Volume 16 Chapter 7 Crossing The River Of Death Part I
A few days had passed since the New Year. Al, finally free from helping Kane, decided to check out the land that Kane had suggested as a reward from Naresh.
'If the land is unlivable, I won't help Mr. Kane again.'
Glee still seemed worried about the condition of the land.
After flying for about 15 minutes using the 'Fly' spell from Nora Village, they found a tributary that flowed into the York River, known as the River of Death.
From the sky, the river's water glowed a deep blue. Just as Kane had said, there were no trees growing along the river, only pale rocks scattered everywhere.
The scenery was a bit eerie and dreamlike.
"This is it... At least this little one seems okay."
Al slowly lowered their altitude and raised the wooden basket in their right hand.
Inside was a small bird with a light yellow body, its head, shoulders, and the tips of its wings slightly black, perched calmly on a branch in the middle of the basket.
"Of course. Just to be safe. But, it's kind of beautiful..."
Al set the basket aside and gently touched the glowing blue water of the River of Death. They felt no particular change.
'Sensory Boost'──Smell
It would be wise to check carefully if there was really nothing there. After enhancing their sense of smell, Al sniffed the river water again.
While he couldn't normally detect anything, with 'Sensory Boost,' he could faintly smell something like a rotten odor.
'Analyze.'
Just to be sure, he decided to use the 'Analyze' spell. He compared it to the water in their flask. However, he couldn't tell the difference.
'Increase the accuracy.'
"Okay..."
'Analyze'──Accuracy Increased
Unlike the usual results, components below one percent were displayed one after another.
However, even though he recognized the names of those components, they were all unfamiliar to Al, making it hard to determine if there was a problem.
"Did you find out anything?"
'Um, I don't know. I don't know, but I'll remember it. Maybe I'll figure something out later.'
Al asked Glee too, but it seemed she couldn't make a judgment from the analysis results. For now, since it didn't seem to affect the little bird, Al decided to take the basket and move upstream.
Though the cause was unknown, the water flowing in the River of Death was not clear but blue, sparkling at certain angles. It was beautiful, but clearly something was off.
Al wanted to confirm the cause if possible.
They followed the rocky riverbank upstream. The river twisted, so the distance was unclear, but after moving about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles), the surrounding mountains became quite steep.
The blue color of the water seemed to deepen a bit. A faint steam was rising. When they dipped their fingers in, the water felt slightly warm.
The area was shrouded in a hazy mist. The little bird didn't seem to be affected.
"Is this really some kind of hot spring?"
Al murmured. However, the water from the 'Hidden Spring' in Clarence Village hadn't had this color, and the surrounding plants hadn't withered either.
It is true that the water is boiling in the same way, but could this be called a poisonous spring?
While thinking about this, a hissing sound came from about 20 meters (66ft) ahead on the riverbank where Al was heading.
As Al braced himself, hot water suddenly shot straight up from the ground in the area where the sound seemed to come from.
"Eh? What?"
Al hurriedly stepped back and quickly gained some height. A little splash of water hit his body, but it was quite hot.
The water shot up to about 3 meters (10ft) high and continued to spout for about a minute.
'If that shot up from our feet, that would be scary. We'd get burned.'
"Yeah, it's dangerous to come back this way... If we build a house, it would be better to do it further downstream."
'Yeah, I think that's a good idea. But maybe we need to investigate?'
At Glee's words, Al nodded. It would be best to check out the source. He carefully moved upstream while maintaining a height of about ten meters (33ft).
Along the way, hot water spouted up again, reaching the same height of about 3 meters (10ft).
After moving about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles), the area opened up a bit. It was a valley surrounded by mountain ridges. The diameter of the valley was about 500 meters (1,640ft) at its longest point.
Near the entrance of the valley, Al detected a response from his 'Detect Magic' spell.
Since Baron Zora pointed it out, he had been maintaining 3 detection spells along with the 'Magic Sense' spell.
This time, one of his spells, 'Detect Magic,' had reacted.
'A magic tool?'
The 'Detect Magic' spell can distinguish whether the response is from a magic tool or a spell. This response was from a magic tool.
"Looks like it."
After replying, Al slowly descended toward the area where the 'Detect Magic' response was detected. Between the rocks, he found a beautifully decorated dagger lying on the ground.
It probably had some rust prevention or degradation prevention effect from a spell like 'Retention,' which caused it to react to the 'Detect Magic' spell.
"Just a dagger? Why?"
Near the dagger, there was a hole that likely had water spouting from it before, and a large amount of slightly yellowish white powder was stuck to the edge of the hole.
If he wasn't careful, he wouldn't know when the water might spout out again. As he carefully searched around the dagger, he found a small lens, all rusty, that seemed to be a pair of glasses.
'Did someone drop the dagger and glasses here?'
Glee murmured, but Al tilted his head at that. Both the decorated dagger and the glasses seemed expensive. It was hard to believe someone would just leave them behind.
It seemed more likely that the owner had died for some reason, and the dagger and glasses were left behind while the body was eaten by a beast or returned to the earth.
However, would someone really die just from getting burned by suddenly splashing hot water?
Al glanced at the small bird in the cage. The bird stared back at Al with its round eyes. The bad atmosphere seemed okay for now.
For the time being, Al put the dagger and the glasses' lenses into a button-shaped magic bag (Al usually carried only the smaller magic bag) and took to the air again, about ten meters (33ft) above the ground.
"Kane said no one died, but that seems to be only about downstream. Still, it doesn't seem like it was a recent event."
Al decided to carefully maintain his altitude while examining the bottom of the canyon. There were places where hot water had pooled everywhere, and many holes that seemed to have spouted water like before.
The entire canyon was covered in a thick white mist, which was hard to tell if it was steam or smoke, making visibility very poor. Even for Al, who had used 'Sensory Boost,' it was the same.
After quite some time, Al finally found a large rock in the almost central part of the valley, guided by the response from 'Detect Magic,' and it looked like there was a building with a square window.
It was about 5 meters (16ft) on each side, so it wasn't very big. Next to it, there was an area surrounded by rocks where water had pooled.
Then, very close to that, there was a crack in the ground, and thick white smoke was rising from it.
There were several responses from 'Detect Magic,' and they were inside that building and in the crack next to it. The response inside the building was from a magic tool. There were 3 responses.
This didn't seem like a big problem. However, the response in the crack was concerning. It wasn't from a magic tool but showed signs that someone had used a spell.
This meant that there could be humans, or possibly Barbarians or magic beasts that could use spells, present there.
"I hope it's someone I can talk to..."
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