"Be careful."
Once they reached the platform, Gauss quickly regained his composure.
He glanced at the pool of green acid bubbling and steaming beside his feet. Its pungent odor and the sight of it made him instinctively uneasy.
He looked away.
He and Alya cautiously moved toward the center of the platform, carefully checking the ground with every step in case there were any trigger traps.
But along the way, apart from a few ordinary tiles that had come loose and sunk in, there seemed to be nothing else amiss.
The air was growing thick with the stench of acid.
"Cough, cough." Alya coughed softly twice.
They had finally reached the effective range of Mage Hand. Gauss focused, and a magical hand quickly took shape in front of him.
Unfortunately, Identify had an extremely short range. It required touching the target and couldn't be cast remotely. Otherwise, it would have been safer to use Identify in advance to figure out what they were dealing with.
The Mage Hand drifted toward the chest.
Only then did Gauss notice the strange green plants growing above it, glowing with a soft white light. They were what lit up the chest, making it so conspicuous even from a distance.
The Mage Hand reached the chest.
It wasn't locked and looked as though it could be opened at any moment.
Gauss tried to push the Mage Hand through the chest to investigate what was inside.
But an invisible, unyielding force kept the energy hand firmly outside.
"Hm?"
Wariness stirred in him.
He turned and gave Alya a meaningful look.
Then he took the Bone Staff from his Storage Bag.
He hadn't intended to test it with another attack spell. He didn't know what was inside, and if it was fragile, a careless magical attack might