Chapter 344: Pantry Problems (1/2)
Mike sighed, struggling to hold himself upright as he was hit by a wave of mana fatigue. It passed quickly as his mana regeneration kicked in.
”Well, that should just about do it. Let's get you two somewhere safe for the time being, and then I'll see about dealing with the whole ghoul apocalypse situation.” He announced to Dorn and Julia, who had started to stand up and dust themselves off.
”What...what did you do?” The woman asked, staring incredulously at a spike of crystal that had erupted from the street nearby, neatly impaling a meat vendor's cart and suspending it several meters in the air.
”Came up with a radical new business idea for the home improvement industry.” He replied with a smile.
”...What?”
”Nevermind. Basically, I filled the damaged portions of the bedrock with liquid quartz and then hardened it until it crystallized. Now the city should no longer be in danger of falling into the ocean.” He replied cheerfully before glancing at the spike she was staring at. ”Of course there are a few side effects. Small price to pay, though.”
”Sir Mage, though it may be improper, I feel it is my duty as a seeker of truth to ask, who are you, really?” Dorn suddenly broke in, a thoughtful look on his face.
For a moment, Mike considered simply telling him the truth. After all, he wasn't exactly in disguise, and his actions in this city had been anything but subtle. It wouldn't be long before his identity got out.
[Better play it safe anyways.]
”I would rather remain unnamed at this point. No doubt you'll discover who I am in time, but for now, I cannot answer your question.”
[Alright, that should be sufficiently mysterious.]
Contrary to his expectations, the small man gave him a serious stare. ”I understand, sir. We will carry the details of your actions here to the grave.”
Mike felt that he might be getting the wrong idea, but decided that it shouldn't matter too much. He had every intention of leaving this city as soon as possible and never coming back. Just as soon as he finished what he was doing here...hmm.
[Shit.]
Thinking quickly, he said. ”On that note, I really need to get back to my search. Clearly the person I was looking for was not with the ghouls. Not sure why I thought that in the first place.”
”Ah, yes, we were planning on bringing that up-” Dorn started, but Mike didn't have time to listen fully.
”Nevermind that now. I promised to get you to safety, but I really need to concentrate, so I'll be creating some guards for you for the time being.” He announced quickly before issuing a short chant.
A trio of magic circles appeared on the ground surrounding the two, and a few seconds later the resulting motes of light resolved into three vaguely humanoid figures composed of animate soil and rock. Each of them stood roughly two meters in height, and had thick, heavy looking limbs. They didn't appear to be particularly quick, but Mike assumed they'd be imposing enough to ward off most attacks..
”These earth elementals will guard you until you reach a safe location. I don't know this city very well, so I'll let you lead them.”
Julia looked fearfully up at the creatures surrounding them, but Dorn seemed to accept his words at face value. He offered Mike a deep bow. ”You have my eternal gratitude, sir mage. Should we ever chance to meet again, I pray you grant me the opportunity to repay the favor you have shown us.”
[You've been more helpful than you realize.]
Once they had begun moving, Mike focused on the problem at hand. In spite of all of his actions up to this point, he was no closer to finding Selene than he was when he started. And now he was confronted with the seemingly impossible challenge of tracking down one individual in the chaotic city, which was still under attack by a horde of zombie-like ghoul thralls.
[I've really been relying too heavily on mental bonds for this kind of thing. I'll need to come up with something to serve as a backup if this ever happens again. In the meantime, how am I supposed to deal with this?]
He sorted through a few potential ideas, discarding each in turn as being either impractical or taking too much time. Finally, he came to the conclusion that, without some kind of link to serve as the basis for investigative magic, there was not much he could do right now.
[I guess it's time to move on to my last resort.] He thought while summoning the portal to his inventory and making it roughly a meter in diameter.
He stuck his head through the shimmering distortion in the air, momentarily suppressing a shiver of disquiet. Everything he'd read about these kinds of portals said that being inside one when they closed was a very bad thing, so he wanted to make this particular venture as short as possible.
The manuals had also recommended against a mage entering his own inventory fully. It was apparently alright for them to partially go inside, but leaving the origin point entirely could destabilize the skill, leading to the pocket realm being stranded in interdimensional space.
So, with those disquieting facts in mind, he opened his eyes on the other side of the portal and had a look around. Initially he assumed it would be something like a formless void. What he was not expecting was a copy of the walk-in pantry at his parents' house that he'd seen thousands of times while growing up in his previous life.
After a few seconds of dumbfounded staring, he realized that the scale was off. The pantry had been modest in his past life, barely giving enough room for his heavy set father to walk in without getting stuck. It had also only extended a few meters back, creating a short, narrow space that Mike had to repeatedly navigate when helping his family with cooking.
This version, however, was several times larger. The shelves seemed to reach into the sky, and he could barely see the other side of the vast, echoing chamber.
”This doesn't seem right…” Mike muttered while looking around. As far as he could recall, the size of a mage's inventory was directly related to his or her level in the Space Magic skill. At his current level of proficiency, it should only be a few meters square at best. That wasn't even taking into account the unusual layout.
[Could this be a side effect of one of my titles? But that doesn't explain why it looks like my pantry. Is it something to do with being from another world?]
He was about to start going down this tangent, but managed to remind himself of the reason he started this in the first place when he caught sight of his target.
”Hey, Aberth!” He called. ”I have a question for you.”
The god was currently in the middle of examining a few of the items stored on the giant-sized pantry's shelves. In particular, he seemed focused on the damaged dungeon core which had been placed next to a pile of unidentified meat that he didn't remember storing.
A pair of pale white eyes turned his direction accompanied by the powerful being's calm and measured voice. ”In my time, it was considered a major sin to destroy the core of a dungeon. Have things changed so much since then?”
”AHEM, well, I don't know about that. I've never heard of anyone doing anything like it before.” Mike answered quickly, feeling a little awkward. He tried to move over to the god, but only managed to somehow spin in place, his disembodied head rotating slowly like some kind of horrible carnival ride. With a little bit of effort, he was able to stop himself, but gave up on moving.