Chapter 246: The Fog Dungeon

In the first few hours of the hunt, the group was mostly faced with weak sea beasts. After all, they were only in the ‘shallow’ parts of the ocean.

Or rather, only B-ranked beasts could be found here, but the farther away they went from the West’s shoreline, the more dangerous the beasts got.

And soon enough, they came upon the truly dangerous parts of the ocean.

“Fog?” One of the spirit mages muttered in confusion as he looked ahead of them.

A thick white mist had suddenly appeared in front of them out of nowhere and had formed a large wall.

“Master Zephir,” the Captain of the Sea Guardians called out, and the Grand Duke immediately understood what he meant.

Whether or not they turned around was his call to make as the Grand Duke.

Zephir silently looked at the wall of fog; he could very clearly sense that a danger lay beyond. After all, this was the first time in all their hunts that they had seen this.

But then again, the cores they had collected were barely enough for half of them to go through with Alvíss’ experiment.

Which meant turning around wasn’t an option.

“Continue forward,” Zephir said.

With a nod, the captain continued forward into the fog, and the other two ships followed along.

The moment the Sea Guardian entered the fog, an eerie silence descended upon the ocean.

The sound of waves, sea birds and even the wind itself completely disappeared.

It was as though they had crossed into completely different waters, or a completely different world even.

“How so?” The butler asked, his [mana sense] still spread to the other two ships.

Although it now seemed as if something was interfering with it.

Noctis muttered in confusion, «usually, you’d be drunk thanks to it.»

“Corrupted mana?” Adrian answered, and only then did he notice that his mana was getting slightly polluted.

The most the mana would do to him was get him intoxicated, but the same couldn’t be said about the rest.

Well, save for his lady.

Which meant that they were currently running on a timer.

“Is something wrong?” Renelle asked, looking at his expression; even Crystal seemed a bit uncomfortable.

“There’s corrupted mana in the air,” Adrian said as he looked around, noticing that the fog was getting thicker.

Renelle and the Grand Duke, who happened to hear his words, suddenly frowned, with Zephir asking, “Are you certain?”

“Hmm,” the Butler nodded, “although it seems to be quite diluted, it’s still potent enough to corrupt the spirit mages.”

Alvíss seemed to overhear them as he stood up and walked to the side of the ship.

He then extended a hand into the fog, pulled it back and noticed a wisp of black smoke clinging to it.

“Turn back,” he muttered, and the Grand Duke immediately gave the order to the captain.

The captain obliged, quickly turning the ship around and making their way towards the exit of the fog.

Unfortunately, no matter how long they travelled forward, they were never any closer to reaching the exit.

After a while, the group realized something, and Alvíss was the first to voice it out, “a dungeon.”

Usually, dungeons had a clear entrance and were separate from Avera, but they hadn’t even realized when they entered this one.

And once they were inside a dungeon, it was almost impossible to exit without either finding its core or completing its objective.

Grand Duke Zephir had a frown on his face as he looked around; the fog was thickening with every passing second, and it wouldn’t be long before visibility became almost nonexistent.

“M-Master Zephir?” One of the spirit mages called out, pulling the attention of the Grand Duke.

“What is it?” Zephir asked, remaining completely calm.

“T-the other ships…. They’re gone,” he said, gesturing behind them.

Even with the fog, the silhouette of the other two ships was supposed to be visible, but it was not.

Adrian also had a frown on his face as he noticed that the ships had truly disappeared from his [Mana Sense].

But that wasn’t the strangest part.

The strangest part was the fact that they just disappeared from his senses… One second, they were there and the next, they were gone.

Almost as if they had been teleported away.

“What’s wrong, Crystal?” Renelle suddenly asked, pulling her butler’s attention towards her.

The little white fox on her shoulders was looking directly in front of them with a focused expression, almost as if it was sensing something in that direction.

“What the hell is that?” One of the spirit mages let out as the silhouette got larger by the second.

Or rather, it was coming closer by the second.

The closer the creature got, the heavier the pressure that fell upon them.

Several of the weaker sailors instinctively took a step back, while even the experienced spirit mages had their guards up.

The creature’s form was soon revealed, and the eyes of the spiritages couldn’t help but widen.

This was a creature they never expected to encounter,

An S-Rank Hydra.

It was a beast that most wouldn’t dream of ever encountering in their lifetime; after all, not only did the creature eclipse them in rank, it also possessed an absurd regeneration.

There was also the fact that it was multiple beasts sharing a single body, and to top it all off, “it’s a corrupted beast.”

“C-can we even fight that thing?” One of the spirit mages asked with trembling pupils.

The hydra was a creature with multiple heads, each completely focused on the ship before them.

Its serpentine body stretched far beneath the surface, so enormous that no one could tell where it truly ended.

Only a fraction of it had emerged from the sea.

It also had scales that acted as some sort of natural armor, but each of the seven heads possessed a unique type of the same color, a sign that they each used a different element.

Beneath the scales of each head, glows of different colors could be spotted, another indication that each head used a different type of mana.

“W-we’re going to die,” one of the sailors let out, and for good reason.

The sea hydra’s S-Rank classification didn’t come from the combined strength of A-Rank heads.

No, each of its heads was individually S-Rank.

Which meant, instead of one S-Rank, the group would be facing multiple at once and save for the Grand Duke, none of the other spirit mages were at S-Rank.

But instead of panic, Alvíss had a large smile on his face as he said, “This must be our lucky day.”

The spirit mages looked at him in confusion, but he paid them no mind; instead, he continued.

“Seven high-quality cores just delivered themselves to us.”

The spirit mages finally realized something: the old man might not be as mentally stable as they had initially thought.

Of course, none of them dared say it to his face.

The old man, either unaware of their thoughts or simply unconcerned by them, turned to Adrian.

“You can take it down, right?” he asked.

The spirit mages found that question absurd, but even more so was the butler’s answer as he looked at the creature and nodded, “yes.”

This was a rare chance to show off in front of his Lady, and he wasn’t going to miss it.

The Grand Duke looked at him for a while but chose to say nothing. He had heard from his daughter that this butler was quite dangerous, and perhaps this was a chance to see exactly how dangerous he was.

Adrian’s shadow spread from beneath his feet, and from within rose two forms, a man and what seemed like a bull.

“Be careful,” Renelle said, and he turned to her with a smile, “I will.”

The next second, a pair of large black wings grew from his back, and the same happened to the bull.

The other clone, on the other hand, simply relied on its strings to puppet itself and fly.

The butler then looked towards the Hydra and said, “Let’s get started then.”

***

Meanwhile, a distance away from the Sea Guardian, Seth’s ship slowly sailed through the silent ocean.

“Y-young master, I think we have been separated from the main fleet,” one of the spirit mages informed, “and the corruption in the air is getting thicker.”

The expressions of the other spirit mages were getting increasingly paler.

Seth was silent for a while; if they couldn’t find a way out of this fog, then they’d all end up being corrupted.

In other words, they were currently on a timer that was quickly running out.

And just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse, it did.

The sea before them started splitting, and from it rose a beast that made his expression go pale.

A Kraken.