Bumpy Roadtrip

The rest of the car ride was fairly uneventful, with everyone being too nervous to talk much.

While all of them had undergone countless situations where their life was on the line, their current mission was downright suicidal.

Crossing the border was already a tricky task, but they needed to infiltrate a supposed ruin in an enemy country, without being discovered.

Furthermore if they are caught, the Holy Ruin, and it's contents would fall into the hands of an enemy nation.

Not only that, but the only child of the current king, the Royal Princess, would be captured or even killed.

It was a mission with stakes so high, that it left no room for failure.

Making their way past grassy meadows, the small patches of trees grew thicker the further south they went.

While a significant portion of it's northern reaches was cut down for logging purposes, the Kelon Jungle was slowly making it's presence known the farther the van travelled.

It would have been better for them to bring an SUV or any other military vehicle better suited for off-roading, but given that the group was planning on exploring the heart of the jungle, they would need to be ditching their car sooner or later.

Not only that, but a car would be too noisy.

Along with attracting every creature that made the jungle it's home, they could also run the risk of alerting the enemy forces.

As they made their way past the final southernmost town belonging to the Clairmont Kingdom, the road they were traversing abruptly ended.

However, calling this place a town wasn't entirely correct.

Instead it was more like a large military outpost.

Given that this was one of the places the Clairmont Army used to watch their border, that assumption wasn't too far off the mark.

Rather than take a pitstop at the town, the group decided to avoid it altogether and not let their presence be known.

Since there were undoubtably spies planted in the town, given it's close proximity to the territory of the Kelon Coalition, stopping there before heading south was no different than announcing their intention to cross the border.

But to do that, they needed to leave the paved road and endure the rough, uneven dirt roads.

Which were just simply clearings in the jungle that were barely large enough to accommodate their white van.

Furthermore they had to turn off their headlights as well, as a bright light would stick out like a sore thumb in the dead of night.

Instead, the people in the van were all wearing a headgear with some kind of goggle-like object strapped to the front.

Their nightvision goggles were quite lunky and hard to use in a proper fight, but it worked wonders in letting them see in the pitch black forest.

While turning off the headlights and switching to night-vision goggles helped allow them to somehow avoid encountering any of the local 'wildlife', this didn't alleviate all of their problems.

Needless to say the ride itself was anything but smooth and comfortable.

Most of the riders in the van possessed a mana core, effectively making them super humans.

A bumpy car ride wasn't anything worth noting to people like them.

However there was one outlier… A certain queasy princess.

Unlike the others, she was still a normal human.

"Ughh…"

Groaning, Cecelia clutched her mouth with her hand, as if worried that it's contents might leak through if she didn't.

Lyn gently patted the princess's back, but that didn't seem to help all that much.

Since they already decided to continue without stopping for breaks, there was nothing the princess could do until they managed to reach their destination.

Which, to her dismay, took nearly a full hour of traversing the dirt roads.

When their car eventually stopped after reaching their destination, she nearly threw herself out of the window.

"Haaa!" 

Inhaling a breath of fresh air, a weak smile formed on Cecelia's tired face.

Just as she got down, the others started disembarking as well.

Captain Lorie and the other military officers looked around with visible confusion. 

"Is this really our destination princess? There's nothing here," after giving Cecelia a moment to herself, Lorie asked.

Greedily inhaling a few more lungfuls of the pure jungle air, Cecelia recomposed herself.

Turning around, she threw a nod to Captain Lorie.

"Yes, we've indeed reached our destination. Though the actual path we're going to take is currently hidden."

Cecelia then moved her goggle-covered eyes to focus on Rick.

"Captain Price, your mana art lets you control the earth right?"

Surprised by the unexpected question, Rick nodded his head in affirmation.

"Yes. I can manipulate both the earth and rocks."

'If only he could have made the road more even on the way here…'

Cecelia internally complained, but didn't let it show on her face.

Even if the man could manipulate the earth, making a 50-kilometer-long stretch of ground perfect flat would require far too much mana, even for a 2-Star.

She pointed at a sizable hill not too far from them, with the end facing them breaking off into a small cliff.

The cliffside was comprised of many rocks and boulders connected by a mesh of earth.

"Could you please move the rocks out of cliff over there? Please make sure to do it as gently as you can."

While he was confused by the princess's words, he did as she asked.

As he used his mana art, he felt that the mana being used was far below the amount he would normally use to manipulate a mass of earth this large.

By now, he started to understand the reasoning behind the princess's seemingly obscure order, and it wasn't long before his colleagues did too.

As the cliff rippled and slowly separate, a large expanse of empty space revealed itself behind it.

"Is this… A tunnel?," Lorie asked with visible shock.

"Yes," Cecelia confirmed, "Originally it was constructed a couple hundred years ago as an easy way to traverse the jungle, but after an earthquake, it collapsed on itself and became mostly unusable. Slowly over time, it eventually became completely abandoned and forgotten."

Looking at what looked like a giant gaping maw in the earth, she continued.

"However, during my great-grandfather's time, some soldiers coincidentally managed to discover it. After nearly ten years of secretly mapping out the interior, our country decided to keep it as a hidden weapon in case of an all-out war with the south."

After pausing a moment she added:

"Although… No one's been down there in decades…"

Understanding what she was insinuating, Lorie sighed.

"It's crawling with all kinds of horrors?"

Cecelia reluctantly nodded.

After Rick fully opened the passageway, he turned to the others.

"Well then… Before we go down, should we take a break? It's best if we go when we're fully prepared."

Not having a reason to object his proposal, the group agreed unanimously.