Surviving in a Frozen Dark Fantasy as a Genius Mage - Chapter 21

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Surviving the Frozen Dark Fantasy as a Genius Mage ◈

Chapter 21: Ruined Prison on the 1st Floor

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With a low chant, mystic power finally began to manifest in this world as physical force.

Kiiiiiik!

Intense white mana, utterly unlike the feeble torchlight, exploded outward.

The darkness swallowing the room was driven back in an instant, and smoke rose from the eye sockets of the grotesque creatures exposed to the light.

Whoooosh!

The frost wind that followed froze the Reanimated Dead from head to toe, though they could no longer feel the cold.

A black arrow flew through the deadly storm of magic as if in resistance, but the wedge of Frost that followed shattered both the arrow and its wielder.

Clang!

“Phew.”

The skeleton archer fell after its skull shattered, and the bizarre noises filling the room vanished as if they had never existed.

Beautiful shards of ice drifted through the air.

No, they were lumps of death carrying bits of bone and flesh.

A young man with hair as cold and white as those fragments lowered his staff and sighed. It was Ian.

“...Is it over?”

“That easily?”

Dize, Daisy, Elena, and Narita all collapsed where they stood, their tension finally gone.

“Ha...”

They had thought they had barely escaped, only to find another area waiting for them. That alone had nearly broken their spirits.

Then they had been surrounded by far too many undead to handle beneath the dim torchlight, and despair had surged through them.

Yet the powerful enemies that had seemed ready to tear them apart were now scattered across the floor like shattered statues.

Ian.

It was all the work of one mage who called himself a genius.

‘This is magic...’

Daisy unconsciously parted her lips.

Once Ian had finished Memorize and begun casting, all they had needed to do was smash the enemies frozen too stiff to move.

No matter how many times she saw it, it was incredible.

Overwhelming. Beautiful, too.

While Ian’s magic unfolded, even the terror of death disappeared.

Daisy had moved beyond admiration.

She practically worshipped Ian now.

“Ian is really... amazing!”

“So this is a mage...”

Narita, who had been in shock after losing her friends, also let her emotions show for once.

No, what she felt was closer to regret than surprise.

‘If I’d agreed to work with them, even if it meant giving up some of my share!’

‘If only I’d tried harder to stop my friends!’

Then her friends might have survived too.

“Really... We lived. We actually lived...”

Dize panted, groaning and shedding tears.

Only then did they notice that one of his index fingers had been cut off.

“Dize!”

“Dize, you...”

“Hehe... It’s cheap, considering it saved my life.”

Dize tried to sound relaxed, but his face was a mess of tears and snot.

His trembling hands made the act pointless.

‘Fuck, one of my fingers is gone. I’m disabled now. This is terrifying. What am I supposed to do from now on? Ugh...’

“Stop the bleeding first. Everyone, spread out and find the finger. If we act fast, we might be able to reattach it.”

What moved Dize even in that moment was Ian’s unshakable calm and the fact that Ian was worrying about him again.

‘He’s seriously something else.’

‘I’m losing my mind right now. How can he stay that calm...’

“I found it!”

“Rinse it with water, then wrap it tightly in cloth with ice and keep it safe.”

“Okay... E-Elena!”

Dize’s injury turned out to be the least of their problems.

Elena was panting in a cold sweat, and the abdomen she was clutching was stained bright red.

“...I got hit once.”

She had overextended herself while protecting Ian during Memorize.

“Elena!”

Damn it.

If she got tetanus, this could turn into a disaster.

Ian was startled by Elena’s serious wound, but he quickly gave the others instructions.

“Narita, keep watch. Dize, collect the Mana Stones and anything valuable. Daisy, help me.”

“Got it!”

First, they had to disinfect the wound.

Otherwise, a secondary infection could set in.

With the basic medical knowledge of a modern person, Ian moved Elena to the cleanest spot in the room and brushed away the dust and ashes.

“We need to boil water first, then use it to disinfect ourselves.”

He had brought strong liquor for disinfecting wounds, but this would work better than simply pouring it on.

“But the fire...”

Daisy looked at the torches that had been reduced to faint flames during the battle.

There was not enough heat to boil water.

Only two torch shafts remained, so they could not even use them as firewood.

“I’m fine... Hng, so just... Mmph!”

“Patients keep their mouths shut.”

Ian stuffed a cloth into Elena’s mouth, washed his and Daisy’s hands with water from a canteen, then poured the remaining water into a pot.

He dipped his fingertips into the pot and cast a spell.

Crackle!

Something amazing happened amid a bluish glow.

The water in the pot began boiling in an instant.

“Huh?”

Ian had heated it by making the current collide with the water’s resistance, producing frictional heat, but Daisy did not understand any of that.

She only thought Ian was amazing.

“Lightning can boil water too!”

“Uh, well. I suppose it can, technically.”

Sizzle!

“Mmph!”

After disinfecting their hands with the boiling water, Ian treated Elena’s wound with Daisy’s help.

He cut away the Gambeson tangled with blood and flesh using a dagger.

“Bear with it, even if it hurts.”

“Heh, it doesn’t hu... Aah!”

He poured strong liquor over the wound, applied herbs good for pain relief and stopping bleeding, then wrapped it in clean bandages.

“Phew.”

Sweating heavily, Ian rose after finishing Elena’s treatment.

‘If only we had even the lowest-grade potion!’

Frustration rose inside him.

He was not asking for a Priest like Rami, who had travelled with Arthur.

Still, if they had even a potion, things would have been much better. They were simply too expensive.

Worsening injuries.

That was why countless rookie Expedition Party members died on the first floor.

“Ian. I collected everything.”

“Good work, Dize.”

Ian packed the Mana Stones, then selected and packed the compact, valuable pieces of equipment Dize had gathered.

“Elena...?”

“She’s okay. For now.”

Honestly, he had no idea when her condition might worsen.

[Dimas’s injuries worsened, and he ultimately died before making it through the night]

It was a message that always appeared whenever he entered the Labyrinth in the game, but experiencing it firsthand felt awful.

‘What a mess.’

‘Even after preparing as much as I could, this is all I managed?’

‘And I still call myself a genius?’

Ian ran a hand through his hair in frustration and sank into self-loathing, but this was practically a miracle.

What rookie party could pass through two areas, face so many monsters, and still have every member alive?

Fortunately, the monsters did not attack again.

With his pack on his back, Ian led the group onward.

“If everyone’s done, let’s move. Narita, have you ever taken Scout training?”

“No.”

Then it would be better for him to take the lead.

He knew the mechanisms and patterns of the traps found in the Ruined Prison inside out.

“Then Daisy and I will lead. Narita and Elena stay in the middle. Dize, take the rear.”

“Bullshit! I can do it too... Ngh.”

Elena tried to step in at the absurd idea of a mage taking the lead.

But the moment she strained herself, sharp pain surged from her wound, and she flinched.

“We don’t have time to waste, Elena. The torches are almost out.”

With a concerned but firm hand, Ian moved Elena to the center and accepted the risk himself.

‘A normal mage should always be kept in the rear.’

‘But I’m a veteran of this trash game and the leader of the orphan crew.’

‘I have to lead.’

That was the role of a leader.

* * *

Step. Step.

The weak torch flame lit an old-fashioned corridor.

The enclosed space, covered in musty mold and old stonework, was desolate and silent. Because of that, our footsteps and the sound of water dripping through the cracks echoed clearly.

When I gave a subtle hand signal, the others stopped.

I lowered the torch to shine it on the floor.

A stone slab at my feet had sunk ever so slightly.

“Ian, what’s wrong?”

Elena asked in a cold sweat, clutching her injured abdomen.

Instead of answering, I stepped back a few paces, picked up a broken bone lying on the floor, and tossed it lightly onto the slab.

Click!

A chilling sound rang out, and the floor suddenly folded inward.

Several victims of the trap lay slumped in a roughly three-meter-deep pit lined with sharp spikes and blades, their corpses decayed into bare skeletons.

Clack, clack, clack!

A few of them had risen again and stared at us, their teeth clicking together.

“A trap...”

It was a basic spike trap.

In the game, a character in the Scout role with good dexterity could disarm it with a simple click at a high success rate, but seeing it in person made the hairs on my neck rise.

“Cough, cough.”

Unlike a windy forest, this was a sealed space with nowhere for the smoke to go. The harsh smoke from the torch stung my eyes.

Monsters could jump out of the darkness at any moment, and a lapse in concentration would lead straight to a mistake.

‘One mistake, and I’ll end up skewered like those things down there.’

Wiping my eyes with my sleeve, I pulled a rope from the pack I had brought for moments like this.

“Narita, tie this over there.”

“...”

“We’ll use the rope as support and go around it.”

The others and I passed the trap and started moving again.

We did not forget to retrieve the rope afterward.

“It was in the training materials, but I didn’t recognize it.”

“Same... Ugh, that scared the hell out of me.”

The others seemed amazed that I had spotted the trap.

Theory and practice were different things.

Just because someone learned the method of spotting traps from training materials did not mean they could use it right away.

‘But for a genius mage like me, it’s easy.’

Of course, once we reached the second or third floor, or a secret dungeon where the traps became truly vicious, sharp eyes alone would not be enough. We would need an experienced Scout.

‘For arrow traps that shoot from the walls, use the shovel like this.’

Clang!

“Smash it, and the problem’s solved.”

“Wow!”

There were no useless consumable items in the Labyrinth.

Even dog shit had its use here if someone was determined enough.

It had cost some money, but a shovel was basically a universal Swiss Army knife.

Clack! Clack-clack!

“Three skeleton soldiers ahead.”

The Ruined Prison was one of the three areas on the first floor.

Past the corridors were rooms containing monsters, or, if we were lucky, treasure chests.

Most of the time, we were greeted by nothing but piles of dust.

Those vicious skeletons lay facedown on the floor like corpses until they sensed the living, making them difficult to detect even with Elena’s help.

Crunch!

After entering a room, dealing with the monsters, and collecting the Mana Stones, I frowned.

‘By now, we should’ve run into someone.’

For some reason, there was not a single Expedition Party member in sight, even though they were usually everywhere.

‘If I found someone decent, I was going to pay them for a potion or a healing spell.’

We were moving in search of an Escape Portal.

The portal’s location was usually random, but some portal locations were fixed.

The problem was that they were quite far away.

“Haah... Hng...”

Would Elena be able to hold on until then?

Her breathing was growing rougher, and a foul smell was coming from her wound.

Even after disinfecting it and doing everything I could, it had become inflamed.

“Elena...”

“Ian! Elena is...”

‘It’s a gamble, but I have no choice.’

I changed the plan and altered our route.

“Ian?”

“We’re changing plans. Elena’s treatment comes first.”

After moving for about thirty minutes, we passed through more corridors and rooms, walking between countless closed doors.

Then I stopped at a certain spot.

‘A wall carved with rice stalks and sunlight.’

Though weathered and faint, the wall clearly bore a pattern I recognized.

‘No monsters appear in here.’

Even so, with Daisy covering me with her shield, I carefully opened the door.

Creeeak!

The smell of dust unique to a sealed space rushed out with the sound of old hinges.

I tossed the torch inside, looked around, and let out a relieved breath.

“Phew, it’s safe.”

Like every other room we had passed, this one was empty enough to feel lonely.

“This place...”

“There’s nothing here?”

Ignoring my disappointed companions, I ran my hands along the wall.

‘It should be around here somewhere...’

My hand pressed deep into the wall.

With a click, the sound of a mechanism turning came from within. Then the wall suddenly rumbled apart, revealing a hidden space.

“W-what is that?!”

“The wall split open out of nowhere!”

“Shh. Is this your first time seeing a secret room? Don’t make such a fuss like country bumpkins.”

“We are country bumpkins...”

“Besides, the Expedition Party Guild never taught us about this...”

I led the startled group into the room.

At the center of the dimly glowing chamber, which shone even without torchlight, stood a small, dried-up fountain. Beyond it was an old statue of a goddess.

“That’s...”

“A divine statue. It was made to serve and honor a god.”

One of the hidden features of the Ruined Prison.

It was commonly called the Shrine of the Oil Receiver.

Judging from the statue’s appearance, it was Meia, the goddess of abundance and mercy.

Its special feature was...

‘A chance for a classless character to become a Priest or Paladin!’

I was a mage, so it would not work for me, but...

‘One of them might be chosen by a god.’

Then they could learn Heal and treat Elena, Dize, and the others who were injured.

“What?!”

The odds were incredibly low.