After stopping Kotori and her party began to walk through the passages. Kotori was taking the time to analyze the mana in the passages.

Just as she thought the walls were the physical manifestation of particularly non-dense mana. It was akin to Styrofoam in terms of quality and density. What Kotori didn’t understand was that’s how the walls could remain so “hard” while the mana was so light.

The fact the dungeon didn’t have much mana density at all, made it even more confusing. Why did strong monsters spawn then?

Kotori wracked her head to find an answer but was unable to.

In a bout of frustration, she even shot out a “sound bolt” towards the wall.

The bolt hit the wall, and for a moment the wall seemed to ripple.

[Eh?] Kotori thought.

[That doesn’t seem right?] The wall shouldn’t ripple like that, it was extremely hard after all. She couldn’t force the mana to bend with gourmet after all. But somehow she was able to dent the wall slightly.

[Maybe this will work?] Kotori thought as she launched another bolt and the wall deformed even more.

She launched even more bolts

[This isn’t working] Kotori thought frowning. The wall was indeed moving slightly but it was not deforming enough to coming close to what Kotori wanted.

“Umm Kotori I know you’re frustrated but you don’t have to take it out on the wall,” Amelie said trying to cheer her up.

Kotori sighed. Nobody, in her party, was willing to fault her for running in with her half-baked plan, her spirits were too loyal and Amelie trusted Kotori far too much to have such thoughts. They all had a feeling like “Kotori will figure it our right?”

[I guess I have to tell them the truth] Kotori thought.

Kotori resigned herself to explaining to her party the conundrum that she was facing. To her surprise, they didn’t chide her or even scold her.

“You know you can rely on us a bit more, right?” Amelie said.

“Eh?” Kotori said.

“We’re as much a part of this party, as you are”

“Umu” the other spirits said in response to Amelie’s statement.

“You can rely on us more,” Layla said sympathetically.

“Yeah, I guess…” Kotori said sadly.

She had been charging forward this entire time without thinking about the companions beside her. Kotori really was thankful she could rely on them in these moments.

“So then what do you think we should do?” Kotori asked. For once she was handing over leadership to Amelie in this regard.

“Mhmm, since you think this is basically a giant maze our location is irrelevant, we might as well move right, maybe we’ll find something?” Amelie said.

“That doesn’t really matter, we might be led in a circle,” Kotori said regardless of where they walked. “something” would lead them away.

“Well, that doesn’t matter the chance is still there. For now, can you scout the wall with your skill?” Amelie asked her

“I can do that” Kotori said nodding

“Shu, Umi. And Layla watch out for monsters” Amelie said.

And thus, with those instructions, they began walking. Kotori’s cheeks burned a little. It was her first time not being the leader and seeing Amelie handle everybody with ease made her feel embarrassed for her lack of leadership skills.

[Ah, Amelie would’ve made a better queen than me] Kotori thought.

Still, she trusted her friend and began to scan the walls even more closely with [gourmet]. The mana in the walls was not dense at all of course, but she hoped to find something more important within the walls.

Suddenly Kotori felt a blob of denser mana across the wall. It raced across the wall next to them and into the floor.

From the spot, the mana coalesces a monster spawn. It was a simple lizard mana monster and her spirits instantly defeat them.

[Odd?] Kotori thought. She had felt monsters spawn before and in no way did it happen in the way she just experiences. In the other dungeons she had been in, the mana in the dungeon was constantly swirling and would naturally birth a monster through random effects. The way this dungeon had spawned a monster was completely artificial.

Kotori's suspicions were confirmed. This dungeon was truely not “real”

Kitsura

Early posting because I have a chapter done