The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 122

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 122. Extreme Circumstances (2)
The next day.
After preparing for the outing, I arrived at the designated meeting spot and waited for Elisha.
I sat in the shade to escape the relentless summer sun for about ten minutes.
Vroooom.
With the sound of an engine, Elisha’s magical vehicle pulled up in front of me.
The window rolled down, and Elisha, wearing sunglasses, gave a casual wave.
“Did you wait long?”
“No. I arrived about ten minutes ago myself.”
“Get in.”
I loaded my luggage into the back seat and settled into the passenger seat.
“You’re not bringing much.”
“Well, we’re not going far.”
Besides, the moment we entered ‘that place,’ most of what we brought from outside would become useless anyway.
“By the way, I never did hear where we’re going.”
“You’re asking me to come along without even knowing where we’re headed?”
“Hehe. I owe Dale quite a debt for all the help you’ve given me.”
Watching Elisha shrug her shoulders with feigned innocence, I stifled a laugh.
“Well… once we get there, you’ll figure out where it is, Professor Elisha.”
After all, I’d been there just a few days ago.
“Hmm. I understand. Which way should I go?”
“Just keep going straight this way.”
And so I set off toward my destination in Elisha’s magical vehicle.
After about twenty minutes of driving, we arrived at a mountain not far from the Academy.
“This is…”
“Do you recognize it?”
“Isn’t this the mountain with the entrance to the Underground Ruins beneath the Academy?”
“That’s right.”
The Underground Ruins beneath the Academy where the final evaluation had taken place.
The entrance to the Ruins—so vast it resembled an enormous underground city—was located within this mountain.
‘During the exam, we moved via warp gate, so most Candidates don’t know about this entrance.’
Now that the exam had ended and all the warp gates had been collected, we had no choice but to enter through this entrance.
“You said you’d create an extreme circumstance this time, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“…But why come here? All the guardian golems have been cleared out, so it should be completely empty.”
The vast Underground Ruins beneath the Hero Academy.
Due to its expansive and complex structure, it was used for final evaluations and various practical training, but ordinarily it was nothing but an empty Ruin.
“I don’t think the extreme circumstance you’re looking for would occur in this place.”
“That’s fine. The destination is deeper than this, after all.”
“…Deeper, you say?”
Elisha furrowed her brow, her expression asking what sort of nonsensical thing I was saying.
“Have you ever heard the story that a Demon God is sealed beneath the Hero Academy?”
“Of course I know.”
Five hundred years ago, the Sun Swordsman Reynald had sealed the Demon God, and the school was built upon that very ground—a fact known to every person across the Continent.
“Then do you know precisely how far beneath the Academy the Demon God is buried?”
“Well… it would be somewhere so deep that human hands could never reach it.”
Everyone knew that the Five Great Heroes had sealed the Demon God here, but the exact location of the seal had never been revealed.
It was only said that the Demon God had been sealed in the Abyss—a place humans could never possibly reach.
“It’s the sixth layer.”
“The sixth layer…?”
“And this Ruin is precisely the first layer of the Abyss where the Demon God was sealed.”
“…!”
Elisha’s eyes widened, her mouth falling open in shock.
“Wait. What did you just say? This Ruin is the Abyss where the Demon God was sealed?”
“Haven’t you found that strange?”
I gestured around the Underground Ruins, which sprawled with the vastness of an underground city.
In terms of total area alone, the Underground Ruins boasted dimensions far exceeding the entire Academy.
“The fact that such an expansive Ruin exists directly beneath the Academy.”
The Demon God sealed beneath the Academy.
The massive Underground Ruins located beneath the Academy.
Connecting the two was hardly a difficult logical leap.
“Naturally, countless heroes before you, Dale, have made the same claim. But in the five hundred years since, no passage leading ‘beneath’ this Ruin has ever been discovered.”
“Well, that makes sense.”
I shrugged and nodded.
“Because a physical passage to the layers below doesn’t actually exist.”
“…Are you playing word games with me right now?”
Elisha’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
I suppressed a smirk and shook my head.
“No. What I’m saying is that no physical passage exists—that’s all.”
“No physical passage exists, you say….”
Elisha’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“How did we enter this Ruin during the final evaluation?”
“…Are you saying a warp to the lower layers exists?”
“Yes. Though first, the hidden magic circle within the Ruin must be activated before the warp becomes functional.”
“Hah.”
Elisha pressed her forehead as if her head ached, stifling a hollow laugh.
“…How could no one discover this fact in five hundred years?”
If the Ruin itself had been a hidden location, that would be one thing.
For the past five hundred years, hundreds and thousands of Candidates had taken examinations and received practical training here.
A Ruin with holographic maps visible simply by activating a Hero Watch—and yet within it existed a warp that no one had discovered in five hundred years.
Even knowing that Dale was a “Returner,” the words were difficult to accept at face value.
“Well, it’s understandable you wouldn’t know. They deliberately erased information about the Abyss.”
“Erased information? Who did?”
“Who else?”
I pointed upward toward the ceiling of the Underground Ruins.
More precisely, toward the Hero Academy built above it.
“The ones who sealed the Demon God.”
“Are you saying the Five Great Heroes concealed information about the Abyss?”
“It’s not information that benefits anyone if it spreads, is it?”
“Hmm. Indeed… that’s a fair point.”
Elisha nodded slowly, stroking her chin.
From their perspective, it certainly would have been undesirable for information about the Abyss to become widespread.
“Then, shall we depart?”
“…Very well.”
Elisha nodded gravely and followed behind me.
My destination was the center of the Ruins.
Rather than a maze-like terrain blocked by towering rock formations, it was an open clearing.
“Here it is.”
“…A magic circle is hidden here?”
Elisha squinted as she surveyed the surroundings.
Her violet eyes gleamed with vertical pupils of black, her ominous gaze shimmering.
“Tsk.”
As I’d anticipated.
Even with her Insight’s Blessing, there was nothing that resembled a magic circle in sight.
“Haha. If this were a magic circle that could be revealed by Insight’s Blessing, it would have been discovered long ago.”
“Ugh.”
Her Insight’s Blessing excelled at perceiving the interior or inner nature of living beings, but it wasn’t particularly effective at uncovering hidden magic circles like this.
‘Magic circles don’t have bodily fluids, after all.’
The Insight’s Blessing only manifested its true power when she directly absorbed an opponent’s bodily fluids.
“Please step back for a moment.”
I placed my hand on the floor of the Ruins and slowly channeled my mana into it.
This was my first time directly activating the warp leading to the Abyss, but I didn’t expect to fail.
‘This magic circle’s core structure was built based on the Great Sage’s three riddles, after all.’
And I had already solved all but one of those three riddles.
Uuuuuuuuung!
A magic circle erupted with light in the empty air, and the Ruin Interior trembled.
Complex mana patterns tangled in the void, swirling around us.
Like characters separating from a page and freely swimming through empty space.
Ziiiiiiing.
Strings of blue light converged in one place, forming a warp gate.
“Well, you may enter now.”
“Hah….”
Elisha gazed at the warp gate, constructed with almost absurd simplicity, and stifled a hollow laugh.
“Will this warp gate remain open?”
“No. It should close automatically in about three days.”
To open the warp gate again after that would require at least a month or more.
“Let’s go.”
I stepped slowly into the warp gate.
Elisha nodded and followed behind me.
Whoooooom!
My body felt weightless, and my vision flickered.
“Is this… the Abyss?”
Elisha squinted as she surveyed her surroundings.
The interior glowed with a faint crimson light.
A desolate expanse of ashen stone and parched earth stretched before us.
“Yes. This is the second floor.”
“…Dale.”
Elisha’s expression hardened as she scanned the area.
“A demon beast.”
From behind a towering outcropping of ashen rock.
A demon beast emerged, prowling forward.
“Screeeee. Screech.”
A creature resembling a rat magnified dozens, perhaps hundreds of times over.
Before its massive head, four pairs of eyes gleamed with an eerie light.
“Screeeeeeeech!”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The demon beast charged forward, shaking the very earth.
“Bind it.”
Elisha swiftly unleashed dozens of silver threads, ensnaring the demon beast’s body.
“Screech!”
Bound by the silver threads, the demon beast thrashed violently.
I pushed off with my feet and rushed toward it.
Crash!
I leaped high, executed a full aerial rotation, and drove my heel down directly onto the creature’s crown.
Berald martial arts.
Lightning strike.
Crunch-crack-crack-crack!
With the sound of shattering bone, the demon beast’s eyes burst from their sockets and rolled across the ground.
“Hm.”
Elisha squinted down at the corpse of the demon beast, its head crushed, and frowned.
“Eight-star magical beasts right upon arrival….”
Though I’d dispatched it with relative ease, that was only because she and I were heroes of exceptional caliber—the beast itself was far from weak.
“There’s no need for alarm. This is simply how such places are.”
Magical beasts dwelling in the Abyss, influenced by the Demon God’s presence, possessed far greater power on average than their surface-dwelling counterparts.
“Eight-star beasts roam about like stray dogs here.”
“….”
Elisha had clamped her mouth shut, apparently lacking even the energy for a hollow laugh.
“Indeed… if this is the place, then Dale’s words about experiencing ‘extreme circumstances’ would certainly hold true.”
“No. This isn’t where I intended to go.”
“…Not here?”
“Level 3.”
I held up three fingers.
“One floor deeper than this is my destination.”
“….”
Elisha’s expression darkened considerably.
The emotion that surfaced in that look, if put into words, would be something like:
‘Why did I follow along?’
Precisely that.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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