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A Long Journey
While being attacked by all sorts of monsters on the way, me and Ralf continued to somehow deal with them as half a day passed by.
I sensed that the water level  had begun to decrease again, and when we seemed to enter a swamp like region again——–right ahead of us, I saw something that resembled a cave like structure.
“Hey, that’s the place! That cave has to be the place we’re looking for, right!?”
“Well it’s a cave alright. I just hope it’s the right cave.”
Ralf was jumping with happiness , and Mielle looked relieved.
The journey ended up being much longer than we expected, and Mielle had to use mana potions to endure through it all.
Even though they were taking turns, they still had to spend a whole half of a day making ice platforms with magic so it wouldn’t be weird if she suffered from mana burnout.
“Esta, Mielle, Fecilia, Snow, thank you for making the ice platforms for us until now.”
“You can give your thanks after everything’s done. We need to do this all over again when we go back anyway, and besides, isn’t the cave supposedly more dangerous than the path here?”
“Yeah, from what I’ve heard, the cave is supposedly extremely dangerous. The biggest danger is the fact that we don’t know what makes the cave so dangerous. So everyone, be careful.”
“Ehhh, we need to continue being on guard still? I’m tired from constantly being so on the edge.”
“For the time being at least

..let’s make a camp at the entrance of the cave. Depending on how safe it is, we can take a break there so put up with it until then.”
“Chris-san, are you sure we can safely camp inside a cave?”
“We’ll have to see but, it’s important to get a rest. We’ll scout the area and it’ll depend on whether we can make sure that it’ll be safe but, we should try and take regular rests whenever we get the chance.”
Even though the cave is supposedly dangerous, it doesn’t mean that the entrance itself would also be dangerous. Or at least, that’s my hope.
Me and Snow will check for enemies and depending on what we find, we’ll set up camp there.
Just because we were back on to a swampy area where we could walk on foot doesn’t mean we can let my guard down, and so we continued using the ice platforms until we reached right at the entrance of the cave, and then we entered into the place.
Inside the cave, the sounds of water droplets falling resounded and echoed, and besides that, there was no other sound.
I activated both [Life presence Sense] and [Mana Sense] to search for monsters but I couldn’t detect anything within my range.



But, Snow did seem to sense something as its fur stood up on its end and it was growling towards the insides of the cave.
“Chris-san, sense any monsters?”
“Nothing near the entrance, but, I’ll scout ahead a bit further so wait just a bit more.”
“Should I come with as well? It’d be dangerous if you guys got attacked suddenly, no?”
“no, Ralf, you stay at the entrance as well. If it was something other than a monster, it’s better for me to deal with it alone.”
I stopped Ralf from following me, and left even Snow behind and proceeded ahead by myself.
On top of the previous 2 skills, I also activated [Perception Enhancement][perception Range Enhancement][Hearing Enhancement][Crimson Eyes][Stealth][Silent Steps] to help with detection and stealth, and then also activated [Sound Wave Detection]——a new skill that I got from the Owl Monster’s ongneer.
[Sound Wave Detection] was a skill that allowed me to see a 3d image of things based on sound; it was like a upgraded version of [Hearing Enhancement] and [Crimson Eyes].
Even in a completely silent place, any word I say will release soundwaves that will reflect from the surroundings and give me a clear image of my whatever I am looking at.
If I had to point out a negative, it’d be that I had to make a noise to make it work, and also the stamina cost of skill was really bad.
It was a very useful skill but, [Sound Wave Detection] used the same amount of stamina as [Ability Unleashed].
So I had to be mindful of when to use this ability, and of course, now was one such situation.
Coupled with multiple other skills as well, I continued scouting the interiors of the cave.
There were no reactions from the entrance of the cave but, there must be some kind of monster residing deep inside the cave as I slowly began to hear all sorts of sounds. No wonder Snow was acting like that.
While making a sound myself, I continued cautiously walking forward and was hoping to analyse how many monsters were inside but


.it must be really far away as I was unable to figure out how many there were from here.
Every bit of sound was reverberating a bit too much inside this cave making it very difficult to grasp the entirety of the interior of the cave.
For the time being though, at least I know that there’s no danger nearby which is good enough.
“I went in checked quite deep inside the place but, there are no monsters near the entrance at least.”
“Really? I don’t know if I can really trust your word or not.”
“if you’re that worried, you can always go and check it yourself.”
“Very well. I will do exactly that and confirm with my own eyes.”
Letting Fecilia go an check ahead as well since she was doubtful of my words, me and the rest decided to set up camp here in the mean time.
We kept our luggage to the minimum, so there was nothing other than tents and sleeping bags but, that was still much better than nothing.
“Chris, are we going to spend the night here?”
“That’s what I’m thinking, but what do you guys think?”
“I have no complaints. I’m almost out of mana, so it’s better we leave the exploration of the cave for tomorrow.”
“I agree as well. I still have mana to spare personally but


.Chris-san and Ralf are tired as well, and if it really is a very dangerous cave, it’s better if we challenge it in perfect condition.”
“Me too! Thanks to fighting in an unfamiliar place, and the ice platforms freezing my feet, I’m way more tired than normal! This is hardly a very good place to rest but, even a little bit of sleep will go a long way to help!”
Other than Fecilia who went ahead to scout the place, all three agreed to rest here at the entrance of the cave.
From tomorrow, the exploration of the cave proper will start.
Like Ralf said, this was not an environment to get a good rest in but


I still need to get as much rest as possible to prepare for tomorrow.