[Lifespan Remaining: 25 days, 8 hours, 46 minutes.]
CLICK—!
In his thoughts, Noct hadn’t managed to check where he was stepping. He looked down, finding a square outline under the dirt, with the stone inside sinking slightly under his weight.
’Ah...shit.’
"Young Master!"
Noelle’s eyes widened just as dust spilled between the ceiling stones, before Noct could move, she lunged toward him.
Both hands pushed his back with force, causing him to stumble forward, where his heel caught on the uneven floor and he landed hard on his back. Through the falling dust, he caught a glimpse of Noelle throwing herself in the opposite direction.
Before...
CRAAAAAAAASH—!
Noct covered his head as rocks struck the ground where he had been standing. A broken support beam crashed onto the growing pile, followed by another wave of stone that shook the entire passage.
"Noelle!"
"..."
"Young Master! Are you hurt?!" Her voice came from the other side. "Please wait! I—I’ll try to find a way through this thing!"
Noct lowered his arms and coughed into his sleeve. Dust filled the tunnel, obscuring a wall of fallen stone that now stretched from the floor to what remained of the ceiling.
’Damn it...even a trap in a place like this?’
"Noelle! How soon can you get over here?"
When she didn’t answer immediately, that was enough to tell him all he needed. Noct had no idea how long they had left, or whether his brother had already begun whatever he intended to do.
But time was running out.
"The Baron," Noct said loudly. "Noelle, I need you to go to Baron Altaire’s estate."
"What? Why?!" she replied as the scraping sounds stopped. "Young Master, I can’t leave you here alone!"
"Faust ordered Don Maverick to silence him. I heard them at the banquet. Whatever the Baron knows, it’s enough for him to spill all the evidence we need."
"B—but..."
"And Don has something that can cure the people affected by the mist. A potion. I saw him give it to one of his knights," Noct restated.
He reached into his pocket and felt the firm metal of his Arcadian plaque, before pulling it out and holding it against the stone path. Noct knew she couldn’t see it, but he knew this was the only way.
"Noelle Rion."
The metal grew warm in his fingers. "By my authority as Noct de Arcadia, I charge you with the protection of Baron Altaire and the recovery of the cure. Until those duties are fulfilled, you are relieved of your obligation to remain at my side."
"Young Master...?"
"Let the primordial mana witness this command."
On the other side, Noelle’s breath caught. There was no magic forcing her to obey, Noct knew that. But he also knew what her duties meant to her.
According to House Arcadia laws, if a servant does not follow their master’s command, they would be forced to leave the household. And Even if there was no one else here to enforce said laws...
Someone like Noelle took them very seriously.
"That’s unfair, Young Master..."
"I’m sorry."
He heard her shoes scrape against the floor, followed by a slow, reluctant step away from the obstruction. After a moment of silence, she spoke again.
"Please stay safe..."
"I promise that I’ll just find out what he’s doing and bring it back to Lenia."
"...Alright."
Just like that, Noct stayed to listen to her footsteps running the other way. And when she was finally gone, he inhaled a nervous breath.
"Guess I’m on my own for this one..."
As he knew that he could never beat Faust, even before he got those weird powers, Noct knew this was shaping up to be a stealth mission. He dug into his memories for that spell that Noelle had used once to ambush the assassins sent to his bedroom.
How she had disappeared from sight, even managing to erase her presence. Noct tried to remember the mana that she had used, how she cast it. And before long...
〔Skill Acquired: Shadow Magic [★]〕
[Curtain of Darkness has been added to Known Spells.]
"O darkness, replicate the night and hide me from my enemy’s sight."
?Alter Shade: Gardine?
Like she had done before, Noct reached into his own shadow and pulled it over himself like a thin veil. From the inside, he felt like that one movie, the one where the protagonist had used an invisibility cloak.
But still, it had worked.
He could barely see his own hands, and even his footsteps had become much quieter than usual. It still didn’t help his nervousness, but it was at least something to rely on.
[Lifespan Remaining: 25 days, 8 hours, 22 minutes.]
Luckily, Noct had prepared his sling bag beforehand in emergency. It contained a few mana crystals taken from Lenia’s spire as well as ?Compendium of Two-Star Magic? just in case things went south.
While on the carriage toward Altaire, he had already attempted to memorize them all at once. But doing so caused his head to start thumping like someone drilled a hole through his head.
Consequently, he forgot most of what he read. Even some basic spells like [Wind Blade] were beginning to dim in his memory. So the only conclusion he came up with as to why this was happening was the fact that he was at the limit of what a 1-Star Mage could do.
’I need to hurry up and advance my class as soon as possible...’
Secondly, Noct also discovered the fact that [Mana-Lifeforce Synthesis] had a cooldown. After absorbing a mana crystal, there would be a timer of roughly thirty minutes before he could absorb another.
Evidently, this made mana crystals less efficient than Noct had hoped. Each one granted an hour, but the thirty-minute cooldown meant that continuously consuming them produced a net gain of only thirty minutes per crystal.
Obviously, he couldn’t just consume a handful of them whenever he wanted to cast a stronger spell. Still, it was quite good in a pinch when he needed lifeforce quickly.
And he had only tested standard mana crystals. There was no telling what would happen when he tried absorbing higher purity ones.
But Noct would also have to find out a better way to extract mana from said crystals, as draining them one by one seemed highly inefficient. Or find a way to bypass the cooldown.
"Urghh, too many problems and not enough lifespan..."
Noct descended the cavern until it eventually flattened out, indicating that he had reached some kind of uniform level. His instincts were even more confirmed, as a sound could be heard nearby.
Drip...drip...drip...
’Water?’
He followed the sensation, and by the time Noct turned the corner, his entire body froze as he stared in awe at the sight before him.
An enormous cavern that was mostly occupied by a vast underground lake. Its surface was so calm that it resembled a sheet of dark glass. Responsible for the light were the hundreds—no, thousands of mana crystals that protruded from the cavern walls.
Some were no larger than fingernails, scattered across the stone like a starry night sky. While others were clumped in clusters the size of Noct’s fist, reflected in the lake’s clear water.
"So this is the Altaire Crystal Mine..."
Calling it a mine hardly felt appropriate. Mines were dark, suffocating places where laborers tore valuables from stone. It was... an oasis, something not meant for human eyes.
Something shifted inside Noct’s coat. The small fairy poked its head out of his pocket, staring at the cavern with widened eyes. A moment later, it slipped free and floated toward the lake.
And as if drawing power from the place, its once dim light had now returned to a radiant green. But that wasn’t all that happened.
Ripples appeared across the water beneath it, as several blue lights rose between the crystals. But from here, Noct could tell what they obviously were...
Water spirits, specifically nymphs.
They took the form of pretty much any sea creature. From jellyfish, eels, and even various kinds of fish and sharks, they were all here. Far too many for Noct to count.
They had avoided Lenia for more than five years, yet an entire colony had been living practically underneath her feet. Threads of blue mana drifted from the spirits and sank into the surrounding stone. What looked like just normal rocks were slowly turning a blue hue, turning into crystals.
"So I was right—"
The mana crystals weren’t attracting spirits to Altaire. The spirits were producing conditions that allowed mana crystals to form.
"...All along."