The Nameless Extra: I Proofread This World - Chapter 100: The Deepmarch Dungeon (5)
[Bind]
The spell answered his command instantly.
Pale strands of white and faint blue mana erupted into existence around the Crawler’s mandibles, coiling around them and locked the creature’s jaws into place.
It was not a large binding spell like Airin, nor an elaborate one, yet its form was more than enough to hold the Crawler firmly where it stood.
The Voidspawn responded immediately to his spell. Its massive head moved violently from side to side, grinding in its effort to rip itself free from its constraint. Yet every movement was useless, the constraint failing to give even a fraction of ground.
In the next second, Rosalin arrived first.
Her longsword flashed through the air in a brutal, sweeping arc, the blade slicing cleanly across the Crawler’s left legs, severing through the jointed limbs in a single sweep.
Almost at the same instant, Silvena moved in perfect coordination.
With a swift movement of her arm, her whip shot out and encircled the right flank of the beast, the barbed ends striking hard enough to rip into its side and throw it off balance.
Despite the hardness of the Crawler’s exoskeleton, the two of them cut through it with ease.
Their weapons had already been reinforced with mana, the flow of energy strengthening the edges, and so, the supposedly durable chitin offered little meaningful resistance.
And then, with a final synchronized motion...
Rosalin’s blade descended while Silvena’s whip snapped across the exposed neck.
Slash!
The Crawler’s head was severed cleanly from its body.
The heavy chitinous mass struck the stone floor with a dull thud before tumbling forward and rolling across the cavern ground.
[You have slain a Carapace Crawler!]
[You have received +1 Mana Resonance!]
’Good... even if it wasn’t me who dealt the final blow, it still counts me as contributing to the kill.’
"Eh~ that barely even counted as light work," Silvena said as she sharply snapped her whip through the air, sending droplets of the creature’s viscous fluid scattering away from the weapon.
"But honestly, Ruvian, you really didn’t need to bind it like that. It wasn’t even remotely threatening."
By then, Ruvian and Seraphine had already begun making their way toward them.
"True," Ruvian admitted, the corner of his lips lifting into a relaxed smile. "But I mainly wanted to test something. You two can continue handling the damage while I’ll focus on refining and honing the spells I’ve been working on."
Silvena glanced back at him for a moment before letting out an amused scoff. "I see, sure, I’m fine with it. Just whatever you do, make sure your experiment doesn’t hit me."
"That’s perfectly fine by me too, leave the attacking role to me," Rosalin said calmly as she stepped closer to the fallen corpse.
As she stood beside the Crawler, Rosalin lowered her longsword.
Carefully, she slid the blade between the hardened plates of its exoskeleton and firmly began cutting through the body. The chitin parted with a dry, unpleasant sound as she opened the torso of the creature.
For a brief moment, she searched through the exposed interior.
Then her blade stopped.
"Found it."
Using the tip of her sword, she gently lifted a small shard from within the carcass before picking it up with her fingers.
The fragment looked almost like a piece of crystal, though its color was a muted mixture of translucent gray and faintly cloudy light.
"Good work," Seraphine said flatly as she looked at the shard in Rosalin’s hand.
"A Lesser Voidspawn usually drops one small Voidshard," she continued. "It isn’t nearly as valuable as a Greater Voidshard, but it still holds decent value in the market."
Ruvian glanced briefly at the shard before nodding. Silvena leaned slightly closer to get a better look at it as well.
’It looked prettier than I thought.’
Voidshards were fragments of condensed mana left behind when a Voidspawn was destroyed.
Even a Lesser shard like this still carried traces of mana, which made it a useful material for artificers and alchemists.
When refined properly, the energy inside could be extracted and used in various ways — fuel for certain enchantments, catalysts for mana reactions, or components in experimental magical constructs.
The three of them nodded as Seraphine shared the information. Shortly after, they resumed their walk deeper into the cavern.
They encountered a few more Carapace Crawlers, but just the same as before... they were easily dealt with.
Silvena glanced ahead as the tunnel opened slightly.
"There are two pathways ahead," she said, looking from one passage to the other.
"So... which way are we supposed to go now?"
Ruvian looked at the branching tunnels for a moment before asking, "Can you use your wind [Detection] spell on both pathways and tell me what you get from it?"
Silvena paused briefly, a little taken aback by the request, before nodding.
"Sure."
’Hmm, he even knew about that...’ Silvena inwardly scoffed at the ridiculousness.
Once they moved closer to the split in the tunnel, she raised both of her hands and cast the spell.
Two compressed bursts of wind formed in front of her palms before shooting down each pathway, the currents rushing into the darkness ahead.
[Detection]
It was actually a very convenient spell. It didn’t provide precise visual information, but by sending controlled streams of wind through an area, Silvena could sense disturbances in the airflow as it traveled.
If the current struck something solid, moved around large obstacles, or passed through narrow sections, the feedback would return to her through subtle changes in pressure and turbulence within the mana guiding the spell.
In simpler terms, it allowed her to roughly sense the shape of the passage ahead. Of course, the spell had its limitations. It couldn’t distinguish smaller details, nor could it perfectly identify what those obstacles actually were.
At best, it provided a general impression of the space ahead and any unusual disturbances within it.
"Hmm~ on the left, there seems to be a lot of moving creatures. The space is quite large too, so I’m guessing it’s the colony of those ant creatures."
Silvena said, her eyes closed, while still holding onto the faint sensations returning through her spell.
Rosalin glanced toward the left passage, her brows knitting together slightly.
"A colony, huh?" she repeated.
"How many are we talking about? Ten? Twenty?"
Silvena shook her head slowly.
"Somewhat around a dozen, perhaps. Or maybe more. The airflow keeps breaking apart again and again, like it’s brushing against multiple bodies moving in different directions. So I can’t count them exactly, but it’s definitely a swarm."
"While on the right..." she trailed off.
"Huh?"
She tilted her head slightly as she concentrated more carefully on the feedback coming from the second stream of wind.
"It’s a bit narrower at first," she continued slowly.
"But the tunnel spreads out again further in. The air feels... strange there. The space branches irregularly, almost like a cluster of small cavities connected to a larger chamber."
She paused again, frowning faintly as she tried to interpret the sensation.
"And inside that chamber, there are a lot of round shapes scattered around the floor and walls. Bulbous... uneven... almost like clusters of stone formations. I’m not exactly sure what they are, but there are quite a lot of them."
’Alright... we found it.’
A thin, restrained smile appeared on his face. The discovery had come faster than he expected, which made him feeling a bit satisfied.
If Silvena’s spell was even half accurate, then they had already located the chamber he had been searching for; the very place where the Voidspawn eggs should be.
"We’re going right."
Silvena opened her eyes and raised an eyebrow.
"Hmm, I remember you said you wanted to get the most out of this expedition. If that is the case, shouldn’t we go deal with those ants on the left? It seems like a good chance to test our abilities."
Rosalin glanced between the two passages again while judging her own decision.
"No need to disturb a swarm if we don’t have to," Ruvian replied casually. "Besides, compared to that, we got other valuable rewards on the right side."
"..."
Seeing their puzzled reaction, Ruvian smiled faintly and began to explain.
"To put it simply, the right chamber contains the egg chamber I wanted to find. That is the purpose of this trip."
"An egg chamber?" Silvena echoed.
’Ah...’
Then, she slowly understood what Ruvian’s plan was.
"I see... Well, if our commander says so." Silvena twirled her whip once before letting it rest over her shoulder.
"Right path it is."
Without another word, the three of them began shifting their direction toward the right pathway. But just as they took their first few steps forward...
"Wait."
Seraphine’s voice cut sharply through the cavern.
The single word was not loud, yet the firmness in her tone forced all three of them to stop immediately.
Ruvian slowly turned his head over his shoulder.
Silvena blinked in confusion, while Rosalin instinctively adjusted the grip on her longsword as she narrowed her eyes toward the darkness.
"Something wrong?" Ruvian asked Seraphine.
Silvena looked at her, as well, slowly growing serious.
Seraphine gave no answer. Instead, her gaze remained fixed on the dark entrance of the right passage ahead, her expression unusually still.
One hand had already moved to rest lightly on the hilt of her sword.
"Do you remember," she began slowly, her voice level and calm, "when I said that I would not follow your orders if they endangered Lady Silvena?"
A faint sense of dread crept into Ruvian’s chest.
He nodded slowly.
"...Yes?"
"Then I’m afraid we cannot proceed any further."
Her gray eyes narrowed slightly as she focused on the darkness ahead, listening to something none of the others could perceive.
"Beyond this pathway... there’s an overwhelming concentration of mana coming from deeper inside." She paused. "It’s not multiple sources. But from a single point."
"And it’s also aware of our presence."
The air around them suddenly felt heavier.
’What?’
Ruvian’s expression stiffened almost imperceptibly.
"Judging from the density of that presence..."
Her eyes hardened.
"It’s a Malice Voidspawn."
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[Chapter 100: The Deepmarch Dungeon (5)]
A/N: 🎉100 Chapters and 1K WinWin milestone~!!! Thank you everyone, for giving this story a chance and for the support :)
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