The time is late afternoon, and the sky has turned to amber due to the setting sun. In the middle of the forest, there is a black pyramid. At the top of it, a lone griffin is resting, setting his gaze to the west as the monster stares at the amber light.

(Still staring at the sun?)

(I couldn’t help it but behold its serenity.) Azrael replies to Claire. (I was grateful for being able to see it again.)

His days of darkness have finally come to an end, and he has never been this happy even since reincarnating in this world. The sun reminds him of his past world. It reminds him that, despite being in a different world, there are things that do not change.

(If I were trapped in a dark place for a long time, I would probably feel the same.) Claire says. (Being able to feel the warm light of the sun proves that you are still alive. I don’t know what you have been through, but I know that you would not respond even if I inquired.)

From what Claire has observed so far, she can conclude that Azrael is probably not a monster to begin with. His human intellect, understanding of human language in spite of the fact that he originally does not speak this world’s common language, and above all, his desire for power and sensual interaction with the surface world.

Compiling all of that makes Claire think that he was formerly a human or other intellectual race. What bothers her is Azrael’s lack of common knowledge. He always asks her about something from time to time, which she answers properly.

No matter how much she thinks, she cannot get a grasp of his whole personality. For her, he is just a mysterious person who just came back to life. She does not dismiss the idea of him being reborn, as she knows a certain individual who is able to go through the cycle of death and reincarnation.

(This forest is quite wide and flat.) Looking around, Azrael describes the environment. (All I can see is green all the way to the horizon.)

(The northern part of the kingdom is mostly trees after all.)

Ignoring the sore thumb of a black pyramid, Azrael is being surrounded by a sea of trees. His vision is filled with nothing but green leaves and amber sky. The land has no hills or mountains, so the green scenery stretches as far as his eyes can see.

(So it is pretty isolated, huh. Can you tell me more about the geography of the kingdom?)

(Very well. The Kingdom of Roheazul lies on a peninsula north of the empire, so it is surrounded by the sea at most sides. This forest officially is not under the jurisdiction of any territory due to its dense vegetation and location. It is unofficially under the royal capital in most cases.)

(I see.)

The sun is still setting, and Azrael and Claire are as silent as the forest. Claire has many things to say but chooses not to disturb his peace.

"It’s getting pretty late now," Azrael notes. "It’s already dusk."

(I am afraid that we cannot proceed with the plan of flotationizing the dungeon. Even though this forest is relatively tiny, it still hosts monsters. In addition to the monsters that were released earlier, some monsters become more aggressive at night, so working in the dark could be dangerous.)

(You have a point, but we simply don’t have time. Even though there are no humans left here, there would be another batch of them coming tomorrow, or later at worst. We should take this dungeon as soon as possible.)

Usually, it would take two days worth of travel to reach this dungeon from the royal capital by horse-drawn carriage. But the flow of people traveling is constant, so people would not stop coming to this dungeon, especially since it has been available for commercial use.

Claire is afraid that the next caravan will arrive as early as sunrise. More importantly, because the massacre occurred earlier, the survivors would definitely go to the nearest city and request reinforcement. Since it is an urgent matter, knights would be sent to the dungeon. Traveling on horseback, they might arrive at the dungeon early in the morning.

(If you are going to do it right now, then I’ll be happy to lend you a hand. About the task you have given me, I have found a plausible way to make a piece of land float. However, the problem is the process requires a tremendous amount of mana, probably more than you currently possess.)

(Thanks for the info, Claire. For the mana, I’ll take care of it while you cast it.)

(I’ll be the one to cast it? Wait. My awakened ability is to cut the consumption of mana of the spells I cast. With your enormous mana, I think we should be able to make it possible.)

(I know you would get it. Now, let’s begin the creation of my own floating island.)

◆◇◆

The sun has set and the time is in the evening; stars continue to pop out of the night sky. Approximately a hundred meters above the black pyramid, a red-haired young man is hovering stationary in the air, clad in a typical adventurer outfit he looted from one of the corpses on the ground.

He is not actually flying, as he has yet to learn it. Claire just conjures a solid, circular, and translucent platform that allows Azrael to float in the air. His gaze is set to the horizon, he has decided how much of the land he wants.

(Alright, if my calculations were correct, the tenth should be twenty-five kilometers wide on all sides. The island must be able to contain it, so it should have at least a radius of twenty-two kilometers.)

(So that’s twenty-two times longer than the width of the corridors on the lower floors, right? That is quite large, but it is manageable. Let’s begin.)

After that, a large, twenty-meter-wide magic circle appears behind Azrael, which makes him look at it with awe. Suddenly, he feels a large portion of his mana is being drained from him into that magic circle.

My mana...! He internally exclaims.

(The first step is to isolate the land using this apocalypse-class ultimate magic spell but on a much smaller scale. Tectonic Drift!)

Suddenly, the forest shakes tremendously, and the resting avians on trees begin to fly out of panic. The animals and monsters are running wildly at the sudden disturbance, but both Azrael and Claire pay no mind to them.

Boom.

A few seconds later, dirt and rocks can be seen blasted from the ground at a distance as if they were blown away by dynamite. After the initial blast, Azrael’s eyes follow another explosion nearby and another after that.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The explosion seems to encircle the area following the line Claire mentally drew. Around a minute later, the explosion ultimately reaches the starting point before it finally stops.

(That was power. It would be devastating in a battle.)

(Tectonic Drift is a spell that creates chasms on the land that could reach the depths of several of the heights of the dungeon’s ceilings. In addition to that, it can also separate the land deep beneath, creating a new plate. The plate then can be moved by the caster, which results in greater destruction.)

(I see. So it is basically continental drift, but you can make your own other than moving an existing one.) Azrael mutters. (So the land is now a separate piece of earth, but I doubt that Tectonic Drift could make it float in the air.)

(Correct. The spell only allows cardinal movements. In order to make it levitate, a force field must be created around the base to prevent it from collapsing due to gravity. Force Field Creation!)

Upon casting an operational-class ultimate magic spell, the surface area around the subterranean part of the large piece of land gets compressed. After that, a transparent layer of barrier lies on top of the compressed soil, indicating the presence of the Force Field Creation spell.

(The application of the force field insulates the selected land from the landmass), Claire says. (The next step is to make it float. Here we go. Levitas Maxima!)

The moment Claire casts a warfare-class spell, Azrael’s mana gets sucked again, an amount on par with the Tectonic Drift earlier. The whole place shakes terribly for several seconds as Claire is controlling the circular piece of land to swing back and forth to loosen the land around it. The scene reminds Azrael of rocking a loose baby tooth before it detaches naturally or forcefully.

When there is a considerable amount of gap between the circular land and its surroundings, Claire telekinetically moves the land off the continent slowly and carefully. Landslides then start to occur at the edges of the newly created canyon as the circular land begins its ascension.

Crash!

"It’s really moving," Azrael remarks.

Under the moonlight, the floating piece of land continues to rise from the ground. A minute later, the bottom of the six-kilometer-thick piece of the planet’s outer layer finally comes to view. The floating island does not stop rising until its surface reaches the altitude of ten thousand meters.

(The floating island has been completed.) Claire declares.

"Well done, Claire. Now let’s move it somewhere safe."