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Sheltering Den in the mountains was finished in a moment with Maxwell’s help. He opened the Gate, urged Den in, while also instructing him to live in my hideout.

While we were at it, we also told him about Aste’s cave where he was better off not approaching.

It would normally be proper manners to have him visit Aste, but the person in question was quite lazy when it came to things like this, so he wouldn’t really care whether a monster had settled nearby or not.

He might have gotten angry if we bothered him about every little thing, so we decided to just leave him be. Maxwell already got his permission, so this wasn’t particularly impolite.

“Alright then, Den. You are free to hunt any nearby animals, and there should be no problems as long as you don’t descend the mountain, so you can live without worries. That said, don’t go filling my hideout with filth, you hear?”
“Me got it, will clean.”
“Good. Also, as we already mentioned, there’s a really scary blacksmith living inside that cliff, so stay away from that place. If a problem arises, however, you can go and talk to him about it. Do you remember the signal?”
“Take black rock. Hit similar black rock. Once. Twice. Four times. Once.”
“Alright, then. We’ll be going back now. We plan to pay you a visit every once in a while, but try to take care of yourself on your own.”
”Okay. Nigorr, good.”
“It’s Nicole, pronounce it right.”
“Ni-Nigo…?”
“Agh, whatever.”

Talking with an Ogre over twice my size was starting to hurt my neck. It was particularly a pain when I stood so close — I had to literally look overhead to talk.

Still, it felt nice to be able to talk to this friendly fellow. I could feel a similar sort of simplicity from him that I felt from Michelle.

“Well then. Sorry to leave so fast, but we have other things to do.”
“Okay. Thank you. Come again.”
“Yeah, we will.”

After waving back at it, Maxwell and I returned back to Raum. As I already told Den, we had other things to deal with.

After returning to the boulder, Maxwell heaved a big sigh. It was rare to see him looking so down in the dumps.

“What’s wrong? Did you get tired after using the teleportation magic so much?”
“No, not at all. I simply feel it is a big waste that I have to seal off such a good Ley Line.”
“Ah, so that’s what you’re worried about.”

Still, as he had already pointed out, it was dangerous to leave this place be. It could lead to political troubles for Raum, as well as criminals misusing it like they did this time.

As such, we decided to bury this place, rather than simply sealing it.

“It’d be problematic if anyone finds this place suspicious, so try to go about it as gently as you can.”
“It would be troubling if they dig it up.”
“Don’t even think about one-shotting it with explosion magic, you hear?”
“What do you take me for?”

Back in our adventuring days, Maxwell used to make full use of his ridiculous magic power, wreaking excessive destruction all around. He had an influential social position from the start, so he tended to put the effort into these kinds of excessive showing-offs.

He just had to quietly collapse what was under the boulder, but I wouldn’t put it past him to decide to just blow it all up in one go.

That’s why I went and warned him, but seeing him so upset about it made it seem like I was in the wrong for doing that.

“You love being flashy, so I’m just warning you, old man.”
“I am thinking of what’s to come, so I would not do something that would add to my fatigue.”

Klein had fled to either Qaum or Lilith. But those two cities were outside of Raum’s jurisdiction, so he might have left for some other place through them.

If that was the case, Maxwell’s teleportation magic would be needed to chase after them. Moreover, he had a skilled guard like Mateus with him. There was no knowing when and where a battle could occur.

“If I was able to get my old body back, he isn’t someone I would ever fall behind…”
“Do not be so unreasonable. You are already using middle-class magic at that age, are you not? You are already a perfect genius from the other people’s perspective.”

My Enchant magic had already reached a cut above average, and due to this, Michelle was also able to pull her Third Eye up to the middle. To pull it completely, she still needed to use the bangle that she received from the God of Destruction, but still, even a half-pulled Third Eye was already far stronger than any average bow.

Considering the after-effects, it was more efficient to make do with my enchant instead.

“Now then, shall we bury it? I shall first support the boulder while destroying the walls in the underground space, and then drop the boulder on top of everything.”
“That sounds like tough work, are you sure you’d be fine?”
“Leave it to me.”

Even just supporting that giant, mountain-like boulder already seemed impossible to me. Maxwell didn’t seem to share my sentiment, however, and proceeded to cast spells one after another.

He first created pillars with Earth Wall to support the boulder. Following that, he hollowed out the surrounding walls with Tunnel, and got rid of the bedrock supporting it.

Then, he slowly released the Earth Wall and let everything slowly sink in the space below. Once the Tunnel’s effect was gone, all the earth that he removed around the boulder would go back to normal.

And just like that, a newly discovered power spot in the outskirts of Raum had been consigned to oblivion without a single citizen learning about its existence.