. Fifth-Echelon monster, Hirowa, had wrapped him up tightly in its slimy arms, constantly draining mana out of him.

Andreas had to think fast and do something, or be prepared to be wrung dry by Hirowa.

At first, he tried reaching out to his sword, but… realised it had been thrown out of the cave by the slimy monster. Next, he tried sloppily conjuring mana in his arms, which only led to it being sucked straight from his palms. He could only lay helpless now. Is this the end?

But…he noticed a certain something after spending time with it. It only sucks mana when it gets hungry, that is, every four hours. The intensity also differs. It became ferocious when he got scared or wiggled about in usual ways, so he had to close his eyes and concentrate. Concentrate on his core until he could see his own mana.

Aw man, this is going to be difficult. You can’t really ‘see’ mana, can you?

Andreas’ dumbness was so mind-blowing that if Clara was here, he would have gotten a good ass whoop.

All he had to do was focus on the core of his body and wait for his instincts to point out the ‘probable’ traces of mana to concentrate it in his core to avoid it leaking through his skin.

Of course, it would be difficult and maybe impossible for a person with no prior experience to nail it on their first try, but it could be done with trial and error, finding the perfect opening to one’s core.

But for a human with no real experience with mana, aside from the battles against the demon nobles and training to increase his mana capacity, he was doing well. He had managed to ‘push’ mana into his body without actually ‘finding’ the core, and since he couldn’t find the core, he had to keep at it, or else it’d be sucked right out. It worked kind of like draining a sinking boat.

This continued on for about seven hours. I can feel its grip loosening a little. Is it getting tired due to lack of food? Andreas was right in his conjecture. Since he had succeeded in limiting the amount of mana exiting the body and remained calm on top of that, Hirowa couldn’t manage to suck enough mana to maintain its tight grip around him.

But on the other hand, although he managed to retain his life-force, he had no ways of satiating his growing hunger. If this kept up, he wouldn’t have to power to gate his mana in, and eventually, his senses would be deprived from hunger and his mind would go numb. Then, he would become an open food source for Hirowa and it would waste no time in completely gobbling his mana.

Ugh..This is going to be difficult…

Similar words played out in Asher’s head as he ran through the path leading to the forest. There were unusually many monsters, even though the Latix guards had supposedly cleared the entire hilltop of those creatures.

The party’s quick feets halted as they noticed familiar people ahead. The people who were assigned to survey the waterfall and the lake were now fighting and running for their lives.

A monster with a hard exoskeleton was in the process of slaughtering them. Since both the parties only consisted of people with recon attributes, they had no means of defending themselves.

“It’s a Seventh-Echelon monster! Everyone, formation!” Sevlina screamed.

Asher was annoyed. Right now, anything that obstructed his path to finding Andreas was meant to be wiped out.

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He didn’t pay heed to Sevlina’s words and unsheathed his sword. A gleaming silver blade illuminated the nearby surroundings. He rushed to the monster which held multiple people in its six hardened arms. They struggled helplessly, trying to break its exoskeleton with puny tools such as knives and hammers, but it was all in vain. Without the proper technique, even a sword sent from heaven would be equivalent to junk.

He took a few steps and back, forming a sort of personal perimeter, then he took a stance, forcing pressure to his right leg which was placed behind and leaned forward with the sword hilt close to his farthest chest from the monster. Bluish-red aura enveloped him. Since he had two attributes in his possession, he emitted a mixed aura—blue for Abacomancy and red for Fire.

“No, Asher, stop! It is reckless to charge without a proper plan,” Sevlina shouted. But.. it seemed like Asher had other plans.

“Disappear.”

In the next few seconds, the entire area was blanketed by bright light which then turned into a fiery one, burning away anything and everything which stood before him.

After a long rumble, and dissipation of the smog, the aftermath became clear. It was a good thing that the other two parties backed off to safety because… a portion of the green forest had now vanished from the face of the earth.

Something like an orb floated above its carcass. It was as bright as the midday sun. It slowly made its way above, joining another one just like it and came to a stand-still. No one noticed it however; because the spectacle that unfolded just a few moments ago, was far more eye-catching.

Sevlina and the others’ jaw slacked. “A-Amazing…” The power to destroy an Seventh-Echelon monster with only a single attack—Asher had come a long way from who he had been in the past.

But before they could even think, Asher had disappeared. He had already rushed into the thick black smoke and went ahead.

Sevlina used her attribute which enabled her to ‘smell’ the location of Asher and the direction he headed in.

“Everyone, let’s go!” They too, quickly began moving forward, but it would take some time before they catch up to him.

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Back in the cave, where Andreas still laid captive, a new danger arose. The monster’s slimy tentacles kept slamming the walls, since it couldn’t contain its hunger-excitement.

When Hirowas get hungry, they get excited and move in weird patterns. So, when Andreas gained control over his mana flow, restricting its outward movement, the Fifth-Echelon monster wasn’t able to replenish its energy as quickly as it spent it, leading to a rise in its hunger levels.

Now that it kept slamming the walls of the cave, the roof began to slightly shake, as a slow, dull rumble could be heard. Tiny pebbles and pellets rained from above.

“Problems after problems since this morning, ugh!!” Well, Andreas couldn’t do anything about it. He was being strangled to death after all.

Since he wasn’t yielding to Hirowa’s initial strangling, which was of low intensity, it is now going full in on trying to make him give up by trying to frighten him. It won’t work.

Andreas knew full well, that if the cave collapsed, more than him sustaining major injuries, the monster would get squished—which is something monsters would never do because their natural instincts would propel them to live as long as possible. So why now, is the monster, which is both strong and smart, trying to kill its prey along with itself?

The answer was, it wasn’t. It was only trying to scare Andreas that it would collapse the cave if he didn’t let up.

“Someone..help..” Andreas’ already scrawny body, now upon further losing weight after mana depletion, was looking like a skeleton. It’s been an entire day with no sign of people coming to his rescue.

His prayers were heard today because in the next moment, there was an explosion noise coming from nearby. Help had arrived. Now, he just had to wait.

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It had been a while since I ran off after killing the Seventh-Echelon monster. I still had no luck of finding Andreas. The sun had already set. Time was running out.

Initially, I thought we didn’t have to worry about monsters in the Latix Hilltop, but I was soon proven wrong when we had to face off against that monster back in the forest. This meant that Andreas may have been abducted by a monster. This was bad, since there was no guarantee for his life if even he, who possessed the Aether attribute, couldn’t break free, considering how long he has been gone.

Ughh!! This is frustrating! I swung my sword in irritation and the trees which had endured a lengthy period of time without human intervention, cut down, with the parts which met my sword burning away, illuminating the area.

Huh? Thanks to my act of frustration, I found something. Is that a cave entrance I see?

There seems to be a constant rumbling coming from the inside.

…

“Huh… This—wait, Andreas!!?”

What awaited me when I first looked inside… was some slimy shit. I don’t really know how to explain, but… the entire cave was covered in a gooey substance. And amidst the strange environment, I found an eccentric person, laying down like a good boy.

“Yes! Asher, save me, please!” The guy who cried out desperately was no longer looking like the Andreas I knew. He was looking pale, boney and his eyes contained no life.

I let my sword borrow my mana. It let out a reddish-orange glowy fire. The slime which came in contact with my blade, quickly melted away like ice.

It was over in an instant. I swung my sword like a madman, blanketing the monster with fiery flames. All without hurting Andreas of course.

Andreas struggled to stand. It seemed his mana had been sucked out.

“..Eh? Ackkk!!” I promptly lifted him up and carried him over my shoulder. “Asher?!” His initial surprise quickly died down as he fell into a quiet slumber.

Now, all that was left was to join up with the rest of the party.

Or, that’s what I would have initially done if the current scene did not play out.

When I killed the slimy monster, a shiny orb rose from its carcass and flew above into the atmosphere.

When I looked up at the blank night sky, there were two more orbs exactly like the one from the slime monster, illuminating the sky like secondary moons.

Adding to the already uncanny events taking place, there was a person floating near the orbs.

…It was Eldan Wycan.

I wouldn’t have been able to tell if it weren’t for the light emitted by the orbs. What was he doing here?

He wore a sinister smile on his face….looking straight at me.