2.30.

Sequencee's walked past him.

"Let's go."

"Haa.. this is an isekai, so we should explore things together haha–" Risa said sarcastically. She grabbed one of Shiro's hands.

"Master.. I will follow," Linzy grabbed his other hand.

"If this is the wish of the hero, I shall obey," Evelyn responded reluctantly.

"Guys.."

Shiro couldn't explain the sentiment he was feeling at this moment but..

"Thank you.."

He was grateful.

"I'll incapacitate the shrew," Sequencee announced.

The crazy shrew had a defining characteristic whereby it'll only attack at two key moments. When its prey is in a position where it can have a first advantage or, when pushed to a corner. What makes this monster an A-rank isn't because of it's hard-to-kill-nature, stupidly fast movements, small stature, nor of its violent behavior when agitated– rather, the most dangerous aspect about it comes from the factor of terrain– the enclosed environment of the dungeon made it a beast to reckon with.

Should the crazy strew try to attack people in an open space, it would struggle to achieve anything.

Moreover, unlike the dirt ground on the normal dungeon path, this floor here was made of hardened rock. The crazy shrew had no advantage in digging into the earth to flee.

"It's no harder than a D-rank."

Strategy beats skill sometimes.

The shrew backed itself up to a corner between the wall and ledge. Sequencee had already prepared his trap, all that was left was to push it into a desperate state.

He conjured a slow moving fireball. As it flew closer, the shrew reacted and charged at him–

The shrew hit a lattice structure made invisible by [Illusion Magic: Universal Haze], marking a trigger, a glacier quickly formed with the shrew frozen within.

That fireball was a hoax. The real magic here was a trap made using a fusion of glacier and summoning magic.

"Risa."

"Roger that hiyah!!"

One gold line severed the ice into two; the shrew cut in half.

Risa quickly stowed the shrew corpse into her inventory. The fact that its blood had been frozen was a plus because of the minused mess.

"With this we got the crazy shrew! Easier than I thought," Risa cheered.

All they had left was the basilisk, which they would likely encounter as they made their way to the termination point to declare their examination over..

.. Or so they wished.

Sequencee and Risa turned to Shiro who stood before the colossal gate.

He examined the key in hand and compared it to the tiny keyhole found in between the two handles protruding from the snouts of steel dragon heads. The larger than mammoth size gate had been engraved with countless variants of dragon through the ages. The sharp tangents, razor scales and intense eyes looked life-like, emanating a grandeur air of its own.

The metal in which the gate was forged from is what Sequencee guessed to be black iron. A rare material mined exclusively from the Black Ravine, often used in the make up of alloys for building foundation, served as an excellent ingredient in crafting swords, staffs, and used as a stabilizer for alchemy processes which he wasn't familiar with.

Nevertheless, the fact that the entire gate was made of pure black iron spoke for itself.

"Are you sure about this.." Evelyn warned once more.

The gray key suited the lock, seen vibrating intensely, even shining in a dim gray light.

"I'm sorry if this gets anyone in trouble," Shiro uttered.

"We're in this together anyways.." Sequence mumbled.

He knew for one, people like his mom were impossible to convince. As such, there was only one thing he could do.

– Shiro inserted the key.

Can't beat em', join em.

– And twisted it.

Loud cranking sounds echoed throughout the cavern, a soft rumbling could be felt being transmitted from the door to the ground below them. With a heavy sound, the lock fell from its place. The rumbling stopped and silence returned.

"We go in."

At Shiro's words, everyone readied themselves. He placed both hands against the two massive doors and pushed. For a moment he thought he had cringed himself, realizing how his strength of a measly D- shouldn't have been able to budge something so heavy when surprisingly, the internal structure of the door whipped into action to the sounds of gears turning. The weight of the thing felt no different from your typical heavy door thanks to the mechanism built into it.

A dark space was seen within. From the limited amount of light leaking in from the outside, Shiro was able to make out– a library.

"Sequencee."

"Got it."

He sent the light beads into the room. It illuminated this circular athenaeum which spanned multiple floors both up and down. Contrasting the bleak gray dungeon, the place looked like an archaic study. Red carpets, wood planked floors, the old scent of ancient books. From just once glance alone, you could tell that there were at least ten thousand books here, with shelves packed top to bottom with ladders leading up to the different levels.

Sequencee increased the number of light beads to two hundred and spread them across the many floors.

Shiro walked forward and leaned against the rails. He looked down to find a large secretaire in the centermost point of this closed off domain. Books strewn across the top with maps, fountain pens, rulers, a globe, gold compass, sextant and many other astrological-type tools which Shiro didn't think he knew.

He took the carpeted stairs down with everyone following closely behind him.

Reaching the secretair, he examined the supplies. The map of the continent during the Last Era, neatly written notes which Shiro found hard to believe were once Rika's. His attention was caught by a book left to the side. He picked it up and sweeped the dust off the cover.

He opened the preface.

– Dedicated to the hero after me, whoever it may be.

It was written in Japanese, causing an incongruence to brew within him. He flipped to the next page.

– World map.

– Records of Hero's that have come before me.

– Origin of hero summoning.

– Magic array formulae for hero summoning.

– Decoding what it takes to summon an otherworlder.

– Relation of space and dimension to alternative worlds.

– Relation of mana and magic to space and dimensions.

– Rizal's theorem.

– Bartonn's theorem.

– Attempts to reverse hero summoning.

– Possible hypotheses and ideas to return to Earth.

– Hope and wishes.

All written in Japanese. Only he and Risa could understand the significance of this enchiridion.

Shiro felt his throat choke up, tears clogged in his eyelids. The thought of her desperate attempts to return, the repeated failures, suffering, pains she had to go through for this to ironically end up in his hands. How much she had grown– how much she had changed in the absence of his presence.

"Damn.. it.."

Shiro's grip on the book tightened.

"I'm sorry Rika.. I'm sorry.."

Tears blurred his vision; emotions cracked under the weight of the reality before him.

Sequencee remained silent. Despite being a demon, he admired Hero Rika for everything she had done for the world. Seeing her lover in anguish left a bitter taste in his mouth yet– what could he do?

Sequencee suppressed the urge to ask about the contents of the book as it was written in a language he couldn't understand.

Risa felt helpless herself. Her rare crestfallen gaze made the mood of the team all the much more severe.

After a long while, Shiro spoke.

"We're going back."

"Master–" Linzy called out in concern.

"I'm sorry for worrying you. I feel much better now," with eyes still reddened, Shiro carrassed Linzy's hair.

"What do we do about the rest of these? Are you not going to take it with you? These are all.. Hero Rika's," Evelyn swept a revering glance at everything. There were still many archaic articles that they hadn't touched. One could tell indefinitely that this discovery was worth more than anything anyone could find scouring the Black Ravine for artifacts.

"I think.. this book should be enough. I'll leave the rest of the place to the other's. I don't think I can possibly carry all these back myself."

"Can't we keep this place a secret?" Risa said.

"In my opinion at least, I think we should let the archaeologist and historians help digest the information here. There might be some clues to the past we can find from this but– we're heroes, we don't have the time to read everything. I definitely won't be able to keep my mind intact."

Risa nodded in agreement after hearing Shiro's reasoning. To read all the books here? Hell, she might as well jump off a bridge.

"Sorry for this, Sequencee, Evelyn. And thanks. I've found something important."

"Mn.. I didn't really do anything," Sequencee simply thought it was a relief that nothing bad happened.

"No. If it weren't for your insistence you wouldn't have found this," Evelyn said with a sad smile. It was as if she were trying to ridicule herself.

"Let's get the news out as soon as possible," Shiro stored the book into his inventory and advanced.

The team went back up the stairs and exited the athenaeum. The gate, as if responding to them leaving began to close with a rumble. With a resounding click, it confirmed the securement of the vault. The lock returned to its original position, as if it had never been tampered with to begin with.

"Ah? So it's locked now.. wow." Risa rubbed her eyes, twice. With such convenience, they didn't need to worry about people trying to steal stuff. Since only they had the key, they were the owners of the place.

"I think Rika used to come here to hang out, otherwise I wouldn't have found this key in her other study at the pagoda," Shiro reasoned.

"Should be," Risa agreed.

A large whirlpool began to form in the water below.

Rumble–

Swoosh–

The noise of rolling water echoed intensely throughout the cave just as they reached the middle portion of the bridge.

"What's.." Risa peered off the edge of the bridge just to find her being frozen stiff by the sudden oppression.

"Hm? What is.."

"HUh?"

"M-Master I feel sick.."

"GET AWAY!!"

A thundering explosion.

Sequencee didn't need to look to know what was happening. A domineering pressure so great it would incapacitate anyone who didn't know any better.

He quickly transmuted the entire bridge into a wall and froze as much ice as he could below. Pushing himself to the limit, the illusion spell wore off, revealing his horns.

'Limit the range of choices.'

Iona's voice echoed in his mind.

But he couldn't do it. Not in this sort of situation. His honed instincts from the many adventures of his past got the better of him.

The scale of the rampage he created which would have normally been able to stop the crash of half a dozen mana trains. But it was seen as pointless as the creature broke everything apart with a mortifying ram. Large boulders and ice fell, creating a crash which finally woke them out from their stupor. The entire cavern shook wildly.

By then Sequencee had already begun his next bombardment.

Taking inspiration from Schwii and Nynim, he contrived a large magic array above and rained a hell of molten red comets down towards the creature. He knew it was a futile effort for a monster this size but he needed to do something to delay its movements while everyone made a run for it.

"R-RUNN!!" Risa finally came to.