Chương 69: 1-68 Into the fire

"Well, damn. This just looks like straight up hell." Josef muttered under his breath, ignoring how such a concept might not even exist in this world. It was the best way he could think of summing up the scene in front of him, though. As far as his eyes could see, which admittedly wasn't very far under the suppressive darkness, everything in front of him was on fire. A sea of burning flesh that blackened and charred, albeit more slowly than he would have expected, while quaking as if under immense pain.

It probably was, which only begged the question of where the brain processing all of that was.

"Is that some human thing?" Bezzo questioned him, but immediately shook off his confusion.

"Nevermind that, my brother has to be somewhere in there."

"Isn't it fine, though? If he's awake and torching things, then he is already doing more to kill this thing than we are." Josef was puzzled. Once they found Zippa, he would have probably asked him to burn this whole mess to the ground, anyway. Light and monster killing all at once, fire truly was a blessed affinity, at least under these circumstances. If only it weren't for the horrendous smell that came with it.

Whatever the ground was made from, while looking like flesh, as it burned down it smelled far more like plastic. Surely his healing spells could help them recover from a little bit of smoke inhalation, right? Though if a boss room was truly sealed off from the outside during a fight, then they would eventually run out of breathable air. Maybe burning everything to the ground wasn't the solution after all.

"No, no, that's not it." Bezzo frantically shook his head.

"You wouldn't know… Zippa never lets his fire spread uncontrolled, not after what happened-" then the reptile suddenly cut himself off, almost biting his tongue.

"He just wouldn't do this." Was this about their parents again? He really didn't want to consider the implications of such a trauma and their apparent deaths.

"So you think he's already being controlled by this creature?" Josef suggested, trying to make sense of things. Then he immediately corrected himself.

"No, that makes no sense. The fire is clearly hurting it, so it wouldn't make him start one in the first place." Bezzo nodded.

"It's more likely that whatever he saw in that illusion had him lose control." If Zippa was trapped in an illusion that had even remotely to do with what he was thinking, then they had to pull his friend out of that immediately. That was just too cruel a thing to happen, no matter how much damage the out-of-control fire lizard could do to this monster.

"Can we not just let him tire himself out?" Linda cut into their conversation, sounding hurried. She probably just wanted an excuse to turn away from the inferno and go look for her knight.

"He'll run out of mana, eventually." Josef couldn't exactly blame her for that sentiment, and there was some logic to it. Saving Zippa would be a lot easier if he wasn't a walking inferno, however-"Not a chance," Bezzo snarled, sounding personally offended. He probably was, considering she wanted them to ignore his brother's suffering. Then, adding further reason to the emotional weight, he added, "He's not completely fireproof by nature. The lower his mana runs, the weaker the resistance of his scales gets.

If he runs out in the middle of a burning fire…" He didn't need to explain what would happen, because the consequence was painfully obvious.

"I'm in. How are we gonna do this?" Sure, he could just walk around in the fire and look around while healing himself constantly, but that was hardly the way he wanted to do this. But could he actually clear a path for them using his water magic? Maybe if he combined his output with Pretzel's, but she was out there, searching for Aifreed, just like Dusty. And as if speaking of the devil would call it out, he received an urgent feeling from the bunny just at that moment.

Whatever he had encountered, possibly the as yet missing knight, he was asking for immediate help. Even his usual static couldn't mask the urgency of the emotion. Telling his companions as much, they reacted just as he would have predicted. One all but demanded that they should leave, saving her knight from immediate danger and figuring out the reptile's situation afterwards. The other wanted to save his brother before doing anything else, leaving the elf to wait a little longer.

Josef felt like a kid stuck between two parents with a divorce on the way. As both of them argued with increasingly colorful language, he instead called on his serpent, asking her to cooperate with the volatile duo. It would have been nice to have her around to deal with the fire, but he and his familiars were the only ones capable of navigating long distances in this place. And she wouldn't be able to deal with this fire on her own. Although he wasn't certain to handle it, there was at least a chance.

Steadying himself to go through with his own insane idea, he interrupted the bickering duo with a decisive clap.

"You both go with Pretzel. She will show you the way," he plainly told them in the second of silence he had gained. Then, almost sensing the reptile's attempt to talk back, he fixed him with a glare and continued, "You don't have a way to protect yourself from the flames, do you? Leave your brother to me. I swear I'll bring him back." Bezzo's teeth and fists were clenched, clearly ready to argue for his involvement.

But when their eyes crossed, something in what he saw must have convinced the reptile to trust in his human friend. In the end, he just stiffly nodded.

"Break your word and I'll end you," he promised. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Seeing the reluctant reptile walk off with the impatient elf, both following after his familiar, Josef allowed himself a deep sigh.

"I really hope this works out." Using water magic, he drenched himself and his clothes with as much water as they could hold, while dumping almost his entire mana pool into one massive Regeneration on himself. It was enough for his own skin tone to darken as pieces of skin crumbled away, and even the scales on his stomach felt dry and loose from the lack of energy. Then came the replenishment, like water during a drought, as he began to pull mana from his surroundings.

Even though the meaty ground didn't hold much more than the air around him, that still was plenty considering how plentiful it was within the dungeon in the first place. On top of that, it felt like there was much more of it near the raging fire. Either the flames were magical enough to radiate the stuff, or the damage it caused somehow broke open whatever defense the flesh held to keep it on the inside. Either way, topping his reserve back up didn't take long, and Josef found himself ready to push forward.

Not that he was very happy to do so, considering every instinct in his body screamed at him to run away from the fire, not towards it. He really didn't want to do this at all. Literally flooding his body with water mana, hoping it would somehow help him resist the heat, he created a large sphere of water in front of himself and walked right towards the danger.

"Zippa, are you there? Can you hear me?" He shouted, with little hope of an answer. Still, he had to at least try. Otherwise, he would look really stupid if his friend had somehow already broken out of his confused state. Naturally, the only answer was the crackling of the fire he was walking into. Immediately, breathing became hard in the acrid air, and his eyes stung from the smoke. Even with all his healing magic, he was concerned about making it through this one.

No magic would fix him if he collapsed from a lack of oxygen, and he had no delusions about outpacing the fire if it ever started to consume his body. Even so, he didn't waver in his steps, piercing deeper into the inferno, eyes open for any signs of his friend. At least his clothes still held up, though they were drying rapidly, and the heat didn't feel as unbearable as it should have been. He thanked the water attuned mana in his body for that, suspecting that his experience would be a lot worse without that.

Unfortunately, this state wasn't a sustainable equilibrium, and the scales were rapidly tipping in favor of the raging inferno, as his clothes soon began to smoke where the water had evaporated. Creating more to soak them was only partially successful, as most of it immediately evaporated into steam as it left his body. The surrounding air was just that hot, and it was getting worse with every step he took.

Hopefully, the drastic increase in temperature meant that he was getting closer to the center of this mess, where his friend would likely be located. If the reptile had somehow wandered off in his sleep-like state, then his search might as well be doomed. If only he had more than the heat to go off while searching, then his chances would be a lot better. However, not even his magic eyes could see well in this situation, as they were constantly watering in pain from the heat and smoke.

If only he could see clearly in this mess. If only… Josef pushed increasing amounts of mana into his eyes, filling them to uncomfortable levels with the water mana he had accumulated. It helped ease the stinging pain, spreading a cooling sensation, though that alone didn't resolve his problem. He kept forcing his eyes to stay active, even with nothing to be gained from what he was looking at. That wasn't the point, after all. What he wanted was to find information about what he was looking for.

If no detail could hide from the gaze of these eyes, then how could they be blocked by some stupid smoke? Even as his eyes began to smoke, which was not caused by the outside temperature, but his overuse of the skill, he continued. Josef knew about the many things modern technology could bring into the visible spectrum, allowing humans to see much more than they could with their own eyes, though he had practically no idea of how that worked. Which was fine because he didn't want to see any of that stuff, anyway.

He was after something that didn't even exist in his old world. Mana. Normally, he could only roughly feel the surrounding density of it, as making it visible required a much more active approach. Like gathering it into tightly packed streams, or creating spells from it using his affinities. But he knew it was there, so he focused on seeing it, demanding from his eyes to witness that detail he knew was there.

If he could see the mana, then he could also find the center of this inferno, and possibly even spot his friend's body within it. Maintaining his skill, he supplied his best guesses on how a Manasight could look like from video game examples. Finally, as his eyes felt like they were about to ignite themselves, the system answered him with the sweet chime of a notification. This one he didn't push off until later.

☆☆☆ Nightprowler's Eyes (Exceptional) -> ☆☆☆☆ Seeker's Sight (Inferior) Only those who look can find what was hidden. With low-light vision and an obfuscated gaze, no detail shall hide from your eyes. Your piercing gaze is impossible to hide, though its origin is difficult to track. The essence of life now lies bare before you. He finally got an upgrade to his eyes, and the following lack of pain promptly sold him on it.

Even if the quality seemed to have suffered, as everything around him was enveloped in an orange haze. There was also that significant downgrade to his ability to inspect others, as his use of the skill was no longer hidden. Apparently, his incessant staring, disregarding the drawback that had lashed back at him, had changed the course this ability would take. Figuring out a way to live with that was future-Josef's problem.

Because right now, he had finally realized that there was nothing wrong with his vision at all. Taking a glance at his own body during another attempt to drench himself, he watched in dismay as all the water immediately evaporated, wafting away in a blue haze. He really could see mana now! The reason everything was a little blurry was that the orange hue of fire magic surrounded him on all sides. He had almost missed the forest for the trees!

With that being the case, he frantically looked around, trying to spot a difference in his surroundings. Finally, finding a mass of fire mana that roared with much more intensity than anything else he could see, Josef set out to where he suspected his friend to be. As his orb of water boiled and bubbled in front of him, more steam than water, he picked up his pace before his spell could collapse.

That source of fire energy remained unmoving as he closed in, and while frantically fighting against the rising heat, ignoring the burnt smell coming from himself, he pushed through one last curtain of flames before he found him.

"Zippa!" he screamed over the roaring flames.

"Please wake the fuck up!"