Albold Chaffer
I stretched my arms and legs as soon as I stepped down from the carriage that had taken us to the Iron Ravine, the familiar ache of travel seeping from my muscles like water from a cracked pot.
The Beast Glades stretched before us, vast and untamed, a wild expanse of grass and stubborn lonely trees that seemed to go on forever.
Despite me having already explored this dungeon, Corvis, or Finn Warend, still wanted to go there himself. I didn't understand his insistence, but I had learned long ago not to question the prince's decisions: I trusted him enough, and I disliked prying anyway.
He saw things the rest of us couldn't, patterns and connections that remained invisible to ordinary eyes.
"Chaffer, you have already been here, right?" Auddyr asked with that annoying even tone of his, stepping to my side to observe the A-Class dungeon before us.
His voice was flat, devoid of the excitement that thrummed beneath my own skin.
The entrance to the Iron Deephold was inside a hill, like so many other dungeons here in the Beast Glades.
The mound rose from the earth like the humped back of some buried leviathan, its surface scarred by time and weather. Yet, the peculiarity of the Iron Deephold was that the actual dungeon didn't start until far underground, a deep plunge into the belly of the earth.
"Yes," I told Auddyr, my eyes fixed on the dark maw of the entrance. "I think you are going to like this, Finn." I said the name with more emphasis, letting the weight of it hang in the air. "The Adventurers I talked with about this dungeon describe it as similar to dwarven cities for how deep it goes."
"Adventurers?" Corvis asked me, narrowing his eyes. His expression was cautious, guarded, the look of someone who was always calculating, always weighing risks. "Albold, do I need to worry about it? You perfectly know what the relationships are between the Company and the Guild."
I shrugged my shoulders, a gesture of studied nonchalance. "I have just been friendly," I replied.
The Adventurers I talked with were the same I had helped in the Wolves Grotto three weeks before. The memory of that fight still thrilled me; it had been one of the best fights in all my life.
"Moreover..." I started, a small smile playing at the corners of my lips. "I think they know you. When I told them I was an Unraveler, they spoke of Finn Warend with familiarity."
Corvis's eyes widened. "The Twin Horns?" He asked, and I nodded.
"Yes, the Twin Horns," I confirmed.
"I hate to interrupt you, but I am strict on time," Auddyr intervened, his tone as sharp as the Branchberd he carried. "Sooner we finish this Unraveling, sooner I can return to my duties."
The words grated on me, the same way they always did. Auddyr was always so focused, so disciplined, so utterly devoid of joy. He saw life as a series of tasks to be completed, a checklist to be marked off.
"The same goes for me, actually," Corvis added, his voice carrying a note of apology. "I agree with Ashton."
"You two don't know how to enjoy life," I sighed, turning and heading toward the entrance of the Iron Deephold. Altair preceded us, diving toward the opening with a powerful flap of his wings, his form a blurring silhouette against the grey sky.
—
"What kind of mana beasts live in here?" Corvis asked as we finally arrived in the first floor of the Iron Deephold.
We climbed down a succession of iron ladders, leaving the surface world behind for the earth's cool embrace. Moisture permeated the air and shadows pressed close, held at bay only by the wavering flame of Auddyr's torch and the unearthly golden glow emanating from Altair's eyes.
"Sand Dwellers..." I said, trying to recount the mana beasts I had found during my first Unraveling in this dungeon. "Your usual Snarlers. Things like that."
Berna sniffed the air, her massive head turning this way and that, her nostrils flaring. She was probably trying to smell for mana beasts.
I didn't understand animals very well, even Altair: that eagle was difficult to get along with, his intelligence unsettling, his eyes always watching.
"His Highness's bond is telling you something, Warend?" Auddyr asked, his voice carefully neutral.
The bear then growled and pointed with her snout to the end of the large tunnel we were in. The sound was low, warning, a rumble that seemed to come from somewhere deep in her chest.
"That's the first floor's main cave," I informed the party. "Some Snarlers make their dens there."
"Let's get going, the—" Corvis started, when everything started to shake.
The moment the disguised prince brought his foot down, a Reset tore through the underground tunnel.
The earth beneath us violently heaved, stone groaned in protest, and a familiar, spine-chilling sensation washed over me: the dungeon was opening its eyes and it knew we were here.
"Oh, come on! Again?" Corvis exclaimed, his voice thick with frustration, as everything shook around us. "Brace yourself, guys! This is like the Sea Den!"
Corvis Eralith
The moment the Reset hit, frustration flared through me. How could the dungeon still recognize me? I was a hundred times more proficient with REmould than the last time I walked in a dungeon! It shouldn't have been able to sense the Justiciar.
Shoving the annoyance aside, I cast Ars Terramorph, raising a thick dome of earth around our party to weather the dungeon's violent awakening.
The stone rose around us in a curtain of grey and brown matter, sealing us off from the chaos outside.
The shaking intensified, the ground beneath our feet bucking like a wild beast and the ancient Djinnic magic of the dungeon surged through the rock like blood through veins.
It was the same as I experienced in the Red Gorge and the Sea Den, the same awakening of something that had been sleeping for millennia, dreaming of a world that no longer existed.
But just as the external ruckus quieted down, a new sound broke the air: a guttural roar that sounded like a dozen TNT explosions. The noise was primal, ancient, the cry of something that had been sleeping for centuries and was now, finally, awake.
"What was that?" Ashton asked, his voice tight with tension, as both he and Albold wielded gripped weapons, ready to strike at whatever threat lay outside as soon as I released the dome shielding us.
I could feel the weight of their gazes on me, the trust they placed in my judgment and the unspoken understanding that I was the one who would get them through this.
"I am going to unmake the dome," I declared, taking my crossbow from the storage ring at my finger. "You ready?"
Albold and Ashton nodded, their faces hardened in grim focus. Beside them, Ayden's wings beat in a rapid blur of feathers, while Berna let out a low, familiar growl: a heavy rumble that vibrated straight through the stone beneath our boots.
With the party set, I willed the earthen dome to crumble, letting it dissolve into a cloud of falling dust; the stone dissolved around us like morning mist, revealing a world transformed.
Outside—
"Ashton! Albold!"
Thanks to the mana augmenting my body, I immediately saw the large furred body of a Snarler being thrown against us.
The E-Class mana beast screeched in pain as it flew through the air, its body a dark silhouette against the sudden brightness of the sky.
I threw myself aside right as Albold and Ashton descended on the beast.
A flash of Albold's Courtblade claimed its head in one clean slice, quickly followed by Ashton driving his Branchberd straight through the Snarler's ribcage. Whatever screech the monster tried to let out was drowned by the war around us.
Ayden flew high into the clear sky, what was once the ceiling of the cave.
We found ourselves on top of the old ruin of a Djinnic tower slowly rising from the depths of the earth.
In the centre of the ruined tower's rooftop, a massive mana beast—easily the size of three elephants—thrashed wildly, crushing the Snarlers with every sweep of its body.
Demonic tusks curved outward from its head, sharing the same metallic luster that coated its heavy, natural armour.
Its carapace shimmered under the pale sunlight like hammered steel: a living fortress of iron.
Tucked behind heavy armored slits, two pinprick black eyes scanned the carnage. Small as they were, nothing escaped them.
The beast looked like a giant, biological panzer: an unstoppable engine of nature's war.
Spikes of bone bristled across its back like iron needles as its heavy mace-tail launched Snarlers into the sky.
Any creatures that managed to dodge Ayden's airborne strikes came raining down around us in a bloody, screeching deluge.
"The Iron Hydrax?!" Albold exclaimed, moving with speed to dodge another falling Snarler. His Courtblade flashed, cutting the beast in two before it could land.
"I thought it was killed years ago!" I exclaimed, blocking another falling Snarler with the side of my arm.
The kinetic force of the monster crashing directly onto me was completely absorbed by Evascir's jade bracelet.
While the impact was still jarring, a heavy shockwave rattling up my arm and into my shoulder, the relic deadened the actual damage, leaving behind nothing more than the phantom sensation of the blow.
"What is an Iron Hydrax?" Ashton asked with frowning eyes as he threw his Branchberd forward like a spear.
The weapon struck true, its point finding the creature's hide with unerring accuracy, but it bounced off the S-Class mana beast's carapace like it was nothing.
With wind magic, Ashton made his thrown weapon fly back into his steady hands. The Branchberd was unharmed, but the message was clear: conventional attacks would not be enough.
"Well—" I made to explain it to Ashton, but the situation at hand didn't permit a lesson. "That!"
Berna growled and gave a headbutt to a Snarler, sending it far away, far from our worries. The creature's body spun through the air, a tangle of limbs and fur, before disappearing over the edge of the tower.
"What do we do?" Albold asked, turning to me for direction. "Do we fight it?"
Through the cascading avalanche of Snarlers at the center of the battlefield, I spotted a familiar archway: a Djinnic portal.
"Yes," I said, my voice holding steady against the surrounding bedlam. "We take it down before this whole place crashes to the ground."
Rising and rising with us on its top, the tower—a structure I was beginning to realize was an ancient skyscraper of the folk of calm currents—loomed over the Beast Glades as the Dungeon Crawlers prepared to slay their very first S-Class mana beast.
—
I rolled on the floor, avoiding a running Snarler. The creature's claws scraped against the stone inches from my face, and I felt the wind of its passage against my cheek.
Those lesser mana beasts that managed to dodge the Iron Hydrax's violent rampage bolted for safety, only to find the edge of the world waiting for them.
Unable to stop, they spilled over the brink... screams dying out as the sky claimed them one by one.
We were already high in the sky, the Beast Glades stretching on the horizon with the large monster towering at the centre, killing everything around it.
The wind was cold at this height, sharp and biting, and I could see the curvature of the land stretching to the horizon.
"It hasn't seen us yet," Ashton said as we jumped behind a large boulder—a remnant of what was once the cave's ceiling.
"I say we strike it from behind!" Albold proposed, shouting to make his voice heard above the roars of the Iron Hydrax. "Altair can distract it when it runs out of Snarlers."
"That's a good idea," I said, discreetly throwing a thumbs-up into the air so the Phoenix soaring above knew I approved of Albold's plan.
Berna let out a growl and looked up. Another Snarler was falling straight toward us, a dark shadow against the pale sunlight.
Before we could even draw our weapons, Berna let out a massive sneeze. The resulting gale sent the beast flying into the horizon like a autumn leaf, its dying shriek swallowed by the sky.
"How can we fight while Snarlers are literally raining from the sky?" Ashton asked, his frustration bleeding through his always carefully maintained composure.
"I shoot them down with my crossbow," I proposed. "While you two flank the Iron Hydrax. Use magic—don't rely on your weapons alone. Its hide is resistant like that."
"Understood," Ashton said, his voice carrying a note of grim determination. Albold hummed in confirmation, a sound that was both acknowledgment and challenge.
With our plan ready, I rolled away from our cover.
While still mid-roll, I grabbed the largest rock scattered around me and molded it into a dart with Ars Terramorph. The stone shifted in my hands, reshaping itself into a sleek projectile ready to be used.
I slotted the makeshift bolt into the crossbow and shot at a Snarler that was running Albold's and Ashton's way. The rock bullet flew true, striking the creature in its flank, sending it tumbling to the ground.
The two elven youngsters continued in their rush at the Iron Hydrax as I activated Massbinding.
"Berna, take care of the Snarlers falling my way," I ordered my bond. "I cannot waste time thinking about them too."
However, the Snarlers were running short. The Iron Hydrax turned its horned head down, its tiny eyes scanning the battlefield. But before it could see Albold and Ashton, Altair dived against it, piercing one of its eyes.
The S-Class mana beast roared in pain, a sound that shook the very air around us, and we seized the opportunity.
The ochre runes of the Kain Clan blazed to life across the backs of my hands. Channeling REmould and Massbinding in unison, I unleashed the most powerful shot I had ever fired, surpassing anything I had ever achieved with a Thorncurve or any other weapon.
The recoil should have been immense, hurling me away, sending me flying off the tower's edge. Yes, should have. Evascir's craft around my wrist absorbed even that. The jade bracelet pulsed with a warm, steady light, and I felt the force of the shot dissipate harmlessly into the artifact.
The earthen bolt flew, booming as it did so. The sound of its passage was like thunder, a roar that echoed across the battlefield.
Across the rooftop turned arena, a stream of water magoc appeared around Albold's Courtblade, its surface shimmering with a liquid light, while a hurricane of wind magic appeared around Ashton's Branchberd, the air itself seeming to bend around the weapon.
The two magics rose, and the two rivals attacked together the sides of the Iron Hydrax.
My bolt found the creature's throat, the force of the impact causing the enormous beast to fall backward. Before it could crash on the tower's floor, causing the whole structure to crumble, Ashton and Albold balanced it with their own attacks.
The creature's momentum was arrested, its massive body held in a precarious balance.
I gritted my teeth at the following roar, a sound of pure, undiluted fury, but just as I prepared another shot—the Iron Hydrax jumped.
Like sharks dive-bombing out of the water to paralyze their prey, the Iron Hydrax pushed with its hind legs, the whole floor trembling from the strength of its mana-strengthened muscles.
The air itself seemed to part before it, and I felt the weight of its presence pressing down on me even before it came down.
I saw the creature—the largest mana beast I had seen in this life, broader than an Elderwood Guardian and taller than a Phoenix Wyrm—collide like a meteor.
"Albold! Ashton!" I screamed, running toward my friends' position, but my feet soon found no surface.
The ancient Djinnic tower, brought back from its slumber after millennia thanks to the Justiciar's presence, was once again facing its destruction.
The stone beneath me gave way, and I was falling, the wind rushing past my face, the world spinning around me.
"Ayden! Take them!" I ordered the Phoenix as my eyes landed on the Iron Hydrax.
I had to kill it before we reached the soil.
Sandand, the Article of Freedom, fused with Massbinding as I broke the range limitations of my Acquire Phase.
I thrashed my arms in the air, using the debris falling all around me as handholds for my power. The ochre runes blazed brighter, and the world shifted around me.
Without needing to touch them, I yanked myself forward, flying toward the mana beast through gritted teeth.
"Berna, launch me!" I shouted, and after an initial shock from my Guardian Bear through our bond, I heard her sneeze.
With wind magic, she flew against me, her broad back hitting mine.
To avoid the jade bracelet from absorbing the precious momentum, I launched it toward Berna, who grabbed it with her jaws before she hit me.
I was shot up in the air, reaching above the Iron Hydrax.
I fell from the sky, the breeze kissing my body, and by tapping my feet together I used REmould to return Corvis Eralith.
With the elven features returning to my face and body, I retrieved Fiorwato and unsheathed the emerald blade within.
Gripping my wand-cane with both hands, I raised the blade high, point downward. I infused the emerald with wind and sound magic in equal measures, setting Fiorwato into a high-frequency vibration capable of pulverizing bedrock. I was going to drill right through the Iron Hydrax's carapace.
Falling and falling, wind and dust howling past, my eyes searched for the portal.
"Berna!" I shouted, sound magic empowering my voice. "Take the portal! Don't let it be broken!"
With that matter closed, I returned my attention to my enemy. The jaws of the Iron Hydrax opened, revealing a maw of razor-sharp teeth and a darkness that seemed to swallow the light itself.
The creature was enormous, a living mountain of chitin and rage, and I was hurtling toward it like a spear.
But I was not afraid: even as I heard the river approaching and the jaws swallowed the sky, I was not afraid.
Fiorwato met the Hydrax's flesh.
—
A Bubblespell flared out around me like glass shattering into a thousand fragments, unseen by anyone else.
A cloud of teal Trucewater drops sprayed in every direction as I plummeted onto the Iron Hydrax, the droplets catching the pale sunlight like scattered pearls before dissolving into nothingness.
Was I back in the past? Had I just died? But there was no drifting back through the Warworn Rapids with REtrocurrent this time.
The shift from the future into this new present had happened in a single, terrifying instant. I was falling, the jaws of the Iron Hydrax closing around me, and then—
I shook my head, the Trucewater flooding my nervous system, making me focused on the present. The familiar calm washed over me, steadying my racing heart, sharpening my thoughts until they cut through the chaos.
The jaws of the Iron Hydrax were wide open below me, waiting to claim me as its meal for a second time. The creature's maw was a cavern of darkness, lined with razor-sharp teeth that gleamed with a wet, hungry light.
Before it could close its jaws on me, I swung my blade downward in a crescent, the emerald edge singing as it cut. The sound mana coated on the green blade made a melodic note as it met the fangs of the Iron Hydrax: a clear, pure tone that resonated like a bell struck at midday.
I cleaved the bottom row of teeth of the mana beast, the long fangs flying away as I found my target anew. The creature roared in pain and fury, a sound that shook the very air around me, but I was already moving.
Shooting a Bubblespell from my offhand, I let the recoil of the spell send me backward, avoiding the Iron Hydrax from swallowing me by a few, mere spans. The sphere of water mana burst from my palm, its surface shimmering with the faint glow of the Article I had engraved within it.
When the jaws of the mana beast were closed, the Bubblespell exploded: the wind spell I had engraved within alongside the Article of Justice caused the small eyes of the Iron Hydrax to bulge unnaturally.
The creature's head snapped back, disoriented, its senses overwhelmed by the sudden pressure.
"Apologies for the pain," I murmured under my breath, the words barely audible over the roar of the wind and the dying cries of the creature.
I hated causing pain to mana beasts, even as I couldn't do anything else but kill them. There was a part of me that always mourned, that always felt the weight of taking a life. Berna had taught me that, she had shown me that even the creatures of the wild deserved respect, dignity, something more than to be reduced to obstacles.
We fell toward the ground as the thunder of the ancient Djinnic structure finally crumbling to the soil of the Beast Glades echoed across the land, sending tremors to the earth. The sound was like the death cry of a god, a final, mournful note.
The Iron Hydrax, now just a panicked animal trying its best to survive, tried to send away its predator—me—as it fell.
Its massive claws swiped at the air, each blow powerful enough to shatter stone, but I was faster, lighter, a shadow dancing in the chaos.
I parried the powerful claw of the beast with my emerald blade, the impact making Fiorwato's sound magic sing. Every strike was a note, every parry a melody, every attack a song.
The music of battle filled the air around me, a symphony of green and mana resonating with something deep within my soul.
I cut the beast's arm, the vibrating blade the perfect counter to the iron hide of the Hydrax. The emerald edge sang through chitin and flesh and the creature's blood sprayed across my face.
I felt like Olfred when he slayed Cherry, the Phoenix Wyrm whose Beast Will I had tried to absorb years before.
I prepared one last Bubblespell, the sphere of water mana on my finger's tip started to spin furiously as it took speed thanks to a wind spell engraved within. The orb grew brighter, faster, its surface shimmering with the promise of destruction.
"...Balance," I engraved within my magic and let it go.
The Bubblespell flew, and as blood sprayed from the Iron Hydrax, the creature let out a final dying cry. The sound was terrible and beautiful, a last, defiant note that echoed across the battlefield. I let myself fall, enjoying the feeling of the howling wind even as everything around me crumbled.
"I got you, Eralith!" Ayden's voice came, the Phoenix in his Sambhogakaya taking me by my shoulders with his powerful talons.
"What about Ashton and Albold?!" I asked, shaking my head as Inner Current took me away from my mourning for the Iron Hydrax.
"They are fine," Ayden replied, his voice carrying a note of reassurance. "A bit bruised, but they managed it."
"Good to know..." I sighed in relief as I observed the spectacle below my feet.
Debris lay everywhere, scattered across the landscape like the bones of some ancient leviathan. I spotted Albold looking up to search for me and Altair, his Courtblade still in hand, his expression a mixture of exhaustion and relief.
I tapped my hanging feet together to return to Finn Warend as I saw the scion of Sister House Chaffer gesturing wildly at Ashton—who was clearing his way around them from the wreckage with wind magic.
"What was that uncertainty when you fought that mana beast?" Ayden asked, his voice resigned, carrying a note of concern. "You have always been like that, Eralith; always so compassionate with your preys."
"The Asclepius are not all about the hunt..." I said, or rather Eralith Asclepius said. The words came to me from the river itself, REtrocurrent putting them on my tongue, a gift from a forgotten age.
"Furthermore, that Iron Hydrax wasn't my prey..." I tried to complain. "I was here for the portal. Wait, where is Berna?!"
I looked around myself wildly as we started to descend toward the ground. The wind rushed past my face, cold and sharp, and a knot of worry tighten in my chest. Then, through collapsed pillars and other large rocks, I saw a large head of fur poking out.
Berna shrugged herself from the dust as she pushed the portal's tall frame with her own front arms out of the wreckage, standing straight on her hind legs as she did so.
She looked like the bear Wojtek, only that instead of carrying ammunition, she was carrying an ancient Djinnic gateway able to defy the laws of space and time.
"We got what I wanted and I have also learned a new... trick," I said, thinking about that exploding Bubblespell that had brought me back in time through REtrocurrent.
"Do you mean your swordplay?" Ayden asked me as he flew toward Ashton and Albold.
"That too..."
—
REtrocurrent flooded my brain with the necessary Insight soon after.
That Bubblespell was something very different from my usual standard water spells. It was the Mourning Pearl Windsom had given to me after my and Tessia's fight against Nylith and her chimera in Azellio.
So that's where all that mana and Insight went, I realized.
In the novel, it was stated Mourning Pearls were able to make someone a white-core mage, and yet that didn't happen with me. I just became a silver-core one—not that I was complaining.
All the resources contained in that extremely potent elixir had gone to the river, swallowed by REtrocurrent without me even realizing it.
And now, after I clashed with Agrona and obtained REstringify, my control over that ability of mine had become suddenly so much better. The river was returning everything it had taken, a slow repayment of a debt.
"Warend, what are you doing?" Ashton asked me, noticing I had zoned out.
"Just thinking," I said, observing the portal Berna had planted on the ground. The ancient gateway stood tall and proud, its surface shimmering with the faint light of forgotten magic.
We distanced ourselves from the crashing area, where the cadaver of the Iron Hydrax lay amongst the debris like a fallen giant of some mythological tale. The creature's body was immense, its carapace still gleaming, its eyes glassy and empty.
I raised my hand and casted a Bubblespell with the precise intent of "saving" a point in time. Even as Finn Warend, the dwarven physiology going against that, the Trucewater obeyed me.
A teal-colored bubble coalesced itself into reality, imploding into a little point above my palm.
I turned my head—Albold and Ashton, who were patching their wounds or cleaning their weapons, didn't notice a thing. Neither did Berna or Ayden, the Asclepius perched on the highest point of the portal, looking over us like an ancient guardian.
"Unleash," I declared, and the river claimed me.
—
A Bubblespell flared out around me, a pearl exploding into countless drops of teal Trucewater.
I was standing below the large Djinnic portal of what once was the Iron Deephold, Ayden using it as his perch, the rest of the Dungeon Crawlers busy recovering from the fight.
"Incredible..." I said. I was finally able to control REtrocurrent's hold over time. I was finally able to "save" a point in time and space to use as an anchor.
"This Unraveling?" Albold echoed, raising his eyes to meet mine. "Yes, you can say that."
"Indeed," Ashton confirmed. "But I wonder what you want to do with the portal."
I saw a glimpse in the Auddyr's eyes. Studying under Elder Jarnas in Azellio must have made him understand even more just how crucial portals were.
True national assets, if one could use them.
I turned and placed my hand on one of the two pillars of the pi-times-pi tall gateway and used REmould to overwrite whatever command the portal already had with the Article of Unity: Lelmoran. The magic surged through me, warm and familiar, and the ancient structure responded to my will.
This wasn't the time to have an unpleasant Alacryan visit if this portal was truly connected with the other continent.
"Prince Corvis probably hasn't told you so," I started, answering Ashton's question. Albold faked vague interest at the mention of who was supposed to be a close friend of mine. "But the Company's secondary—and hidden—goal is that of finding these portals of the Ancient Mages."
"He hasn't told me," Ashton confirmed. "What about you, Chaffer?"
"Of course Corvis has told me!" Albold replied, lying blatantly, just so he could gain a reaction from his rival. Which he didn't; Ashton just hummed in understanding, his expression unreadable.
"Finn, I have a question," Albold said, giving up on Ashton.
"Yes?"
"How do we transport something like that?" He pointed at the portal. "It far exceeds what a normal carriage can carry."
"Oh, I have that covered," I replied, waving my hands dismissively.
I had spent a lot of time carefully thinking on how to transport the gate. Taking it from the Beast Glades to Elenoir and from Elenoir to the Pits. The answer, in the end, was simple: Portal Frogs.
A little froggy here and a little froggy in the Pits, that one already placed by myself when I went to Darv to place my network of Portal Frogs, and the portal would travel through the river of time in no time.
As long as it was not connected to anything and I traveled alongside it, it shouldn't be a problem. I had made a couple of tests in the Hearth already, with Avicenna's guidance, and they had gone perfectly.
I nodded at Ayden, who, already knowing of my plan, took flight headed toward Azellio to grab a spare Portal Frog. He was an Asura; it wouldn't take much time to do so.
As I waited for the Phoenix to bring the REbelf, I sat down with Ashton and Albold, relaxing after the exhausting fight with the Iron Hydrax.
The sun was warm on my face and I let myself breathe, enjoying the quiet aftermath of battle. Until I remembered an insignificant, yet useful, detail.
"Hold on!" I shouted, whirling around to face the colossal corpse of the Iron Hydrax. "Tell me someone recovered the mana core!"