The Return Of The Exiled Villain

[Why did you want to save her anyway? Do you still have feelings for her?]

Jasmine asked as both Gray and Seraph walked through the deep forest. And surprisingly, they didn’t find any creature or demon so far.

’Nope. She’s very useful for me, that’s it.’

[Useful? You mean her identity as the Eldest Princess?]

’Yeah. And her talent as well...’

He glanced at Seraph briefly from the corner of his eye.

She was moving quietly beside him, her breathing had already returned to normal, and her expression was carrying its usual aloofness.

She had no idea, of course.

In the novel, she had been one of the most genuinely difficult obstacles Adrian had ever faced.

She, alone, was able to suppress the whole hero’s party using a single wooden sword carved by Gray when he was younger.

At that time, Lyra had already awakened the authorities of the five main gods, Adrian had inherited the power of more than ten gods, and yet...

They almost lost against her.

’She’s probably the only person alive right now who comes close to me in terms of innate talent,’ he thought.

’Letting that die would be wasteful.’

[Mhm...]

Jasmine hummed thoughtfully at his words, her eyes narrowing as she looked at Lyra with her divine eyes.

Gray said nothing further, but he was a little perturbed.

’...It’s simply too quiet. And I’m not even manifesting my own killing intent to scare away the beasts...’

Shook...

”Huh?” Seraph suddenly looked at the ground in confusion, and so did Gray.

”...Did the ground just shake?” Gray spoke in a surprised tone.

”I think so...” she nodded lightly.

Both of them crouched down to check the ground, as there probably was something right below them.

”Weird. I don’t feel any mana from below,” Seraph frowned.

Gray was also a little weirded out by this.

”...Wait a second.”

He suddenly dipped his rapier’s blade into the ground, and seeing how easy it passed through the dirt...

”Shit. We need to get the fuck out of here!”

CRACK!!!

But just as he uttered those words, the ground beneath them split.

THRUM!

Directly beneath their feet, the stone and soil fracturing outward from the center in jagged radiating lines, before the entire section simply gave way, dropping into nothing, taking both of them with it.

Gray’s hand moved immediately.

”[✧Swap✧]”

[You have entered an anti-mana zone. Mana cannot be used in this area.]

The notification appeared directly in front of his eyes, causing his eyes to widen almost entirely in shock.

He had half a second to process it and used that same half second to grab Seraph.

He pulled her into his arms before she had finished processing that she was falling, wrapping one arm around her back and pulling her against his chest, his other hand going to his rapier by reflex before he registered that the rapier wasn’t going to help with a fall.

”G-Gray?!”

She grabbed him back, both arms going around him with a grip that was considerably tighter than her usual composure suggested she was capable of, her face pressing against his shoulder.

”W-what should we do?!”

They were falling.

Five seconds.... ten seconds...

The hole below them was dark and gave no indication of ending, the broken edges of the entrance above shrinking into a pale square of forest light that got smaller with each second.

Gray counted the seconds and thought.

’...Fucking hell. I knew that this was going to be a rabbit hole!’ he cursed inwardly.

He couldn’t use skills here, so he needed something... or someone to help him not take fall damage, as it could potentially kill him.

After all, rabbit holes do block any kind of mana use.

”...Atrinae!” He finally got an idea.

”Hiss~?”

”Go to your spiritual form, and help us with the fall.”

Atrinae, who had been clinging to his collar through the entire descent with her scales fully flared and her eyes wide open for once, made a sound that was not her usual satisfied hiss.

”Hiss!”

And then she let go.

The nine-colored energy poured outward from her small body as she released her physical form, expanding rapidly in the dark of the shaft, wisps of luminous color spreading and reshaping.

And then the phantom took form around them both, enormous and coiling, her scales hardening from translucent to something considerably more substantial as the ground rushed up from below.

BAAAAM!!!

The impact shook the shaft walls.

Dust and loose stone rained down from above.

The phantom held firmly.

Gray felt the deceleration through his entire frame, absorbed and distributed across Atrinae’s hardened phantom scales rather than delivered to the two people she was wrapped around, and then everything was still.

Creack...

”Phew...”

The phantom dissolved back into wisps, the wisps contracting back into the small white snake that reappeared on Gray’s left arm, winding herself into a comfy place.

She licked his cheek once and closed her eyes, taking her fourth nap of the day.

”Fuu...” Gray exhaled and looked down at her, pressing two fingers gently against the top of her small head.

”Good girl,” he said quietly.

He looked up.

They were at the bottom of a shaft with no visible way back up, in an anti-magic zone, somewhere beneath a festival dungeon that now had confirmed demonic activity inside it.

He looked at Seraph.

She had released her grip on him and stepped back slightly, one hand still on his arm, holding onto him for support as her breath came unevenly.

”U-ugh...”

A thin layer of dust had settled across her hair and shoulders from the shaft walls.

”You okay?”

”Cough, cough!” She pressed her fist against her mouth, cleared her throat, and straightened.

”I g-guess... so.”

She breathed hard for a moment.

Nodding, Gray looked at the shaft around them.

Carved stone walls, too smooth to be naturally made. Inscription lines running along the lower sections are dark and inactive.

A passage leading forward from the shaft’s base in one direction, wide enough for two people across, its depths dark.

’An anti-mana rabbit hole... I should’ve expected this, but this means that there’s probably a beast above the intermediate king realm around here somewhere... not to mention th—’

[—Rabbit Hole?]

Before Gray could finish his thoughts, Jasmine suddenly interrupted him.

’It’s a giant hole carved usually by Ground Devouring Worms. Those are creatures that are naturally born above the intermediate king realm, and depending on their age, they can even reach into the Emperor realm.’

’...They literally get stronger by devouring the nutrients contained in the ground, but they are quite slow, as normally, to break through a single small realm, they need more than ten years.’

[Are they like... trap holes?]

’Yup... that’s why I’m a little paranoid about this, since this is also somehow an anti-mana zone, which means... ’

His eyes narrowed slighly at the carved inscriptions on the walls, and upon taking a closer look, he finished his previous thought.

’It’s at least a Saint-level Worm that might have gained sentience.’

”Gray... this is a rabbit hole, right? Why can’t I use my mana?” Seraph asked as she tried to circulate her mana, but strangely couldn’t.

”It’s an anti-mana zone... we can’t use mana unless we’re stronger than the person that created this zone.”

”Anti-mana zone...?” Her eyes suddenly widened in realization.

Grip!

”Doesn’t that mean that we... will probably die?” She suddenly grabbed Gray’s clothes and pulled him closer to her, looking at him with eyes that were practically pleading with him to refute her own words.

But Gray didn’t want to give her false hope, so he nodded instead.

”There’s a high chance that a Saint-level Ground Devouring Worm created his rabbit hole, and yeah... our chances of surviving are second to none.”

Seraph stared at him.

For a long moment, she just stared, her hands still gripping his clothes, her knuckles almost turning pale from the pressure of it.

”...Second to none?” she repeated, almost like a robot.

”Yes.”

Her expression changed instantly, and her grip on his clothes tightened.

”...I... I can’t die here.”

She spoke in an almost teary tone.

”I can’t die here.” She said it again, slightly differently, like she was testing whether saying it twice made it more or less true.

”Not like... not like this. In a hole. During a festival... hahahah...” she laughed.

”During a festival,” she repeated.

”That’s. That’s such a stupid way to—”

She stopped as her breathing suddenly got heavier.

”Sniff... Nobody will even know!

”They’ll see my name stop moving on the board, and they’ll just think I withdrew. Or got eliminated. They’ll just think—” She exhaled sharply through her nose.

”Ahh... thinking about it, it isn’t so bad to die, right? My whole family is trying to kill me, I have demons hunting me for whatever reason...”

Tears slipped from her eyes, wetting the dirty ground.

”...Isn’t it just better to die?!” she almost shouted.

But then... Gray softly wrapped his arms around her, pulling him into him, flattening her breasts against his chest.

”...Shhhh, I’m here... Sera.”

He gently patted her back in slow motion.

”Everything will be fine...” he muttered softly into her ear.

His voice almost sounded like magic as Seraph gradually calmed down under his little whispers and small patting movements.

Then, when she finally looked up from his chest, Seraph stared at him with those too-bright eyes and her jaw set tight, and her hands still knotted in his clothes, and she said, very quietly, as the words cost her something she wasn’t sure she had:

”I don’t want to die in a hole, Gray.”