Snowcell Underground Mine.
A cattail stalk, enchanted with magic and shimmering with a crystalline glow, was tucked into the safety helmet perched on the girl’s head, faintly illuminating the dark and deep underground mine.
“Mana Tentacle—”
The girl’s tender lips parted slightly. Her left hand rose, palm up, and a twisted mass of white light suddenly blazed forth from the darkness.
This white light illuminated the girl’s deep, bright black eyes, like the purest obsidian. The mana tentacles, seeming to writhe in her palm, stirred a gentle breeze that softly lifted her hair, strands whiter than snow.
The girl’s name was ‘Elizabeth White.’
As one of the Crystal Companion White Mouse Clan, using the basic magic spell—’Mana Tentacle’—to detect various ores was their innate racial talent.
Her delicate palm, swirling with the white light of mana, pressed heavily against the jagged, jet-black stone wall before her.
The mana seeped into the stone wall without any resistance, using the rock and minerals as a medium, dispersing like thousands of tentacles, constantly extending.
‘Combustion Ore’
‘Combustion Ore’
‘Iron Ore’
‘Demonic Iron Ore’
…..
The various types of ore information fed back by the mana clearly mapped themselves in Elizabeth White’s mind, one by one.
Detecting the presence of Demonic Iron Ore in this barren mine made Elizabeth White’s eyes light up. She quickly shut her eyes and focused, sensing the location of the Demonic Iron Ore.
After a short while, Elizabeth White opened her eyes again, moved five steps to the left, and stood still at a corner where two rock faces met.
In her right hand, she raised what looked like a small silver mining pick.
“Mana, Decomposition——!”
As the incantation was softly uttered, a powerful white magical glow, identical to what had appeared in Elizabeth White’s palm earlier, suddenly swirled around the small pickaxe.
“Hi-yah——!” With a fierce shout, the small pick, now gleaming silver, swung down hard towards the rock at the corner.
If it were a human’s mana attribute, digging into a wall corner like this would have a high chance of causing the energy within the ore to spontaneously detonate, leading to a mine collapse.
But the mana of the Crystal Companion White Mouse Clan possessed an exceptionally high affinity for almost all ores in the world. A simple ‘Mana Decomposition’ could silently dissolve the surface rock layer without harming the ore within.
Where the pick passed, the rock layer melted like a hot knife through butter. Stone chips peeled away in droves, and soon, a flash of icy blue light, piercing the darkness, was laid bare from within the crumbling rock wall.
“Demonic Iron Ore!”
Elizabeth White’s spirit jolted.
Demonic Iron Ore, as the name implied, was iron ore containing mana. Judging by the hue of the mana glimpsed, it was at least of high-quality grade or better.
Maintaining ‘Mana Decomposition,’ Elizabeth White hurriedly swung her pick, meticulously clearing away the rock and earth encasing the Demonic Iron Ore.
Elizabeth White’s little heart beat faster and faster. A piece of Demonic Iron Ore the size of her fist could sell for a considerable price, let alone the one before her eyes, which was not only of superior quality but also as large as a basin’s opening!
Finally clearing away the surrounding earth and rock, her heart pounding with excitement, Elizabeth White swung her pick down towards the edge of the Demonic Iron Ore!
In an instant—
The blue light covering the Demonic Iron Ore suddenly intensified, becoming blindingly brilliant.
“Clink!”
The pick struck down, but apart from a crisp sound, the Demonic Iron Ore, as hard as refined steel, didn’t budge a millimeter.
..…
“Eh?”
In the next split second, the dark and winding underground mine was entirely flooded by what seemed like a boundless, expanding ocean of icy blue light.
“Kyaa————!”
Elizabeth White was sent flying by a terrifying blast wave.
Like a night-blooming cereus flashing into existence, the boundless blue light vanished completely after just a few seconds. The mine returned to darkness, as if nothing had happened.
Except for…
A girl, appearing as if she had teleported from thin air, was now pinning Elizabeth White down on the rough, hard ground in an indescribable position.
“Ah-ah——!!”
She was not immediately concerned with how the girl pressing down on her had appeared.
Her first reaction was to anxiously look towards the Demonic Iron Ore, which had now completely lost its mana reaction. Elizabeth White’s small face instantly went pale, looking as if she were about to cry. She mumbled in a soul-lost daze: “The Demonic Iron Ore…… why would it…”
“Ugh… my head hurts so much, what… happened…”
The girl lying on top of Elizabeth White groaned, clutching her head at that moment.
Her cheek felt like it was submerged in a sea as smooth as jelly. The girl couldn’t help but nuzzle her face left and right, murmuring in confusion and surprise, “…Whoa, this thing on my face, so… soft?”
“Ah! Pervert!!”
Belatedly reacting, Elizabeth White’s small face flushed crimson as blood in an instant. Instinctively, she forcefully pushed away the girl sprawled on her chest, then scrambled back, using both hands and feet to drag her seated body across the ground, quickly putting distance between herself and the girl of unknown origin.
“Thud!”
The girl—no, she should be called [Lega Weilin]—was flipped over in a full circle by the shove. Her face hit the ground, eliciting a pitiful cry: “Uweh, tha-t hurts!”
Elizabeth White calmed down. Seeing the mysterious girl suffer secondary harm because of her own actions, she couldn’t help feeling a pang of guilt.
“…Just wh-who are you? How did you suddenly appear here?!”
But Elizabeth White couldn’t let her guard down just because of guilt. Maintaining her distance, she questioned warily, her expression alert.
Lega Weilin calmly sat up from the ground, brushed the grit from her soft hair, rubbed her smooth and delicate face, grabbed at her slightly bulging chest, and reached into her skirt, which felt breezy and cool…
Weilin’s delicate body trembled violently.
No—! My little brother!
Elizabeth White’s eyes were so pure and clear that Weilin could distinctly see her own female image reflected in them.
So…
“…Who exactly am I?”
Lega Weilin froze, surprise and confusion flickering unsteadily in her eyes. She couldn’t help but lower her head and mutter to herself.
“Am I Lega Weilin, a failed writer, trashy streamer, and a societal leech living off my parents, one of the teeming 1.5 billion people in the Celestial Dynasty in the year 8102?”
“Or… Lega Weilin, the strongest mage on the Divine Crystal Continent in ten thousand years, but because the game was facing shutdown, on a whim, reset all her skills and put every single point into life skills, becoming an Aqua-type Transmigrator?”
Her crescent-moon-like slender eyebrows furrowed slightly. The young girl, Weilin, fell into deep thought with a serious expression.
‘So this person actually has amnesia.’
Elizabeth White’s gaze immediately softened with pity. She kindly offered a reminder.
“Um, this place is the Divine Crystal Continent… so maybe it’s the latter?”
“Are you calling me an idiot?”
Weilin’s face stiffened. Her gaze, overly serious, instead seemed somewhat sharp. Frightened by the perceived threat, Elizabeth White’s small face paled, and she desperately wanted to defend herself.
“Ah… no, I-I didn’t mean that!”
“Perhaps you’re right.”
Weilin suddenly averted her gaze and said in a low voice, as if to herself.
“Ah… I really… really didn’t call you an idiot! In fact, what you just said… besides you claiming to be the strongest mage, I barely understood a single sentence!”
“No, I meant the previous line.” Weilin calmly shook her head in denial, and even because she couldn’t hold back, the amusement in the corner of her mouth gradually turned into delight. “…Just the fact that I went from ‘exploiting every loophole’ to ‘having a gap to exploit’… not only am I completely unfazed inside, I actually kinda want to laugh—so, as I was saying, I might just be a pervert, like you suggested.”
“…”
Facing this mysterious and somewhat unhinged girl, Elizabeth White felt an involuntary shiver run down her spine. Her gaze grew even more cautious, and she even stealthily took half a step back.
Get away from her!
