Chapter 337 Volume V - Chapter 55: Second Night
The howling of the wolves continued. A brilliant blue glow came in through the holes that the rock covering us couldn't quite close, then slowly faded, as if its source was moving away from us.
Compared to the noises outside... the space I was trapped in was remarkably quiet. Sue said nothing, didn't even look in my direction. Her eyes were on the rock that was closed on us.
As I got used to the mana that surrounded me, my senses slowly returned. I was returning to normal as I deliberately directed the flow, so... I finally managed to part my lips.
"S- Sue...?"
I spoke in a whisper, maybe she couldn't even hear me. The noises from outside were... too much. Still, she turned her eyes toward me, she looked at my face.
There was not much distance between us. The space we were in was so small that if we got a little closer, our faces would have touched.
But... as a third person, Adrian could fit in here too. Yes, we would have been too cramped and we would have been in an uncomfortable situation for hours. But... he could fit.
If he hadn't come back to pick me up, if I had tried to protect myself from the mana around me in the first place... he wouldn't have stayed out.
Sue opened her mouth slightly, she was going to say something... but she couldn't put her words together. Just as she was about to speak, the ground suddenly shook violently. Hundreds of rocks, large and small, on which we were standing, almost shifted. Maybe a few of them did.
That was not the only thing that happened. Along with this tremor, a sound so loud that my ears were ringing echoed. It sounded like... an explosion.
Both Sue's and my eyes were drawn to the rock above us. She looked at a hole on her side and I looked at a hole on my side. I don't know if she could see, but... I saw something.
I had a very limited view. Adrian had chosen a nice rock to cover us. If we stayed here quietly, we could really spend the night, but... I didn't care too much about that.
Because what I could see with my limited vision was a figure hurtling upward. Or rather... someone ascending into the sky as if he was climbing a staircase. But it was so fast that I thought it had shot up.
It was Adrian, this person. He was using the skill he had chosen at the awards ceremony almost a year ago, Platform.
But he was not the only person, or figure, to ascend. A wolf passed right after him, as if it was trying to leap up and reach for him. Immediately after him, another wolf appeared, then another... and more.
Adrian stopped ascending, if only briefly, when he realized that one of the wolves was getting too close to him. He twirled the spear he held in his hand, and with a simple thrust, swung it at the neck of the wolf only half a meter below him.
But the wolf did not stay still. It dodged the spear with its head tilted slightly to the side, receiving only a small cut. Then it opened its mouth and tried to bite Adrian's foot.
Adrian's emerald green eyes sparkled slightly. A blur, I couldn't quite make out what it was, surrounded his foot, and then this blur... seemed to solidify.
He put the foot he was protecting, or strengthening, into the wolf's mouth, aiming to bite it off as it was.
The wolf quickly closed its jaws. Countless cracks appeared on the solid blur that enveloped Adrian's foot. But Adrian, without waiting for it to disappear, took support from a Platform he had created beneath him, stretched as if he were kicking a ball, and pulled his foot hard enough to separate a normal wolf's jaw from its head.
But... he couldn't do what he wanted. This wolf was not a normal one, after all. The wolf's jaws buckled as if dislocated, yes, but he couldn't tear it completely apart. Still, it was enough for him. As the wolf whose jaws he had dislocated fell down, he realized that another wolf was right below him.
Without waiting a second, he rose a few meters higher. Soon, he was out of my limited sight. But there was no end to the wolves leaping after him.
I tried to see Adrian, I looked elsewhere in the small space where I could see out, but there was no angle from which I could see higher up.
I wanted to watch even more, I wanted to see with my own eyes that he had survived, that's why I watched with bated breath. But... I had no choice now but to hope for the best.
I paused for a moment, replaying the last thing I had thought.
Now... I used that word, but before that, what choice did I have but to 'hope for the best'? Since the moment I stepped into this dungeon, no... since that demon appeared in that dark street, the only thing I could do was trust Adrian.
All my life, I was considered the most talented person my age. Everyone said I would be the strongest of my generation, at least after Justin Malus. But... all I could do here was watch. There was nothing I could do but pray while someone my own age, who no one knew until a year ago, was out there fighting.
Do I... do I deserve all the praise I've been given?
This question suddenly appeared in my mind. But I didn't have the chance to answer it, because the moment I did, something unexpected happened.
First, I heard the slight howling of the wind, as if something... was moving fast. I couldn't make out what it was, but in less than a second, I realized that it was actually coming toward us and my eyes widened.
"Su-"
I was going to tell her to be careful... But I couldn't even do that. The moment I opened my mouth, the whole ground shook again as if something from the sky had fallen right on our edge. The dust from outside came in through the gaps in the rock above us.
Still, I had managed to protect myself, I was unhurt, so the first thing I did was check on Sue.
Sue had hit her head on the wall behind her from the concussion. She was holding her head with her left hand, which she could barely move because of the cramped position she was in. Her eyes were also slightly squinted. She seemed fine, though. Nothing serious... at least that's how she looked to me.
The next second, both Sue and I were stunned by a sound coming from just below the rock above us.
Whatever it was that shot out of the sky... it was a living thing. Because it was slowly getting up, we could hear it, and on top of that... it was right next to us. The only thing between us was the rock above us.
I didn't even look at what came out of the hole in the rock. because I was sure it wasn't Adrian, because if it was him, the wolves would have already pounced on him. So... what was next to us was a creature.
That thought was quickly confirmed by the growling sound we could clearly hear.
Moving slowly, the wolf began to move toward the point where Adrian had ascended. I could tell by the sound of its steps getting slightly farther away.
It hadn't noticed us. It didn't know we were here...
As I let out the breath I was holding, slowly, almost silently, I slowly looked out into the gap that was the only link between me and the outside. I could see the wolf moving away from us.
The wolf was... literally black. Some of its old wounds were still visible on it. But even these wounds were barely noticeable because of the blackness of its fur. It was about a meter and a half in height, just as Adrian had described it. There was only about two meters between us.
The wolf lifted its head upward, growling even more frighteningly toward the sky. It stretched, prepared to join its friends.
But... instead of doing what it was prepared to do, it suddenly stopped in its tracks for no apparent reason.
My eyes widened, I quickly ducked my head and tried to hide, because the last thing I could see was... the wolf turning its head in our direction.
Dozens of thoughts ran through my mind at once, each one playing out in my mind one by one.
Why did it turn toward us? Did it smell us...? No, could it really focus on us in this chaos? Maybe there was a very small distance between us, yes, but... if it could smell us, wouldn't it have tried to find us a long time ago?
There must be something, there must be a reason why it came back here...
With that in mind, I looked around our hiding place, looking for something that might attract the wolf, but... there was nothing like that. It was just Sue and me here.
But then... my eyes focused on Sue, or rather on her head, which she was still holding in her hand... in her hair.
And there, just between her fingers, there was something tiny. A red mark. A trail of blood.
I held my breath. Sue took her hands out of her hair when she realized I was looking in her direction. Her eyes widened when she saw the blood already drying between her fingers.
When she hit her head, she had gotten a small wound. It was so small that the amount of blood that came out of it was not even worth taking seriously... But this was a dungeon full of wolves.
The growl of the wolf outside turned toward us. It was looking at us, I could feel it, but I just waited, fingers over my lips, eyes closed in prayer. I listened to the sounds the wolf made as it slowly approached us, literally trembling with fear at the thought of our death approaching us with each passing second.
The chill of death seeped deeper into my skin, the wolf's growl came closer. It was right above me, not even a meter between us.
It had found us.
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