About an hour had passed since Rei cast his magic.
Tremendous roars occasionally echoed from the bottom of the slope, but Rei didn't particularly concern himself with them.
...Of course, given that Dragonias were being incinerated by his flames down below, there was no telling when the enemy might come charging up the slope.
As such, he needed to stay prepared to respond at a moment's notice, ready for whatever might happen.
Naturally, that ruled out any sort of leisurely break.
In that sense, this hour had undoubtedly been a rather idle one.
He had even found himself wondering when Vihera would go racing down the slope.
However, it seemed Vihera had no intention of charging headlong into the area superheated by Rei's magic, so she waited patiently, suppressing the urge to bolt.
Atop the hill, the Centaurs, Anastasia, Fana, and the others also stared fixedly at the ramp leading underground.
...If anything, Anastasia seemed more likely to approach the ramp than Vihera, and Zai and Asdena were ready to follow Fana's instructions at a moment's notice.
"So? Rei. Don't you think it's about time we went inside?"
Vihera asked, catching Rei as he glanced toward the hilltop.
Her tone carried a strong sense of anticipation — the kind that said if Rei gave the word, she would bolt underground right that instant.
"Yeah, you're right... Set, what do you think? I'd say it should be fine by now."
Rei asked Set largely because the creature possessed sharper senses than he did.
He figured Set might be able to discern what conditions were like further down the ramp.
And sure enough, Set purred in response to Rei's question, indicating that things seemed fine.
If Set said so, Rei had no intention of doubting its senses.
"Alright. Then let's go. ...Vihera, we're heading underground now, but don't go berserk on me."
At Rei's words, Vihera smiled as if she'd been waiting for exactly this moment and nodded.
"No problem. I can't say what will happen down there, but we're properly prepared."
"...Am I the only one who feels like our conversation is slightly misaligned?"
Rei replied with a hint of exasperation.
Even so, he judged that in Vihera's current state, anything he said would be pointless, and he turned his gaze back toward the underground ramp.
"Well, no point staying here forever... Let's go."
When Rei announced this, Vihera smiled with genuine happiness from the bottom of her heart.
For Vihera, this was the moment she had been eagerly waiting for.
Waiting for nearly an hour right near the place where her long-awaited enemies lurked was unquestionably exhausting for someone like Vihera, who reveled in combat against powerful foes.
Rei knew this, which was why he could only accept her overwhelming enthusiasm in the current situation.
(Besides, if I take too long, Anastasia might actually come down here.)
Rei glanced briefly at the hilltop.
From that vantage point, he could tell that Anastasia, mounted on a deer, was watching them — or more specifically, the underground ramp — with a gaze burning with intensity.
For Anastasia, the desire to see the underground ramp with her own eyes was probably overwhelming.
But as far as Rei was concerned, he couldn't bring Anastasia underground with them.
She was still significantly exhausted from the Spirit Egg incident, and beyond that, Anastasia was ultimately merely an excellent spirit mage — emphasis on "merely."
If she possessed skill beyond what the word "excellent" could convey, like Marina, he could have brought her along.
But given that her abilities were only at that level, Rei judged that she couldn't win against Dragonias — beings driven by hunger who showed no hesitation in devouring their opponents.
...In fact, when Rei first found Anastasia in this world, she had been fleeing on a deer with Fana precisely because she'd determined she couldn't win in a head-on fight.
While Fana being a burden was also a factor, Rei still couldn't imagine Anastasia winning a frontal assault against Dragonias.
If Marina were here instead, Rei wouldn't have worried about combat at all and would have felt no apprehension about bringing her underground.
(I'm counting on you, Fana.)
Silently entrusting Fana to stop Anastasia from running amok out of curiosity, Rei turned his gaze back to Vihera.
"Shall we?"
"Yeah."
A brief exchange. But that alone was enough to confirm each other's resolve.
"Grrrr."
Set let out a cry toward Rei, showing its fighting spirit.
Rei was slightly concerned that going underground would strip Set of one of its key advantages — the ability to fly... but Set possessed enough raw strength to trample Dragonias even without flying, and like Death Scythe, it could wield multiple skills, which was a significant factor.
...This was likely the difference in trust between Anastasia and Set.
The two and one beast descended the ramp, each ready to respond to whatever might come.
As a matter of course, Rei assumed his usual Twin Spear Style — Death Scythe in his right hand and the Twilight Spear in his left — ready to deal with any Dragonias attack at any moment.
"Whoa... the ground is completely scorched."
As they descended, Vihera murmured, half-dumbfounded.
Since it was the result of his own magic, Rei naturally understood this as well.
But given the current situation, pointing it out wouldn't have been particularly interesting.
"Even so, we don't know how many Dragonias are down there. In that case, better to burn the small fry quickly."
"Grru?"
Set, walking beside Rei, purred as if asking, "Is that so?"
Set likely believed that no matter how many lesser enemies there were, it could defeat them.
And considering Set's strength, that was by no means a mistaken belief.
No — if it was just a matter of defeating lesser foes, even Rei or Vihera could do so with ease.
However, this was the Dragonias headquarters, and with no idea how many enemies awaited, Rei had used a spell capable of wiping them all out at once.
...A shining display of Rei's specialty in wide-area annihilation magic.
"Still... I thought this when looking from outside too, but this ramp is incredibly long."
The incline of the ramp itself wasn't particularly steep.
This was likely to ensure that Dragonias wouldn't have too much difficulty exiting their underground headquarters to the surface.
Rei fully understood this, and he had reasoned that if the slope wasn't steep, then the ramp leading to whatever space lay ahead could be quite long... but even so, despite walking for what should have been close to ten minutes, the end of the ramp was still nowhere in sight. It was only natural for Rei to marvel at the sheer scale of this underground space.
(The fact that they found the Spirit Egg buried underground means the Dragonias boss might have some connection to the Earth Spirit. ...Also, I thought they had properties similar to bees or ants, but having their headquarters underground — does that make them ants?)
Rei thought this, but then reconsidered. Among bees, there were digger wasps that built nests in the ground, so being underground didn't necessarily mean they were ants.
"From the feel of it, the underground space seems to be quite deep."
"Probably. For one thing, if they'd created an underground space at a shallow depth... it could collapse depending on circumstances. Thinking about it that way, the depth makes sense. It does make sense, but... still, it feels deeper than I expected."
While replying to Vihera, the state of the ramp they were currently descending made Rei feel the same way.
"You're right. ...But thanks to the ramp being burned, it's definitely easy to walk on."
As Vihera said, much of the ramp had been turned to charcoal by the fire, which naturally served as a non-slip surface.
Also, perhaps due to the ground being scorched, the sensation of stepping on it closely resembled the feeling of crunching through frost pillars. If Rei weren't about to fight the Dragonias boss, he could have thoroughly enjoyed the sensation — a thought that left him feeling slightly disappointed.
"At this rate, were most of the Dragonias burned? ...Oh? Finally."
In the end, the descent took nearly thirty minutes.
After walking for quite some time, they finally reached the end of the ramp... and arrived at the underground space that served as the Dragonias headquarters.
"This is..."
Rei was dumbfounded by the sight spreading out before him.
Even though the incline was relatively gentle, they had still walked for nearly thirty minutes.
He had assumed their current position was naturally quite deep... and yet, the underground space stretching out before them was enough to astound even Rei, who had seen all manner of sights.
The ceiling — or more accurately, what was probably the ground above — was certainly over two hundred meters high.
Moreover, the underground space itself extended so far that it was impossible to tell where it ended.
The fact that they could perceive the distance to the ceiling and the depth of the space despite being underground was not due to the effects of Rei's Flame Magic... but because the cavern walls and ceiling were glowing faintly.
(I've seen this kind of light in Dungeons before... is it something similar? At any rate, given the considerable height to the ceiling, Set should be able to fly normally during the fight. ...We'll need to be careful not to crash into the ceiling, though.)
Thinking this, Rei examined the ground once more... and found it littered with countless charred objects.
No — not objects. They were unquestionably Dragonias corpses.
"Judging from the look of things, the Dragonias were lying in wait right at the bottom of the ramp."
"Seems so. From their perspective, they probably planned to wipe out anyone who came down here all at once... but instead, they were the ones wiped out by your magic."
Vihera murmured thoughtfully, but her words prompted Rei to look further into the underground space.
He wondered if perhaps the flames from his magic still lingered, but the only light sources within the underground space were the glowing walls and ceiling — there was no fire.
In other words, the spell Rei had cast with a considerable amount of magical power had already run its course.
(Once more... no, it's already burned out, so they might have come up with some kind of countermeasure.)
The effect of the magic Rei had used was quite simple.
After all, it was merely a spell where flames crawled along the ground and burned everything in their path — nothing more.
"Commander-class Dragonias probably survived, so in that sense, it worked out the way you were hoping, didn't it?"
"Right."
Vihera nodded, but her expression didn't look truly satisfied.
She probably knew she should accept it, but something like a battle-loving instinct within her refused to let her be satisfied.
Rei understood Vihera's attitude as well, so without saying anything more to the unsatisfied Vihera, he pressed forward.
Even with the surrounding light and Rei's eyesight, he couldn't discern where the enemy was.
That was how vast this underground space was.
(This is practically a second earth. Or rather, with an underground space this massive, couldn't they have advanced underground all the way to beneath the settlement where the Spirit Egg was buried? If they'd done that, they could have obtained the Spirit Egg from underground without bothering to attack the settlement.)
With such a vast underground space in existence, it was only natural for Rei to have such doubts.