The Extra Prince Sets Out To Conquer The World

Abasael exhaled his stuffy breath and walked.

“Let’s take a break now.”

At Clio’s words, Abasael wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and shook his head.

“I’m… fine.”

Over the past almost three months, Abasael’s stamina had greatly improved.

After repeatedly exercising to the limit and recovering with magic, his stamina and strength increased at an impossible rate with ordinary methods.

However, he was initially in a miserable state of lacking exercise.

No matter how much his stamina improved, climbing and descending a mountain known for its ruggedness was nearly impossible for him.

“El, I’m the one who makes the judgment during mountain climbing. If you don’t like it, terminate the contract.”

Overexerting during mountain climbing usually led to death.

At Clio’s resolute instruction, Abasael sat down with a frown.

“Sit on this. And wear this mask too.”

Yard offered a seat, placing a mat with a recovery magic circle and a mana stone.

The mat was a magic tool on which Abasael, an outstanding magic engraver, had engraved a magic circle.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Abasael sat on the mat with his exhausted body and put on a mask that completely sealed his nose and mouth.

“Inhale- Exhale- Inhale- Exhale-.”

The oxygen-capturing mask, created with Yuan’s idea, prevented altitude sickness-induced hypoxia in high-altitude areas with low oxygen.

The recovery magic circle and oxygen-capturing mask enabled him to climb the impossible with his frail body.

Of course, overusing the recovery magic circle also increased the burden on the body in the long run.

That’s why they had to periodically go to the hot spring to reduce the burden.

Yard smiled, seeing Abasael quickly stabilizing.

“Still, you’ve improved a lot. At first, you had to go to the hot spring just from walking around near the high-altitude village, but now we’re heading to the farthest among the targets.”

The place they were heading to now was the farthest from the high-altitude village among the seven locations that matched Yuan’s description, so they could only head there now.

They had no choice but to go there to break the curse that sealed Abasael’s mana.

“Good- Inhale- rehabilitation training- Exhale- Inhale- it became- Exhale-.”

Perhaps his stamina had become even better than before he lost his mana.

At Abasael’s answer, Yard and Clio laughed, giggling.

“El, you know? It sounds really weird when you talk with that mask on.”

“I- Inhale- know that too- Exhale-.”

He had ears too. Having sufficiently replenished oxygen, he slowly took off the mask.

Inhaling oxygen was good, but overusing it risked hyperoxemia, so he had to be careful.

Hyperoxemia was as dangerous as hypoxia, so Yuan repeatedly cautioned him before parting.

If he could use magic, he could directly adjust the proportion of oxygen according to the atmospheric composition Yuan had taught him, but that was impossible with a magic tool.

Magic tools with complicated usage methods could only be properly used by those who knew how to directly handle mana.

“I think I’ve rested enough now?”

At Abasael’s urging, Clio shook his head.

“Even now, it’s quite overreaching. Since we’re shortening the expected time, there’s no need to be impatient.”

Clio couldn’t understand why Abasael, a simple geologist, was impatient and how he exerted superhuman willpower in a state where it wouldn’t be strange for him to collapse at any moment.

“That’s right. If we do well, we might arrive tomorrow, so let’s rest a bit more. Rather, if we move more now and misstep, we might waste months.”

When Yard added his opinion, Abasael bit his lip impatiently and sighed.

“Yeah, you two are right. I’ll follow Clio’s opinion completely.”

Abasael endured and endured again.

********

Febrie, who was walking ahead, stopped, and Rouerfel also stopped along with her.

“Another break?”

“Seems like it. Mr. El is a scholar and an ordinary person, so it’s a tremendous forced march for him.”

They had been climbing the mountain for six days already.

They passed through the permanent snow zone where sub-zero temperatures were maintained due to the high altitude.

They walked and walked, detouring numerous crevasses.

It was a forced march that was hard to believe for a body with no mana felt at all.

“Then shall we go search nearby again?”

At Rouerfel’s suggestion, Febrie shook her head.

“No, I think we should also move carefully now. The terrain doesn’t look good.”

While following Abasael’s party, whenever they found terrain where mana easily gathered, they searched it.

It was because valuable things were bound to be created in such terrain.

“Yeah? Well, we searched with expectations, but they were all duds.”

However, they gained no results every time they searched like that.

Seeing Rouerfel brushing it off as no big deal, Febrie asked,

“We searched six places, but there was nothing in any of them. Don’t you think it’s strange?”

“Huh? What is?”

At her lover’s gaze looking at her blankly with innocent eyes, Febrie let out a deep sigh.

“I think my dear lacks a lot of intelligence.”

“Why me?! Uncle Malecob called me a genius!”

“Yeah, I expressed it wrong. I think you lack intelligence except for medicine and sorcery.”

“Hmm~! It might not be wrong?”

Seeing Rouerfel readily admitting it, Febrie laughed, giggling.

“Aigoo! Cute. What I mean is, that geologist has probably already checked all the places we searched. Somehow, it doesn’t seem like an ordinary geological survey.”

“Oh! Then could it be that he’s looking for Baldur’s forgotten temple?!”

As Rouerfel’s eyes sparkled with a sense of adventure, Febrie ruffled his hair.

“How could that be? Legends are just legends. Of course, it still seems like we might make an interesting discovery.”

At Febrie’s words, Rouerfel became excited.

“Really? Yes! We did well to follow them longer than planned!”

“It probably won’t take long. I’m curious about what they’re looking for.”

The couple speculated with anticipation about what they were searching for.

Febrie predicted they were looking for a mana crystal cave, while Rouerfel still couldn’t let go of his attachment to Baldur’s forgotten temple.

******

“It’s here.”

Having arrived at the destination, Abasael couldn’t feel any intuition but was certain.

He had his mana and intuition sealed, but he had decades of accumulated knowledge.

Even when he was trapped in the Boutique and became a magic engraving slave, he had studied countless magics and papers.

Unlike his Supreme Mage days when he narrowly and deeply researched through selection and concentration, wide knowledge was necessary to work as an engraver.

The Boutique had the ability to obtain various magics and research.

The 10 years working at the Boutique were a continuation of despair and hell.

However, it provided Abasael with a vast intellectual nourishment, including forbidden research.

“Those seven ridges become the flow of mana, and the rocks become wedges, making mana inevitably pool. Moreover, the movement of the sun is exquisitely obscured by the mountain peak, creating shadows…”

Abasael rambled magical explanations to prove that this was the location he had been searching for, but Yard and Clio didn’t understand any of it.

“El, I know you’re excited, but calm down. The explanation isn’t important, is it?”

At Yard’s words, the excited Abasael took a deep breath and calmed down.

“Th-That’s right.”

With the mountain peak Yuan described at the center, a black peak with a flat end was visible on the left.

Below it, a red sedimentary layer was uplifted, looking like a red bird.

Abasael realized the method of entering the forgotten temple that Yuan had mentioned.

“From the location that seems to gather mana the best, face the black peak and take fifty-six steps in the direction of the red bird’s head, then… Yard, could you strike this spot with a mana-infused shovel?”

“Understood.”

Yard took the shovel attached to his bag and forcefully struck the spot Abasael indicated.

As mana flowed through the ground in all directions, Abasael shattered a mana stone with a hammer and chanted a spell.

“O seven-branched wooden arrows, obscure the sun’s eyes and grasp his heart. When the anguished cry of the son promised the love of all things resonates, the branch of the alienated and young life shall bear a thousand karmas and ten thousand sins and pierce through the windpipe. That lowly branch shall be the trumpet of destruction!”

As the shattered mana stone released mana, Abasael’s voice resonated with it, temporarily causing the world to resonate.

Rumble…!

Then, the mana of the entire mountain fluctuated, and an ominous vibration rang out.

At that vibration sound, Clio, who had lived in the mountains his entire life, turned pale.

“It-It’s a precursor to an avalanche! We need to run away right now while it’s still a precursor!”

“It’s fine, this is the entrance. The avalanche will miss us.”

“It’s not fine! We need to run away right now!”

At Clio’s shout, Yard was conflicted. If he followed Clio’s words, he had to immediately carry Abasael on his back and run.

“Yard. Believe in me, no, believe in our lord. Everything was as our lord said.”

Abasael was half-crazed with madness.

It was a blind faith that couldn’t be seen as someone afflicted with distrust in humans.

The appearance he showed was closer to religion than trust.

“We need to take shelter in the rocky area even now!”

“Do you think we can even reach the rocky area?! Wait! This is the safest place!”

Abasael and Clio looked at Yard.

“Carry El on your back!”

“Stop Clio! If not here, we’ll all die!”

Amid the two people’s shouts, Yard’s conflict deepened.

“There’s no time!”

“Just wait a bit more!”

In the urgent situation and under pressure, Yard had no choice but to choose.

Rouerfel and Febrie looked at the mountain peak at the ominous mountain rumble.

“That can’t be shaking, right?”

“N-No way.”

If this were an ordinary mountain, even if the altitude was high, they might have seen birds fleeing from the mountainside.

However, the absence of trees meant the absence of insects, and the absence of insects meant the absence of birds or small animals that fed on them.

Due to the lack of things that could commonly identify a crisis situation, their response was delayed.

Rumble…!

“Damn it! We’re doomed! It’s an avalanche!”

“We need to run away quickly!”

The two ran down the mountain with all their might.

Unless one was a professional mage, flying magic was slow and consumed extreme amounts of mana.

It was common sense that running was faster if one could handle mana.

*****

“Ha, hahaha…”

Yard sat down, sweating cold sweat.

“We, we’re alive.”

Clio also stopped trembling, curled up, and raised his head.

“Behold! Our lord was not off by an inch!”

Only Abasael stood imposingly in front of the temple entrance that had been buried in the snow swept away by the avalanche.

Seeing the old stone entrance with even a sense of holiness, Yard was relieved that his choice was not wrong.

Despite Clio’s shout that they had to run away immediately, Abasael’s persuasion that it was already too late had worked.

As he said, only this place had escaped the avalanche.

The sight of the avalanche splitting apart right in front of them like a miracle in mythology, as if the sea had parted amid the surging snow, seemed to create a nonexistent faith.

Abasael filled a magic lantern with mana stones and took the lead into the temple entrance.

“Follow me. The secrets that have been asleep since the mythical era will greet us.”