"I don't think so. We appear to be in the right place."

I turned towards Markus, who was staring at the hills. I was still curious — or rather confused — by what he just said.

This all made me wonder if it would have been a better idea to bring one of the villagers here. But then again, they all looked so traumatized that bringing anyone here would look like taking someone on the journey to death.

While the two of us were busy staring at the hill, Jackie was observing something on the ground. When I looked closer, there appeared to be some kind of trail left by the villagers.

"I think we should follow these to see where it leads," he said as he stood up.

"But there could be some kind of trap in there. We need to be careful," Markus added.

The three of us then left the horse there and started following the trails. The sun was still up, but at the rate we were going, it would already be sundown by the time we find this manor.

After walking for a while, Jackie, who was scouting ahead of us, looked back. It seemed like we had come to the end of the trail. We walked up to him, and in front of us, a cave of sort came into view.

The entrance of the cave was small in comparison to an ordinary cave. But it was big enough for two people to enter at once.

There was nothing at the entrance that could strike extraordinary except the cave itself. We looked at each other's faces to decide how to proceed, but the answer was evident at this point.

The cave's surface was rocky, and as we entered, the trail was no longer visible. It was dark inside, so I created a small fireball in my hand and walked ahead of the two of them.

In the labyrinth, I could easily tell which way to go by sensing the mana flow. But the case here was different. I could feel the mana and miasma, but it was so evenly distributed that it was impossible to tell the difference.

Fortunately, there weren't many passages in this cave as they were in the labyrinth, so it was easy for me to move forward. We came across dead ends a few times but finding the right way after that wasn't hard.

After walking for around half an hour while staying vigilant, we came across what looked like a closed stone door. It was surprisingly large and was occupying the whole passage. There were some patterns carved in the door, which looked like a seal of some wealthy noble house.

"Can we even open this door? It looks like it's sealed from inside," Markus asked.

I was no architect, so I couldn't answer his question, but it was apparent that we won't be able to open it from outside. Unless, of course, we do it the hard way by using a little force.

While I was looking at the door and trying to figure out if we could open it, I heard some noises coming from behind. It sounded like footsteps, but they felt too light to be the footsteps of any humans.

What was surprising was the fact that we had just come from the same way. And as far as I could remember, no one or nothing seemed strange to me.

That curiosity of mine was answered by the grip I felt on my leg. It had grabbed my right leg tightly and was restricting my movement.

"Oh, damn!"

When I looked down, I realized it was a hand, or what remains of hand after the flesh decays with time — skeletons.

As soon as I realized that, I used physical enhancement to free myself. But in the process, I ended up pulling half of its body out. Right when Jackie and Markus saw that, the two stepped back along with me.

Before I could ascertain their number, they started appearing from everywhere where there was soft ground. We were completely surrounded, and the only way left was to move forward.

The three of us had our back against each other as we stayed vigilant for any incoming attacks. Jackie and Markus took out their swords and covered them in flames using fire magic.

Fire magic and holy magic were the only elements that worked effectively against the undead. Markus could use fire and holy magic, while Jackie could use Fire and Wind magic.

Having fewer magical elements to control wasn't bad in every scenario. In this kind of place, the better your control, the higher the chance of winning. Otherwise, one might just end up burning their companion.

"Nara, we will keep them occupied. Can you do something about the door?"

'What kind of question is that?' I mean, I could try, but I was certainly not experienced in opening some shut door in a ruin in some kind of unknown hill.

"Okay, I will give it a shot."

I created several Fire arrows and fused them with Flare's flames within me. I fired the arrows at the undead in front of me as I rushed towards the door. And when I touched the door, I realized that unlike doors in the labyrinth, this one didn't open with a touch. Well, I should think of myself as fortunate since no traps were activated with touch.

At least since the door was made up of stone, there was a chance that I would be able to break it using earth magic.

I touched the door with my hand and started passing my mana through it. It was surprising that there was already a magic spell activated on the door, which was countering my supply of mana. Nevertheless, I had no time to think about that. I applied more mana and countered the spell.

The magic of the door must have been activated several hundreds of years ago. It looked like its effect had degraded over time since it was easy to counter. As soon as I was able to expand my supply of mana to a significant range, I used earth magic to make it less compact and slowly changed the stone into the soil.

"Markus! Jackie!"

It was a small opening, but big enough for a person to pass through. As soon as I entered, I signaled two of them to come in.

They slowly walked back and passed through the door. As soon as they did that, I closed the door using the same soil so that the undead skeletons wouldn't be able to enter.

"Damn! Where are we?" Jackie said as he turned around. Following him, Markus and I turned around as well.

What's in front of us was a large open space. No one would expect something like this to be inside a hill that looked so normal from outside. Slowly I started understanding what this all was about.

In that space was a graveyard, and in its center was the manor—the manor sealed into the earth by the Great Earth Dragon King.

It may sound insane and practically impossible, but I couldn't help but think that the dragon erected this hill just to seal this manor. I felt a chill run down my spine while thinking about that.

'What in the world might be here for him to go to this length just to seal this manor?'