After a brief moment of looking back at Rudolf and the others whom he remembered, Daron hurried to catch up.
Doug, Patrice along with the two other apprentice mages from her group, and Charles along with the other 2 apprentices from his group, quickly followed behind Daron. The four other apprentices who had originally held onto the ship soon followed, with pale faces as they had seen their only remaining Novice knight being burned to ashes in an instant.
With a slow creak, the door was opened by the hooded man and bright light shone through from the other side, causing all the apprentices present to squint their eyes, since their vision had been accustomed to the darkness within the dungeon.
In front of them was an open field with freshly cut grass, with dew shining under the bright sun. Surrounding the grass was an enormous forest, however, all the leaves on the trees had withered for some reason, leaving the black bark to face the elements. A rather odd combination of life and death so close to each other.
The hooded man did not say a single thing and just kept walking on the grass as though he did not notice the oddity of the grass and trees around it.
All of a sudden, he stopped walking and raised his foot before stomping down into the ground with a force that was pathetically weak. However, ripples appeared on the ground, starting from the location where he had placed his foot and spreading out in a circle, before the ground suddenly shot out a cylinder made up of dark grey stone.
On the part of the cylinder facing the apprentices, there was a plain wooden door, exactly the same as the one they had come from.
Instinctively, Daron turned around and noticed that the location they had come from was another pillar of grey stone, on which there was a wooden door. The stairs they had climbed were still visible. However, in front of his eyes, the grey cylinder slid back into the ground as the stairs were cut in half due to the change in heights.
The hooded man, who Daron assumed to be at least at Intermediate Apprentice level, did not react to the reactions of the beginner apprentices, and continued in his cold and monotonous voice,
"Get in"
Hesitating for a second, Daron and the rest of the apprentices finally agreed and began filing up and entering through the door one at a time. Once everyone was inside, the hooded man also leapt off the cylinder of stone and entered the door before closing it.
As soon as the door was closed, the cylinder began retracting back into the ground, until the entire ground returned to its initial untouched state.
…
Inside the group had arrived at an underground room decorated extensively with wood and metal, making it seem as though they were in a building on the surface, rather than an underground-bunker style room.
There was a table in the centre with a middle-aged man resting his feet on it, while a book was placed on his face as crisp snores could be heard.
To either side of the man were two enormous stone statues extending from the ground all the way to the ceiling. To his right was a wolf with spikes all over its body that faintly reminded Daron of the Rank 1 beast that was Snowy's mother, but it had some spikes which made it seem like a completely different species. To his left was a two-headed snake, with similar spikes to the wolf. Although the two statues were unmoving, Daron felt a strange feeling when looking at them, especially the snake.
It was a type of enmity that stemmed from deep within his subconscious, but unlike most people, he could investigate this emotion, and within moment, he got to know that the emotion of rivalry came from his bloodline inheritance which he had greatly suppressed.
[They are alive… sort of]
'…?'
[The statues. I do not have enough information to express the analysis, but the two statues appear to be half alive and half dead.]
'So they are like sealed living creatures? Or are they like inanimate objects that can be activated to possess life at certain moments? Or something else.'
[No idea. But master, I can say one thing; the two are strong when alive. It is best not to fight them]
Daron felt aggrieved since it felt like Sirious was accusing him of being a battle-maniac, trying to pick fights with anyone and everyone. In fact, out of the two in his mind, he was less likely to fight others, while Sirious would likely retaliate with all her might in the face of death. After all, Daron had already died once, and did not feel too strongly towards it anymore. Death was just that, death. Life was just a means to an inevitable end, which was death.
The hooded figure knocked on the table with his hand, and the middle-aged person on the table immediately woke up from his slumber.
"Huh? What? Oh! Newcomers? Apprentices? I see. Welcome all of you younglings, to the Land of Mages."
-End of Volume-