Dilaila hadn’t been worried about the monsters. Because as long as there was earth beneath her feet, she believed nothing could escape her eyes.
But that confidence shattered the moment she faced the monsters for the first time.
When Shane who was walking ahead suddenly summoned black blades around them, Dilaila was confused and that moment of hesitation cost her.
Krrrgh—!
“W-What?!”
From a rock that had seemed completely normal where she hadn’t sensed a thing….a horde of monsters suddenly burst out.
Not just one or two, but five or six charged at her all at once. Instinctively, Dilaila cast a spell in response.
However, the ratel-like monsters skillfully dodged her magic and lunged at her again.
Even the earth spears that were sharp enough to pierce through metal didn’t work.
So Dilaila raised a pillar of earth beneath her feet.
But the monsters simply climbed the rising earth, chasing her up the column.
Then, in an instant, the pillar exploded.
Keeeeng—!
This time, her magic was packed with mana.
Thousands of fragments from the shattered pillar rained down on the monsters like a storm of shrapnel.
This time, it hit its mark.
Some of the monsters coughed up blood and rolled across the ground.
“They’re not dead yet!”
Still, Dilaila didn’t let her guard down.
The monsters got up faster than they had fallen, rushing at her again like the wind.
Their dark brown eyes burned with a killing intent. As if they were facing a sworn enemy.
“Hmph!”
She stomped the ground again, folding the earth inward along the monsters’ path.
If they insisted on coming this way, then she’d just trap them and finish it.
Whether the monsters had read Dilaila’s intent or simply sensed the danger instinctively, they kicked off the folding earth to escape the trap.
But this time, Dilaila was one step ahead.
The ends of the folding ground interlocked like iron bars, forming a cage.
Some monsters reacted in time and broke through the prison of earth to escape, but a few weren’t so lucky and fell into the closing trap.
Booooom—!!
As the earth finished folding in, Dilaila cast her spell.
Gravity Hall.
A circular boundary formed around the collapsed ground, and the earth within began to compress.
The monsters trapped inside were crushed along with the earth, turning into a solid, spherical lump.
Only then did Dilaila turn her gaze to the side where monsters pierced through by Shane’s ominous black blades lay motionless.
“Huff… huff… “
The battle had been short, but Dilaila collapsed to her knees, visibly exhausted.
“What are you doing?”
“…Huh?”
“Get up.”
“Come on… ngh.”
At his words, Dilaila forced herself to her feet…only to immediately stumble back.
“W-What is that?! When did that get here?!”
Her eyes were locked onto the same rock from which the ratel-like beast-type monsters had first appeared.
Now, a giant scorpion, shredded by a black flaming sword, lay there.
When had that monster even appeared?
“…Hah.”
“Now you see? Just how dangerous this place really is.”
“You should’ve warned me if it was like this!”
“Take it as punishment for making reckless assumptions and underestimating the Cradle. You got off lightly. Most people only realize this after they’ve lost their lives.”
Wait…how does someone realize something after they’re dead?
Dilaila gave Shane a look that clearly asked, “Did you really just say that?” and let out a sigh.
“…It’s strange. I didn’t sense anything at all.”
Just as no one could escape the gaze of the elves in the Great Mezaiya Forest, this land of sand and stone was a place where nothing could hide from Dilaila’s senses.
Yet Dilaila had failed to detect not only the ratel-like monsters but even the giant scorpion that Shane had already slain.
Frowning, she wondered if something had gone wrong with her earth-sense until Shane spoke up.
“Just as the earth loves you, the creatures that live here also share a bond with it.”
“You mean… the monsters?”
“Yes. The monsters here know exactly what they must do to survive to become one with nature.”
“Become one with nature…? Wait, are you saying they’re like spirits?”
“Exactly right.”
“W-Wait, are you saying the monsters form contracts with spirits?!”
“Of course not. They don’t make contracts. They simply share a sense of communion with the spirits and receive their affection. That alone is enough for them to hide their presence within the earth.”
“Ah… but I killed them. I guess the spirits might hate me for that, huh?”
Shane shook his head.
“I called them spirits, but they don’t possess self-awareness. They’re closer to nature itself. You don’t need to worry about being hated.”
“Whew… that’s a relief.”
She said that, but her expression wasn’t bright.
Because that meant most of her advantages were meaningless in the Nakar Desert.
The earth’s mana is pure, so my spells are more efficient… but that goes for them too.
The monsters here were tough enough to withstand earth spears that would have pierced normal creatures with ease.
Which meant they had a high resistance to earth-based magic.
So I don’t really have any advantage at all, huh?
Dilaila let out a quiet sigh.
Meanwhile, Shane was thinking something entirely different.
It’s similar to before… but also not the same.
In her past life, the previous Dilaila had also achieved considerable success in the Nakar Desert around this very time.
Back then too she had realized her earth-type skills were practically useless here. But she hadn’t given up.
Determined to rise to the rank of one of Nameless’s executives, she had found her own solution.
And Shane knew exactly what that solution had been.
Let’s see what she does this time.
There was an easy way to tell her outright, but Shane chose not to.
If the Dilaila of his past life had discovered the answer on her own, then the current Dilaila surely could as well.
She might not possess the same ruthless ambition as before, but she had gained composure in its place….perhaps enough to find a different path this time.
“Let’s move.”
“Ah yes.”
Lost in thought, Dilaila followed after Shane, and the two of them continued their journey.
***
As the sun slowly began to sink beyond the horizon of the endlessly stretching gravel desert, Dilaila took off the black cloak she had been wearing to protect her skin.
“Phew. It’s already getting chilly.”
Unlike the day, the desert nights were cold.
Just as they were starting to think it was time to find a place to rest, Shane spoke up.
“Let’s make camp around here.”
“Oh, already?”
“Wandering around the Nakar Desert at night is basically suicide.”
“Come to think of it, didn’t they say the storms usually appear at night?”
On top of that, the storms in the Nakar Desert were on a completely different level compared to ordinary ones.
For some reason, the storms here carried a magical magnetic field.
And since mages absorb mana from their surroundings, such magnetic fields could be deadly.
That’s why it was always best to prepare ahead of time and avoid getting caught in a sandstorm.
“Then I’ll start setting things up.”
“Go ahead.”
Dilaila began by hardening the ground and digging out a burrow, while Shane set up a top-tier subspace camp brought from the Magic Tower.
“Whoa. This is amazing.”
Despite its unassuming exterior, the inside revealed a space large enough to fit dozens of people, and Dilaila’s eyes widened in awe.
Subspace was an extremely rare type of magic that only a handful of mages proficient in spatial spells could pull off. Even a subspace camp the size of a small house was worth enough to buy five mansions several dozen times larger.
In other words, it was something the average person would never even see in their lifetime.
Just who is he, really?
Because only those with a certain level of status could purchase such things, it was the first time Dilaila began to question the masked man.
…And what was that scene he showed me back then?
Once that thought entered her mind, the doubts began to snowball.
Back when she had been slowly consumed by the spirit of darkness, the man had shown her visions completely devoid of dreams or hope.
Beyond the cold, lifeless bodies of a pair of siblings, Dilaila had witnessed all kinds of deaths.
A knight who failed to protect his lord to the very end.
A father left alone after failing to protect his family.
A man who couldn’t bring himself to strike down the one he loved.
A mother who could only keep repeating that everything was fine to her children.
The world the man had shown her was filled with countless deaths, and each time, a faceless man stood before them as if offering a silent confession. In a way, the sight had even felt sacred.
I could barely handle witnessing those people’s deaths.
Though it wasn’t as overwhelming as before, Dilaila still felt a heavy weight in her chest whenever she thought about the non-humans who had died in that basement.
So how was that masked man able to endure the weight of all those deaths….both the ones Dilaila had seen and the many more she hadn’t?
“What is it?”
“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing.”
Had she been staring too intently while lost in thought?
At Shane’s question, Dilaila gave an awkward laugh and glanced around the inside of the camp.
“Wow, woooow~ It’s seriously huge. So cool.”
“……”
Shane watched her back for a moment, then quietly turned his gaze away.
***
Traveling through the desert was nothing short of grueling.
The monsters that attacked several times a day, combined with the sun that beat down like meat sizzling on a frying pan, made it a truly murderous environment.
Especially when storms mixed with gravel blew through, it felt like deadly weapons were flying through the air and those storms didn’t only occur at night.
Fortunately, Shane had brought along the magical device he’d used during the Mezaiya Forest expedition, one that predicted weather changes. Without it, the storms might have proven more dangerous than the monsters themselves.
“Phew. I can finally breathe.”
After quenching her thirst with magically chilled water, Dilaila let out a sigh as she looked at the fallen group of monsters.
This time, the ambushers had been a swarm of snakes, each as thick as a human head.
If Shane was right, they were Seven-Poison Serpents. They were creatures so poisonous they could kill a person before they took their seventh step.
Seeing hundreds of them clustered together was terrifying in many ways, but their movements were sluggish enough that they weren’t impossible to handle.
“You’re getting quicker at responding.”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Right? Hehe.”
Fifteen days had already passed since they began crossing the Gravel Desert.
During that time, Dilaila had been in constant connection with the land, and she was now able to sense the presence of monsters more clearly than before.
Even so, she couldn’t feel satisfied because she still hadn’t made contact with the earth spirit Shane had mentioned.
“If I could just connect with them somehow, I feel like things would fall into place… but it’s not easy.”
Shane quietly nodded.
It was a different approach from the Dilaila of the war, but that didn’t mean it was the wrong one.
Dilaila too chose not to rely on Shane but instead worked to resolve things on her own, continuing her nightly attempts to connect with the land.
However, even for someone like Dilaila, who was born underground, establishing a bond with a spirit she had never encountered before was no easy feat.
She’s walking a different path from her past life.
The Dilaila of her past life hadn’t tried to connect with the spirits; she had chosen to dominate them, relying on her own tyrannical nature.
That was because the path of connection was much harder.
Connection required far more delicacy and care than domination, and in the end, Dilaila had no choice but to seek Shane’s advice.
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