Harem Sync: Divine Edition-Chapter 60: Entrance to the Cave

It was getting dark quickly, the sun already completely behind the mountains, leaving only a faint orange light tinging the sky.

"Could it really be the Culprit?" Haru asked, looking at the trail where Kira had detected the danger.

"There’s only one way to find out." Haru said, stretching, arms raised, neck twisting from side to side, and began walking straight towards the danger without hesitation.

Kira grabbed Haru’s arm forcefully, pulling him back.

"No, Master, don’t go! Mr. Gandloaf said the creature is Lower Maestro 1! If it really is him..."

"Even better." Haru smiled slightly. "In an instant I’ll finish him off and drop more XP..."

"What do you mean..." Kira barely finished the sentence when something came running quickly between the trees.

A goblin, a green creature about a meter tall, with pointed ears and sharp, protruding teeth, wielding a rusty knife, screamed a high-pitched sound as it lunged straight for Haru’s neck.

Haru reacted instinctively.

He powered up his right fist, his mana flowing intensely, his muscles tensing beyond normal, and punched the goblin directly in the face.

The impact was absurd.

The sound echoed through the entire forest like thunder crashing nearby. The goblin was thrown backward, spinning uncontrollably in the air, crashing into three trees, breaking trunks before finally falling to the ground about fifty meters back, completely knocked out or dead, it was hard to tell.

And the wind that followed the fist caused the surrounding trees to visibly tilt for two seconds before returning to their normal position, leaves flying in all directions.

Kira’s eyes widened, his mouth agape.

"WHAT IS YOUR RANK ANYWAY?!" he shouted, looking from the goblin flying back at Haru. "People don’t give up fists of that caliber easily, Master!"

"Yes, they do..." Haru thought, looking at his own fist, which was still slightly smoking, "...if they die 580 times and have to learn to use their hands above all else."

Haru remembered his deaths. A whole year. Then seventeen more months. Extra weeks he couldn’t even count properly anymore. Almost two and a half years of experience condensed into a body that had technically only lived a few days.

He had to learn body mana manipulation because swords didn’t serve him as they should, because magic failed, because in the end it was always just him, his own body, and the will not to die in that specific way again.

"Damn, it was just a Goblin..." Haru murmured, looking at his own fist, then noticed Kira still waiting for a real answer. He sighed. "Lower Maestro 1."

"WHAT!?" Kira processed that. "That explains how easily you defeated that skeleton boss in the dungeon! I thought it was just luck or..."

"Let’s just walk..." Haru interrupted, lighting a fire in his hand to illuminate the increasingly dark forest.

Kira looked at Haru’s right arm as they walked, the one always covered in bandages he never removed.

"Why is your right arm always covered in bandages?"

"I burned myself." Direct answer. "The first day I used Valtherion fire."

"And it doesn’t heal!?" she asked, surprised. "It’s been a while, it should have..."

"No." Haru looked at the flames on his left hand. "Valtherion fire isn’t ordinary fire... it needs a specific process to heal a wound caused by this fire..."

Kira remained silent, processing it, then looked at him with a strange expression, a mixture of concern and respect.

"You use power that permanently hurts you?"

Haru shrugged. "It doesn’t burn anymore, I don’t know why." They continued walking in silence for a while longer.

...

After an hour of careful hiking up the mountain, they finally reached the cave entrance.

It was narrow, almost hidden among large rocks that blocked the view of anyone passing by. The map clearly indicated: the resonance crystals were inside.

Hot air billowed from the opening, hitting their faces like a furnace blast, carrying a heavy smell of mineral mixed with oxidized iron.

Strange echoes came from within, distant dripping, creaking of stones adjusting, and something else that neither of them could quite identify.

The natural twilight light disappeared completely about three meters inside the cave, swallowed by solid darkness.

Haru looked at the entrance, then at Kira. "Ready?"

She nodded, but was visibly tense.

They entered.

The terrain was uneven, loose stones everywhere, irregular ground that changed angle without warning, narrow crevices that appeared out of nowhere. Haru had to use the flames in his hand to light each step, and even then he almost tripped three times in the first five minutes.

Total darkness surrounded them beyond the reach of light. It wasn’t normal night darkness, it was a complete absence of light, the kind that made your eyes hurt trying to see anything.

The passage narrowed as they descended. First they could walk side by side. Then only in single file. Then Haru had to turn sideways to pass between rock walls that almost touched, their shoulders scraping against each other at the same time.

Only the flames in Haru’s hand illuminated the path, a dancing red light that created strange shadows on the walls, making it seem as if things were moving in the corners of their vision.

Kira stayed behind him, and at a particularly narrow point grabbed Haru’s shirt tightly as an anchor.

"This time I don’t want to lose you, master," Kira said softly, clearly remembering the dungeon where the labyrinth had separated everyone.

"You won’t." Haru answered without looking back, focused on the path. "I promise."

"You promise?" a slightly mocking tone to ease the tension. "Like a promise from... a movie?"

"No... you’re not even ready to watch a movie..." Haru said. "Like a promise from someone who doesn’t want to carry your unconscious body down a mountain if you get lost and fall into a hole."

Kira chuckled softly despite the situation...

"I’ll try."

They continued descending, Kira still holding his shirt, following the light of the flames that sometimes flickered for no apparent reason, as if something invisible were passing nearby.

Finally, the narrow passage opened.

They emerged into a huge underground chamber so large that the light from Haru’s flames didn’t reach the ceiling or the walls on the other side. The echo of their footsteps returned distorted, suggesting that the space was even larger than it seemed. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

The floor was smooth, almost polished rock, as if it had been worked by skilled hands centuries ago.

And on the nearest wall, deeply engraved in the stone about two meters high, was a symbol.

Haru approached, raising his hand with fire to illuminate it better.

It was a danger sign, similar to the one on Earth, the one he knew from his previous life: a skull with two crossed bones underneath forming an X.

Universal. Unmistakable.

"What the hell..."

The closer Haru brought the flames to the symbol, the more confused they became, they began to flicker violently, changing from red to orange to almost white, crackling loudly as if they were burning the wrong fuel.

He took two steps back and the flames stabilized again.

He approached, they became confused.

He retreated, they stabilized.

Kira watched this, frowning. "What’s happening with the fire?"

"I don’t know." Haru looked at his own flames, then at the symbol on the wall. "But whatever’s in here..."

He looked at the remains of the giant camera submerged in darkness.

"...doesn’t want us to follow."

A heavy silence fell between them, broken only by the distant sound of water dripping somewhere deep in the cave.