A thick stench of blood clung to the cavern air, metallic and suffocating, making it difficult to stand within the remains of what had once been a structured hobgoblin encampment.

  The camp had not been primitive chaos. It had been organized.

  Crude barricades made of sharpened stone stakes and interwoven roots had once formed a defensive ring around the perimeter. Now those stakes lay snapped and scattered like broken ribs. Thick vines that had bound the barricades together hung in torn strands from the cavern walls.

  Shelters constructed from tightly woven sticks and stretched monster hides had been ripped open, their frames collapsed inward. Cooking pits carved from layered stone slabs were overturned, charred bone fragments mixed with dark pools of blood. Jagged crystal clusters embedded in the cavern walls, once arranged deliberately to provide dim blue illumination, had been shattered. Their fractured shards flickered weakly across the blood-slick floor.

  Heavy claw marks scarred the stone walls.

  Impact craters dented solid rock.

  Weapons fashioned from bone and chipped crystal were crushed beneath debris.

  And there were no bodies.

  The devastation was not the result of a raid.

  It was annihilation.

  Haruna and Hana stood frozen, staring at the destruction in disbelief.

  Haruto, suddenly very aware of the scale of what he had done, awkwardly stepped forward.

  “So… wanna hear out my plan—”

  “YOU IDIOT!” Hana snapped before he could finish. “DIDN’T YOU SAY YOU GOT AMBUSHED BY A FEW OF THEM?! WHY THE HELL IS THIS ENTIRE PLACE IN RUIN?!”

  He deliberately avoided her gaze. “Well, I… can’t just let them leave, can I?”

  “So this is what you did after you left me to guard the tunnel?” Haruki’s voice echoed from the mask.

  “I told you to wait while I checked the area. What’s the problem?” he shot back, weaker than he intended.

  Hana shut him down instantly. “The problem is that because of you, our whole team got separated!”

  Silence followed.

  He knew she was right.

  He had been careless.

  Hana sighed in frustration and hopped from Haruna’s head onto his, claiming her usual spot. “Just forget it… You’re never going to learn.”

  “M-Master?” Haruna called gently. “You said we would begin preparations when we reached the camp. What should we do now?”

  He walked over to a large fractured stone slab and sat down, letting Hana remain on his head like a crown of judgment.

  “From what you taught us,” he began, “I figured out a way to enhance my punches and movement. I didn’t have time to refine it, so it’s unstable. But if we practice… it could become a reliable enhancement technique.”

  Haruna lowered herself to sit across from him out of habit and respect.

  “I already know basic enhancement spells,” she said. “But my primary affinity is wind. It’s not ideal for raw attack. It excels in mobility.”

  “Yes. But here’s the problem.” He leaned forward. “If we’re facing something strong, we can’t expect them to stand still long enough for complex incantations.”

  That struck home.

  Her techniques required focus. Structure. Time.

  Time they would not have against something like the Crimson Battalion.

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  “So… what do you propose instead?” she asked.

  Haruto smirked faintly.

  “Chaos.”

  She blinked.

  “Instead of forming complete spells, compress Astrons directly at the point of impact. Don’t refine them. Don’t stabilize them. Just condense a tight cluster against your knuckles and let it destabilize the instant your punch lands. A controlled detonation.”

  He tapped his boot against the stone.

  “Same under your feet. Condense them at the sole, release on contact. Short burst dashes. No chant. No structure.”

  Haruna frowned slightly. “Would that not injure you? A condensed Astron cluster detonating against your own body repeatedly…”

  “Yes,” he said immediately. “It would.”

  She looked at him as if to say: then why suggest it?

  “But that’s where our advantages come in,” he continued. “You keep Haruki on you. I have regeneration. If we time the detonation and healing properly, we can offset the recoil damage before it accumulates.”

  Haruna considered it seriously.

  “It is dangerous,” she said slowly. “And if we face a general… or a group larger than five…”

  “We’re not trying to defeat them,” he interrupted gently. “We just need speed. Defense. A way to survive long enough to escape.”

  He paused.

  “And if it comes down to it… I’ll use my skill to consume them.”

  Silence.

  “You’ll do what?” Hana and Haruki asked in perfect unison.

  “What?”

  “You just casually said you’d eat them with a skill. Explain.”

  He scratched his cheek.

  “Well… turns out I have some kind of ability. I don’t really understand it. It just… eats things. That’s the best way I can describe it.”

  Hana stared at him flatly.

  “You’re telling us this now?”

  “I just figured it out an hour ago when—”

  “So that’s why there aren’t any corpses,” she said dryly.

  “…Probably.”

  He had intended to explain everything properly.

  How he had wiped out the camp.

  How something inside him had awakened.

  But she was already upset. He had left Haruki alone. He had taken too long. He had acted alone.

  He did not want to add more fuel.

  He expected yelling.

  Instead, Hana just sighed.

  Not angry.

  Not explosive.

  Just tired.

  And somehow that hurt more.

  “I swear, you’re such an idiot sometimes…”

  “I won’t do it again,” he said quickly, gently lifting her into his hands. “I got excited. That’s all.”

  “I know,” she muttered. “But you can’t afford to be reckless. This isn’t a novel. We can’t redo mistakes. We can die here. You’re the only one who still has your original body and real combat power. Haru is bound to a mask. I’m a slime. You can’t gamble like that.”

  He swallowed.

  He hated seeing her like this.

  “Hey. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Promise.”

  She sighed again, but this time she didn’t argue.

  Then she looked up sharply. “So what’s the real plan? You think enhancement tricks will get us past a swarm of insect monsters? If one catches us in its mandibles, the rest will trample us.”

  “That’s what my ability is for,” he replied. “I’ll buy time while you escape.”

  “Wow. How noble,” Haruki scoffed. “Be serious.”

  He didn’t answer.

  That was enough.

  “Wait,” Haruki’s voice sharpened. “You’re not actually planning to sacrifice yourself, are you? Because that’s not happening.”

  “If everything goes right, it won’t reach that point—”

  “Don't be stupid! There's no way I'm letting you do something so dumb!” Haruki snapped. It hit her harder than anything. She had believed that she had lost her brother just yesterday. And now, he's talking about sacrificing himself so casually.

  It all sounded ridiculous to her. And reasonably so.

  “I said I’d buy time,” he insisted. “Not become food.”

  “That is literally the same thing!”

  “Enough!” Hana cut in sharply. “No one is sacrificing anything.”

  She turned to Haruna.

  “How much time do we have before the labyrinth shifts?”

  Haruna closed her eyes briefly in thought.

  “If the battalion eliminated most monsters, Astron density would decrease. That could partially count as a clearing. The labyrinth may accelerate its restructuring to challenge the intruders. Perhaps seven hours faster than usual. We should have about a day and a half.”

  “And how long to climb if there are no guards on each layer?”

  “Nearly a full day. But we cannot assume the upper layers to be empty.”

  “Oh? Why is that? Do they respawn?” Hana asked.

  “No. But if our suspicions are correct, it's entirely possible that they took all the strong monsters to enslave them or eat them. The intelligent monsters may have submitted rather than fought. Hobgoblins, for example. They are weaker physically, but far more strategic. And they're smart enough to understand when to submit and when to fight back.”

  Haruto nodded.

  “Then we don’t linger anywhere. Move fast. Avoid engagement. If we fight, it’s only to break through.”

  “Yes,” Hana agreed. “If we waste too much time in drawn-out battles, we'll lose our window.”

  He crossed his arms, thinking.

  “The lesser monsters aren’t the real issue. It’s the Crimson Battalion. If they’re strong enough to enslave everything strong here, direct confrontation is suicide. So we escape unnoticed… but prepare for combat anyway.”

  Hana tilted her head slightly.

  “So? Any ideas, novelist?”

  He flushed faintly.

  "Well... I do remember some magic theories I made for my novels. But don't know how to compare them to the real thing. It'd be easier if we could find out more about how Astrons truly worked. Just knowing the flow of magic isn't enough." He paused for a moment before adding with a smirk, "... If we could find the exact match—"

  "—All the techniques you designed for those specific magic systems will work here as well. Including the most powerful ones." Hana completed his sentence, already knowing where this is going.

  Haruna and Haruki remained confused, but neither interrupted.

  Haruto turned toward Haruna.

  “Haruna.”

  “Y-yes?”

  “You know a lot about magic, right?”

  “I know a decent amount. Within my affinity.”

  "I don't need anything advanced."

  He shook his head.

  "I need you to tell me everything you know about Astrons."

  ...