How a Wizard Lives 21

Chapter 21- index finger.

The expedition team hurriedly climbed the seemingly endless staircase.

With water slowly rising below, there was no time to search for traps.

Whether they died from a trap or drowned, the result would be the same.

By the time everyone was gasping for breath, they finally reached a space.

The moment they stepped onto flat ground, they collapsed, panting heavily.

Their expressions were blank, as if they had narrowly escaped becoming water ghosts.

Fortunately, the water didn’t flood the chamber.

It seemed the room had been designed with this in mind.

Leader Lekadi lightly tapped the cheeks of the dazed mercenaries, praising their efforts.

Viktor, the bald man, laughed heartily, boasting about his luck in surviving.

“Yeah, I’m not the kind of guy to die in a place like this!”

“You didn’t survive because you’re lucky. You almost died because you’re unlucky.”

The hearty laughter began to ease the tension.

Even the disheveled noblewoman regained her composure enough to fix her appearance.

“Yurik, we really owe you our lives.”

“But how did you know there was a passage there?”

Everyone was curious.

The spot Yurik had targeted with his magic was precisely where the passage had been.

It wasn’t a guess—he had known exactly where to aim.

“There was an inscription under the marble statue. It said the mage always pointed the way. I thought it was a riddle. Dungeons are full of things like that.”

“Damn, so illiterate guys like us would’ve just died.”

“Even if you could read, you’d probably be too dumb to figure it out.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Even if they had read the inscription, most of the mercenaries wouldn’t have understood and would have drowned.

“Leader, if we hadn’t brought him, what would’ve happened?”

“We’d all be swimming in the water by now.”

Surprisingly, even in the chaos, Achota, the tomb raider, had managed to retrieve the sword she had pulled from the marble statue.

“No wonder you’re a tomb raider. To have the presence of mind to grab that in such a situation. I’m impressed!”

“You’re all talk now that I’ve brought the bonus!”

“Oh, it’s so pretty. Let me kiss it.”

“Go to hell.”

The noblewoman, the cause of this mess, quietly signaled the laborers to take the sword.

The mercenaries wanted to curse her out, but since they had survived, they held back.

After all, she was still a noble, and offending her could lead to trouble.

After catching their breath, the team began exploring the chamber in earnest.

Whether this was the final chamber or not, it was as luxuriously constructed with marble walls as the previous one.

“…Leader. Over there…!”

The light from the mana orbs revealed something arranged in a pattern on the floor.

It was made of the same material as the walls….

“…A coffin?”

The team’s expressions instantly turned grim.

They had never imagined they’d find coffins here.

“Is this… a communal tomb?”

“Creepy.”

Yurik approached the nearest coffin and checked its lid.

There was an inscription—a name and a brief biography.

“It seems… These are the people who fought alongside the heroes.”

The leader warned them not to touch anything carelessly.

“Unless you want to drown again.”

There were nearly twenty marble coffins.

Yurik used mana detection to check if any magic was involved, but there was no reaction. They were ordinary coffins.

“Over there!”

At the end of the wall was a tombstone.

It was a memorial for those who had died bravely in battle.

Yurik took a moment to pay his respects before the tombstone.

Thanks to them, humanity now enjoyed peace.

Fortunately, there was a passage right next to the tombstone.

Before moving on, the leader allowed the team to rest and replenish their energy.

During this time, Yurik took rubbings not only of the memorial inscription but also of each marble coffin.

“I don’t know when, but I hope to pass on the legacy of these great ancestors to their descendants.”

Encouraged by the noblewoman, the expedition leader suggested opening one of the coffins.

Achota immediately protested.

“You must never open a coffin! Coffins are often filled with traps, poison, or curses. Disturbing the dead brings nothing but misfortune!”

Achota emphasized that even the most unscrupulous tomb raiders avoided opening coffins.

Her strong stance convinced the noblewoman to abandon the idea.

If another disaster like the flooding occurred, it would be a catastrophe. No matter how much she stood to gain, her life wasn’t worth risking.

After the break, the team moved on in two lines.

Their stamina quickly drained after a full day of tension.

The noblewoman, already exhausted, kept calling for the leader to stop.

The procession halted several times in the middle of the passage.

Unable to bear it, Yurik handed her a potion from his bag.

She gagged the moment she tasted it.

“You need to drink it to recover your stamina, ma’am.”

Reluctantly, she closed her eyes and swallowed a sip.

Then she grabbed the wall and dry-heaved.

Thankfully, she didn’t vomit.

“I’m never coming back. Never…!”

The noblewoman muttered tearfully between heaves.

Once she had recovered, the team moved on.

They soon reached the next chamber.

The three mages, who had sensed nothing with mana detection earlier, now felt something in the center of the room.

It didn’t seem like a golem—more like some kind of mechanism.

“……What’s that?”

In the center of the room was a pedestal, rising like an altar.

The flat surface was indented, as if meant to hold something.

Beside the pedestal was an inscription.

“The path will be shown.”

“Do we place a mana orb here?”

“That seems to be the case.”

Of course, they didn’t act immediately.

They thoroughly inspected the area for dangers before proceeding.

However, they found no passages or mechanisms in the room.

It seemed the pedestal had to be activated to reveal the way.

The leader placed a spare mana orb on the pedestal.

A strong mana reaction followed.

—!

A blue light spread across the pedestal, then surged toward the mana orb.

Simultaneously, blue veins of mana spread across the chamber.

The team immediately raised their weapons, on high alert.

The mana, searching for something, hovered near the team’s feet before converging under Yurik.

“Everyone, step back!”

Leader Lekadi shouted for everyone to move away from Yurik.

Yurik remained still, trying not to provoke the mana.

The mana that had filled the room gathered under his feet, then climbed up his body, compressing into his right index finger.

—!

Yurik gritted his teeth against the searing pain, as if his finger were being branded.

“Ugh…!”

“Yurik…!”

The mercenaries called out to him, worried for their kind-hearted youngest member.

But Yurik raised his hand, signaling them to stay back and reassuring them.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. It just hurts a bit.”

Fortunately, the pain subsided quickly.

Yurik, who had knelt in agony, stood up again.

He raised his right hand and examined his index finger, but aside from the intense pain, he felt no significant changes.

When Yurik seemed fine, Leader Lekadi approached and asked how he was.

Yurik assured him he was okay.

“It doesn’t seem like a curse.”

“I don’t think it’s a curse either. …But we should probably visit a temple later.”

Only then did the mercenaries approach, asking if he was alright.

Yurik smiled and thanked them for their concern.

“Kid, don’t smile like that. It makes me like you too much.”

At that moment, Yurik felt a tingling in his finger, and a wall began to move, revealing a passage.

Unaware of the cause, the team celebrated, thinking the pedestal had worked.

Leader Lekadi picked up the mana orb from the pedestal.

Fortunately, the passage remained open, so he quickly retrieved the orb.

Even a cheap mana orb was valuable.

Despite the minor incident, there were no major issues.

The team moved on through the passage.

This passage was long and narrow.

The two-line formation eventually shifted back to a single line.

“…It feels like we’re going uphill.”

Yurik sensed a slight incline.

Old man Haral seemed to have noticed it too.

“Leader, it feels like we’re going uphill.”

This was a good sign.

It meant they were getting closer to the surface.

Soon, they reached another underground chamber.

But this time, a passage was immediately visible—a staircase leading upward…!

“Is this… the exit?”

The exhausted faces of the team lit up with excitement.

The noblewoman was desperate to get out.

“Can we skip resting?”

“……Let’s go. Let’s get out first.”

The noblewoman looked too weak to argue.

The leader sent them up the stairs one by one.

As soon as Yurik entered the stairway, he smelled the damp earth.

He instinctively knew they were close to the surface.

They climbed the stairs for a while.

The darkness made the noblewoman slip several times.

And finally.

“This is it!”

Achota, at the front, shouted.

Engelgard, right behind her, forced open a hatch.

As it creaked open, they breathed in the fresh outside air.

As expected, it was dark outside.

One by one, the team stepped onto the surface and collapsed.

“Damn it, it’s finally over…!”

The team didn’t have the energy to celebrate their successful dungeon raid.

They were too exhausted.

They quickly set up camp and assigned watch shifts.

The less tired members took the first shifts.

Yurik crawled into his sleeping bag, rubbing his sleepy eyes and yawning widely.

He thought back to the change that had occurred in his body earlier.

The circuits in his body were functioning normally, and his finger seemed fine.

“……I’ll think about it later…….”

Overwhelmed by exhaustion, Yurik lost the strength to think further.

He fell asleep the moment he closed his eyes.

—

Yurik dreamed.

He dreamed of a mage fighting demons.

Every time he moved his finger, the atmosphere churned, and the earth flipped.

It was his index finger.