Life didn't get easier, even in another world.

How did he find a place that wasn’t mentioned anywhere? How could a young man know about such a hidden place? He said he had calculated it. The villagers were mostly illiterate, so they couldn’t understand, but the boy still explained to them how he found out that there were some abnormalities in a specific area after reading the records of the unfinished project his father was working on before his death. He said these records were so reliable that they were accepted by the academy and even the organization his mother used to work at.

Now that he thought about it, wasn’t it a little bit strange that his father left this important information at home? The pieces of paper were hidden in between his books. It was only after years of reading that the young man found the research data.

What he found even more suspicious was the fact that his father died so abruptly after gathering this data. The incident was just... Too sudden. How could a normal professor in the academy die because he got hit by the magic spell of a cadet that was shot in the wrong direction? As much as he knew, the training facilities were separated from the main building, and even the offices of the professors and the classrooms all had protection spells installed in them.

It was also strange how his mother took him and came to this village after his father’s death. Couldn’t they just live in their house? His mom had a good job and a good salary back then. It was enough to support their family.

The boy was curious. He was curious as to what was hidden in the location he found using his father’s research. Was there a great treasure? Every treasure had a story behind it, then, what was the story behind the temple he found?

Why was it even named a temple? He had no idea. That was a name given to the location by his father. In the notes, he had drawn a bunch of strange lines and maps and came to the conclusion that the location was once called a temple by a certain someone in a very old book inside the academy’s library.

“We are almost there.”

He looked at the map with numerous marks on it and muttered under his lips. According to the map, they only had two hours of walking left until they entered that area.

.....

“Boss, can we... Can we take a rest?”

The young boy turned back and glanced at his subordinates. After examining them from head to toe, he sighed and nodded his head. Those boys didn’t look to be in a good shape, and neither was he. They had been walking for days and they were obviously tired.

“Rest for an hour and eat your food. We have a lot of work to do after we reach that location.”

“Yes, boss!”

The group of youths set up a camp and prepared food to eat. After they had settled down, just like any other gathering of a bunch of ordinary youths, the group started conversing as time passed.

“Hey, have you heard about that big project?”

“Big project? You mean that huge building they’ve built in the middle of the plain?”

“Yeah! Have you heard what they are doing?”

“That isn’t something new though. That building has been there for years, though I don’t know what they are doing inside...”

“No one knows.”

“No, but I’ve heard some strange things!”

“What things?”

“One of my friends told me that he saw a bunch of huge cars going in and out of that building when he was out there gathering material. He said they were military cars, carrying strange stuff with them. He had also seen a lot of military people!”

The young men and women chattered about the mysterious building that was located in a faraway location in the plain of their village. No one knew what the building was used for, but no one was allowed to enter it or even pass from a few kilometers away from it. It was actually in a remote location, not near any cities or villages, so no ordinary person would go out of their way to peek at that place.

“Military, huh? It’s really not surprising. That place is spooky and suspicious. It isn’t strange if it belongs to the military.”

“Yeah, but he said that the soldiers were just too many and they were all doing strange things. There were even a few of them that were like the boss! They could do magic! He said that troops after troops of soldiers were going there and all of them were in a hurry!”

The conversation heated up the more the boy said about the things his friend had seen.

“Is there something going on in there? I suddenly want to go take a look!”

“Come to think of it, we’ve come all the way here... Doesn’t that make us closer to the building than ever? Isn’t this a good chance?”

“Yeah, I’m really curious.”

“Don’t get excited over nothing.”

As soon as those last words were spoken, the group became silent. The chattering stopped and all heads turned to the young boy who had suddenly joined the conversation.

“We will go straight to our destination and search for the temple. Don’t think about silly things and focus on your food.”

The group lowered their heads slightly.

“Yes, boss.”

The group continued to eat the rest of their food in silence. After eating and resting for a while, they packed their stuff and resumed walking to their destination once again. It took them around two hours to finally hear the voice of their boss once again. Standing in front of the group, the young man raised his hand and said in a loud voice.

“It’s here.”

The place they were standing didn’t seem considerably strange or abnormal. They were in a barren place with absolutely nothing in there. One side of it was a hill and the other side led to a jungle that marked the end of the plain.

“Is it here?”

Someone asked hesitantly.

“Yes. Start digging up.”

The youth started walking around the area with a frown on his face, occasionally tapping the ground and examining the surroundings. His subordinates wanted to ask where exactly were they supposed to dig, but they gave up once they saw the frown on their boss’s face. Picking up their tools, each one of them started digging up a random place.

Tap Tap Tap

“Hmm...”

The boy stopped moving and circled around at one place and looked down. The place was where he was getting a strange feeling from. It was a feeling one would get when faced with a monster, but it was also different from that. He knew he was the only one who could sense this as he was the sole mage in this group.

After looking around for a few seconds, he also picked up a tool and crouched down, carefully digging up the soil and searching for anything that might be there.

He dug and dug and dug, but he couldn’t find anything. He was sure something was there, deep down under the ground, but no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find it.

It was when he was thinking about using other methods to dig out whatever was inside the ground.

OONGGGG

A sudden, intense quake shook the whole area.

The shaking was so sudden and intense that no one could even react. A strong gust of wind rose to the air and dust obstructed their view. The group either fell to the ground or were barely keeping a sitting position. Their leader was no different from the rest.

“W-what was that-”

Before any of them could say anything or even think, their sight was blurred by a sudden, intense light. Something was shining in the distance. Far on the horizon, they saw a blob of light expand rapidly as it turned brighter and redder in color. The next moment, the whole area was dyed in an orange light that blinded their sight. A gas sphere went up from the light blob and expanded as it gave out more and more light. Countless mixtures of dark and bright circle-like blasts were shot out from the mushroom-like thing in the distance as dust and soil rose up to the air.

Extreme and sudden gusts of winds blew toward them and some of the youths got blown away helplessly while some desperately tried their best to hold themselves to the ground.

But that was also useless.

None of them could resist the strong heat and the deadly energy that was being cast out from the light blob.