The Most Arbitrary Wizard

Chapter 148: Chapter 90: Forbidden Zone

"Alright, don’t do that again. I don’t need you to let me take it out on you on purpose." Seeing that the wound on Sean’s arm had healed, Elvire released his hand and let out her customary huff, maintaining her tough act.

Sean didn’t call her out on it, just smiled and said, "So, should we find a way out of here first?"

Logically, a dual Meditation scene should fuse the perceptions and past Meditation experiences of two Wizards. Compared to a solo Meditation, it should be larger, not smaller, so it was unlikely to be just this cramped dungeon. Sean felt that the real "New World" must lie outside, and this dungeon was simply the first obstacle he and Elvire had encountered in this Meditation.

It wasn’t a particularly difficult one, though.

"Do you know the Wall-Piercing Spell?" Sean asked.

"I don’t. Why don’t you teach me?" After biting Sean, Elvire’s tone was much softer than before. Listening to her, Sean couldn’t help thinking, ’Maybe I should let her bite me more often? A gentle Miss Flame Crow is the cutest, after all.’

But in the next second, Miss Flame Crow was no longer so gentle.

The moment Elvire saw him spacing out, she knew this mischievous guy was probably thinking of something wicked again. She promptly stepped on Sean’s foot—not too hard, but not too lightly either—and glared. "I’m asking you. Are you going to teach me or not?"

Then she added, "You taught Yisha, so don’t tell me you won’t teach me when it’s my turn."

Sean: "..."

’How does this girl remember everything?’

’She’s definitely going to be the jealous type!’

Grumbling internally, Sean told the girl the incantation for the Wall-Piercing Spell.

"Biawonde, bendaruas."

In the Old Tongue, this incantation means "to cross the boundary."

As the word "boundary" implies, the Wall-Piercing Spell could pierce more than just walls. In the hands of a Grand Mage from the Era of Polymath, the same incantation—amplified with a medial suffix like "Credy" or "Credor"—could allow one to travel thousands of miles in an instant and pass freely through Magic Barriers laid by others.

However, limited by their lack of Magic Power, all they could do for now was pass through walls.

Elvire was a fast learner. In less than six hours, she had a basic grasp of this flexible and convenient little spell.

Sean barely guided her during that time. They had plenty of it, and he was happy to watch Elvire practice and figure things out on her own. It gave him the sense of pride a father feels watching his daughter grow up and learn to do things for herself.

「Six hours later.」

"I’m ready. Let’s do this."

Elvire looked up at the ceiling, eager to give it a try.

They called it a "dungeon," but it wasn’t necessarily underground—it just looked that way. Not a single sliver of light penetrated the space, giving the immediate impression of being buried deep beneath the earth, away from the sun. But even if the cell wasn’t underground, it didn’t matter. Heading up was surely the right direction.

"Make sure you gauge the distance right. Be careful not to get stuck in the wall," Sean reminded her.

With that, to give Elvire a demonstration, he loudly chanted the incantation: "Biawonde, bendaruas!"

SWOOSH.

And then he got himself stuck in the "wall."

Or rather, in a "crevice."

THUD!

"Hss... COUGH, COUGH, COUGH!"

The moment Sean phased through, his head slammed into something hard. He sucked in a sharp breath in pain. The air here no longer stank of rot, but it was thick with dust. He felt like he’d just taken a deep breath at a construction site, inhaling everything, breathable or not, and began to cough violently.

A moment later, there was another THUD.

Elvire had slammed into it, too.

"Ouch... Mmph!"

Sean quickly clamped a hand over her mouth, signaling her not to breathe too deeply.

Elvire got the message. She nodded, gently pushed Sean’s hand away, and started to survey their surroundings.

It was still pitch-black.

And even smaller.

They had phased up from the dungeon only to arrive in a space even more cramped.

Their bodies were pressed so close together there wasn’t even enough room to turn over.

They were lying down.

Under certain conditions, the Wall-Piercing Spell would trigger the body’s instincts, automatically adjusting the Wizard’s posture to fit into a confined target area. For instance, right now—both Sean and Elvire had passed through horizontally, so when they tried to look up, they hit the "ceiling" pressing against their faces.

Unlike the dungeon, however, this time light was seeping in.

It was faint, though, not enough to see by.

Elvire finally managed to free a hand and conjure a ball of fire. Only then could they see that they were under a pile of rubble—broken bricks and shattered tiles.

Sean: "..."

’Have we been buried alive?’

Elvire, however, thought this was good news.

At least there was light, which proved Sean’s theory was correct: the real "New World" was outside the dungeon.

Besides, being buried was a much simpler problem to solve than being trapped in some unknown location.

"Protect that pretty face of yours," Elvire said.

The words had barely left her lips when Magic Power erupted from her body, sweeping out like a storm. Using the most direct, brute-force method, she blasted away the tons of brick and tile overhead, pulling Sean out with her.

Outside, the sun was bright.

The surroundings, however, were less than ideal.

Having successfully reached the surface, Elvire first took a greedy gulp of the comparatively fresh air before letting her eyes scan the environment.

’Is this... a ruin?’

Collapsed buildings were everywhere, the ground littered with crumbling walls and rubble. Dust motes danced in the sunlight, as if telling a story of a place that was once prosperous, bustling, and full of life, but had eventually succumbed to the ravages of time—growing old, worn, and broken until it became the desolate landscape before them.

"Huh? Is that a statue over there?"

Elvire noticed a dilapidated statue standing silently amid the ruins in the distance.

As she drew closer, she realized it was a statue from the Holy Sanctuary?

Her eyes flew wide.

She had assumed she couldn’t make out the details because of the distance and the statue’s dilapidated state, so she had deliberately moved closer. But now that she was near, she still couldn’t see it clearly... In fact, it was even more blurry up close than it had been from a distance.

Elvire reacted at once.

"Isn’t this the statue of Blake?"

"Why is it here??"

Reacting much the same way, Sean’s eyes had also widened.

He was more familiar with this place than Elvire, because he had been here once before.

These were the Kovri Ruins.

He was in Kovri again!

In that instant, a myriad of possibilities flooded Sean’s mind.

Perhaps the Fallen Nether Technique had copied his memories and incorporated them as part of the New World.

Or perhaps when he and Elvire were getting into position, composing their minds to enter the Void Technique Space for Meditation, they had accidentally triggered a bug again.

Or maybe, because he was Blake himself, and the Holy Sanctuary was an obsession buried deep in his heart, he kept being drawn back to this place.

There were many logical explanations.

But none of them felt entirely convincing.

At least, Sean couldn’t convince himself it was a coincidence.

What unsettled him the most was that the statue was in the exact same spot where he had "logged off" last time.

Logically, it made sense. The Fallen Nether Technique incorporated his perceptions, so anything he had experienced could potentially appear in the "New World." Yet his intuition told him it couldn’t be that simple. It was like dreaming of something one night, then having the exact same dream the next; anyone would start to wonder if the event had actually happened, or what connection it had to them.

That was exactly how Sean felt right now.

He felt like he was about to grow a brain.

But before that brain could finish growing, a furious, murderous shout shattered his train of thought.

"Who let you in here?!"

Sean and Elvire whipped their heads around at the same time.

A middle-aged man in uniform-style Soft Armor was staring at them with an ice-cold gaze.

Behind him stood a squad of soldiers, their expressions grim.

"Trespassing in a restricted area without permission... I see you have a death wish."

"Seize them."

"If they resist, kill them on the spot!"

...