Lute and Kayla appeared to be talking atop the cliff.
‘Have they not found the artifact yet?’
The only thing Anakin could detect was a suspicious trap.
Since she couldn’t confirm the actual presence of an artifact, she had no way of knowing if they had already acquired the one here.
“Wait for a second, Lucien. What if we haven’t even passed the trap yet?”
“……Then do we wait and attack them later?”
Anakin bit her lip at those words.
It felt unscrupulous, but doing it that way was far more efficient.
“It’s not exactly that, but…….”
While she was caught between reason and instinct, Lute moved first.
He looked exhausted, likely from obtaining the previous five artifacts.
How hard must he have struggled to be in a more tattered state than Lucien, who already looked like a beggar?
Kayla also slumped down on a rock, as if she didn’t even have the strength to stand.
“If we ambush them now, we could probably take all five, right?”
Lucien smirked with an excited face.
‘Wait, he’s planning to take all of them?’
She could guarantee that if they stole them all, they would have to be prepared to be enemies with them for a long time.
“They’re pretty stupid, too. They should have saved some strength to protect the artifacts.”
“No. They just didn’t expect to have to use this much power.”
Judging by the traps so far, the difficulty was quite substantial.
Lute and Kayla probably never imagined such inhumane and arduous traps would be installed.
We ourselves hadn’t expected it to be like this either.
Still, seeing them so defenseless despite having five artifacts was pitiful.
It was practically screaming, “Please rob us,” to anyone watching.
“What are they doing?”
At Lucien’s words, Anakin stayed hidden in the thicket and watched their actions quietly.
They began to behave inexplicably.
Lute started rummaging through the fierce stream of water with his hands, and Kayla was tapping on the surrounding rocks as if searching for something.
As the splashing and the sound of tapping on stones continued, Anakin and Lucien exchanged puzzled glances.
“Are they looking for an artifact?”
It was a suspicious location.
Anakin had felt a trap and come here, after all.
However, the location of the trap she had detected was further down from here…….
Anakin thought of the dizzying cliff.
‘No way…….’
Just then, Kayla, who had been tapping on a suspicious rock, let out a shout.
“There’s something here!”
Lute waded through the current and approached Kayla.
“What is it?”
“It looks like a hint…… there’s a faint inscription written here.”
Lute read the words carved on the bottom of the rock.
‘Only at the end of the cliff did I finally reach that place.’
“……That place?”
Lute’s brow furrowed as he read the inscription.
“Do we have to go to the edge of the cliff to find out?”
After appearing to contemplate for a moment, Lute waded through the splashing current toward the edge of the cliff where the waterfall cascaded down.
Anakin squeezed her eyes shut. Her prediction seemed to be coming true.
‘We have to fall down.’
It was a staggering height.
Telling them to fall from here was practically telling them to commit suicide.
They could somehow endure with levitation magic and shields, but there was no certainty.
Who would have practiced falling from such a height?
“Lucien. We’re doomed. I think we have to fall down.”
At Anakin’s discouraged voice, Lucien made a dissatisfied expression.
“I hate getting wet.”
‘Is that really the problem right now?’
Anakin looked at Lucien with an incredulous face before turning back to Kayla and Lute.
They were standing at the edge of the cliff, peering down.
“……Lute!”
Anakin shouted, driven by an ominous premonition.
It was the moment Lute turned to look at her with a surprised face.
RUUUUUUMBLE!
A fierce torrent of water slammed into Lute and Kayla like a cannon blast.
“Oh, for f—”
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
Lute and Kayla were swept away in an instant by the river surging like a tsunami.
“Lute! Kayla!”
But Anakin couldn’t go to save them.
The current was trying to swallow them as well.
“Huh? We were just watching!”
When Lucien made an indignant face, the fierce waves hesitated for a moment as if they possessed a will of their own.
Then, they mercilessly swelled in size again.
“I guess even watching isn’t allowed.”
Anakin hastily wrapped her body in a shield.
Honestly, she didn’t think she would come out of this unscathed.
Could Anakin, with her fragile body, survive a fall from that height?
A body that cracked and broke easily at even small impacts…….
‘Surely I’m not going to die such a hollow death, right?’
She prayed that if she had to die, it wouldn’t be like this.
How could it make sense to die during a practical exercise?
The river was on the verge of swallowing Anakin and Lucien.
From the moment she saw the waves, it was too late to run.
Anakin quickly closed her eyes and curled her body.
Just as she was preparing to meet the wave, her shield suddenly shattered with a crack.
As the startled Anakin tried to open her eyes, someone wrapped their arms around her.
Trapped in a warm embrace, Anakin looked up.
Lucien had closed his eyes and was holding her close, wrapping them both in a shield.
‘And he said he hated getting wet…….’
Anakin stared at Lucien with dilated pupils before squeezing her eyes shut again.
Then, the tidal wave hit.
Lucien’s shield eventually cracked under the force of the current.
Perhaps because it was imbued with massive mana, the power was brutally strong.
The cold, violent stream of water soaked her entire body.
The chilling temperature felt like her whole body was being pierced by large awls.
Fortunately, she was able to maintain some body temperature because she was pressed against Lucien.
Upon reaching the edge of the cliff, Lucien hugged Anakin even tighter—enough to constrict her chest.
The fall down the cliff lasted only a moment, but to Anakin, it felt long, as if a time-slowing spell had been cast.
As she buried her face in Lucien’s solid chest, she caught the scent of his pheromones—sweet yet refreshing.
……She didn’t know why Lucien was protecting her with his life like this.
Judging by how his hands, which were cradling her head, were trembling, he seemed to be terrified himself.
Anakin and Lucien plummeted beneath the waterfall.
Splash!
As they fell, water droplets sprayed violently around the surface.
Anakin felt the impact being dealt mercilessly to Lucien’s body.
Their falling bodies were swept by the current, crashing into rocks here and there.
Each time they hit, she felt like she could hear Lucien groaning. In reality, no sound could be heard, as they were swallowed by the water.
Every time it happened, transparent liquid flowed from Anakin’s eyes and mixed with the current.
After finally escaping to land, Anakin struggled to drag the limp Lucien onto the ground.
What lay before them was not a wide-open exterior, but a mystical canyon.
‘No wonder the trap was detected below……. It was inside the waterfall.’
Anakin first checked on Lucien, who had no uninjured part on his entire body.
“Lucien…….”
With a pained face, she poured Ether into him. It seemed to be healing him bit by bit, but the speed was slow.
“What happened to this handsome face…….”
Lucien’s flawless face was heavily swollen from being hit by so many stone fragments.
It was as if Lucien had endured every impact she was supposed to receive.
Hot liquid dripping from the tip of Anakin’s chin soaked Lucien’s cheek.
If Lucien was in this state, would the other kids be okay?
No, there was no way they would be.
A device that pushes people into the jaws of death was crossing the line.
This wasn’t “raising them strong”; it was just killing them.
If Chris had been right in front of her, she would have grabbed him by the collar.
She could clearly hear her own voice resentfully calling him a madman of a teacher.
As Anakin focused and pulled out Ether to her limit, Lucien gradually began to regain consciousness.
“Lucien?”
He quietly blinked his white eyelashes and looked up at Anakin.
His beautiful face was covered in wounds.
Lucien smirked as he saw Anakin’s distorted face.
His swollen face made the smile look quite unsightly, but Anakin didn’t show it and simply stroked his head.
“Anakin’s lap, of all things.”
“Do you feel like laughing right now?”
“Let’s live positively.”
Saying that, Lucien quietly caressed Anakin’s cheek.
“So, don’t make that face.”
“…….”
Truly……. Lucien had a talent for turning a person’s heart inside out.
To the point where she couldn’t say a word…….
He slowly raised his body, letting out a groan of pain.
“This is nothing. Compared to when I almost actually died.”
“……When you almost died?”
“You probably can’t even imagine. What kind of environment I grew up in.”
Lucien playfully ruffled the hair of the weeping Anakin as he stood up.
“It looks like the real trap starts now.”
Following him as he stood, Anakin also got up.
Only then did the magnificent scenery come into view.
A grand canyon was waiting to swallow them whole.
