Infinite Mana - Chapter 163: Everyone Else Was Leaving (Thank you for your support, Stubbe!) (Patreon)

The breach through the collapsed passage was barely wide enough for two people to squeeze through at once, yet the trapped expedition did not hesitate. The moment Morran called them forward, they began crossing as quickly as their battered bodies allowed. The first miners stumbled through covered in dust, dried blood, and torn clothing. Several carried broken pickaxes as improvised weapons, while others supported injured companions whose legs shook badly enough that standing without help seemed almost impossible.

They looked exhausted beyond anything Sieghart had seen outside a battlefield. Hollow eyes, trembling hands, cracked lips, and sluggish movements showed exactly what three days of limited food, little sleep, and nearly constant fighting had done. Still, the moment each person crossed the breach, they kept moving instead of collapsing. Fear supplied whatever strength their bodies had stopped providing, and every survivor glanced repeatedly toward the dark tunnel behind them.

“Keep going!”

“The big one is still around!”

“Don’t stop here!”

Those warnings passed from one person to another while Morran and the rescue workers pulled people through, cleared space, and directed the wounded toward the route leading back toward the surface.

Sieghart stayed near the opening with Magic Vision active. Mana kept shifting behind the retreating expedition in broad, ugly waves, far larger than the disturbances created by the smaller earthworms they had encountered earlier. A guard with a shattered shield came next, followed by two miners carrying an unconscious man between them. Another woman crawled through with blood covering one sleeve but immediately turned around to help whoever followed.

Morran counted everyone under his breath as they emerged. His expression tightened whenever several seconds passed without another face appearing, then relaxed slightly each time movement returned behind the rubble.

Finally, a young woman appeared at the far side of the breach, moving much slower than everyone before her. Morran immediately stepped closer, and the tension around his eyes changed into unmistakable recognition.

Lysa looked somewhere around nineteen or twenty, with shoulder-length chestnut hair stuck messily against her cheeks by sweat and dust. A torn green traveling cloak hung from one shoulder over practical leather armor marked by dozens of fresh scratches. Her face was narrow and pale from exhaustion, with gray-blue eyes surrounded by dark circles deep enough to make her look ill. Several small cuts crossed her forehead, while dried blood stained one side of her jaw.

A simple wooden staff remained clenched in her right hand, though she used it more like a walking stick than a weapon. Faded blue crystals were embedded near its head, every one of them dull and almost completely drained. Sieghart only needed Magic Vision for a second to understand why. Lysa’s mana pool looked nearly empty, reduced to weak currents struggling through channels that had probably been forced to operate far beyond comfortable limits.

That made her role obvious. Lysa had been the expedition’s support mage, and from the exhausted way she crossed last while checking everyone behind her, she had apparently spent three days keeping the rest alive.Lysa squeezed through the breach and nearly fell before Morran caught her by both shoulders. She forced herself upright immediately, then looked past him toward the unstable rubble instead of celebrating their reunion.

“Uncle, we have to move.”

Morran frowned.

“Everyone’s through.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

Lysa tightened her grip around the staff.

“Those rocks won’t stop that thing.”

A heavy impact rolled through the blocked tunnel almost immediately, making the newly reinforced supports creak. Dust fell from the ceiling while several survivors flinched and started moving faster without waiting for another order. Morran did not argue.

“Full retreat!”

Rescue workers abandoned everything that was not essential, leaving damaged tools, spare timber, empty crates, and several pieces of equipment behind while helping the exhausted expedition move through the tunnels.

Nobody cared about recovering supplies anymore. Whatever confidence the demolition team had possessed before hearing the trapped group’s warnings disappeared once repeated impacts began shaking the mountain directly behind them again. The retreat became increasingly frantic whenever another distant impact echoed through the dungeon. Sieghart followed the group for several turns, watching mana disturbances surge repeatedly through walls instead of staying inside the existing passages.

That told him the large creature was not merely following them through open tunnels. It was burrowing directly through the mountain, which made every barrier behind the retreating expedition temporary at best.

By the time the first members reached the dungeon entrance, several injured miners were barely conscious. People from the camp rushed forward with stretchers, water, blankets, and healing supplies before anyone finished explaining what had happened. The sight of open sky changed the survivors immediately. Some laughed, others dropped onto the ground, and several simply stood beneath the moonlight staring upward as though they had forgotten how large the world looked.

Morran emerged near the middle of the group with one arm around Lysa’s waist, supporting most of her weight while she stubbornly tried walking without help despite barely keeping her eyes open.

She managed perhaps twenty steps before her knees folded beneath her. Morran caught her before her head struck the ground and immediately lowered her onto the grass, calling for a healer with visibly shaking hands. For several long seconds, fear returned to Morran’s face despite having already escaped the dungeon. The healer checked Lysa’s breathing and pulse, then pressed two fingers against her forehead while faint White Magic spread across her body.

“She’s fine.”

Morran exhaled slowly.

“Just exhausted?”

“And almost completely drained.”

The healer glanced toward Lysa.

“Food, water, sleep. No magic for a while.”

Morran remained beside Lysa until the healer confirmed she was merely exhausted and almost completely drained of mana. Only then did the tension finally leave his shoulders enough for him to breathe normally again. Once he knew his niece was safe, Morran stood and looked around the crowded camp for Sieghart. He searched past miners, guards, healers, demolition workers, and rescued expedition members without finding the young mage anywhere.

He checked near the supply wagons next, then beside the strange horseless carriage where Sieghart logically should have returned. The driver’s seat remained empty, and that was when Morran’s expression slowly changed.

“Sieg?”

Nobody answered. Thinking back over the retreat, Morran realized he could remember Sieghart following them through several turns, but not crossing the final passages or emerging into the camp with everyone else. He slowly turned toward the dungeon entrance beneath the mountain, already knowing the answer before anybody confirmed it. The young mage who had just helped rescue everyone had apparently chosen the exact moment of evacuation to disappear deeper underground.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Far below the surface, Sieghart walked in the opposite direction from everyone else. The sounds of the retreat had faded behind him, replaced by dripping water, distant scraping, and occasional tremors passing through the stone. He had stayed with the group long enough to make certain everyone could retreat safely. Once the survivors reached the clearer upper passages, continuing outside with them stopped accomplishing anything useful for his actual goals.

The dungeon remained almost completely unexplored from Sieghart’s perspective. Worse, leaving now would mean ignoring a perfect environment for testing Magic Vision, refining combat spells, and studying creatures that attacked from unpredictable directions.

He crouched beside another earthworm killed during the retreat and cut into its soft tissue until his fingers found the small mana core buried near the center of its segmented body. The core looked almost identical to the first one he collected, filled with dense brown mana rather than the disturbing dark-red coloration he had learned to associate with corrupted creatures.

That distinction made the decision considerably easier. Sieghart closed his fingers around the core, pulled the contained mana toward himself, and felt the energy dissolve into the familiar bottomless reservoir behind his ordinary magical pathways. Warm energy moved through him for only a moment before the System responded. Nothing strange followed the absorption, leaving Sieghart considerably more comfortable than after any of his previous experiments with corrupted cores.

[ Experience Gained + 20]

Sieghart looked at the notification.

Twenty Experience was hardly impressive, but it was still progress. More importantly, no alien rage, body-replacement obsession, or desire to raise corpses followed the absorption, making ordinary monster cores feel refreshingly uneventful. Sieghart stood and activated Magic Vision again while looking deeper into the passage. Mana disturbances shifted throughout the surrounding stone, revealing several smaller earthworms and one enormous presence moving somewhere farther below.

“This isn’t a corrupted core.”

Nothing he had seen suggested corruption so far, which meant the dungeon probably would not hand him another dangerous magical branch simply for eating its monsters’ cores. That did not make the opportunity useless.

The smaller worms attacked from walls, floors, and ceilings with little warning, forcing Sieghart to read environmental mana instead of relying entirely upon direct sight or simply overwhelming everything with raw firepower. The dungeon’s mana-rich stone also resisted several spells more effectively than ordinary terrain, demanding greater output and better control whenever he wanted to cut, move, freeze, or reshape the environment.

“This is still a good chance to sharpen my skills and fighting ability.”

And somewhere ahead, an earthworm large enough to terrify an entire expedition was moving through the mountain. Fighting it voluntarily sounded questionable, which meant it would probably teach him something useful.

“Can’t let it go to waste.”

Sieghart smiled faintly and continued deeper into the dungeon, leaving the distant rescue camp behind while the enormous mana disturbance slowly shifted somewhere beneath his feet, promising considerably better training ahead.