When we passed that gate, the surrounding space began distorting before vanishing in an unidentifiable blur.
As we regained our orientation sense, I felt the air brushing against my face as the small black dot in the far distance gradually got more prominent with each passing second.
We were in the air.
Falling.
"OOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAH"
Acedia screamed excitedly as she stretched her arms out, flapping them like bird wings.
"THIS IS ACTUALLY KINDA FUNNN!"
I just stared at her, pondering about the state of her mental health, silently judging her.
Was she really sane?
Considering the moment that happened right at the beginning of our portal investigation, questions regarding her sanity started popping up, making me doubt the sanity of my current partner.
"Brace yourself for impact."
As the dot started to gradually turn into identifiable buildings, I raised my hand, opening my own dimensional storage.
"NO WORRIES, ZENITHHH."
Acedia started to cast a spell in the air, creating multiple large magic circles in front of us.
Although I wanted to pull out my sword, I refrained from that when I saw that Acedia was casting magic, assuming that it wasn't necessary.
However, contrary to my predictions-
CRASH
While the wind around Acedia started to move according to her will, slowing down her fall, nothing happened on my side.
I crashed into a nearby building, destroying its roof and crashing to the first floor.
"Ah."
I muttered as I raised my head, standing up from a crushed bed, shaking my head to remove the wood splinters from my hair.
As I surrounded my body with Ether before the impact, the crash didn't hurt me.
In fact, I could barely feel anything.
However, crashing through a building kind of felt similar to falling into a bunch of stacked up sticks.
"That wasn't really comfortable."
Acedia softly landed on the ground next to me, looking at me with a dubious expression on her face.
"I..didn't expect you to perform such a...striking landing."
With trembling shoulders, she looked at me before raising her head, spotting the bed I was lying on.
"I certainly didn't expect your first time breaking a bed to be in such a way."
Acedia then erupted in laughter, holding her stomach as she lost the ability to breathe properly.
I rolled my eyes at her stupid joke, huffing in annoyance.
"I thought you'd also cast a spell for my landing."
I grumbled, cracking my neck as I stood up.
"However, it seemed like I misjudged the kindness of our dear head of the mage tower."
"Of course, I didn't cast anything for you. You were the one that said, 'Brace yourself for impact' and opened dimensional storage first, after all. I expected you to do some cool landing."
She exaggeratedly mimicked me, looking ridiculous while doing that.
I sighed while forming a faint smile.
"That's true. It was my fault."
"See? Now stand up quickly."
Acedia turned her head to the side, pointing at the hole that I had just created by my crashing.
"If we don't move quickly, we might get caught, you know?"
I nodded my head, walking towards Acedia.
Pat Pat Pat
I froze up when I heard the sound of footsteps nearing, approaching the door.
I raised my hand, ready to pull out my sword, but was stopped by Acedia.
With a single hand motion, she casted a spell on us, turning us invisible.
I instantly recognized that spell, as it was one of the favorite spells of a friend of mine.
The Tier 7 Spell 'Stealth'. That spell allowed one to erase one's presence, turning one basically invisible completely.
However, it only worked when you were standing still and could be detected by mages or fighters on the same rank as the caster.
Fortunately, Acedia seemingly was the head of the mage tower, meaning that she was at least a top-ranked mage, a Tier 12 mage.
The highest tier a mage could possibly achieve.
In theory, there was also the 13th tier, but that tier was reserved for absolute monsters, namely beings born from the world itself.
And with that, I meant beings such as dragons, fays, blazes, aquas, tempests, or globes.
Although there were some exceptions, as certain clans or races could scratch on that level with their abilities, reaching a semi-13th tier magic.
Looking at Acedia, I didn't believe her to be a being born from the world or someone from a special clan, as she didn't possess any of the trademarks of a known name.
At first, I considered the option of her being a Leviathan, but she didn't possess their trademark blue eyes of them, even though her pale skin and raven hair kind of reminded me of Seraphir.
-What was that sound?
A man opened the door, entering it.
Behind him was a group of other men and women who followed him, also entering the house.
Each one wore a face mask with a symbol written on it.
Although I couldn't decipher the symbol, it seemed quite familiar to me.
I just couldn't put my finger on it.
However, what I did know were the materials these masks were made of.
It was an Ether mask made from the same materials as an Ether core. Its effect was to prevent the insanities from the Depths, but as one rarely bought these masks as just leaving to the Overworld was a way easier cure, these masks weren't really known, and only a few of them existed.
'How did they acquire that many masks?'
But more importantly, the number of people surprised me.
Lost ruins were supposed to be abandoned ruins filled with monsters, but the fact that humans were present could mean two things.
The first possibility was it being a special lost ruin, but as I never heard of such a thing before, I decided to push that possibility to the back of my head.
The second possibility would be humans settling in that abandoned kingdom.
Although that question was far more probable than the first one, one unanswered question was left.
Why?
Why would they settle in such a deserted and dangerous place?
Shaking my head, I decided to stop thinking about the possible probabilities of the situation and started focusing on the group, trying to see if I could get any information out of them.
The group looked around for a bit but stopped as they found the hole in the roof, focusing their whole attention on it.
-OH! What is that hole in the roof?
One of the women found the hole and pointed her finger at it, showing it to everyone.
-Do you think it was a nearby monster?
Someone else asked, dreading the possibility.
-No, we cleared every monster in this area, and the other areas are strictly guarded so that no one can attract the attention of the other monsters to us.
-Suspicious. Maybe another intruder came to us?
-Heh. Then we should find them quickly and throw them into the prison together with all those other intruders. Then we don't have to worry about looking for prey to sacrifice.
-Yes. We don't want to wake up the guardian after all.
-These idiots are flocking to us like moths to light.
-GO! Search for them!
And with these words, the groups left the house.
I could hear them running around as they stepped out, scattering to find the intruders, us.
I looked over at Acedia.
She, however, didn't return my eyes, as she was too busy casting another spell.
A greyish magic circle formed around mine and her neck, tightening around our neck for a split second before turning transparent.
"I casted a spell for us that lets us communicate with each other. No matter what you say, only I will hear it."
She explained as she carefully started moving towards me, trying to not make any sounds with her steps.
"Such a spell exists?"
"No, I created it myself. I used the spell 'Sound proof' and reversed its effects, basically letting the sound come out, but only limited between us."
"I see."
Her quick wit and skill in magic impressed me, but I didn't bother to mention it, as we had more important things to talk about.
However, it didn't seem like that to Acedia.
"Aren't you impressed by my magic?"
Grinning, she asked me in a cheerful tone before closing her eyes as she leaned her head forward, seemingly expecting me to do something.
"Feel free to praise me for it."
"...Good job..?"
As I didn't know what to do in such a situation, I just repeated what my mother always did when she praised me.
And that is head patting.
"Mhhm... Thank you~."
As Acedia visibly seemed to be pleased about my course of action, I chose to not inquire any further, satisfied with the choice I made.
Stepping back, Acedia turned around again as she carefully opened the door a bit, trying to peek out of the door slot.
"Nobody is here. We are free to go outside."
She then turned her head back to me.
"I also can't feel the mana of anyone around here."
I nodded, resting my chin on my hand.
"We should probably devise a plan before taking any steps."
"Yes, that seems the best in such a situation."
Acedia massaged her forehead before signing in irritation.
"Do you know the cult of Umbral?"
"Yes, I do. Why?"
Although her mentioning the cult gave me a suspicion of what she was trying to say,
"That's great. It saves me time."
Putting her hand on her lips, she glanced to the side, seemingly pondering about something.
"That symbol is the symbol of the goddess of darkness, Umbral."
My eyes widened in realization, understanding why that symbol seemed so familiar to me.
I leaned back and looked up as I thought about our next steps.
"First, we should probably get a disguise and immerse ourselves in the group by stealing a mask."
Acedia nodded in response, following my line of thought.
"They said that there were also other prisoners, meaning that if we manage to immerse ourselves into the group, we should be able to find them sooner or later."
Although I didn't particularly care about the saving the prisoners part, it would probably be morally wrong for me to not do it when I have the chance, and besides that, as students from my academy could possibly also be imprisoned, it was my duty as a teacher to save them.
I think.
"Indeed. Let's start with that."