***

BAM—!

With a kick, an <Armored ant> was sent flying into the stone wall. And immediately following it was a spell

<[Light ball]>

The magic spell shot towards the still stunned ant.

It didn't even make a dent on the ant's hard upper body of course. However, the force behind the spell was enough to flip the ant over onto its back.

"Tch! If you're going to die anyways, just don't show up in the first place"

Instantly after the voice rang out, the ant's underside was penetrated by a hand, and a hissing noise could be heard.

Tssssssss—!

It was the sound most commonly associated with hot metal rapidly cooling inside a smithy. However, in this case, it was the sound of the ant's inside being turned into hot mush due to the sheer heat the student's hand emitted.

Seeing that the ant had died without even letting out a shriek, the student slowly pulled her hand out from the ant's acid pouch organ.

Her amber eyes gazed at her half-melted hand not with pain or despair, but with great annoyance.

"Fuck, that hurts..."

<[S - Flames of regeneration]>

Tssssssssss—!

The same hissing sound reverberated throughout the narrow passage of the cave again. This time, however, it was caused by green flames enveloping the student's hand.

But instead of melting, her hand were slowly but surely healing. And after 2 minutes, it was completely healed.

"Haaah... If only this wasn't a cave, I wouldn't have to face those ant bastards up close", the student, whose identity was Ria sighed.

Due to the extremely tight and enclosed space, Ria knew better than to recklessly use her Fire magic, as the flames could still harm her.

After all, although Phoenixes are resistance to fire, they aren't immune to it.

As such, she had to mostly rely on her physical capabilities and her pitifully weak Light magic.

Pausing her thoughts there, Ria looked down at her two legs which were throbbing in pain.

"Tch! They broke again", she clicked her tongue in annoyance.

Snap—!

With a snap of her finger, the same green flame that covered her hand engulfed her legs.

When Ria fell from the first layer all the way to the last one, her legs were, well, let's just say that they were turned into mush.

About an hour after the fall, they were almost healed completely. However, an <Armored ant> had to show up and attack her.

As such, she forced herself to move even though her legs were just barely functional. As a result, they broke again.

And afterwards, every time her legs were close to fully healing, an ant attacked her, making them break again.

This happened 5 whole times.

Normally, this would have caused enough pain for someone to go crazy. However, Ria, like every Phoenixes, was trained to have an extreme tolerance for pain since she was little.

After all, what's the use of being able to revive yourself if you can't take the pain that comes with it?

As such, Ria usually was unafraid of anything.

Anything except for being corrupted by the Void and the very concept of dying for real.

There aren't many ways to kill a Phoenix. But when someone do manage to do it, the process and the results are often... gruesome, to say the least.

Anyways, Ria stopped her thoughts there, sat down with her back against the damp cave wall, and waited for her legs to heal.

'I swear if any more ants come this tim—'

Tok—! Tok—! Tok—!...

Loud and slow footsteps suddenly rang out, and Ria could tell right away that they belonged to something humanoid, or at least something that walked with 2 limbs.

'Shit! Is it a <Armored ant royal knight>?'

Those type of ants were the only monsters in this dungeon which stood on two legs after all.

'Aren't they supposed to be the boss monster?'

Putting the mystery asides for now, Ria put out the sizzling and crackling green flames, so as not to reveal her position to the ants.

She then, without even making a sound, slowly dragged herself to the wall just before the turn.

Ria condensed Fire mana in her hand, ready to grab the Ant royal knight by its neck and melt the flesh off its face.

Tok—! Tok—! Tok—!...

Sweat ran down her forehead as the footsteps sounded closer than ever before.

Squinting her eyes, she could just vaguely make out the shadow of the ant growing bigger.

Realizing that this was her chance, she dashed out of the corner and grabbed the source of the shadow.

BOOM—!

A fiery explosion rang out, and the Ant was instantly killed.

Or, at least that was what Ria expected to have had happened.

Instead, as soon as she leaped out of the corner and released her spell, all she was met with deafening silence.

In fact, her spell didn't even go off at all.

That was when she realized something. 'An air vacuum? So that's why my spell didn't work'

However, she couldn't dwell on the thought for long, as—

"ACK!"

—she was the one to get grabbed by the neck instead.

"Kurrghhhh! L- Let me go!", she directed her glare downwards as she desperately gasped for air.

Gazing back at her was two pairs of eyes. One was a shade of deep purple.

The other had a dull grey color with two circular red lines in it. 

Well, that was what Ria would have noticed if she could see through the black-tinted sunglasses.

After a short moment, the humanoid figure suddenly released his grip on her neck and spoke.

"Oh, it's just Ria"

Coughing for a few times then looking up at the figure, Ria lets out a gasp of surprise. "Theodore?"

"Yep, it's me", Theodore answered.

He then extended his hand to help Ria up without saying anything, as if he hadn't just almost choked her to death earlier.

'Well, it's partly my fault anyways', Ria sighed inwardly.

She looked at Theodore hand, but decided not to take it. Not because she was so prideful as to not receive help. Well, admittedly, that was part of it. However, the main reason was that—

"...My legs are busted"

—She couldn't walk.

Frowning, Theodore directed his gaze towards her legs and shook his head. "They look pretty fine to me"

In response, Ria merely grabbed her left leg with her hands and lightly squeezed it.

Crunch—!

A crunching sound rang out as something inside her legs undoubtedly broke. 

Seeing this, Kasumi, who had been keeping silent the entire time, suddenly spoke.

"It seems that her bones are extremely brittle"

"Thanks a lot for the obvious observation", Theodore snorted.

He then turned towards Ria with a defeated expression on his face.

"Let's just get this over with..."

"What are you sa— Ah!"

Ria lets out a surprised sound as Theodore suddenly lifted her up and put her on his back.

"What are you doing?"

"We're going to escape this place", he answered.

Still narrowing her eyes, Ria spoke. "Then why couldn't you let Kasumi carry me?"

Freezing at the spot in realization, Theodore eventually shook his head and look at the purple-eyed assassin with pleading eyes. Or at least that was what Ria had guessed, as she couldn't really see his expression from where she was.

"It's because of... reasons. Right, Kasumi?"

Sighing, Kasumi decided to just carry out Eleanor's order and thus do what Theodore implied that he wanted her to do.

"Yes. I'm actually errrr... allergic to Phoenixes"

Theodore face-palmed at this, and of course Ria did too.

'What kind of excuse is that', she thought.

Eventually, she came to accept that she would be carried by Theodore out of this place whether she liked it or not.

As such, the least she could do was to make this somewhat enjoyable by getting back at Theodore.

"Okay then", Ria grinned. "Onwards, my trusty steed!"
***

'Why am I being treated like a horse?', I thought, as Ria was on my back, using her two hands to grab my hair and steered them in the direction that I was going to go in anyways.

'Don't tell me that—'

GULP—!

'—this is one of her kinks?'

Shaking myself off such horrifying thoughts, focused back on the situation at hand, as we had just arrived at our destination, the Exit room.

'I'll have to give it a try anyways. If it doesn't work then boss fight it is'

Walking towards the wood that was blocking the Exit, I spoke. "Ria, can you try to burn that?"

"Shhhhhhhh!", she shushed me. "A horse can't talk, remember?"

If this was any other students, I would have been drowned in rage and pummeled the shit out of them. However, since Ria was a heroine, and she was supposedly the only one present that could resolve the current situation, I couldn't lash out at her.

As such, I looked at Kasumi for help again.

Knowing full well what my gaze meant, Kasumi spoke. "As you can see, the room were are in right now is spacious, so there are no problems using Fire magic. So would you mind trying to burn down the wood blocking the exit?"

Grinning, Ria answered. "Of course! Anything for lady Kasumi here!"

She then grabbed my hair and pulled them backwards. "Fall back, my steed. I don't want you to get burnt by my awesome spells"

Not really being able to do anything else and of course not wanting myself to burn to death, I did as Ria said.

Stretching her arms and cracking her neck, Ria put one of her arms forwards.

<[Fire ball]>

A fire ball, whose size was bigger than the entirety of my body, collided with the wood.

BOOM—!

After the dust had settled, I strained my eyes to assess its effectiveness.

"That wasn't enough?", Ria muttered as there were no damages to the wood except for a few blackened spots.

"So much for awesome spells", I snickered at her.

Glaring at me, Ria humphed. "Quiet, steed. That was just the warm up"

<[Raging flames]>

A ball of fire shot towards the wood, rapidly expanding with every inches it travelled.

When it reached its target, the fire ball's size was about a quarter of this entire room.

BOOOOOOM—!

Although I had to admit that the spell was extremely cool, I couldn't help but to laugh in ridicule, as the wood was once again unharmed.

"Looks like y—"

"Shut up!"

Ria interrupted me and drew in even more Fire mana from the air this time.

<"Oh, Father of the searing flames, bless this child with your divine flares...">

'A chant?', I was genuinely surprised. 

Greater, more powerful magic required full chants to be casted, as opposed to single-word-activation or even chantless casting like I often did with [Lightning spear].

<"...and thus, bring forth judgement to my enemies—">

Ria hadn't quite completed her chant just yet. However, a massive bright red magic circle had already appeared right before us.

The circle looked complicated, with intricate details that even I couldn't understand. 

Before long, streaks of purple manifested in the circle, forming a triangular shape.

"Theodore! Get us away from the circle", Ria shouted.

Almost instinctively, I listened to her and dashed away.

As I ran back to the entrance of the room and looked back at where I had just been, the circle shone brightly.

Tssssssssssssssss—!

Instead of a loud explosion that one might expect from a Great magic spell, only a hissing sound could be heard instead.

However, to underestimate the incomplete spell just merely because of its underwhelming sound was a mistake.

Great amount of heat was released from the circle, melting the air around it into bright pink fumes, and the fumes turned the rocky ground they barely hovered above into molten lava.

They were scattered at first, but slowly but surely, they moved closer to each other, converging into a pink fissure.

Seeing this, Ria spoke in a dignified voice, completing the chant. "—[Plasma beam]!"

BOOOOOOOOOM—!

With an explosion, the fissure shot into bream of bright hot plasma and collided with its target. The plasma scattered, and then gathered again with great speed, drilling into the wood. The heat it emitted was so immense that I felt as if my face were melting off even from all the way over here.

'Now this is the explosion I expected'

This continued for several more times, before the plasma all dissipated and the Great magic ended.

We all held our breath, waiting for the dust to settle in anticipation. 

"..."

"..."

"AW! COME ON! THAT WAS MY GREATEST SPELL!", Ria cursed out loud as the wood was... basically unharmed.

Well, to be fair, the wood did melt, albeit by only a few inches.

"Do you have anything more... destructive than that?", I asked.

In response, Ria used her hand to knock on my head. It didn't really hurt but it was annoying regardless.

"Is this head of yours empty? Didn't I just say that [Plasma beam] was my best spell?"

One look at Ria and anyone could tell that she was very pissed.

Shaking my head at this sight, I turned around and gestured for Kasumi to follow.

'Guess we'll have to fight the boss after all'
...

"I- Is that the boss?", Ria gulped as she laid her eyes on the tree.

"Yes", I answered almost immediately.

"But isn't the final layer's boss supposed to be a—"

"Yes, it's supposed to be an <Armored ant royal knight>, I get it", I cut her off almost annoyedly.

Still carrying Ria on my back, I inspected the boss room again.

Roots still pulsated on the walls and ceiling as if they were alive, and the tree was looking right at us, as expected.

However, I could feel that its gaze was different from before. It looked almost... mad.

'Guess that's the consequences for messing with the wood in the Exit room'

However, the tree being mad could be a good thing, as I noticed that all of the Capture crystals that were previously in this room was sprawling all over the floor, with roots penetrated in them.

'The tree must have broken them in a fit of rage'

Seeing no other way to proceed, I turned to Kasumi. "You, stay here"

Almost like a soldier following a commander's order, Kasumi straightened her back and stood still on the spot.

Nodding my head, I activated one of my skill and rushed into the room with Ria.

<[S - Monarch of the Storms]>

"W- WAIT! I DON'T WANT TO FIGHT THAT THING! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME TO STAY TOO!", Ria's eyes were in tears as she screamed, not paying attention to the fact that I now had gray hair, or that small sparks of lightning were shooting out from my body.

Ignoring her nagging, I made a beeline towards the tree.

<[Red lightning]>

I didn't know how Ria wasn't getting electrocuted but regardless, it was a good thing.

Cra— Crack—!

The ground cracked apart as roots shot out from beneath it, aiming for our lives.

However, with my reaction speed enhanced by [Red lightning], I could dodge the roots with relative ease.

BOOM—! BOOM—! BOOM—!...

The roots made small explosions as they missed me and impaled themselves into the ground.

The ground, of course, was crushed into powder. And there was no doubt that the same would happen to me if I were to get hit.

<[A - Authority of fear]: Death>

I used my Magic eyes, but only to the detriment of myself, as in response to the immense fear the ant was feeling, the tree intensified its attacks.

BOOM—!

"RIA!", I shouted. "Can you still use magic?"

"I- I'm out of mana!", Ria stuttered.

I clicked my tongue at this, as one of the plans I had failed before I even attempted it.

I wanted to make the tree's belly into a boiler room, roasting the ant from the heat alone. But it seemed that the Great magic Ria had used earlier had completely drained out her mana.

'Haaah... guess I'll have to resort to that'

BOOM—!

Dodging another tree root, I asked Ria again. "Ria! Have you died recently?"

"H- Huh? What?"

"Just answer m—"

BOOM—!

I couldn't finish my sentence as I had to twist my body to dodge a root coming in from the left.

Luckily, however, Ria seemed to have understood what I was asking her, as she answered pretty soon after.

"N- No! The last time I died was 3 years ago. Why did you ask?"

"Ria", I said with a serious tone. "Do you want to escape this hellish place?"

"Of course I do!", Ria replied with utmost certainty almost instantly.

Grinning, I took out my sword from [Alternate storage] and infused Space mana into it.

"Is that so? Don't blame me for what I'm about to do then"

"What do you mea—"

<The second movement of [V - World splitter]: Rupturing thrust>

Spurt—!

Warm, hot blood spurted onto the rocky floor, and some of it even spilled onto the roots.

"W- Why..."