This Novel is not my Novel

Fortunately, no attack came flying at us immediately.

A sigh of relief escaped me, but this was no time to relax.

I tightened my grip on the thread of tension I had nearly let slip and spoke.

"The entrance will disappear the moment I stop supplying Ether. So, if you haven't changed your mind..."

"I'll enter first."

Before I could even finish, Valtraus stepped into the Demon Realm with his spirit beast leading the way.

Laskatl's fur stood on end as he looked around, but he neither hissed toward any particular spot nor assumed a combat stance.

No enemies charged at Valtraus or Laskatl either.

Apparently, there were no monsters nearby. We were lucky.

Grateful for that, I lowered my outstretched hand and took three steps forward.

When I looked back, I confirmed that the entrance had already vanished during that brief interval.

I could also see what lay beyond it.

Viewed from outside, the Demon Realm's barrier absorbed all light and appeared pitch-black.

From inside, however, it merely had the faintest gray tint—just enough to perceive that something was there—and was otherwise as transparent as glass.

This was precisely why a monster might attack the instant an entrance was created.

First, let's see if I can open my Inventory.

If I couldn't, I intended to go back outside, reorganize my equipment, and enter again.

One whip would not be a serious problem, but since daggers could also be used as throwing weapons, one was nowhere near enough.

To give the conclusion first, there was no need to go back outside.

I placed the dagger and whip I was holding into the translucent window that appeared before me.

I couldn't mount Laskatl while holding weapons in both hands, and if my Inventory was functioning normally, drawing the weapons from it would take only an instant.

"Where do you intend to go now?"

"Wait a moment."

After answering Valtraus, I raised my head.

The sky looked slightly duller than it had outside because the transparent gray membrane enclosing the Demon Realm like a dome filtered the light once before it reached us.

"Is there something up there?"

I ignored Valtraus and waited in silence for about a minute.

Just as impatience began creeping in and I wondered whether we should simply start moving in any direction...

—KABOOM!

Golden lightning passed through the transparent membrane and slammed into the ground.

There could be no doubt that it was Reisir's Ether Attribute Ability.

For reference, Reisir's lightning could pass through the Demon Realm's barrier because...

Naturally, the original author had established that it could.

Apparently, natural phenomena weren't normally blocked by a Demon Realm's barrier, and Reisir, the lightning's master, was an Awakened One, or something along those lines.

"We need to go to the place where that lightning just struck."

"Understood."

Valtraus mounted his spirit beast first, and just as I was about to climb on behind him...

"Meow, myaaow!"

Yor cried out and abruptly held the wish-granting orb toward me.

Thinking she wanted me to take it, I extended my hand. The wish-granting orb transformed into a cluster of light, wound around my wrist, and settled into the shape of a bracelet.

Why would the baby dragon entrust the wish-granting orb to me now?

Was she worried that Laskatl's speed would toss her around so violently that she might accidentally lose her grip on it?

Puzzled by Yor's behavior, I tried to ask her, but I never got the chance.

Something truly astonishing happened before I could even open my mouth.

"W-What just happened?!"

"Well, Yor went into the wish-granting... No, I think she went inside the orb...?"

"She can do that?!"

"Well... she must be able to if she just did it...?"

I was utterly bewildered.

I had seen Yor place all sorts of objects inside the wish-granting orb, but this was the first time she had ever entered it herself.

"It seems you didn't know either."

"No... Yor never told me..."

"Your spirit beast is unusual in all sorts of ways."

"She isn't unusual. She's mysterious and versatile."

"......Just get on."

Yor was inside the wish-granting orb now, so I wouldn't receive an answer even if I asked her.

This wasn't the time for questions and answers in the first place.

—RUMBLE!

Lightning struck once again, this time a little farther away than before.

That meant the original work's main and supporting cast weren't staying in one place. They were fighting while on the move.

Apparently, they had not yet encountered the Boss Monster.

And yet Reisir can't conserve his Ether and has to use attacks of that magnitude...

It seemed the ordinary monsters in this Demon Realm were unusually strong.

Either that, or their defenses were extremely high.

Whichever it was, entering alone would have been dangerous.

When I think of it that way, I'm a little... No, very grateful to Valtraus.

Using our lack of time as an excuse, I kept that thought to myself.

I silently sat down behind Valtraus and wrapped my arms around his waist as before.

Apparently feeling me settle into place, Valtraus spoke.

"Then we'll set off."

The academy grounds were extensive, but not so vast that they couldn't be traversed on foot.

Valtraus had also attended this academy and had graduated only a few years ago, so he would know his way around.

More importantly, we were riding an enormous cheetah-type spirit beast.

I expected us to shake off the monsters, move swiftly, and join the special-class students in no time.

But as you can probably tell from the way I phrased that, we encountered an unexpected difficulty.

That difficulty came in the form of enormous boulders and stone pillars.

Obstacles that had appeared in completely random places blocked major routes, forcing us to retrace our path and take a longer way around.

At times, we even had to circle an entire building.

And it happened rather frequently.

That was because stone had erupted from the ground in this Demon Realm instead of vegetation growing.

We also encountered monsters several times, and those monsters were golems.

They lay scattered across the ground like ordinary piles of rock, only to abruptly gather together and assume the form of golems when we approached.

The surprise attacks that immediately followed were considerably threatening, but they never put us in any real danger.

Laskatl nimbly evaded the golems' fists and fled at once.

The ponderous masses of stone couldn't keep up with the agile cheetah. Once we had opened enough distance, they fell apart and returned to piles of rock.

"Wait. I think we need to rest."

Valtraus said that as he climbed down from his spirit beast.

In the end, Laskatl grew exhausted before we could join the original work's main and supporting cast.

Then again, an actual cheetah can maintain its top speed for only a minute or two at most.

Laskatl wasn't a real cheetah but a spirit beast.

That, along with the buff greatly increasing his defenses and physical durability, was probably the only reason he had managed to run for this long.

He had even released 【Gigantification】 and returned to his original size. The sight of him panting heavily in his master's arms was truly pitiful.

Come to think of it, a cheetah's blood pressure and body temperature rise sharply while running, which can damage its blood vessels and mucous membranes...

Fortunately, Laskatl seemed to have stopped before reaching that point, as there was no sign of bleeding.

Still, he had clearly overexerted himself.

"Give him this, at least."

I took a Potion from my Inventory and handed it to Valtraus.

Potions only healed injuries; they didn't restore stamina.

Laskatl would still need some time to rest before he could run again.

It was extremely fortunate that the golems remained motionless in their scattered, rock-pile forms unless someone drew near.

If they had roamed around like other monsters, we wouldn't have been able to rest so peacefully.

—RUMBLE...!

Once again, Reisir's lightning descended with a deafening roar.

Its location had changed. They must have moved again in the meantime.

Are we ever going to catch up with them...? More importantly, is Reisir killing the golems by shattering the rocks with lightning?

Of course, he probably wasn't simply hurling lightning at them without preparation.

He would first have Sveinn use his Ether Attribute Ability so that water seeped into the gaps between the golems' stones, and only then would Reisir attack.

The substantial drain on Reisir's Ether, despite him being their main fighting force, was a problem. Setting that aside, however, it was quite an efficient method.

A golem would only stop moving once its power core had been destroyed.

Yet according to 《NaSE》, that core was merely the size of a young child's fist, and its location differed from one individual to another.

And the fact that I knew this meant golem-type monsters had also appeared in the pre-remake original work.

The location and timing were both different now, but Author Senna was unlikely to have gone out of her way to revise the monsters' settings.

Then the Boss Golem should still be able to move the location of its magic core and power source at will, shouldn't it?

My guess was that the original author wouldn't want Reisir to finish off even the Boss Monster with a single attack.

She had already sufficiently demonstrated her protagonist's strength by showing him defeat ordinary golems in one blow.

She would probably manipulate the situation so that her protagonist struggled, both to reveal the troublesome mechanic she had devised for the Boss Monster and to explain it to the readers.

It also bothers me that she created a Demon Realm at this exact moment and chose golems out of all the monsters she could have used.

Perhaps Author Senna had done this without any deeper thought.

Maybe she had simply decided, The story seems a little dull. Should I create a Demon Realm and add a dash of danger?

But...

Could the original author be trying to exhaust everyone?

That thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

If that was truly her intention, the confession villain might appear after the Boss Monster was defeated and attack someone.

And that someone would most likely be either Helga or me.

It was hard to imagine that bastard doing something so insane with not only his own brother but Valtraus and Fjodora present.

But he might be manipulated by the original author and forced to act against his own will.

I decided not to dismiss the possibility.

Frankly, if we're going to question plausibility, the students wandering around searching for the Boss Monster makes no sense in the first place. It isn't as though there are no Awakened Professors on academy grounds.

For the benefit of any dear readers wondering where the Awakened Professors were and what they were doing at this very moment, let me briefly explain.

They were currently protecting the non-Awakened students and faculty members while evacuating them from the Demon Realm.

I had caught a glimpse of them doing so while we were moving.

Considering how dangerous the Boss Monster was, it seemed that this role should have been assigned to the special-class students instead.

Apparently, however, the original author wouldn't be satisfied unless she entrusted the Boss Monster raid event to her protagonist.