The mass of monsters undulated and squirmed as Alice stared at it, wondering what the hell she had gotten herself into. When she had first arrived in this world, all of the plant life had been dead in the area. However, it had still been present at the very least. There had been dead trees and unnerving silence, but there had still been things to mark the landscape. Furthermore, the area had been mostly deserted – it had been creepy, unnerving, and silent, but it had still been possible to travel through it.

That was gone now. At this point, while it was possible to still see the desiccated corpses of trees poking out of the landscape, the landscape was dominated by mounds of monsters. In some other areas, they formed a sort of disgusting, wriggling carpet. The area was very clearly no longer safe, or even eerily silent – instead, it was a land owned entirely by monsters.

If the expedition was going to head into that area it would be a death trap. The moment the mana in the air got thin enough that monsters started attacking other living beings again, the monsters would rip the expedition to shreds. Regardless of how good at fighting Illa and the other mages were, regardless of how much enchanted equipment the guards had, there was no way in hell the expedition members would be able to fight their way out of the swarms of monsters if something went wrong. Right now, they could at least realistically flee if a few swarms decided to attack them. However, even if the odds of the monsters attacking them seemed low right now, Alice was pretty sure that one of the most important things was to stay alive and keep the ability to deal with emergencies. Granted, Illa might have a trick or two up her sleeve – she was a renowned war veteran who was at least level 75 in one of her mage classes, after all. Still, Alice doubted even Illa could stand against the ocean of monsters in front of them if things went wrong.

“What the… what do we do in order to…?” Alice heard one of the female guards in the wagon ask, her voice faltering as she stared at the giant mass of monsters. “That’s… a lot of monsters,” the woman finally said after a few breaths of time.

“Do you think we’re going to go into the middle of that? If we are, I… I don’t know what I would do, but I am very nervous at the thought of trying.” Said Alice, turning towards Milo.

Milo frowned as he stared at the squirming heaps of monsters, and the places where monsters were so densely packed they almost formed a living carpet. He turned to Alice. “What the… what in the world? The mana density looked pretty bad from what I was able to see, but damn. The monster quantity is just ridiculous. There are some spots where there are more monsters than there is ground! What the hell?” Milo shook his head. “Damn. This is… a problem.”

Milo’s voice faltered a bit, before finally, he looked towards Illa’s wagon, and then turned back to Alice.

“I doubt Illa is going to try to lead the expedition directly into the center of that mess. That woman has a good head on her shoulders. I think your Perception is a bit better than mine, right? See if Illa is saying anything or making any gestures – I imagine she’ll be stopping us soon.” Said Milo.

Alice turned towards the wagon Illa was riding in, trying to see if the woman had any other instructions. Illa was also turned to face the massive column of mana that stretched far above the ground, tapping her finger against the side of the wagon. She seemed to be deep in thought. Finally, Illa sighed.

“Slow down the wagons! We’re going to move a little bit closer so that the [Guards] who have long-ranged search-oriented Perks can at least try to get some information. However, there’s no way in hell we’re going into the middle of that mess.” Illa’s voice was exceptionally clear now, despite the distance and the sound of horses and wagons moving along.

The [Travelling Merchants] who were controlling the wagons quickly slowed down the horses, and the wagons stopped speeding forward. The ride also immediately became far bumpier – apparently, whatever Perk let them travel over tree roots as if they were paved roads needed a certain level of speed to work. It was still a much smoother journey than it should have been, but she could definitely tell when the wagon ran over a larger tree root now.

Illa turned towards the guards in her own wagon for a moment, before she turned to the other wagons again.

“All right, those of you can get any information at all from this range, move to the front of your wagons and raise your hands so I can see you. Since I know most Perks have some limits on range, we’ll circle around the broken mana region and continuously hit the ‘edge’ of the area with Perks over and over again. It may not be particularly efficient, and we might miss some information, but we’re not going into the center of that.”

Illa sighed, looking over the massive zone of broken mana.

“I really didn’t want to see if Cyra’s defenses can handle a damn monster swarm, and there’s definitely going to be a few alphas that pop out of that mess – if there aren’t any already there. However, we would need a company from the army or an equivalent number of combatants to clear this out. I can’t afford to mobilize that many [Guards] and Mages from town to deal with that – we would be leaving Cyra totally undefended for days if I even tried. We’ll just have to deal with any monster swarms that show up and attack the area.” Illa muttered as she snorted. Despite the fact that Illa was muttering, her voice remained oddly clear, making it easy for Alice to hear what the woman was saying. “On the bright side, there’s so much damn broken mana here that there’s guaranteed to be several. With any luck they’ll tear each other apart long before they start scouring the rest of the area for mana to eat.” Illa seemed to perk up a bit at the prospect of the problem solving itself before reaching Cyra, and then waved towards the [Guards] in question.

“All right, this looks like about the right range. Stop the wagons, but be ready to start driving again the moment we need to. Make sure you have your Perks ready to turn your wagons around the moment I say to move, wagon drivers! [Guards], you may get off the wagons, but do not venture more than ten or twenty seconds of travel away – we need to be able to leave in a hurry if the swarm decides we look like food.”

The [Guards] in question quickly hopped off the wagons once they came to a halt. Then, along with two mages who also had some relevant Perks, they began to put forth a variety of requests. Alice had never thought about how oddly specific some Perks were, but after one of the guards requested that the wagons sit still for five minutes under moonlight so that his {Midnight Search} could get the maximum effect, she started to realize just some Perks were. Even though people only got five options or fewer every time they reached a level that gave a Perk, the System had a pool of hundreds, or even thousands, of options. It just tried to match the Perks people were offered to their circumstances and what they wanted to get out of the class.

The {Midnight Search} guard’s request was denied – the group had too much ground to cover in order to get that precise if the expedition was going to do this multiple times today. Since {Midnight Search} was usually used to help guide someone in searching a caravan or a house for evidence, it wouldn’t have been that useful anyway, according to Illa, which was why she vetoed it.

However, most of the more normal requests for how to maximize Perks were met, which meant sometimes [Guards] would clump together in groups of 3-4 for {Group Searches}, sometimes break away from each other to do {Lone Searches}, and at two points Illa wrote up documents allowing the [Guards] to use {Legitimate Search} on the horde of monsters. The fact that the land was unowned by anybody, uninhabited by any humans, and covered in monsters apparently didn’t mean that the [Guards] were free from the need for a search warrant. Which was pretty hilarious, now that Alice thought about it – after all, Illvaria’s legal code didn’t have search warrants. [Guards] were free to search people or houses if they thought there was a problem, and someone with a truth-detection Perk would make them answer some questions afterwards to make sure the [Guard] actually suspected something was wrong – which probably led to several other problems in practice, but needed far less complex bureaucracy to work.

And yet, for some damn reason, even though search warrants didn’t exist legally, there were Perks that required [Guards] to get them anyway. Alice found the entire notion bizarrely funny, and quietly chuckled a few times as the [Guards] and Mages started throwing Perks at the broken mana cloud.

Despite how absurd Alice found the scene, it seemed normal to everyone else – though, Alice did hear a few guards comment on how wasteful the Perk was. Since the search-warrants had to be written on real paper, since paper was expensive the Perk basically burned money to work.

“There are no signs of major criminal activity – at least I can’t find any. Given the distance already interfering some, and my only slightly above average [Perception] Stat and mediocre [Willpower], it’s possible that a criminal with a sufficiently high [Charisma] Stat would be able to obviate my search, even if they left the area long ago. Without them standing in front of me, I can’t just pay more attention to the exceptionally pretty people,” said one of the [Guards] after he finished throwing his Perks at the area. “So I’m getting nothing, but take my findings with a grain of salt. My [Willpower] isn’t high enough to negate people who really focused [Charisma], after all.”

“I have a really high [Willpower] Stat, and I’m getting something weirder. I’m getting the feeling that somewhere in there is a piece of information that could provide clues for a crime,” said one of the guards.

“Don’t go in there. Try to see if you can figure out where the evidence is, though. If it’s close enough, I might try flying in and see if I can get it safely and retreat.” said Illa, giving the guard a glance.

After a few minutes of concentrating, the [Guard] finally sighed. “I think it’s directly underneath that mound of monsters.”

Illa looked at the small pile of monsters a good way into the broken mana region, before she finally shook her head. “That one’s a miss then.”

“Well, if there’s some sort of evidence somewhere nearby and in the middle of the giant clump of broken mana, it at least tells us something happened, right?”

“It does, but the fact that it only tripped two Perks is quite strange. If the Society of Starry Eyes was messing with Dimensional Magic here, it should be throwing basically every Perk off. It should be so loud and easy to spot that it would be like a level 60 [Public Speaker] with all of their volume Perks turned on yelling in your ear, in fact. For it to be so abnormally quiet is… odd.”

“One of them indicates there is evidence of a crime nearby, and the other… indicates that there is suspicious behavior still ongoing in this area, yes? Other than that, we have several people’s Perks claiming that there are no criminals here, and that there have been no criminals in the area within the past year.” Illa frowned as she organized the information, before she turned to the mages with investigation-related Perks.”

She looked as if she was hoping that they would give her something to work with. However, their reports didn’t directly pick up criminal activity either.

“There isn’t any sign of a large scale magic ritual being done here at all.” Said Luddeg, an [Electromagnetic Mage] with a [Guard] class. “It’s almost like this area has been avoided by any groups of people for years. No large quantities of enchanting materials here either. Well, apart from the very, very large swarm of enchanting materials in front of us right now, just waiting for anyone suicidal enough to try to retrieve the cores from a massive swarm of hundreds of monsters. But no signs of any large scale enchantments to help cast anything here. Nothing related to Dimensional magic either, at least enchantment-wise.”

Illa frowned as the man gave his report, before Illa turned to Alice and gave her a discreet inquiring look. Alice shook her head and then shrugged – she had no clue what was going on either.

“I can tell that there were no human Mages here within the past year,” said the other mage, who was frowning as she looked over the area. Alice wondered if the man’s Perk only detected people who had a magic seed – she had gone through her mana baptism here, after all. She had certainly passed through here within the past year, but perhaps one wasn’t considered a Mage until they had a seed?

“They might have set up in another area? That being said, I am noticing that the amount of mana here is unnatural – though, frankly, anyone with a Perk that lets them sense mana should have noticed that by now. The fact that there’s such a huge difference in mana density in the area filled with broken mana versus the air literally right outside of the region is a bit concerning. If whatever happened here happened months ago, monsters should have already eaten the area clean, or it should have spread out a bit. The fact that there’s so much mana despite the time passage is… troubling. It makes me wonder how much was here originally.” The mage frowned, as she looked at the giant pillar of mana that stretched across the horizon.

Illa was also squinting as she looked into the distance, though she didn’t seem to be having much luck seeing what she wanted to. Finally, she turned back towards the two mages. “Is there any chance that something is still going wrong there? We know that the ritual had something to do with an attempt at dimensional magic – perhaps it picked up some of that branch of magic’s problematic tendency to replicate itself and flood the area?”

“I don’t think so – or if it did, the monsters seem to be keeping the overflow in check.” The female mage snorted. “How absurd – if it’s actually overflowing, we would need to thank the damn monsters for stopping the bubble from expanding.”

“If you wish to try offering your thanks to your monsters, I’ll make sure you have a nice sendoff after your death,” said the male mage with a light chuckle.

“I’m not that daft just yet, Luddeg. But still, I think the bubble is shrinking – just very, very slowly. I’d need to observe the same area for a few hours to really tell, though,” said the female mage with a sigh. “Is there any chance we can stop for a few hours so I can get a more accurate read?”

“I suppose – just keep in mind we’ll need to keep moving after that.”

“Understood.”

* * *

The Expedition passed the next few hours in a silent, tense state. Even though the monsters that passed by them weren’t attacking them, everyone was continuously on edge, guarding against a potential attack that might break out at any moment. Alice, along with many of the other [Guards] and Mages, had taken out a few monsters that had wandered too close for comfort, but mostly, every just sat on their wagons and waited. Alice wasn’t close enough to use her Perk for measuring mana, and most of the other expedition members didn’t have much to do. However, since they were surrounded on all sides by monsters, nobody was quite comfortable enough to relax and start chatting or otherwise distracting themselves. Thus, the group sat in tense silence and watched as the female mage took measurements with her Perk.

Finally, she looked back at Illa and nodded.

“The mana is slowly decreasing. It’s not at a very fast pace, though – at this rate, I estimate it will take a few more weeks before the area I was investigating is clear of mana. Not sure how that stacks up compared to the other parts of the broken mana region, but at the very least, it strongly implies there isn’t an overflow currently happening.”

“All hail our monstrous saviors?”

“Can it, Luddeg. Otherwise I’m going to drag you go to the Corellion Empire and make you start worshipping the emperor as the creator of the System.”

“The horror! I’m quivering in fear!” Luddeg gave an easy grin, and the female mage gave a slight smile back.

One of the guards chuckled softly, and Alice also felt a strange sense of relief as she listened to the two mock each other. Maybe it was the acknowledgement that even though everyone was nervous, the actual odds of something going wrong was pretty low right now. If it would take months for the broken mana chunk to dissolve, the odds of the horde turning on them were low.

“Still, if it’s only going to take a few more weeks to go away, why has it persisted for so long? I imagined we would be finding an area that was filled with a little more broken mana than usual, but this looks like…” Jean frowned. “Well, it looks kind of like the old stories about Allenheim, now that I think about it. It makes sense, given the fact that we’re theoretically dealing with some sort of attempt at dimensional magic, but…”

The female mage frowned, looking at the area more closely.

“I’m not sure, actually. Either the mana was very densely packed and is just getting eaten now, since it’s only a few weeks into spring and the number of monsters active during winter is much lower, or… something?” She shrugged.

Illa stopped the two of them before they could speak any further. “For now, we might be missing a piece of the puzzle if we only look at this part of the broken mana region. Your Perks can only reach so far in, yes?”

“Yeah. I only managed to get a glimpse of a big chunk of the outer layer – my guess is that I was looking at maybe 3% of the whole mass, and only very roughly. I’m working a long distance and looking at an area covered in monsters, after all.” The female mage shrugged. “I’m trying my hardest to get good information, but it’s a bit difficult under these circumstances.”

“I understand. We’ll begin circling around the broken mana region – do your best to get any further information. After all, this region can’t have just come from nowhere. We need to figure out what the heck is going on, or the next one might show up in Cyra.”

Alice saw the other [Guards] and mages shudder as they considered that possibility, before the wagons began to travel around the outskirts of the broken mana region. It was promising to be a very long and tiring search process.