Chapter 337. An Abnormal Spectacle
Chapter 337. An Abnormal Spectacle
Four hours after leaving for the dungeon. The golem carriage, traveling north, was approaching the Border Mountains much faster than I thought it would. Although its travel speed is slow, it can run tirelessly on any terrain, without the need for breaks.
“It’s, giant!”
About one hour ago, Fran woke up from a deep sleep, and, peeking her head out of the carriage hood, looked up at the approaching Border Mountains and shouted. I would have liked her to sleep longer, but it seems she was unable to because of all the excitement. Still, it seems she’s fully recovered from her fatigue, so the rest was worth it.
(It really is huge, isn’t it… I can’t even see the top with all those clouds.)
It might even be taller than Everest. Though, I can’t get a good grasp of the size from this distance, so I don’t know the exact altitude.
The height of the mountains along the mountain range was striking.
Moreover, unlike normal mountain ranges, there are almost no plains at its base. From a distance, it just looks like a giant vertical wall. It was almost like it was a waterfall of stone, flowing through the clouds from the sky and pouring down to the ground.
Looking closer, one can see that the slope is just extremely steep. Still, it certainly looked more like a cliff than a normal mountain.
“We will be arriving at our destination soon. Kiara-shishou, how are you doing?”
“I am alright now. I drank the potion. All things considered, we arrived faster than I thought.”
“Nn. In the blink of an eye.”
“It’s because those two spent the entire time talking, isn’t it?”
Just as Mia says, Kiara and Fran have been talking since she woke up. Though, it wasn’t a conversation between an elder and a child, or about fighting or how to use Senka Jinrai. Instead, it was a brutal conversation in which Kiara talked about Magic Beasts and warriors she had defeated in the past, and how to use intimidation to efficiently break the opponents spirit. I was foolish, expecting a warm-hearted conversation between a grandmother and grandchild from these two.
Still, it turned out to be an intense conversation. Senka Jinrai really does have a further level to it, just as expected. Just as Fran instinctually grasps the Black Lightningstrike, Kiara can use the Rolling Black Lightning freely. The reason Fran can’t use it, is that Fran lacks sufficient combat experience, it seems. Even when I tried to show her using myself as an example, it didn’t work.
“Difficult.”
“It’s nothing to worry about. At your age, you’ve already achieved it. If you don’t neglect your practice, you will be able to use it before you know it.”
“Nn. I’ll do my best.”
The topic is brutal, but Fran seems to be having fun. It seems conversation between family really is special.
“Ojou-sama.” Quina, who was in the driver’s seat, called out to Mia. It sounded like her normal voice to me, but it seemed that the tension in her voice was properly picked up by Mia.
“What is it? Did something happen?” While immediately preparing herself for battle, Mia asked a question of Mia in return.
“There is an abnormal situation.”
Hearing that, Mia and Fran poked their heads into the driver’s side of the carriage.
“That…”
“Wha… What happened…?”
Quina is pointing in shock, and for good reason. Ahead of the carriage, a large number of magic beast remains littered the ground. That was several hundreds of magical beasts, atrociously rendered into corpses, and scattered across the land.
“Magic beasts from a dungeon? But, the way they were defeated…”
“Yes, it’s abnormal.”
As Quina said, the magical beasts were abnormally killed. Every last one of them was squashed flat, as if crushed from above.
Weak small fry, visibly powerful dragon-like creatures, and evil beings were all similarly pressed into the ground and crushed. Furthermore, it was over a vast area. Looking over the wilderness, everywhere else seems to be in a similar condition.
We disembarked from the carriage and began investigating the area. It wasn’t just the monster corpses that were unusual.
“The ground is too flat.”
“Nn.”
As Mia said, the entire area was flat, as if the ground were flattened by a road roller. No, this would be overwhelmingly flatter than a highway. It would be shameful to even compare.
Examining the surroundings, I was able to spot the flat parts and the border where it meets the usual wilderness. It looked exactly like a boundary. The normal wilderness past the boundary suddenly stopped, and became a step more than one meter deep.
How should I put this…? If a giant iron box 100 meters in length and width were pressed against the ground with enormous force, something like this might be the result.
Furthermore, as I walked around, I saw many similar steps. Apparently, the creator of this spectacle performed the compression of the iron box many times. At each time, depending on the number and quality of the magical beasts to be crushed, the degree of power may have been changed slightly. Because of that, the areas where the steps overlap each other look like stairs.
Thinking there might be some materials or magic stones I could use, I started searching seriously, but there was nothing decent enough left. Everything was crushed so flat they couldn’t be used, and the magic stones were shattered altogether.
Slowly lifting a large dead body, I examined it closely and found it was a lizard monster. It was almost like a cracker. Most of its adamant scales were shattered, and the remaining scales were cracked through.
When Fran knocked on the ground as a test, she found that it was compacted and as hard as rock. Even Fran or myself could do something similar, if it was over a much smaller area. However, just how much power would be needed to compress such a wide area at once?
“Just who… could have done this…?”
“You don’t know either, Mia?”
“Mm. I cannot think of any common technique which could do this. Quina, do you have any idea what did this?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Kiara-shishou! Would you know what happened here?”
“Yes.”
Neither Mia nor Quina seem to know, but Kiara seems to have an idea. As expected of one who has lived so long. Mia is surprised as well.
“Eh? You know what could do this?”
“Yes, there’s just one person I can think of.”