The spikes made of Earth were long and sharp, and stabbed all the way into the bear, piercing its organs. As a result of its vital organs being destroyed, it struggled on the spikes for a while, and then died.
"What the fuck just happened?" "Are those spikes?" "The bear's dead!"
The hikers all started speaking, their voices containing traces of confusion and fear.
James sat there, stunned. Those spikes weren't his doing. When he used his mana earlier, it was to bring his storage bag from the dungeon into the real world. Usually, summoning an item like a potion or a knife to the real world wouldn't take so much effort, even if James' mana pool was quite small. James wanted to pull out his entire storage bag, which had a massive capacity, so he struggled a bit. He was planning to make it up with a mana potion. He had a knife was in his hand, and he was about to throw it towards the bear.
But, the spikes, although not from him, were definitely the cause of magic. James could sense magic coming from the spikes, which was probably the reason they could stab into the bear so cleanly. This meant that someone in this group other than James, or maybe multiple people, was a dungeon explorer. James' thoughts immediately jumped to the blond siblings he had seen earlier.
He had learned about the dungeon's rules more in depth since two weeks ago, when he first learned about its existence. One was not supposed to use their powers outside of the dungeon unless one's life was in danger. James felt that this situation qualified, and evidently the other dungeon explorer thought so too.
But then, something he could not have imagined happened. People started fainting, one by one. All the hikers, Jack and Mo, the counselor, and even the two other bears began fainting. After a while, the only humans or animals left conscious were James and the little sister of the blond sibling pair.
James immediately understood that they were still conscious because they were dungeon explorers. But, he didn't know anything more than that. He walked closer to the blond girl. She was probably the person who cast those spikes of earth earlier. James didn't know magic, but with the trouble he had summoning his storage bag, he figured that using that much magic on Earth would be quite troublesome.
"Do you know what's going on?"
James was sure she was a dungeon explorer now. James could feel the pressure of mana coming from her and from her magic.
The girl, who looked to be about 15 or 16, shook her head.
"I've never seen anything like this happen before."
James tried shaking one of the unconscious hikers, but they didn't react at all. James also tried the same thing with the bears, but both the cub and the bear that James assumed to be the mother were out cold as well.
James scratched his head. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. They were still out in the middle of the woods in Oregon, and there was blood on the bears, which meant that something else might come, attracted by the smell of blood. He wasn't strong enough to carry them away.
"We'll have to wait for them to wake up, I guess. In the meantime, I should get them away from this blood. Should I drag them over one by one? That's the only way, I guess. It's not like I have the strength to move the bear."
But at this moment, he stiffened. The reason was he felt the presence of mana. When, the blond girl had unleashed her earth spike magic, there was magic left on the spikes and the surrounding area. However, the mana that James felt came from multiple sources.
"What?"
He spun around and double checked. When he located the mana sources, he was shocked.
"All the hikers have mana cores now!"
"What?"
The blond girl looked at him.
"How can you feel that? And, also…." she hesitated for a bit, but then continued on.
"You're obviously a dungeon explorer. And so am I. But these people are not. How could they possibly have a mana core? There's no mana on Earth."
James' brow creased. "What do you mean, how can I feel that? Can you not? Look, those spikes you sent out. There's plenty of mana over there, right?"
The blond girl stared at him. James was feeling a bit uncomfortable with her relentless gaze. Then, she spoke.
"There's only a very faint trace over there. I can barely even detect it. The spell is over, and the spikes aren't hardened with magic anymore."
James paused. This girl seemed to be a magician, or at least knew earth magic. Her affinity to mana should be much better than James, who couldn't even feel his mana core. But, from what he'd seen here, evidently, his mana detection ability was quite high.
But then, his thoughts were cut short when he realized something – the bears also had mana cores within them.
"I don't know if you'll believe me, I can sense a faint mana flow coming from all the hikers. As a matter of fact, the bears also have mana cores now. I think it's because…that spell earlier."
"The leftover mana from my spell?"
"Yes."
"…that…shouldn't be possible."
James and the blond girl stared at each other for a few breaths. James looked over this girl. She should've been much stronger than him, at least in the dungeon. Her presence was, if James had to estimate, around a third of that of Leah's, Beck's, or Mike's, after she had spent mana on that previous attack. Personally, James felt like that attack was overkill, but he had no experience with magic.
James wasn't sure if the difficulty of the dungeon scaled linearly with the floor number, but if it was, then James would place her around the 10th floor from just her presence. That was much higher than James. However, here on Earth, magic was limited by the amount of mana available. Earth's lack of mana made it a completely different animal from being in the dungeon. It was likely she was a magician.
James wasn't sure how he sized up in the eyes of that blond girl. The air was rather tense. However, James felt another change in the mana flow. Evidently, this change was large enough for the blond girl to sense as well, because they both looked over to the where the bears were at the same time.
Both bears were starting to regain their consciousness. However, something about the big bear put James on guard. Well, the fact that the big bear was bigger and more likely to kill him was one thing. But James felt goose bumps rise on his skin when he looked at the mother bear.
Then, as the mother bear opened its eyes, James realized what was happening. Those eyes were now glowing red. The mother bear had become a monster.