After Aria left the hospital room,
Stella, who had been reading a book brought for research, looked up and turned toward the bed in silence.
“Aria…”
The Aria who had been lying there just moments ago had vanished.
Normally, she would have been startled and immediately gone to look for her, but this time was a bit different.
Stella got up from her seat and approached the desk where a note lay, carefully lifting it.
The harsh handwriting was too crude to belong to Aria, and there was no way someone who couldn’t see or hear could understand the common language of the continent.
The reason Aria, who could speak normally, couldn’t talk was simply that she hadn’t learned the language.
In other words, this writing could be considered to have been done by someone else.
“Once again, she didn’t take me with her…”
Thinking back to how Aria had acted before, there must have been a significant reason for not calling her to join.
Although Stella was contemplating this, she still couldn’t help but feel a sense of regret regarding why she hadn’t been called, even in such circumstances.
It hadn’t been long since she enrolled, but Stella had realized something.
Just because she clung to Aria, it didn’t mean that the person wouldn’t engage in such actions, and even in situations where help was needed, Aria was showing behaviors that suggested she still viewed Stella as someone she needed to protect.
The reason she hadn’t been stopped from going this time was that Aria was someone who wouldn’t refrain from going just because Stella pleaded her not to.
In the previous time, as well as this incident…
In the end, she had been protected by Aria and had received help from her.
Standing beside Aria, she had promised to become a great magician to embark on a journey to subdue the Demon King together, yet had been negligent without realizing that something was wrong until Aria had reached that extent.
Even comforting herself with the fact that it was impossible for someone like her, not a great magician, to notice something like that, the fact remained that she had failed to keep her promise.
Stella was more determined than ever to accelerate her magical research.
And perhaps her wish to help Aria was bearing fruit.
The first thing Stella learned was none other than Spatial Magic.
Her ultimate goal was to become a magician strong enough to appear beside Aria and protect her before anything happened… Along with that, she needed powerful magic to secure an absolute position in battle.
Stella discovered her path toward her unique magic within the realm of space.
A great magician who could manipulate space.
That was her goal.
The foundation for her first unique magic was remarkably the very first magic she had used on Aria.
Leaving a mark on someone.
And a simple magic that allowed one to know the location of the one bearing that mark.
However, Stella wanted to elevate even further with that magic.
She desired to create a spell that would allow her to move through space using that mark as coordinates.
She conceived of a magic that combined the marking magic with teleportation magic, something no magician had ever thought of until now.
It was inevitable.
A magician preferred to gather magic power as safely as possible from far away to engage in combat.
They could only research either completely widespread bombardment magic or how a magician could deal with a swordsman or another magician, so it was unthinkable for a magician to leave a mark on someone and teleport to that location.
Magicians were those who wrapped themselves in magic power and fought by casting spells from a distance; they were never close-combat fighters.
Let alone leaving a mark on a swordsman and then teleporting to attack?
Which magician could even entertain such thoughts?
Surprisingly, the aspiration for a completely different kind of magic, which was for the sake of protecting someone, created a new paradigm for magic.
A teleportation magic that, upon leaving a mark on someone, would allow her to reach them at any time, combining marking magic and teleportation magic.
While it moved only herself, the fact that there was a definite medium to facilitate the transition minimized the consumption during space movement.
Ordinarily, teleportation magic required mobilizing a massive amount of magic power, yet she could manage such distances using only her own magic, making this marked teleportation magic relatively efficient.
Thus, Stella was untroubled.
Though the magic was not yet completed, the amount of magic consumed varied wildly, and the accuracy was relatively low, still, being able to appear where Aria went whenever something happened was a significant merit.
Furthermore, appearing from afar meant she could hide her presence, making it perfect for when she needed to conceal herself.
After packing the memorizing paper filled with written magic into her pocket, Stella cast her spatial magic.
Since she hadn’t fully ingrained it in her mind yet, she regretted having to use the paper with the drawn magic circle, but this would still suffice.
However, Stella overlooked one thing.
Her magic would only teleport her to the coordinates indicated by the mark.
Thus, for Stella, who could only use mid-level magic, the distortion of space and barriers were factors beyond her calculations.
Naturally, Stella’s teleportation magic missed its mark wildly, landing her in a place that had completely evaded the warped barrier of the nearby mountain…
“Uh…?”
It was an incredibly blue sky.
“Ah.”
Just after she uttered a brief word about the situation she found herself in, Stella’s body plummeted toward the ground, unable to withstand gravity.
“Ahhh!!”
Thud!
“W-Was I going to die…?”
Hanging from a branch, her clothes torn in various places, she muttered with a grimace.
She had almost become a dried fish.
“I need to be more careful when casting magic next time…”
She lamented as she looked at her figure hanging from the tree without injury while using various magics in mid-air.
*
While she was well acquainted with the inside of the dungeon, it was now a reality, so she couldn’t blindly trust her knowledge from the game.
It was essential to walk carefully, observing her surroundings in case anything happened.
Though she appeared to walk confidently as if nothing were wrong on the outside,
“Where is this…?”
“[Long ago… it is the trial dungeon built to face the Demon King.]”
“Such a place…”
“How…?”
Well… she had casually explained to Evan that she figured it out through an oracle, but since Dannes knew she wasn’t brought here because of the oracle, it seemed she would need to clarify further.
In any case, that excuse was one she could fall back on anyway.
‘They say nothing is missing from the Academy’s library.’
Other kids and Arhen knew that she had never been to the forbidden section, but Dannes hadn’t always been here, so he wouldn’t know whether she had gone or not.
Moreover, as it was a place located behind the Academy’s mountain, it likely contained information that would be found in the Academy’s forbidden section.
So, she believed Dannes would trust her.
It wasn’t something worth causing problems over.
Right now, rather than thinking about how to explain things to Dannes…
[Prove your qualifications.]
– Where exactly is this…? Did such a place exist?
Isn’t it more urgent to explain why Estelle, being the Sacred Sword itself, doesn’t know this space?
To be honest, she would rather it just be ignored, but it’s not like our talkative Estelle would ever let that happen.
She hoped that the voice she had just heard from the Sacred Sword was a lie, but given that it was the voice coming directly from the Sacred Sword, it wasn’t a voice she could possibly mishear.
“[First, let’s prove your qualifications…]”
This is the final gate that sieves through the Hero.
Having confirmed the Divine Power of the Sacred Sword moments ago, it was now time to verify whether the sword was genuine.
When the Sacred Sword was inserted into the stone pedestal, it would automatically verify its authenticity.
At Stella’s words, Evan nodded and placed the Sacred Sword into the stone sword sheath.
Soon, as the Divine Power of the Sacred Sword flowed, the once colorless gem began to emit a blue light, and the door slowly opened.
“Seeing that it operates with the Sacred Sword, it does indeed seem to be a trial dungeon built for Heroes…”
Dannes turned to Stella with a puzzled expression.
It seemed that the fact she knew about this place, and that Estelle, who should ideally know about it, had shown no knowledge, raised questions in his mind.
‘Will he believe me…?’
She hoped that the excuse about having learned it from the forbidden section would suffice.
Suddenly, a sense of anxiety engulfed her…
