"This is a real headache... it’s like a massive ant hill in here."
Rest, Isis, and Urula were pushing deeper into the mine shafts toward the Centipede Queen, but the tunnels were far from a straight shot.
What had started as straight, man-made tunnels had gradually devolved into a tangled mess of branching paths and offshoots. These weren't the work of human miners; the centipedes had bored them out themselves.
Every time they thought they were getting closer to the Queen, the path would veer away. Just as they felt they were drifting too far, it would curve back, only to lead them astray again.
They relied on a floating lightball created with magic to guide their way, but they weren't making any real progress toward their destination.
"Life Search picks up the presence of living things, but it doesn't give me the layout of the terrain. This is turning out to be a much bigger job than I expected."
"Should I... dig?" Urula asked, raising her hand.
"Don't," Isis immediately vetoed. "We can't risk the whole place collapsing on us."
While it would have been easy enough to tunnel through with magic, a single reckless blast could bring the entire mountain down.
"Shararararara!"
"More small fry? Good grief."
Rest slammed a Water Blade into the latest centipede to scuttle out of the darkness.
They had already killed over fifty of them, but the swarm showed no signs of thinning. At this rate, there was simply no way to clear the nest without taking out the Queen.
"The problem is that Life Search only tells me which direction the Queen is in, not the path to get there..."
Rest frowned, realizing this might take hours. As he was weighing their options, he noticed Urula producing water with her magic.
"Water Control."
"Urula?"
"What are you doing?"
Rest and Isis watched as Urula gave a clipped reply and continued to summon water. She was relentlessly flooding the passage, letting the water gush across the floor.
"Ah... I see!" Isis was the first to realize the plan. She began to summon water as well, pouring it into the tunnel.
"Even you, Isis? You're not actually trying to drown the nest, are you? I don't think that's actually feasible."
Rest had never done it himself, but in his previous life, he had seen classmates pouring water into ant hills as a prank.
"Flooding a nest this massive is impossible. If we tried, we'd probably end up causing damage to the surface above."
"No, it's not that," Isis explained. "It's about the water itself—the water we've created with magic."
"The water... Oh! Of course!"
Rest finally caught on.
"Water Control!"
He joined in, producing a massive torrent and spraying it into the side tunnels. The water surged through the openings, branching off into every nook and cranny.
"Life Search!"
As he activated his detection magic, the structure of the labyrinth began to take shape in his mind. Because the water was created via magic, it was saturated with mana. By tracking that mana through his search spell, he could "see" exactly where the water went.
By flooding the tunnels, they were effectively mapping out the entire nest.
"That’s brilliant. You really saved us there, Urula."
"Nn. Praise me."
Urula puffed out her chest proudly and thrust her head toward Rest. When he just blinked at her in confusion, she leaned in even closer.
"Pat me."
"Oh... Right. Sure, I don't mind."
Rest placed his hand on her purple hair and gave her an affectionate stroke.
"There, there. Good girl."
"Hau..."
A soft, ecstatic sound escaped Urula’s lips. Rest could feel her slender shoulders trembling slightly beneath his touch.
As he patted the head of the girl, who seemed to be in a state of pure bliss, a sudden thought struck him.
Wait... am I crossing a line here?
He felt like he was treading into dangerous territory. Even if she was younger than him, he was still patting the head of a girl who wasn't a family member or a relative.
Thinking back, that promise about the rings might have been a mistake, too. Giving other girls the same kind of gift I give my fiancées... isn't that a total disaster waiting to happen?
Since being reincarnated, so many things had happened that his sense of boundaries felt completely skewed. It was probably because he was constantly being pursued by beautiful girls, or ended up sharing beds and baths with them.
But it's too late to take back the promise now. I felt like I was just going for a walk, but it turns out I’ve been strolling through a minefield.
"Muu... How enviable. Could I get one, too?" Isis swallowed hard and muttered beside him.
Feeling a cold sweat and a mysterious sense of impending doom, Rest could do nothing but continue patting Urula’s head.