The Max Level Hero Has Returned!

“Yes?” Evangeline answered.

"Can you see the flow of mana?"

"Hmm…" She squinted her eyes, focusing intently on the golem before her.

"See the flow of mana? What do you mean, Prince Davey?"

Maybe it was possible for some humans to see the flow of electricity with their eyes, sure. However, to see mana flowing, as detailed streams, one had to infuse their vision with mana and finely adjust it with a high degree of precision.

The knights of Tionis and martial artists of the Heavenly Central Plains handled mana in different ways. While neither method was necessarily superior, whoever had designed the labyrinth entrance’s constructs seemed to have incorporated the principles of the Heavenly Central Plains methodology.

Such a level of precise analysis and observation wasn’t something an ordinary knight or mage could manage, but Evangeline, who had even learned martial arts under Davey, certainly could. In fact, it instead would have been unusual if she wasn’t able to.

"Blue streams…" she murmured, her gaze fixed on the golem.

"There should be segments within the flow, where it disperses. Seal them all. You can apply the Touch of Death I taught you. Think you’re up for it?"

Ignoring their shock, Davey maintained his focus on Evangeline. She flashed a bright smile.

"Yes, I can do it!" she answered enthusiastically, charging toward the golem.

"Wait! It’s dangerous for her to face that thing alone!"

Slice! Slash!

Evangeline effortlessly leapt over the golem. Her eyes sparkled briefly before she twisted mid-air, sword dancing its way toward the golem. She then flashed past the golem before landing on the ground.

The golem didn’t shatter or break; there wasn’t even so much as a scratch on its surface. Despite the seemingly ineffective attack, the knights stood frozen, their mouths agape at what they’d just witnessed.

Though apparently unscathed, the golem suddenly halted as if it were a puppet with its strings cut.

Using that as her signal, Evangeline leaped to the other golems surrounding the knights and did the same thing. Within moments, most of the golems had frozen, as if their power had been drained.

"What… What just happened?!" one knight stammered, stunned.

Unfazed by their astonishment, Evangeline ran back to Davey, grinning brightly. "Daddy, did I do well?"

"Yeah, you did great.”

"Prince Davey! What on earth just happened?!”

Everyone wore shocked expressions. The magically enhanced stone golems, almost immune to blade energy and even the Aura Blade of a Swordmaster, had been stopped too easily. Ɍ𝘼Ŋô𝖇ÊⱾ

"She temporarily disrupted the flow of their mana. They won’t be able to move again for a while."

"But why aren’t more golems appearing? Shouldn’t reinforcements have been triggered?" Gandav asked, stepping forward with a sharp gaze.

"In most cases, unless directly controlled, beings like these operate on conditional triggers. From what I can tell, the golems only activate additional units when the mana waves emitted by the cores of the already active ones cease operation entirely."

What he had Evangeline do was simple: she detected the mana flowing through their bodies and delivered targeted shocks to disrupt the pathways. And so, though the main source of power was intact, the channels directing it became temporarily frozen.

In other words, she had simply paralyzed them, preventing their conditional triggers from working. She had performed the Touch of Death with her sword instead of a finger.

Davey could’ve used Red Ribbon to destroy the golems outright, but there was no point in doing so when they were perfect practice targets for Evangeline.

The knights, who had been tense and solemnly prepared to fight the golems, found themselves struggling to process the sudden reversal of the situation—a reversal due to a single addition to their team.

Ignoring the murmurs, Davey approached the massive stone door and placed his hand on it again. This time, it remained motionless.

“See? Nothing else is coming out.”

“...”

“Unbelievable…” one knight muttered. “To think she can see the flow of mana—something said to be visible only to true geniuses…”

Being able to see such a flow wasn’t entirely a product of innate talent. It was still something that could be achieved with training and effort. However, the knights and mages didn’t know that.

“Stopping the golems in an instant was impressive, but… now what do we do about this door?”

“Were there any hints?”

“Well, when we first entered the dungeon, there was a warning saying that if we try to force the door open, it’ll collapse from the inside and everything within will be lost forever.”

‘How thorough of him.’

Davey felt strange mana pulsations emanating from the door.

‘What is he trying so hard to hide?’

Despite the lack of apparent clues, he silently examined the patterns on the door and closed his eyes. Then, he began carefully infusing it with mana.

Whummm…

The door began to resonate faintly.

The best investigators and researchers of the Pallan Empire hadn’t been able to solve the puzzle despite toiling away for six months. Therefore believing there to be no possible way Davey could solve it right away out of nowhere, some young mages looked at him with skepticism.

Noticing their gazes, he couldn’t help but wonder if they were jealous of him for being renowned across the continent despite being around the same age as them.

"Does he think just touching it will open the door?" one whispered.

"There’s no way it’ll open with just that. The elders worked on the door for months and didn’t find any clues," another added with a scoff.

“Hey! Be quiet!” Sir Gandav scolded in a low tone, trying to keep their whispers from reaching Davey.

Yet, their sulky faces persisted.

"Sir Gandav, let’s be honest. This isn’t something even someone like him can handle, is it?"

"Exactly. Honestly, I think His Majesty might be overestimating him…"

Gandav shook his head as he clicked his tongue. "Jealousy blinds the mind and ruins opportunities. Prince Davey is revered by none other than the Great Sage Hellison Valestia himself. You’d better get rid of your petty habit of judging others based only on their age.”

"Tsk. Still, I bet he won’t be able to solve this.”

"Hey, Bolson, I bet you twenty silver coins he’ll give up.”

"Count me in for twenty."

"Keke. Who’d bet on him opening the door? Make mine thirty. No, seventy!”

Davey wondered if they thought he couldn’t hear them talk. He pulled a coin pouch from his robes and handed it to Emperor Sullivan, who seemed to have heard their conversation as well.

“Those idiots… On behalf of the Pallan Empire, I sincerely apologize, Prince.”

“No need, Your Majesty,” Davey replied with a smile. “Actually, why don’t you place a bet for me as well?”

“Pardon?”

“I’ll bet…”

Crrrk!!

"Everything on the door opening within two minutes.”

Hearing this, the mages froze in utter disbelief.

It was only natural, considering they had already spent months trying every method imaginable to open the door in front of them. Yet, within moments of Davey placing his hand on it, the door had begun to move.

The young, overconfident mages who had outright dismissed the possibility of him opening the door were somewhat pitiful. But pity wasn’t his concern.

Thud!!

As the door creaked open, Davey did his best not to gloat about his victory.

"Wha… What?!" Gandav exclaimed, his expression shifting to one of pure amazement. "Prince! Please, you must explain how you managed to open it!"

"Well, Thousand-day Blacksmith Surtr is undoubtedly incredible, especially when it comes to imbuing mana into weapons.”

"Yes, but what does that have to do w—”

"But he most likely isn’t capable of controlling mana as precisely as a skilled mage.”

Hearing this, Gandav looked bewildered. The group had assumed that advanced magical tricks were at play, and that the door could only be opened after unraveling them.

"So, if Surtr himself wanted to enter despite being unable to skillfully manipulate mana like a mage, the mechanism for opening the door wouldn’t rely on direct mana control.”

Gandav nodded as he took in the words.

"I see… But we already considered that possibility and—"

"The key," Davey interrupted, "was to use a method that allowed the door to remain inaccessible to everyone else but Surtr."

He nodded again with shaking eyes.

"So you analyzed the conditions. What was the solution?"@@novelbin@@

"I dunno.”

"Excuse me?"

Gandav wore a shocked expression.

"I just flooded the door with mana, forced a quick analysis of its structure, and manually overrode it.”

‘So that it recognized my mana as the key.’

Gandav remained silent as he processed what Davey had done.

"You… You brute-forced it open?!”

"Yep.”

"Then… why in the world did you bother explaining all that stuff earlier?!"

"Because that really is how it’s structured. Even so, there’s no need to adhere to the intended way if there are multiple ways of opening something, is there?”

Gandav let out a hollow laugh. "This labyrinth was designed by a 7th Circle mage, Prince.”

"I know.”

"You know?!"

"Of course. If it were made by an 8th Circle mage, brute-forcing it like this wouldn’t have worked. It only worked because a mere 7th Circle mage designed it.”

Gandav stared at him with a face of disbelief.

"Pull yourself together, Sir Gandav," Emperor Sullivan said, patting him on the shoulder. “He’s probably the only one on the entire continent who’s actually qualified to dismiss 7th Circle mages like this. Let’s just move forward."

"Ah… Yes… of course…"

* * *

No one knew when or where traps or enemies might emerge, yet Davey navigated the labyrinth with what seemed like practiced ease. He even accurately identified traps and guided them all past dangerous sections without incident.

They had never been able to progress through the cave and labyrinth’s obstacles so quickly and effortlessly. However, with Davey in the mix, everything had changed. Almost absurdly so.

When they finally reached the end of the corridor, they were greeted by a massive statue guarding a door. It resembled the door earlier, but with one distinct difference—a gigantic bird-faced statue stood before it instead of stone golems. The moment Davey took a step toward the statue, it began to move.

[Unapproved intruder, prove that you are Thousand-Day Blacksmith Surtr.]

In response, Count Ainz looked at the statue.

“What is this…?”

Then the statue repeated its statement.

[Unapproved intruder, prove that you are Thousand-day Blacksmith Surtr.]

"And if we’re not?" Davey asked, raising an eyebrow.

[You will meet your end here.]

Davey nodded in response.

"Alright. Ask away.”

[First question: What was Thousand-day Surtr's childhood name?]

A murmur rippled through the group. The question seemed almost unfair—to everyone present, Surtr was just Surtr. But they knew that if they said Surtr, the consequences would be dire.

[Answer, or retreat. If you flee, I will not pursue.]

Gandav and Count Ainz furrowed their brows in response.

"We’ll need to do some research. It never passed my mind that the Thousand-day Blacksmith could have another name.” Count Ainz admitted flatly.

There was no use pretending to know what they didn’t.

“Your Majesty, it might be best to pull the expedition back temporarily. I’ll conduct a thorough investigation and—”

“Hephaestus," Davey said calmly, interrupting the discussion.

[Next question: Who was the Thousand-day Blacksmith’s first love?]

"Lucid Fenisilia, the only daughter of Count Fenisilia. Do you want the full story? Surtr fell for her at first sight, then approached her and promptly got slapped in the face. After exactly ninety eight failed attempts at wooing her, Lady Fenisilia was so thoroughly fed up that she outright ran away from him."

[F-Fled? That’s incorrect—]

"Don’t lie to me. Do you want me to pluck those feathers and fry you up?"

[…]

"Want me to tell you more stories?"

At his words, the room fell silent.

"You’re an artificial spirit, aren’t you? Not bad, for a 7th Circle mage.”

The statue remained silent, seemingly choosing not to argue.

"Wow! Daddy is amazing!" Evangeline cheered, indifferent to what the truth actually was.

[Proceed!]

"The answers… were correct? Really?!"

The two questions were seemingly designed for someone who had personally spent time with Surtr. Normally, it’d take years of research and investigation to find and verify such ancient, obscure facts. Yet, thanks to Davey, all of that had become unnecessary.

Davey, who they had recruited for assistance, actually had the answers to such absurd questions.

Finally, the statue slowly pushed a single one of the massive doors open.

[The blacksmith’s treasure you seek lies within.]

Davey smirked coldly as he glanced at the statue. "Alright. See you again soon."

The statue wouldn’t know until later what Davey had truly meant.

ChubbyCheeks & FriedNook's Thoughts

Editorb’s Thoughts

Imagine being pretty much named “Aware Antibiotic” like Lucid Fenisilia (penicillin). I’m allergic, so I certainly wouldn’t give my own child such a name.

Pic related is my boss, Retired Penguin, about to give me medicine that only makes me worse, just to keep me from rebelling against his tyranny.