Alchemy is Correct

“Ugh… I let my guard down…”
After the situation ended, Eunyoung, who had been hit squarely by the orc and sent flying, came walking back while rubbing her head.
She looked completely fine for someone who had taken a direct hit from a fist.
It was thanks to Lucia’s blessing.
“Don’t you think you were too casual with it, even if it was just an orc?”
“Shut up, pig.”
“Y-you little…”
Gangchul, who had been giggling and teasing her, shuddered at Eunyoung’s irritable insult.
Regardless, Eunyoung, who had stuck her tongue out at Gangchul, immediately approached Lucia and smiled brightly.
“Thanks, Unnie Lucia! If it weren’t for you, I think my ribs would have been broken?”
“Hehe, I’m glad I could help.”
After thanking Lucia, Eunyoung now turned to look at the girl.
‘She killed it in one blow…’
Eunyoung narrowed her eyes.
Of course, it wasn’t an attack swung with full sincerity, but it was a spear swung with the intention of cutting it to pieces in one blow.
A mere orc should have been smoothly sliced, but for some reason it had only caused a surface wound.
At the moment the spear made contact,
‘It was tough…’
If a spear swung moderately by an A-rank hunter like her felt tough, it meant that orc was at least C-rank, almost B-rank.
The fact that an orc, which usually remains in the lower to middle ranges of D-rank, had become this strong was clearly an emergency situation.
Eunyoung clenched her fist.
“This… has become a little, no, a lot more troublesome.”
Eunu, who now had enough leisure to look around, touched the magical stones here and there before saying with cold sweat.
“We need to contact headquarters, but the connection is cut off.”
“The connection was cut off in that short time?”
Wolhwa’s eyes widened.
The time they had spent crossing the dimensional gate and returning was at most 3 hours.
Normally it would have taken longer, but there wasn’t much luggage left in that cottage, and thanks to the situation resolving more easily than expected.
However, it was strange that the Forest of Dark Night, which had been normal until they entered, had changed so much in that short span of 3 hours.
‘Could it be… no, that’s impossible.’
An unusual dimensional gate within a dimensional gate.
And since it was an S-rank gate, the current situation was even more unusual.
“There are two options, what do you want to do, Wolhwa noona?”
The first is to head to a building with communication equipment in the vicinity.
Go there and restore communication with headquarters.
“The other option is to head straight outside the dimensional gate.”
The former doesn’t carry much risk since it involves heading to a nearby building.
If orcs that should be D-rank have become that strong, it’s highly likely that the Forest of Dark Night has become at least an A-rank dimensional gate.
If it’s A-rank, since they have up to S-rank hunters, it’s not too dangerous, but it’s not safe to venture looking for a dimensional gate to the outside in a situation where information isn’t certain.
It’s not safe, but…
‘We don’t know what’s happening.’
If such an anomaly was occurring here, it was impossible to know what might be happening outside.
“Looking at the state of the magical stones that have appeared around us, they’ve been here for at least ten days. Considering that it was just 3 hours before we entered, the time difference between beyond the dimensional gate and here is roughly…”
“About 100 times.”
Eunyoung answered Eunu’s words.
If that’s true, it’s fortunate that they came out after only 3 hours.
If they had stayed not just 3 hours but a whole day, at least 100 days would have passed outside.
“We could have been in big trouble…?!”
“An unprecedented phenomenon inside an S-rank dimensional gate with a time difference of about 100 times…”
Just by examining a dimensional gate from the outside, one cannot determine the time difference.
That’s why it’s common to briefly enter and exit first to determine the time difference in advance.
“I’ve never even heard of a 100-fold time difference.”
Wolhwa muttered quietly.
Because it’s an S-rank dimensional gate, it’s unknown what might happen, but 3 hours is an extremely short time by hunter standards when conquering a dimensional gate.
Moreover, despite not having gone very far, to have such a time difference.
‘I was too hasty…’
It must have been the pressure that this matter should not be known to anyone, that it had to be conducted in secret, and that everything was at stake in this matter, that clouded her judgment.
Although it’s full of strange events, there’s no time to think about it here now.
The priority now was to escape from this place.
It was then.
“How is this place structured? I can’t see the sky.”
“The Forest of Dark Night is basically the same as other forest-type dimensional gates, but… the trees here are abnormally large.”
It’s a forest where most trees could be called giant trees without exaggeration.
As a result, the trees here engaged in a survival competition to grow larger to receive even a little more nutrients and sunlight,
And eventually, it became a forest where no sunlight reaches below.
Because no sunlight reaches it, the forest below the trees is eternally night, hence the name Forest of Dark Night.
“We need to hurry…”
Elrina didn’t have much time left.
Silvia, glancing at Elrina who looked like she could stop breathing at any moment, asked Wolhwa.
“Then… if we just climb up, would that work?”
Everyone tilted their heads at the girl’s question.
“If we could climb up, we could find the way quickly, but each giant tree is tens of meters tall, how could we…”
“It’s fine since the magical power density is high enough for magical stones to appear.”
Pajijik!
Silvia said this as she spread out a magic circle.
No…
‘Is this really a magic circle…?’
A purple flash, influenced by the purple magical stones, burst out beneath Silvia’s feet.
“Lucia… was it? Would you spread a protective barrier around? So we don’t fly away.”
“What?”
What happened next was instantaneous.
Thud!
After saying that to Lucia, Silvia deeply embedded the magic circle that had formed at her feet into the ground.
Then…
Kugugugugung!
The surrounding ground began to shake roughly.
“W-what…?!”
“Silvia…?!”
Just as the confused group turned to Silvia to ask what she had done,
Kwaaaa!
The ground shot up into the sky.
“Waaaaaaah?!”
Due to the inertia pulling downward, Eunu fell to the ground.
“Geez, idiot…”
“I-I’m a magician!”
Unlike Eunyoung, who was holding her ground with her spear stuck in the floor, Eunu had no talent for physical activities, so it couldn’t be helped.
“W-what is this…!”
“Could it be…!”
“The ground…?!”
The group was astonished as they looked down below.
And for good reason…
“The entire bedrock has been lifted?!”
Below the bedrock was a forest full of giant trees.
They had already risen above the sky of the Forest of Dark Night.
“How can this be…”
“It’s alchemy.”
“How can this be alchemy?!”
The principle was simple.
The high-density magical power spread below, and the magical power flowing in from the magical stones became purple flashes that transformed the rocks into long structures…
The rocks that shot upward became supports that pushed the bedrock they were standing on up to the sky with tremendous energy.
Despite Gangchul’s astonished cry, Silvia was just looking around as if it were nothing special.

Our Silvia is so good~!
Only Elrina, still being carried on Gangchul’s back, was proud of her sister while looking at Silvia.
.
.
.
“Could we have come this easily…?”
“You’re really amazing…! I’ve never heard of such magic!”
Magic that can freely manipulate the ground.
It was unbelievable that it had enough power to make the entire bedrock, so solid and thick that they could stand on it without any problem, shoot up into the sky.
“This is only possible because of the high magical power density here. Don’t inflate it. And it’s not magic.”
While speaking as if the first part was nothing special, she glared sharply at Eunu while saying the latter part as if it was absolutely unacceptable.
-That’s right! It’s not magic!
Elrina also joined in on the insistence that it wasn’t magic.
“If this isn’t magic, then what the hell is it?!”
Looking at the two sisters who insisted it wasn’t magic, when by all appearances it clearly was, Eunu was going crazy.
But there was nothing he could say if they themselves denied it.
“But is this the right place?”
“Yes. As Eunu said, it seems the dimensional gate has been reactivated.”
Silvia frowned at Wolhwa’s words.
The moment they rose to the sky, Eunu, who was spreading magical power detection, could recognize a heterogeneous presence in the center of the forest.
“Usually in these disaster-type dimensional gates, there exists an owner of the dimensional gate, a ‘boss’.”
Disaster-type dimensional gates disappear when the boss is dealt with.
However, after the technology to maintain B-rank or lower gates was developed, the concept of deactivated dimensional gates also emerged.
A boss that has been defeated once no longer appears.
Instead, the monsters below form an ecosystem and live independently.
But the fact that this Forest of Dark Night has been reactivated.
That essentially meant one thing.
“A new master has appeared in the Forest of Dark Night where this anomaly is occurring.”
A new boss.
The Forest of Dark Night is no longer a D-rank dimensional gate.
It had become at least an A-rank dimensional gate.