Suppressing the unconscious urge to raise my hands and applaud, I decided to greet him instead.
“Good morning, Noah.”
“You too. Did you sleep well?”
“Not really, I was so excited about today.”
“Are you good to go then?”
“Alright, save your small talk for later.”
Cutting off our conversation, Linus pushed Noah’s back all the way forward.
Aiden was already in the yard, drawing a teleportation rune.
Noticing our arrival, he stood up.
“If we’re all ready, let’s go.”
Once we were all within its range, the runes began emitting blue light. My vision tangled into itself dizzily, and soon a completely different landscape from what we’d had before came into view.
We were at the entrance of Grania Forest. I’d only visited here when I was very young, but I still had some memories.
“The apple tree that grew around here had really delicious apples.”
At the spot, I turned to see the apple tree of my memories, as expected. Even its shape was the same as how I remembered it.
I was staring at it in somewhat of a wonder when Linus asked, “In order to find the monster’s nucleus, we will have to venture quite into the center of the forest. Do you know how to go in, Lady Blair?”
“Oh, yes, I do. We have to go that way,” I said, pointing at the bushes with the green leaves.
“She’s right.” Aidan nodded, with a magic wand in his hand.
Or you could do things that way. By the by, that magic wand looked really cool.
I was moving along while staring at the magic wand that you wouldn’t be able to even glimpse at a place like this when a shiver ran up my spine.
“Doesn’t it feel like something is surrounding us?”
Looking at our seemingly darkened surroundings, anxiety flitted across my face.
“You’re right.” Noah nodded as if he had also felt something was a little off about this.
As my eyes darted around us, my eyebrows furrowed.
That apple tree. For some reason, it felt like I kept seeing it show up in front of me. Everything was the same, from the elongated shape of its leaves to the length of its branches.
I was thinking it was a little weird also, when Noah approached the apple tree and spoke in a serious tone.
“This is a trap.”
“A trap?” I repeated, aghast.
“A trap, huh. It’s been a while.”
Strangely enough, both Linus and Aiden looked unfazed.
Was I the only one who was worried right now? If it was a monster that could set up traps, then it must be quite the high level creature. My gosh, and that thing was in our fief now?
Seeing their calm faces, this probably meant that they were confident.
“Then how….” I was just about to ask when golden magical runes sank into the ground, and the apple tree and its surrounding ground disappeared like it had never been there.
Golden magic meant it was Noah’s.
My mouth slightly ajar, I stared at him.
Feeling a little overwhelmed at seeing Noah, who stood there so calmly even after demonstrating such high-level magic, I right away took a small step back.
That moment, I heard the rustle of branches snapping.
“Huh?”
The spot that I had stepped on was unusually littered with branches as if it was there by some kind of design.
“… Eh?”
I was looking around in curiosity when the branches surrounding me began to glow, flashing with dark red light.
My mind went blank for a moment. This was a teleportation rune, wasn’t it? Oh, I was so doomed.
And the last thing I saw was Noah, reaching out towards me with a panicked expression on his face.
Swoosh.
I gripped the book in my hand as if it was my lifeline.
I felt like my stomach was going to lurch before long. No matter how strong the monster was, it was still a monster who’d drawn this, so neither the formula nor the arrangement of the characters was uniform. And so the transferral would be undoubtedly uneven, which proceeded to make me feel dizzy. I was sick to my stomach. Just how bad at drawing could they be. If this was a test, they’d get no points, nada.
“Ugh.”
Holding my dazed head in my hands, I sat up.
Where was I?
In my hazy eyesight, I began to see something.
The landscape, which had been full of lush trees just a second ago, was now changed to that of a dull cave.
“…?”
I was busy being bewildered by what I saw through my blonde bangs when all of a sudden, I caught sight of a mess of silver hair before me.
“Noah?”
It was Noah, holding his forehead in his hands as if he was dizzy.
“… Are you okay?”
“Noah, you came here too? What was that just now?”
So relieved at finding Noah by my side, I began blabbering away.
“The runes activated as soon as the trap was broken. There might have been a gap in the trap, or….”
Only after I had chattered on did I feel something in my hand.
“… Oh.”
Our hands were tightly clasped together. This must have happened when Noah was reaching for me as we teleported. His warmth against my skin felt somewhat embarrassing.
I quickly extracted my hand and lowered my head.
“I’m so sorry, because of me…”
“No,” Noah, who had been staring into the distance the whole time, pointed inside the cave and replied.
“In fact, I have a feeling we’ll end faster thanks to you.”
Following his gaze into the cave, my jaw dropped slightly.
“…!”
That was right.
Inside the cave, an enormous number of monsters were gathered in a circle.
“T-That’s not a small number?”
They had all been gathered here all along.
Scared stiff, I covered my mouth.
“If I knew this was the case, I wouldn’t have brought you,” murmured Noah in a low voice.
Clearing my throat, I dusted off the dirt on my clothes. “I guess it was set up to bring us here automatically if we broke the trap.”
The branches glowed and the apple tree started disappearing even though we hadn’t even noticed the presence of magic before that.
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