Me, the Weakest Member of the Hero’s Party? I’m the Villain Though? - Chapter 97
The Underground Dwarven Kingdom
The cold wind brushed across my face, and I didn’t even have the courage to open my eyes.
I thought I would soon crash into something and my body would break into pieces, but fortunately, the place I landed was covered in snow piled thick like a blanket, so it didn’t hurt much.
I hurriedly flailed my arms and barely managed to push my upper body up. My legs were buried deep in the snow, and it wasn’t easy to pull myself out.
“Kyle, where are you?”
When I finally lifted my head, all I could see around me was snow. A sudden fear gripped me, and I looked around and shouted.
“Mmmph!”
I thought I heard something from somewhere, and sure enough, right behind me, Kyle was stuck upside down in the snow. I thought something like this only happened in comics, but apparently it could happen in real life too!
“Hold on!”
I hurriedly dug through the snow and got to my feet. Grabbing Kyle’s flailing legs and pulling hard, and like pulling a radish out of the ground, his body came free with a pop!
“Lysian, are you okay?”
Kyle hurriedly brushed the snow off his face as he asked. I didn’t think that was a question someone who had been buried upside down in the snow should be asking.
“I’m fine. But where are we?”
Only then did the two of us look around. It had already grown dark, and everything around us was covered in snow, so there was no way to tell where we were.
“Where are the others?”
“I don’t know. When the ground split, it looks like only the two of us fell down.”
I tried to look up toward the cliff just in case, but the snow was falling so heavily that I couldn’t see anything.
“Should we wait until the others come?”
“Won’t we freeze to death before that? Let’s find somewhere safe first.”
Kyle was right. We had no idea when the insulation magic on our clothes would wear off, so we couldn’t just stand there and wait.
“Over there, that looks like a cave. Let’s go inside and at least get out of the cold.”
Kyle grabbed my wrist and hurried toward the cave.
It felt suspicious that there was a cave here as if by coincidence, but it seemed better to shelter inside than to be buried in snow overnight and freeze to death.
“It would be nice if we could make a fire.”
Kyle muttered as he looked into the cave, which was completely swallowed by darkness. There was nothing like wood around, so there was no way to start a fire.
“The interior looks really wide.”
After examining the cave, Kyle turned back to me and said that. Judging by how far his voice carried, the interior seemed enormous.
“You’re going inside?”
I couldn’t tell him, but I could feel a strange presence deeper inside the cave. I didn’t know if it was a monster, but something was definitely there.
“Do you want to wait here? I’ll check it out alone.”
There was no way Kyle, whose senses were as sharp as mine, hadn’t noticed it. It seemed he wanted to confirm what that presence was so we could rest without worry.
I wanted to ignore the unknown threat and pretend it didn’t exist, but I couldn’t just let Kyle walk into danger alone.
And more than anything, it felt safer to stay with Kyle, who had experience crossing snow mountains, than to be alone.
“…Let’s go together.”
In the end, I had no choice but to follow him.
I let my shoulders droop and was about to step into the darkness of the cave when Kyle suddenly grabbed my arm.
“Wait, it’s dark. I have something that’ll help.”
Kyle rummaged through the bag I was carrying on my back. What he pulled out was a necklace with a round bead attached.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a necklace with a light stone. Gerard gave it to me to use in emergencies. He said the light lasts a long time.”
Kyle stepped close and put the necklace around my neck without asking.
“My night vision is good, so you wear it, Lysian.”
Kyle took hold of the gem attached to the pendant and turned it clockwise. A soft glow began to spread from the bead.
“It’s brighter than I expected.”
As light began to shine from the gem, it reflected into Kyle’s eyes as he looked at it.
I secretly looked into Kyle’s eyes, now lit with a clear glow. It had been quite a while since I had seen him this close.
