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In the end, we’ve gone around all the four spots, but despite the fact that we investigated up until sundown, we’ve only learned that there are monsters near the Mana pools that probably descended from the mountain.

「Hey, you’re back.」
「Sorry, we’re late.」
「It’s fine. There wasn’t really much difference between us. Fyne was just a bit earlier than us, I guess?」

Returning to the base, we were greeted by “Grim”. It seems like the other teams were the same as us, only learning that there are monsters near the Mana pools. It seems that we haven’t learned anything in particular.

「So “Little” found seven spots, “Fyne” five, and us six, just in this are there are eighteen spots, huh.」
「That’s a lot, right?」
「It is~ Just one spot is a problem in itself, you know~」

Summarizing Audrey’s lax explanation, it seems that it really is strange that there are Mana pools in the vicinity of this highway.

The Mana pools themselves aren’t really that large, so it seems like it won’t produce any monsters. Still, the monsters that descended from the mountain are now feeding on the Mana pools’ Mana and ended up staying there. Normally, even if they managed to escape from the sacred mountain’s domain, the monsters, having nothing to eat, were supposed to either go back to the mountain or end up starving to death.

「Then, do you know what may have caused this?」
「Let’s see~. First, the fact that Mana pools are there~ may mean that the sacred mountain is losing its influence, I guess~」
「It’s losing its influence?」
「That’s right~. Maybe it collected the amount of Mana it needed, and doesn’t need any more~」

I once again listen to Audrey’s lax explanation. I already know that Mana gathers in places with an abundance of it, but it seems that places that hold a lot of Mana like the sacred mountain do have limits to their influence. That limit seems to be referring to the limit of the Mana it can hold within a fixed perimeter.

The sacred mountain is a domain filled with Monsters and Magic Beasts, but even now it still hasn’t transformed into a Dungeon. Mana, as expected, seems to be one of the primary factors concerned with a place transforming into a Dungeon. When Mana starts pooling into normal forests or caves, before you notice it, the Mana crystallizes into a Dungeon Core, something akin to a Magic Core, and the place itself transforms into a Dungeon.

Audrey’s main hypothesis is that, in short, maybe the sacred mountain finally transformed into a Dungeon, resulting in the excess Mana to be dispersed to the surrounding area?

「Still, that doesn’t explain the reason why the monsters are descending from the mountain.
「What do you mean?」
「Since you’ve been into the 『Abyssal Forest』, you noticed right? Normally, monsters don’t go outside the Dungeon. To be exact, they don’t want to.」

According to Grimhart’s explanation, of course there being Mana to eat is one of the reasons, but it seems that the monsters inside the Dungeon extremely hate the idea of going outside. So why would the monsters inside the Dungeons go outside? That’s because when the Dungeon stores up more Mana to grow, they throw out all the monsters inside it at once. This phenomenon commonly referred to as a Stampede.

The number of monsters inside a Dungeon varies by its size, but when it comes to a dungeon on the 『Abyssal Forest』 Class, thousands are but a small number, the number of monsters can reach up to ten thousands or maybe even a few hundred thousands. If that amount of monsters start Stampeding, no matter how many adventurers are in Motsi, it’s already doubtful if even just that solid wall can hold up for even a day.

Excluding that, since monsters coming out of a Dungeon is pretty much unlikely, if the sacred mountain really did transform into a Dungeon, the fact that monsters are appearing in the surrounding area becomes considerably strange.

「That’s why in this case we should think of the possibility that there’s a powerful monster born on the mountain.」
「A monster?」
「Yeah, monsters are born from Mana. If the huge amount of Mana the sacred mountain has accumulated so far turned into a Magic Core and gave birth to a monster, then that would explain the mountain’s influence declining.」

Certainly, in that case, that would also explain the something that the monsters are running away from. There a few factors for a monster’s strength and one is the amount of Mana spent when it was born. Naturally, the more Mana consumed during its birth, the stronger the monster would be. For the birth of a monster to actually cause the influence of a mountain that had stored huge amounts of Mana to fall, there’s absolutely no way that it’s going to be weak.

Still, when I arrived at this mountain, I didn’t hear anything about this from the bandits. Whatever it may be, looking back at the time and place where I encountered the Goblins, it was probably born at pretty much the same time as when I arrived in this world.

Just imagining the possibility that I could have encountered that kind of monster that time when I still couldn’t even tell right from left, I couldn’t help but shudder.