Chapter 42: First Entry into the Mine

After much wandering, Elena and Fen returned to this dusty land.

But this time, through the fence, they couldn’t hear the laborers shouting from the mining area, nor could they see the mine carts rumbling along the tracks, hauling load after load of ore.

Through the iron bars, they could see that the mining area was completely empty of people.

All that greeted them was the tightly locked park gate, secured with an iron chain, and a prominent “Sealed” mark bearing the Enforcement Bureau’s lettering on the door.

“Looks like we came one step too late…”

Chris Mine seemed to have shut down.

Fen pursed his lips.

‘Those guys from the Novalis Enforcement Bureau… they really have no good intentions…’

‘Something happens yesterday, and in just one night… they’ve already sealed the scene…’

‘As soon as an incident occurs… they immediately close the park and evacuate all the workers…’

‘They seal off the clues faster than anyone…’

‘If only they were this diligent in solving cases…’

“What do we do… the only clue is gone too…”

The silver-haired girl murmured uneasily.

“Let’s go in and take a look.”

Fen proposed a startling idea.

“In… inside!?”

The girl’s voice involuntarily rose, and she looked at the man beside her with disbelief.

But his serious expression didn’t seem like a joke.

“Hey… Fen…”

The girl lowered her voice, a note of warning creeping into her tone.

“Unauthorized personnel breaking into a crime scene is illegal!”

“Oh, come on… Little Elena. What time is this—and you’re still worried about breaking the law?”

“This…”

“Don’t forget we have the Pope’s permission! For the sake of investigating this case, the Pope allowed us to act with discretion!”

Fen made a fist-clenching gesture at the girl.

“If we can’t find anything… how are we going to report back?”

“But as Paladins, engaging in this kind of sneaky business is a bit…”

“Hey—”

The man gently patted her shoulder.

“Don’t overthink it… I had a dream last night and asked the Goddess herself!”

“Uh… wh… what did She say?”

“She had no objections.”

“And besides, Novalis promotes ‘freedom’ locally, so we’re just doing as the Romans do, right?”

Elena’s face reddened slightly.

She coughed twice, and her voice returned to its usual dignified tone.

“But barging in recklessly… it won’t be good if we run into investigators.”

She shook her head.

The risk of exposure was too great.

“Hey hey… Elena… don’t you think it’s strange?”

Strange…?

The girl’s brows furrowed slightly.

She looked around at the surroundings.

“It is a bit…”

Even for a protected crime scene… this was too quiet…

“No guards at the entrance… no official cars with Enforcement Bureau markings…”

Fen pointed at the open space in front of the main gate.

“So—I bet there aren’t any investigators inside the park either.”

“If what the priest said is true… then given the Enforcement Bureau’s typical behavior—”

Fen let out a cold snort.

“They’ve definitely packed up the victim’s body and all the on-site clues and taken them away long ago.”

“They’re probably huddled behind their desks right now, thinking about how to do damage control with the public and try to cover up the whole thing.”

The girl beside him was still hesitant, but Fen had already nimble-footedly climbed the wall, then landed steadily on the other side.

“Alright—special times call for special measures…”

The man inside the wall beckoned to Elena.

“Ah…”

Unable to argue with Fen, Elena had no choice but to pull out her staff and chant a spell.

“Wind Riding Art.”

Immediately, a vibrant emerald light burst forth around the girl, and a current of air gently lifted her, carrying her to Fen’s side.

“No way!”

The man beside her exclaimed in awe.

“You could do something this cool and didn’t tell me sooner!”

“What’s that? Teach me sometime…”

His tone was unabashedly admiring.

Fen had always dreamed of flying through the air like the great masters in novels.

After all, coolness is a lifelong pursuit.

“Some other time…”

Elena didn’t dare to slack off.

She was still holding her staff, seemingly casting some kind of enhancement spell on Fen from a distance.

“And this is!?”

‘Looks like after following Kelly… Elena’s improved a lot recently…’

‘She’s got a bunch of new tricks I’ve never seen before.’

Fen scratched his head.

He used to be the one explaining things related to magic to Elian.

Now he felt like a country bumpkin who had never seen the world.

‘Guess I’ll need to secretly learn from Elena later…’

“Concealment Art.”

While answering the man’s question, the girl’s casting hands didn’t stop.

“During the spell, it temporarily ‘lowers’ your presence, making it harder for others to detect your leaking Mana.”

“And while it’s active, no matter how big a movement you make or how loud a sound you produce, ordinary people generally won’t be able to see through it.”

“That strong?”

After finishing the spell, Elena still considerately helped Fen pull up his hood.

The two moved closer to the center of the minefield, where a large iron bulletin board stood.

“But we still need to be careful; this isn’t a full invisibility spell after all.”

The girl patted her chest, as if glad that she had diligently followed Kelly’s lessons from the start.

‘But who would’ve thought… I’d end up using a spell like this…’

She looked at Fen, who was currently slightly crouched and sneaking forward, then at herself, also wearing a hood…

‘Sure enough… we look more and more like thieves…’

The girl grumbled gloomily to herself.

She moved closer to the man beside her—Fen was now staring at the bulletin board, which displayed a large map of the mining area.

“So big… where should we start looking…”

The dense text and chaotic annotations and corrections made Elena dizzy.

She looked at the surrounding environment again…

“Several cave entrances stand in the nearby mountains.

One… two… three… four…

Well… I can’t even count how many mine entrances there are…”

“Or rather… where is the crime scene—”

The complexity of the environment far exceeded what the two had imagined.

“Mm!—”

Before the girl could finish speaking, the man beside her suddenly covered her mouth.

“Mm! Wha… what is it…”

Elena gently shook her shoulders in protest until Fen let go.

“Someone’s here.”

“What!?—”

Before she could say the words out loud, the girl alertly shut her mouth.

She then glared at the man before her with a look of anger mixed with slight shame.

‘What do you mean! You just guaranteed there was no one in the minefield!’

Fen knew that was what she meant.

He pointed lightly at one of the entrances, not far from them.

“There are footprints in the sand there…”

The two carefully approached.

Indeed, there were very clear human footprints, with some animal claw prints mixed in here and there.

“The footprints are fresh…”

Tension crept into Fen’s voice.

The girl noticed that he had tightened his grip on the Sword at his waist.

Elena knew what that meant.

If these were traces from when the miners evacuated… they would have been blown away by the wind by now…

This meant the owner of these footprints was definitely still nearby.

She pulled her thoughts away from the deduction, only to find that the man beside her had already turned around and was staring straight at her.

Clearly, Fen was waiting for her to take a stand.

She looked at the mine entrance that the sand trail led to.

Inside was pitch black, like the deep, gaping maw of a monster, emanating an aura of despair and foreboding.

“Let’s go. Let’s go in and take a look.”

After a brief silence, the girl tightened her grip on her staff.

“Good.”

That was what he had been waiting for.

The blade was drawn cleanly from its sheath at the man’s waist.

Shing—

It was the sound of Light Elements converging on the staff.

The surrounding darkness was temporarily dispelled.

Clearly, more than just darkness awaited them ahead.

Elena didn’t know what lay at the end of the path.

But she could faintly guess that this was definitely the key to solving the case.

And so, the young man and the young girl walked side by side toward the abyss.