The Scorched Desert's Sand Mage (Novel) - Chapter 21

Chapter 21

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Translated by Pratt

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Though the elf incident had happened, nothing had changed between Dayeoden and Zeon. They had never been warm with each other to begin with, so the distant atmosphere between them felt nothing strange. Dayeoden walked ahead, and Zeon followed behind. Sometimes, an entire day passed without either of them saying a single word. Now Dayeoden no longer gave Zeon advice. He had done enough of that already, and now it meant Zeon was to figure things out himself. Zeon no longer asked Dayeoden either. He pondered on his own and thought about how to use his power better. He considered countless ways to use sand, then tested them against the demonic beasts that occasionally attacked. Now, lower demonic beasts were no longer a match for Zeon.

Bang, bang!

The heads of lower demonic beasts burst one after another under the Sand Missiles Zeon fired. Brains and blood fell onto the sand. Zeon stared for a moment at the corpses of the demonic beasts, then resumed walking.

Far ahead, Dayeoden was already moving on.

He knew Zeon was fighting demonic beasts behind him, yet he did not so much as glance back.

By now, Dayeoden too understood it.

That there was no chance of Zeon dying to mere lower demonic beasts anymore.

By now, Zeon never let down his guard under any circumstances.

That was thanks to the harsh discipline Dayeoden had drilled into him.

That was when it happened.

Suddenly, Dayeoden, who had been walking ahead, came to a stop.

Zeon looked at him with a puzzled expression.

They had spent a fairly long time together, but this was the first time Dayeoden had stopped even though the sun had not yet set.

Dayeoden muttered, “It should have been around here.”

After looking around the area for a moment, he took something out from his robe.

It was a compass the size of a small child’s palm.

It was not an ordinary compass.

It was an item created by combining Neo Seoul’s science and magic, serving as a kind of location recorder.

Once a place had been visited, it remembered and stored the location.

He had once visited this place decades ago.

It was so long ago that his memory had grown hazy.

The needle of the compass spun in circles a few times, then pointed in one direction.

Dayeoden walked in the direction the needle indicated.

After walking for quite a while, he finally stopped.

“This is it.”

Click.

He shut the compass and tucked it back into his robe.

Zeon walked over to stand beside him.

“What is here?”

No matter how much he looked around, it was nothing but the same desert.

It looked no different from every other scene they had passed through until now.

Dayeoden said with a contemptuous look, “Don’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“You’re still far from it.”

At those words, anger surged up from deep in Zeon’s chest.

But he quickly suppressed it and calmly examined the surroundings again.

If Dayeoden was speaking like this, then there was surely something nearby.

Yet no matter how much he looked, there was nothing obvious.

‘Could it be under the sand?’

Zeon raised his control and resonated with the sand.

At ten meters, then twenty meters, he felt nothing.

Even so, Zeon did not give up and continued probing through the sand with his control.

At seventy meters, eighty meters, and then finally when he reached a hundred meters, he at last felt something.

“This is…”

There was unmistakably something alien beneath the sand.

Dayeoden asked, “Found it?”

“Yes.”

“How deep?”

“About a hundred meters underground.”

“Deeper than I expected. It seems more sand has piled up over the years.”

When he had discovered this place long ago, it had not been buried so deep.

It was clear that with the passing years, more and more sand had accumulated on top of it.

“Dig.”

“Understood.”

With that answer, Zeon began moving the sand.

Ssssss.

The sand piled up like a mountain flowed away to both sides.

Zeon pushed the falling sand far away.

Beads of sweat formed all over his face.

That was because the drain on his mana was so severe.

Calling it one hundred meters underground sounded simple, but once all the overlying sand was excavated, it would make a mountain.

Naturally, it was impossible to dig all of it out at once.

Zeon slowly dug the sand away bit by bit.

Dayeoden did not hurry him.

Because he knew as well how difficult this task was.

Sand had no cohesion, so once it was dug away, the surrounding sand collapsed inward and filled the space again.

Only because Zeon possessed the ability to manipulate sand had there been this much progress at all.

If an ordinary person had tried to dig through the sand, it would still have been impossible even after a hundred years.

There was nothing Dayeoden could do to help.

He simply sat at a distance and waited for Zeon’s task to be completed.

The work of digging through the sand continued for nearly three full days.

Whenever his mana ran dry, Zeon rested.

When it recovered, he dug again.

After driving himself to his limits in that way, Zeon finally reached the point a hundred meters underground.

“This is…”

Zeon’s brow furrowed.

What existed one hundred meters below the ground was a stone structure utterly out of place in the desert.

More precisely, it was a door made of stone.

It was strange enough that such a massive stone should exist so deep in the desert, but stranger still that it was shaped like a door.

Dayeoden came down to Zeon’s side.

“So you found it.”

“What… is this?”

“A dungeon.”

“A dungeon? Then you’re saying this door leads to a dungeon?”

“That’s my guess.”

“A guess? So you don’t know for sure?”

“By chance I discovered this place decades ago. But before I could enter, it sank back beneath the sand.”

“Is there a reason you came back looking for it?”

“Because I need to become stronger.”

“You mean you’re trying to become even stronger in there?”

Zeon wore a look of disbelief.

This was Dayeoden, who could tear even B-rank demonic beasts apart like paper.

Estimated ability, at the very least, beyond S-rank.

And yet here he was, already that strong, coming all the way back to a dungeon he had found long ago in order to grow even stronger.

At this point, it was practically at the level of having no conscience at all.

By Zeon’s common sense, he could not understand Dayeoden’s actions.

No, he gave up trying to understand them.

Because he already knew Dayeoden was not the sort of person Zeon could ever measure.

Dayeoden slowly ran his hand over the stone door.

The surface of the door was covered all over in characters whose meaning could not be understood.

They were characters Zeon had seen somewhere before.

He suddenly remembered the elves’ book stored in his subspace.

Though he did not know the meaning, they were the same characters written in that book.

‘Is it connected to the elves?’

Just then, Dayeoden stroked the stone door.

Suddenly, the stone door gave off a brilliant light, then opened wide.

Without telling Zeon to come in, Dayeoden stepped inside the stone door.

But neither did he tell him not to follow.

It meant that the choice was entirely Zeon’s.

‘Fine. I’ve died once already. What’s dying twice?’

Even Dayeoden, already strong enough, had entered this unknown dungeon in order to become even stronger.

There was no reason for Zeon, who had resolved to grow stronger, to hesitate.

Zeon hurried inside before the door could close.

Thud.

The moment he entered, the stone door shut once more.

As soon as he entered the dungeon, Zeon felt as though he had suddenly dropped out of empty space.

But because he had already experienced entering a dungeon back at the magic stone mine, he was able to adapt quickly.

Zeon quickly came to his senses and looked around.

Massive stone pillars were holding up a ceiling so high it seemed endless.

On the stone walls were the same characters he had seen on the stone door, along with carvings that looked as though they were praising a god.

“A temple?”

Judging from the atmosphere inside and the sheer scale, it was clearly a temple dedicated to some deity.

He had never heard of a dungeon composed of stone architecture like this.

But there was nothing all that strange about it.

After all, dungeons themselves were places that could not be understood by human common sense.

Suddenly, Zeon realized that Dayeoden was nowhere to be seen.

“Did Dayeoden fall into a different place?”

Just because there was one dungeon entrance did not mean everyone would arrive at the same place.

Sometimes, like this, one could begin in completely different areas.

“Then I guess I’ll have to reach the place where the boss is if I want to meet him.”

That too was something Dayeoden had taught him.

If he wanted to meet Dayeoden, then he had to hurry toward wherever the boss was.

The problem was which passage to choose.

In the great chamber where he stood, there were four corridors.

There was no way of knowing which of them led to the place where the boss was.

“Tch.”

Zeon clicked his tongue.

There was no information, and no signposts either.

There was not a single basis on which to make a cool-headed judgment.

It was the situation Zeon hated most.

But he could not remain standing here hesitating forever.

At this very moment, Dayeoden was probably already advancing toward the boss.

There was no time to hesitate.

“I’ll take the smallest passage.”

What Zeon chose among the four corridors was the one with the smallest entrance.

There was a reason he chose that one.

“The larger the corridor, the higher the chance that a large demonic beast can come through.”

It was true that the bigger a demonic beast’s body, the stronger it tended to be.

Such large demonic beasts needed space to match.

That was why he chose the smallest corridor.

If the corridor was small, then the demonic beasts emerging from it should also be small.

Zeon went into the small corridor without hesitation.

Inside, it was very dark.

There was not even the tiniest spark of light, much less a lamp.

Zeon had no choice but to walk through the pitch-black corridor relying solely on his senses.

“Hoo.”

Even when he had descended beneath the magic stone mine, it had not been this dark.

It was as though the temple itself possessed will and rejected all outside light.

In a situation like this, sight was no help at all.

In fact, even after concentrating mana into his eyes, he could see nothing.

“I’ll give up on sight.”

Abandoning the idea without regret, Zeon focused only on hearing, smell, and touch.

Whiiing.

He felt the faintest current of air.

In a completely sealed space, air did not move.

If there was wind, that meant there was an open space connected somewhere.

As Zeon moved toward where the wind came from, he thought, ‘A temple-type dungeon? Why in the world does a dungeon like this come into existence?’

Though he had been an Awakened for a decent while now, he still knew nothing of the principles behind dungeon creation or their origins.

He had asked Dayeoden before, but the old man had kept his mouth tightly shut and said nothing.

Judging by Dayeoden’s atmosphere, he certainly seemed to know.

‘Could the creation of dungeons be related to why the Earth was destroyed like this?’

For now, it was nothing more than speculation.

Not a single thing was certain.

That was when it happened.

Thump. Thump.

Suddenly, a heavy sound rang out.

It was unmistakably the sound made when some weighty object moved.

Zeon stopped and listened carefully.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The heavy sound continued over and over.

“What is it?”

In truth, the answer had already become obvious.

In a temple-shaped dungeon, the only things likely to be moving were demonic beasts.

Zeon raised his control and prepared for battle.

“What?”

After moving his mana for a while, a look of dismay came over Zeon’s face.

That was because he could not sense a single grain of sand nearby.

He was a sand mage.

All of his authority came from sand.

Without sand, he was nothing more than half an Awakened.

“There really isn’t a single grain of sand?”

Within the range of his control, he could not sense so much as one grain.

Because it was the first time something like this had happened, Zeon could not help but panic.

“Crazy.”

Thump. Thump. Thuuump.

Even then, the heavy footsteps continued drawing closer.

Then, within the darkness, numerous eyes appeared.

Zeon stumbled backward.

But in the corridor he had come through, eyes had appeared there as well.

By the faint gleam of the eyes in the darkness, their silhouettes emerged.

The owners of those eyes had forms identical to humans.

The difference was that their bodies were made of stone.

They were about the same height as Zeon, but bulkier and cruder.

There was only one kind of demonic beast like this.

“Golems?”

And not just any golems, but stone golems at that.

Even if he had access to sand normally, they were the worst opponents against whom he could not confidently say he had a chance.

And there were dozens of those golems, surrounding Zeon.

“Goddammit.”