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CHAPTER START---
"Wow," Oberon mutters as he enters the massive underground cavern.
He'd expected the inside to be dark and dry, but was now wide-eyed and amazed at the glowing moss growing in large patches across the walls and ceiling.
The cavern was only a few streets wide, but as it descends deeper into the earth, the height grows, enough for the guildhall to easily be hosted three times over.
Oberon takes out his Kamera to document this fascinating discovery as he descends, only to come upon a massive cavern deeper in.
His jaw drops at the sight of the statue carved from the natural wall. A knight standing a hundred feet tall with his sword staked in the ground at his feet, standing guard.
The statue was sparsely covered with the glowing moss, and Oberon couldn't help but take a few pictures before storing the Kamera away.
He then checked his map, noticing that the picture of the knight on the map was the same as the statue. "This must be the place."
He looks around, seeing only one route, which leads deeper into the cavern.
Securing the map in a Storage Card, he walks toward the far side of the cavern, looking around at the structure every step of the way, fighting the urge to scream and test the echo of this chamber.
'Stealth. Stealth. Sneaky,' he reminds himself. He walks through the cavern, and yet his footsteps don't make a sound or move the loose rocks and dirt below his boots. 'Move like a ninja…ninja.'
He enters another tunnel on the far side of the cavern and continues his descent.
'Yeah, ninja. If I were a ninja, I'd definitely have one of those rope things with the spearhead at the end. Yeah. I'd throw it into walls and climb up to spy on people for sure…'
He continues his daydream for a few minutes, constantly descending, until he comes upon a section of the tunnel where the loose dry rock and dirt give way to patches of soft moss on the floor.
Not glowing like the moss on the wall, but soft enough to indicate a steady supply of water, if judging by the bits of grass between them.
'What kind of desert has so much living stuff?' he wonders while walking through this area. 'I thought everything here was supposed to be—'
He comes upon a small crater with mangled and shattered bits of a body around it.
'—Dead.' He's immediately on alert, looking around but not seeing anything out of the ordinary.
Inspecting the small crater, he sees bits of blood and flesh scattered about, then walks ahead to find another crater with similar gore.
Then three more before he exits the tunnel.
Stepping out of the tunnel, he finally breathes, no longer holding his breath to spare himself the rancid metallic air, leaning against the wall as he wretches.
He barely keeps his breakfast down, memories of blasted bone and flesh flickering through his mind as he catches his breath.
'Oh gods. What even happened here?' Oberon takes a few soothing breaths before looking around and finding himself in another large cavern, except this time, he wasn't alone.
Leaning against a moss-covered boulder a few dozen meters away are two women.
One is leaning against the boulder while sitting, missing a leg. Her left thigh is wrapped in blood-soaked cloth bandages while she's sweating profusely. Yet her eyes are on Oberon, fighting through the pain to focus on him and keep a hand on her ornate wooden staff.
Her friend's desert wraps are torn to reveal a litany of blades attached to her body. And the moment she notices Oberon, she reaches to her side and throws a dagger directly at his face.
"Hey!" He ducks under the attack, which embeds itself into the wall behind him.
The woman takes this opportunity to draw her Magic Gun and fire directly at his face, releasing a bolt of Magic Energy.
Oberon reflexively raises a hand and shields himself, allowing it to shatter against his Barrier.
But by the time he lowered his hand, the woman with the staff had already raised it and activated her trap.
He was standing in a cube of glowing orange runes, half the size of a carriage and layered in text he couldn't read.
Both women breathe a sigh of relief as he's seemingly caught. Oberon notices this and decides not to startle them yet, having encountered such a Magic before and knowing it doesn't work on him.
"Uh…hi?" he politely waves at them. "Can we talk now?"
The women look at him in confusion, then at each other, then back at him.
"Oh. This really is annoying." Oberon points at himself. "Fiore."
The woman with the gun nods in acknowledgement and gestures to them before speaking with an accent he'd never heard before. "Enca."
"Enca? I don't even know what the language from that country is called, much less how to speak it."
Oberon nods and gestures to himself, then points to the tunnel at the far end of the cavern, leading deeper into the earth.
"Me," he gestures to himself, then the tunnel. "Go."
The woman nods.
"You," he gestures to them, then the tunnel leading to the surface. "Go."
The women freeze for a moment, then the less hurt of the two gestures to her gun before returning to treating her friend.
Oberon waits a few minutes, allowing her to finish treating her friend enough to get back to the surface.
He considered giving them medicine or supplies, but was sure the duo he left above would leave some behind, and he didn't want to scare the women anymore and cause them to hurt themselves.
As the woman is carrying her friend on her back, the staff user blacks out, annoying Oberon.
'There goes the only person who can drop these damned runes…'
As if sensing his annoyance, the conscious woman looks between him and her friend on her back, giving him an apologetic look.
"No, it's okay. You don't have to worry about me," he casually steps through the high-level barrier, startling the woman enough for her to stumble back and begin falling over.
However, where she expects pain of them both hitting the ground in a heap, both women float in place.
They then return to their previous positions, all while Oberon politely waves at her.
"Oberon," he gestures to himself, then shows off his Guildmark. "Fairy Tail, Fiore."
The woman nods, but doesn't take her eyes off him as their gravity returns to normal.
Oberon then turns and walks deeper into the cavern.
Watching his back as he disappears into the cavern, the woman relaxes slightly after knowing they are once again alone.
Oberon enters the final tunnel section and moves with quickened steps.
'If I finish this fast enough, I can grab those four and fly back to the city. Maybe even save that lady from bleeding out if we're lucky,' he thinks while entering the last and most spacious cavern.
He's frozen for a moment, amazed by the lush greenery in this underground cavern.
There are puddles of water on the floor and thick moss on the ground. Along the entire height of the cave, the green extends upward to the ceiling that's glowing brightly enough that he could mistake it for daylight.
The stalactites above are covered with the glowing moss that grows out and connects like ropes between some of the points.
He doesn't hesitate to take a picture before making his way down into the valley of the cavern, where he sees a pillar containing a stone tablet the size of his torso.
'The information has been good so far, but I should double-check if this is the real thing,' he takes out the beads from a Storage Card, and they and the pillar glow in unison before he puts them away. "Good enough for me."
However, as he's about to step forward, a voice stops him.
"Don't move," a masculine voice says in yet another unfamiliar accent.
Oberon freezes, looking around but not seeing anyone, until a man appears in front of the pillar, dispelling his Invisibility Magic.
He wears a set of brown robes and pants with white trim, a simple pair of black boots, and carries a longsword at his side.
"Hi, I'm—"
"—How did you get here?" the man interrupts him.
"Oh. I…walked?"
"Walked?" the man narrows his eyes at Oberon. "Past the Lacrima Land Mines?"
"The wh—"
A loud explosion echoes through the tunnels, reaching Oberon and the man as both women are splattered by a land mine above.
"Those," the man says.
Oberon glares at the man, hands balled into fists at his sides. "Normally, I don't mind talking about Magic. Actually, I really like it. But you aren't interested in talking, are you?"
"Actually, I don't mind," the man says, stepping back and leaning against the pillar. "My Magic is a Barrier magic. I can create walls of Magic Energy, and they're pretty strong. And I'd love to tell you more, but—"
A woman suddenly appears beside the man as she deactivates her Invisibility Magic. Dressed in the same way, with grey metal gauntlets in place of a sword, and leaning against him.
"I've stalled enough."
The woman raises her hand in a gesture that has her palm rising up, and below his feet, loose sand burrows through the rock and pushes a Lacrima Land Mine directly between Oberon's feet, crushing and detonating it the moment it's above ground.
The explosion shakes the cavern, but the shockwave is stopped by the man's purple barrier before it reaches them, harmlessly washing over the dome.
Dust and debris form a small plume as she leans over and kisses her husband. "That was our last mine. I should go up top and rearrange the others in case we have more guests."
"We could have talked this out," Oberon's voice pierces their relaxed mood, then the sight of him completely unbothered and unmoved by the explosion perplexes them.
Even as the ground below him was blasted away, he remained in place as if standing on the air.
"Sand Magic and Barrier Magic…annoying."
Before either adult could process what they were seeing, Oberon raises his right hand and fired a Light Shot directly at the man's head.
And here, within an underground cave system, Oberon's first death battle begins…
CHAPTER END---
Discord: discord .gg /eHuxNeZfyS [Come chat with me]
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
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