Boosted Continuation

Chapter 271 – The need to touch it

The group made it to the ruins of Canir’s Forsaken Maze Dungeon, which Sophia destroyed and turned into a crater back when she was traveling with just Fen and Maya. There, they saw that a bunch of people were excavating all sorts of magic ores before running into two cat-men, who explained a little of the situation and guided them around to get them down safely to the bottom of the crater.

“By the way, is it, uhhh… known why or how this crater came to be?” The group was slowly getting closer to the bottom of the hole, it was a couple of kilometers away, after all, when Sophia eventually addressed their guides while awkwardly scratching her cheek. She knew that she was the reason, after all.

“No.” One of them shook his head. “This area was completely abandoned because no one used to visit the Forsaken Maze. I mean, it’s kinda in the name, too. Everyone within a radius of at least 100 kilometers heard the explosion that caused this destruction. We have yet to uncover the cause, though.”

“I, err, see.”

“That was also part of the reason why we sent a letter to the capital. Someone there might have an explanation for it.”

“Ahh…” Sophia’s awkwardness kept rising.

"Menzor's going to have a lot of fun with that," Ari smirked at the blonde.

“Shush.” The blonde reacted with a light glare before looking at the cat-men again. “On a different note, why is there a bright-red fence around the big crystals over there?" She gestured at the big light-pink and translucent cluster at the very center of the crater.

"Those crystals are dangerous, and we wanted to prevent further incidents.” One of them shrugged while replying to her.

"Dangerous?" Anna tilted her head. "We've come across crystals that look exactly the same before, and they simply sucked out your magic, though."

“You don’t think that’s dangerous?” He stared right at her. “The moment someone touched them, all their magic and strength instantly left their bodies!”

“Ahh.” The princess noticed how her common sense had deteriorated even more and awkwardly scratched her cheek. “I guess that’s not exactly wrong.”

“That’s not even factoring in the shock everyone got when they saw people collapsing on the ground immediately after they touched it!”

“It probably didn’t affect us like that because we have more magic and didn’t immediately get sucked dry by it.” Chloe noticed Anna’s confused expression and tried to come up with an explanation.

“That makes sense!”

“Do you want me to get rid of the dangerous crystals?” Sophia smiled at the concerned-looking cat-man.

“There’s a way to deal with them?!” He got loud.

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve~.” Her expression got a little cheeky.

“I mean, we were hoping to get some help from the capital besides clearing up the mystery of how this crater came to be, so we won’t say no to the tiger family offering to take care of it.” The cat-man nodded a few times. “Even though you aren’t here because of the letter, but I doubt that matters, huh?”

“I don’t think I can give a good explanation on this place, but taking care of the crystals will be easy.” After all, Sophia could only offer stupid explanations on the crater’s origin, so she technically wasn’t lying about it.

“That would be an enormous help!”

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As they continued to chat, the group eventually made it down the winding path alongside the crater and arrived in the center at the bottom.

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“Oh, they're a lot bigger than they looked like from afar.” Getting a close-up of the massive light-pink cluster behind the red fence, Sophia was surprised by how much of it there really was, as it was around ten-by-15 meters in size. “The one we saw before was a lot smaller.”

“It’s reassuring that you dealt with those things before.” The cat-man seemed relieved that she seemed familiar with it. “Or is the size going to be an issue for you?”

“…” The blonde’s expression scrunched up because she really

wanted to make a stupid comment on his questionable phrasing, but she managed to hold back and stayed professional. She’s an honorable and serious tiger, after all.“Pfft!” Maya and Steph had an even harder time.

“Anyway, no, I can handle this size with ease.” In the end, the blonde just couldn’t avoid at least making a small comment. Afterward, she moved one of the fences aside and walked right up to the crystals. Looking at it for a moment, Sophia then poked it with her pointer finger to see if it really was the same as in her domain. The moment her fingertip contacted it, the entire cluster shone in a bright white light.

“Woah!” The two cat-men raised their voice as they covered their eyes with their arms.

“Holy, these things are a lot stronger than the ones we used before!” Sophia had immediately retracted her hand again and rapidly shook it a couple of times as if she’d been burned by it. “That almost took out two-thirds of my magic in an instant!” However, even with that much taken from her, the color of the crystal hadn’t changed even one bit, compared to how the one in her domain got brighter and more intense in color the more magic it stored.

“How are you still standing?!”

“And not unconscious?!” The two buff cat-men raised their voices again.

“Well, I’m a little stronger than most, so I had time to react before it sucked out all of my power.”

“Tigers are amazing!” The two locals sounded incredibly impressed.

"As much as I don't want to admit it, when you intended to praise all of us, but our Sophia here is a very special one.” Anna awkwardly scratched her cheek while glancing at her fellow tiger. “If she really lost two-thirds of her magic to the crystal in an instant, any tiger I know, including myself, would’ve been taken out by it, as well.”

“I really want to touch it!” Steph suddenly got quite excited. “No, I need to touch it!”

“Sure, knock yourself out~.” Sophia knew that it was no use trying to stop her sister and just stepped aside.

“Yay!” The dog-girl energetically raised her arm as she got really close to the crystal while intently staring at it. Then, with absolutely no self-preservation instinct, she pressed her entire hands against it. The moment she came into contact with the cluster, it shone in a bright white light once more, and when it was gone, the others saw that she had passed out and was lying sprawled on the ground in front of it. “Woah! Why didn’t you catch me?!” Thankfully, it only took a second or two before she opened her eyes again while glaring at her sister, who was smirking at her. Thanks to her magic recovery being as fast as it was, the lights didn’t stay out for her.

“Why would I catch you?” Sophia smiled at her. “You totally did that to yourself, and the consequences were for you to bear.”

“Grr!” She didn’t appreciate that.

“Are they really qualified to deal with the crystals…?” One of the cat-men scratched his cheek before looking at Anna and Ari next to them.

“Sophia definitely is more than qualified.” The jaguar shrugged in return. “Steph’s just here to have a good time.”

“The bestest of times!” The dog-girl jumped back on her feet and gave them a thumbs-up in return.

“Your group certainly is interesting.” He had no better words.

“Yeah.” Ari could only nod. "I've heard that before."

“Qualified might be a bit of a stretch.” Sophia let out a chuckle while listening to them. “I am, however, good at brute forcing things.” As she said so, she moved a little farther away from the crystals and raised her hand. A moment later, the entire cluster was wrapped in the pink and purple particles of her portals.

“H-Huh?! Where did they go?!” The two cat-men once again got louder when they saw that the crystals were gone after the particles disappeared. “Also, where did it go?!”

“I borro-, I transported them to a safe place where no one can accidentally get hurt by them." The blonde smiled at them. “I have magic that allows me to do just that~.”

“Since when can magic do stuff like that?!”

“Tigers really are amazing!” The two locals looked at them with sparkling eyes again.

“…” Anna decided against saying anything because she knew it was no use, as Sophia surely would do another weird thing to cause them to have the exact same reaction once more in the next couple of minutes. “By the way, what are you doing with all the excavated magic ore?” Instead, she changed the topic and gestured at the walls of the crater they were in, noting that a number of people were still digging around, even though many had taken a break to watch the interesting group.

“A few here just want to collect shiny things or want to experiment a little.” One of them answered her.

“Totally valid!” Steph, fellow lover of shiny things, nodded a couple of times.

“Most of us are selling them in Bilom, though.” The other cat-man shrugged. “A trade city not too far away from here. They’re worth quite a bit, after all.”

“That makes sense.” The princess could follow his explanation.

Once that topic was taken care of and the danger, the magic-sucking cluster, was gone, things calmed down quite a bit, and they had a few more casual chats about the region and how much of a stir the sudden crater created.