Chapter 84 — Anomaly (Part 1)

After Rem’s explanation, I felt like a complete idiot. I didn’t need to physically be there to help the girl. I could send the resources she needed—money, potions, even Source Mushrooms that could make someone stronger.

But the Source Mushrooms were a problem. I’d already upgraded every single one I had. I didn’t have even one rank-one Source Mushroom left.

Meanwhile, Rem was writing a letter—instructions for the girl, what she should do, plus all kinds of advice. When she asked for the girl’s name, I suddenly realized I didn’t even know what she was called. But that wasn’t important right now.

I put three rank-one healing potions and eighty silver coins into the box. At first I wanted to put gold coins in, but Rem stopped me.

"If you give the girl gold, it could make her an easy target for robbers or bandits. Silver is better," she said.

So I left eighty silver coins.

"Alright… anything else?" I muttered.

At that moment, Sherial ran up and put four Source Mushrooms into the box.

"I told you—I don’t have any rank-one Source Mushrooms left. I upgraded all of them," I said.

"No. These are rank one. Don’t worry," Sherial replied calmly.

"Where did you even get them?" I asked, surprised.

"Considering how you stored your Source Mushrooms—like trash—I just rummaged through your supplies," Sherial said.

Of course, she didn’t mean actual trash. I threw the real trash away a long time ago. She meant the magic stones and all the random dungeon junk piled in the corner of my Training Room. Apparently a few Source Mushrooms were still mixed in there, and I simply hadn’t noticed them.

"I think you should check everything there. You might have even more Source Mushrooms left," Sherial said.

She was right. If I got lucky, I could find more rank-one Source Mushrooms I hadn’t upgraded yet.

Rem carefully placed the letter inside and closed the box, then handed it to me.

Whew… I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Somewhere inside, the fear was still there—that this time it wouldn’t work.

No. Enough pessimism. It has to work.

I directed mana into the box. I felt it filling up… and then—that same sensation, like the mana I’d poured in simply vanished.

With light anxiety, I opened the lid.

It was empty.

It worked.

"It worked," I said, relieved.

"Good. That’s all we can do for now. So focus on our main task," Rem said calmly.

I nodded.

Yeah… for now, I’d done everything I could.

I hope she’ll be alright.

When we returned to the clearing, we waited an entire day—but the monsters didn’t respawn again. That was bad. The place was perfect for gaining massive amounts of experience points. It hurt to leave it behind.

Yes, there was a chance that in the future—after a few days, or even weeks—the monsters might start respawning again. But waiting would mean wasting time. So we had no choice. We had to leave.

Oh, and one more thing. I checked the Training Room—old things, magic stones—and found ninety-three more rank-one Source Mushrooms that I simply hadn’t noticed before. They were mixed in with the rest of the loot, so I didn’t see them and didn’t upgrade them.

And speaking of upgrading… I tried to upgrade the box itself. I knew it probably wouldn’t work. A magical item like this is made in pairs, and I only have one. Logically, to upgrade it, you’d need both.

But I tried anyway.

Of course, it didn’t work immediately. But it turned out upgrading was still possible. The required amount of mana was just about twenty times higher than usual.

Meaning—if upgrading an item from rank three to rank four normally takes one million mana, then because of the massive distance to the second box, it would take about twenty million mana.

And I don’t have that much mana yet.

Though… I guess it’s only a matter of time. I just need to raise my level a bit more and invest my free attribute points. Then upgrading the box will become completely realistic.

Two days passed, and now we were already in the rank-four zone of the dungeon. Rem had just created around two hundred rank-two golems and sent them toward the trails. She was sending several hundred golems into different passages of the rank-four zone to scout the area. The golems vanished into the thick undergrowth, checking whether there was a similar place—one where monsters spawned in massive numbers, like that clearing.

So far, we hadn’t found anything like it.

In these two days, we also hadn’t met a single adventurer. According to Sherial, adventurers appear extremely rarely in rank-four and rank-five zones. There are very few people strong enough to hunt here, so you can wander for weeks and never meet anyone.

That was probably why Rem wasn’t worried at all about summoning so many golems and sending them to search. Yes, a significant portion of them were destroyed by monsters—but some still managed to go deeper into the forest and scout the terrain.

But like I said, we still hadn’t found any place comparable to that clearing.

Also, back in the rank-three zone, Rem didn’t search that thoroughly. In fact, she didn’t search at all—because she considered rank-three monsters too weak. It would be far better to find a similar place in the rank-four zone. It would be much more efficient.

But if we can’t find such a spot in the rank-four zone, then we’ll return to the rank-three zone and search everything carefully there.

I suggested going to the rank-five zone instead, but they clearly didn’t like that idea. Yeah, fair. There’s no way we could withstand more than ten thousand rank-five monsters.

"Found it," Rem said suddenly.

"Finally," Sherial added.

"This way…"

We started moving back—toward the direction where, about thirty minutes ago, Rem had sent several hundred golems.

We turned off the main road onto a narrow trail. One question had been bothering me for a while, and the moment seemed right.

"Rem, how did you know there was a zone here where monsters gather in such huge numbers, like in that clearing? Can you see what your golems see?" I asked.

"Of course not," Rem replied calmly.

"Then how did you figure out your golems found a suitable place? Somewhere with a truly large number of monsters."

"It’s less like sight and more like a sensation at the moment the golem is destroyed. Right before it breaks, the golem sends me the approximate number of hostile beings nearby. Something like a vague pulse," Rem said.

"I see… so it’s more like a feeling. I guess it could be wrong sometimes."

"Yes, it can. But right now, it’s unlikely. I already have enough experience," Rem replied.

It was still hard for me to imagine how that sensation worked.

Suddenly, Rem stopped.

"What is it?" Sherial asked.

"I found another place with a large number of monsters," Rem replied.

"So there are two such zones here?" I said.

"Seems like it," Rem nodded.

"Then we could alternate between them and not wait two hours for monsters to respawn," I suggested.

"Yes, that’s reasonable," Sherial agreed.

We kept walking for a few more minutes, until Rem stopped again and turned to us.

"Something’s wrong," she said in a serious—very serious—voice.

"What do you mean, ‘wrong’?" Sherial asked.

"I found two more places with a large number of monsters," Rem replied.

"And what’s unusual about that? Sounds good for us," Sherial said.

"One or two places could still be explained. But four… and I still haven’t checked the entire rank-four zone. That means there could be more," Rem said.

She fell silent for a second, like she was thinking something through.

"If there really are that many places like this, the Adventurers’ Guild couldn’t possibly be unaware of them."

I frowned.

Yeah, Rem was right. The Guild wouldn’t fail to notice it if there were that many zones with massive monster concentrations in this dungeon.

"We need to check the entire rank-four zone," Rem said. "We’re going back."

Rem found seventeen more zones like that. So in the rank-four zone, there are twenty-one places where an enormous number of monsters are present at the same time.

Even I—someone who doesn’t know much about the nature of dungeons or how the Guild works—am ninety-nine percent sure this is an anomaly.

And one more thing. I don’t know why, but something about me feels off. Not in a bad way. Just… I don’t understand it myself. This situation—an enormous number of monsters—for some reason, I like it.