A Mastermind? No, I'm just the Live-In Son-in-Law-Chapter 182: Underground

"......My god."

"Wh-Whoa...."

Staring at the dragon nest now engulfed in flames, Whitney and his party all began to glance at one another.

Though they hadn’t known each other long enough to read each other's minds, the kinds of thoughts they were each having in this situation were painfully obvious.

‘W-What do we do now? B-But isn’t this actually good for our plan?’

‘...Someone capable of overwhelming dragons exists, and that’s a good thing?’

‘...This isn’t the time to let our guard down.’

If the dragon girl had not been frozen in place before them with a blank expression, that sort of conversation surely would have taken place.

"Huh?"

And at that very moment—when no one could bring themselves to speak for fear of the girl’s reaction—it was Ember who first noticed something strange.

"...D-Don’t you think this is weird?"

"......"

"T-The color of the fire... I mean, unless my eyes are deceiving me..."

In truth, by the time she opened her mouth, Whitney and the Death Knight had already sensed something was off.

"...Why is it white?"

The flames engulfing the dragon nest were, inexplicably, not red—but white.

"That explains why we only saw smoke from afar despite how big the fire is."

"...In a snow-covered mountain range, it's easy to miss something like that."

Even as Whitney and the Death Knight spoke calmly, Ember’s eyes widened as she questioned them.

"Wait—how can you both be so calm? There's something completely unnatural going on right now—"

"It’s not that I don’t know what it is."

"T-Then?"

"Yeah, I think I know too. No wonder I hit mana depletion so quickly, even if I had cast spells repeatedly."

In stark contrast to Ember’s anxious tone, the other two responded with eerie composure.

"I-I’m sorry, but am I the only one who doesn’t get it?"

"......"

"That strange, freakish fire... what is it? Why do you know and I don’t—"

She pouted as she spoke, but when the answer finally came, Ember shut her mouth at once.

"That’s white magic."

In the game she had played, "white magic" had never really appeared properly. At most, it had shown up in a few cutscenes involving Lumen Ordo members.

There wasn’t a single usable, well-defined white magic spell in actual gameplay.

So of course Ember had no way of recognizing it.

"...More precisely, it’s the ‘old version’ of white magic."

Ember went quiet, now sulking from embarrassment, and the Death Knight—who had silently observed the catastrophe—spoke up next.

"Huh?"

"Because the only real white mage is you, and—ah."

The moment Whitney flinched at her words, she immediately stopped herself and fell silent like Ember.

"How do you know that...?"

"Forget I said it."

Whitney gave her a deeply suspicious look, but eventually turned his head back toward the blazing ruin before them.

"Honestly, I have way too many questions about /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ you... but given the situation, I’ll let it slide."

"......"

"In any case, what’s happening up there is definitely the result of white magic. I can feel it."

"...Yeah. It feels exactly like the white magic I’ve dealt with before."

Whitney’s calmly grounded tone brought the conversation back to center, and the Death Knight nodded in agreement.

"The problem is... the scale. It's on another level."

"That bad?"

Ember finally spoke up again, her voice tinged with unease. The Death Knight responded in a low voice.

"Very few people can cast white magic on this level. At best, one of Lumen Ordo’s upper echelons, or maybe their leader. But there's no way a white mage of that caliber would be here..."

"......"

"Wait a minute—come to think of it, that girl said it earlier."

Her gaze shifted from the blazing nest to the girl in front of them, then returned to Whitney.

"She said your father is waiting for you."

That brought a mutter from Ember, her eyes darting nervously.

"T-Then... don’t tell me..."

"No."

Whitney's cold voice cut her off before she could even finish her thought.

"My father is not the kind of man who would do something like this."

An awkward silence followed.

"Just one question—how skilled is your father with white magic?"

"......"

"I-I’m not trying to pressure you or anything. Just curious... hehe..."

It was meant to be a soft question, but before Whitney could answer, the Death Knight stepped in.

"Count Ringaarden. Once a promising officer of Lumen Ordo. One day, he abruptly left and pledged loyalty to the Empire."

"......"

"His white magic was impressive. The Emperor himself trusted him enough to use him as a buffer between the Empire and Lumen Ordo."

Whitney’s expression grew visibly colder as he replied.

"You seem to know quite a lot about my father."

"I know quite a bit about most white mages. But that’s not what matters. What matters is why your father would cause—"

"I’ll say it again clearly."

The Death Knight finally fell silent.

"My father would never do something like this."

Because Whitney was now radiating killing intent.

She had already tasted his wrath once back at the Shadow Assembly. She had no choice but to back down.

"......Hmph."

"If you say anything more... no, never mind. That’s not what matters now."

Now that the Death Knight had shut her mouth, Whitney smiled faintly and pointed beyond the blazing nest.

"Whoever caused this mess, they were kind enough to leave us an entrance."

He was right.

—Fwooooosh...

Within the burning interior of the nest, there was a single section untouched by flames, shaped like the entrance to a cave.

"A-A trap? It’s way too deliberate and obvious..."

Of course, it looked suspicious as hell, and Ember, as the designated meat shield, broke into a cold sweat.

"It’s fine. It seems we’ve acquired a meat shield even more capable than you."

Fortunately for her, someone else stepped forward before she had to.

"...To do this... Whoever you are..."

The girl, now seething with an aura comparable to the fire engulfing the entire nest, was the one who spoke.

"I’ll tear you to shreds."

***

"Hey, by the way..."

"......?"

"Doesn’t this feel... even weirder now?"

Following the furious dragon girl into the nest’s interior, I turned at the sound of Ember’s voice and sighed quietly.

"What is it this time?"

"Ugh, what’s with that annoyed face..."

"......"

"Okay, fine. I’ll just say it..."

Ember tried to start with small talk again, but fortunately, she read my expression and got straight to the point.

Good. At least she has that much awareness. Right now, I can’t even think straight.

Even though I firmly denied it earlier, a thought kept nagging at me—

That maybe... just maybe, my father was somehow involved in all this. That thought alone...

"...Where are all the dragons that were supposed to be in the nest?"

I was biting my lip with clenched fists when Ember’s question made me tilt my head.

‘...Come to think of it, she’s right.’

The entire nest was under attack, and yet—not a single dragon in sight.

Weren’t dragons supposed to be inherently arrogant and aggressive? Would they really let their domain be overrun without a fight?

"M-Maybe it’s some kind of surprise party? Like, a welcome ritual for guests... or a test?"

The “surprise” part was plausible. The “test” theory momentarily tempted me—but after a second’s thought, it lost all weight.

No dragon would burn down its own nest just to test three humans.

And the rage in the eyes of the dragon girl leading us right now was genuine. Dragons don’t fake things for humans.

"T-Then... were they all slaughtered in a surprise attack...?"

Ember’s next guess wasn’t bad, but even that seemed premature.

True, the nest was burning—clearly, something catastrophic had happened.

But based on the scan I did before entering, there were no signs of battle anywhere inside the nest.

And I couldn’t imagine dragons being taken down without even resisting.

Not even the Demon King leading his full army could pull off something like that.

And here—no corpses, no damaged terrain—nothing. No signs of violence or bloodshed at all.

Then what the hell happened here?

"......!"

Just as I was deep in thought, the girl walking far ahead suddenly came to a halt.

"...This is..."

At the same time, the Death Knight beside me stopped too.

"I don’t know why, but... something’s up ahead."

"Something?"

I turned to her, confused—but when she answered, I went silent.

"Multiple life signatures."

We didn’t yet know what it meant, but the key point was this: both the Death Knight and the dragon girl felt it.

—Crack...!

It sounded like someone crushing walnuts in their grip, and I turned just in time to see it.

"Wow."

The dragon girl, eyes glowing, gripped the ice wall ahead and tore it away with her bare hands.

For reference, the wall looked at least a meter thick—but to her, it may as well have been paper.

—Thunk...!

Like a giant ice cube pulled from a mold, the slab came loose and was tossed into the flames behind, where it began to melt.

"A secret passage...?"

"Ooh, a hidden underground entrance..."

Before us now lay a passage leading down beneath the nest.

"Th-This is...!"

But unlike our expressions of curiosity, the dragon girl’s face turned pale the moment she saw it.

"W-Wait! Let’s go together—!"

And the next second—before Ember could even stop her—she leapt downward.

"W-We should probably follow, right...?"

"...You first."

"Ugh."

Until then, we had been doing a decent job staying calm.

"Ugh... It’s even colder down here, somehow—huh?"

"......Huh?"

"......!?"

Descending the ladder into the underground, we all went silent, stunned by what we saw.

"This is... No way."

"...U-Unbelievable..."

"......."

Every dragon that should have been in the nest—

—was lined up, completely frozen solid.