Chương 197: 21. Try Not to Break Anything

Unlike the caverns where we first met Talla, there are no magical lamps leading to the entrance of the local convergence point. The only signs present are simple wooden posts that have almost entirely rotted away thanks to a combination of neglect and the moist environment. Talla's glowing orb of magic is the only light to guide us, apart from a single mana candle that Maggie helps me modify to glow much more brightly than its fellows.

Our lights reveal cave walls and floors made slippery by moss and lichen, and we step carefully across the treacherous ground as we creep ever inward. Our quiet footsteps echo through the tunnels, joined by faint dripping sounds and the scuttle of bugs disturbed by our intrusion. The sharp smell of wood rot and mildew fills the cave, even as we go deeper, until at last we find what we are looking for. The alcove, and the statue within it, are both familiar.

The guardian is featureless, vaguely humanoid, and white like polished marble, standing out against its shabby surroundings. The similarities to the convergence point we remember end there, however. Instead of an ornate stone door with gold filigree, a simple set of wooden double-doors devoid of decoration lead further into the tunnel. I can tell because they are wide open. In fact, one of them has fallen clean off the hinges, its remains lying in splinters across the floor of the cave.

"Well, I think we know how the monster got out," I note sardonically. Talla kneels down by the ruined door and frowns as she picks up a handful of splinters.

"This shouldn't be possible."

"The door isn't as sturdy as the one we escaped through," I note.

"And even this deep in the cave, the humidity might have rotted it over the years." She stands up and dusts herself off, shaking her head.

"No. The seal's magic should protect it from the elements, and even if it didn't, the guardian would hold a breach like this." I eye the statue nervously. I've never actually seen the things move, but supposedly active protection of convergence points is one of their roles.

"There's no other way out," I point out, casting my light around the cavern. The tunnel opens up a bit here, but there are no branching paths. Unless the convergence break has already made it out of the mountain elsewhere, this has to be where the monster came from, and Talla didn't find any sign of that.

"No there isn't," she agrees.

"And I can't deny the evidence in front of my face—this door was forced by something large and heavy. Probably our giant bat." I still think we need a better name for that thing, but I suppose it can go on the list along with "horse" and "ferret."

"Can we even fix this?" I ask.

"Repairing a magical seal is one thing, but I'm not exactly a carpenter."

"We shouldn't have to, in theory," she says, scratching the base of her horns.

"The physical entrances are built by people, but the guardians are perfectly capable of sealing convergence points without them." Again I find myself wondering what the point is. If the Goddess wanted these places closed, then why allow people to build entrances? If the guardians are capable of keeping them sealed by themselves, why require constant maintenance? I'm missing something about these convergence points.

They don't seem natural, which implies that they have some sort of purpose, and something tells me that spitting out monsters, treasures, and the occasional lost college student isn't it.

"What do you need me to do?" I ask.

"Watch the tunnels," she replies.

"I've already done a sweep and space here is completely normal—no signs of anomaly, even at the edge of the breach." I blink.

"What does that mean?"

"This isn't just recent," she sighs.

"It just happened. Probably two days ago, the moment we heard the giant bat's cry." That's very suspicious timing, but I don't see how our presence here could have caused it. Maybe we're just lucky. Or unlucky, depending on how you look at it. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. I keep an eye on the dungeon entrance as Talla kneels down before the guardian in prayer. Though the tunnel is empty, it gives me an unbearable feeling of anxiety.

A combination of the silence around us and the memories of our own experience with a convergence point. Most of them, quite painful.

"Eva," I whisper, mostly just to break the silence.

"You prayed to the guardian shortly after we escaped our convergence point, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," she says.

"You—we were dying, and I was both confused and terrified. I had never seen one before, but I recognized the guardian and hoped it could aid me somehow."

"And it did?" She's told the story before, but this feels like a good time for a refresher, and I've never really pressed her for details.

"Sort of," she hedges.

"It answered my prayers in a strange voice. Like that of the [World Engine] but... different." Right. The mysterious entity that interfered with the [Angel] when we first arrived, then later helped with our first class. Our current theory is that she is the same one that appeared in our dream, and which spoke to Evelyn through the guardian. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Do you remember what it said, specifically?" I ask. I'm not even sure what exactly it is I'm digging for. There's something similar about these situations, though, even if it's just a creature from the convergence point breaking out into the world without any response from the guardian. I had assumed it's because we're not a monster or demon, but now I wonder if there's something else at play.

"Not exactly, no," she huffs.

"I had greater concerns at the time."

"I didn't mean to imply otherwise, I'm sorry."

"No," she sighs.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped. This whole situation has me on edge." She's not alone in that.

"Me too. So whatever you can recall would be appreciated."

"Alright, let me think," Eva says.

"She said something had gone wrong, and that she'd done as much as she could, or perhaps even too much, whatever that means. Then she told us to 'try not to break anything else'? Come to think of it, I have no idea what we're supposed to have broken in the first place."

"Hmm, alright, thank you." Not the insight I was hoping for, but it's a reasonable question. What did we break? The door, maybe? That seems a bit banal. The guardian? Talla was able to interface with it later to open the door properly, so that seems unlikely. I almost want to ask Talla about it, but she's still busy— I spare a glance back towards Talla and freeze at the sight of an [Angel] looming over her, its form emerging from a nearby wall as though it were liquid. At least, I think it's an [Angel].

Something like static obscures its form, but uncountable tendrils extend from behind it, crossing and intersecting each other without any heed for physical barriers—too many of them to fit within the space they fill. Innumerable. One such tendril prods delicately at Talla, who seems not to notice as she turns to look up at me with a puzzled expression.

"Violet? Are you alright?"

"Do you not see it?" I ask.

"See what?"

"The █████!" I shout, the word drowned out by white noise.

"It's right next to you! Inside you!" She blinks.

"Huh? I didn't catch that. Anyway, can I borrow one of your candles? Something is wrong with the guardian, and I think it needs more power." The [Angel] shifts, as if to face me, but I don't feel the burden of its attention on me the way we did during our first encounter. Though I can't see it clearly, I get the impression it's cocking its head, as if trying to squint at something unseen. [Entity#128702413593: Scan complete. Result: No corruption detected.] [ERROR: Failed to integrate latent space.] [Warning: Unable to locate source of local anomaly.] [Logging anomalous data... OVERRIDDEN. (Reason: Ω)] The words fill my head, pushing out everything else, like they're written into the very fabric of reality. Then, as suddenly as they appeared, the words—and the [Angel] with them—are gone, leaving behind a sweaty and trembling woman that I only belatedly realize is me. I fall to my knees, only the white-knuckled grip on my spear keeping me steady enough to stay almost upright.

Talla rushes to my side, saying something in a worried voice that gets drowned out by my own hyperventilation. Eventually, I manage to recover enough self-control to relax my breathing with a bit of help from the soothing warmth of Talla's healing magic.

"Vi! What happened?!" Talla repeats, her voice growing more worried by the second.

"You just collapsed suddenly!"

"You... you really couldn't see it?" I try.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." It was invisible to her? No, it's more than that. Her reactions were too muted, even if she couldn't hear or understand what I was saying for some reason.

"What just happened?" I ask.

"That's what I'm trying to ask you!"

"No, from your perspective, I mean," I clarify.

"What did it look like to you?"

"I'm not sure," Talla says.

"I was asking about borrowing a mana candle, then you started muttering incoherently and collapsed. I—maybe this was a bad idea after all. We shouldn't have come here when you're clearly still traumatized." I shake my head.

"No, it's not like that." Well, it is, a little. I'm not too proud to admit that visiting a convergence point has me more anxious than I expected, but I don't think that this was just some sort of traumatic response or a panic attack.

"Listen, Talla," I begin, choosing my words very carefully.

"There was a—thing. I think it was altering your perception, but it didn't work on me, or maybe only partially." Was that block actually from the [Angel]? It didn't seem to be able to notice us at all, so it would be odd if it was influencing us the same way. Though I guess it could be a passive thing—but then why didn't it look like that when we first encountered one? I shake my head, discarding the distractions for now.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?" She blinks, her brows furrowing as she nods.

"I think so, yes. That's really bad, though. If there's a demon that can mess with perception around, we're in serious trouble."

"It wasn't that," I tell her.

"The opposite. I couldn't say the name before, and I don't want to... I don't know, attract attention? But it was one of the agents we met when we first appeared in this world." Her eyes widen.

"An—""Don't say it!" I hurry to interrupt her. I don't even know why I'm so worried about that. It's just a feeling. Like something bad will happen if we call more attention to it—or ourselves. Ugh, I sound like Maggie, but it's a feeling I just can't seem to shake off.

"Right, okay," she agrees.

"That's... concerning. But right now I'm more worried about the guardian."

"You said it wasn't working?"

"It is, but not fully," she corrects me.

"It's as if there's something missing. I was thinking that maybe it's just low on power."

"But...?" Talla purses her lips, then points at the entrance to the convergence point. I follow her finger, and nearly jump when I see that the door, and the tunnel behind it, are simply gone. The alcove with the guardian remains, but they guard over nothing but an empty cavern. The place where the doorway once stood is conspicuous in its inconspicuousness. More specifically, there is moss and lichen growing there—as if the entrance never existed at all.

Only the remaining wood splinters on the ground indicate that there was ever anything else.

"That's not the sort of thing you can accomplish with low powered magic," she says.

"And it's definitely not what I asked it to do. Whatever is missing from the guardian, it's more fundamental than just a source of magical power."