The Extra is a Hero?-Chapter 239: INTO THE MOUNTAIN
Chapter 234: Into the Mountain
The first thing that hit me wasn’t the sight of the city, nor the oppressive gravity that tugged at my internal organs.
It was the smell.
It was a thick, pungent cocktail of sulfur, burning coal, molten slag, and the distinct, savory aroma of roasting meat. It was the scent of industry, of a civilization that didn’t coexist with nature but hammered it into submission.
I stepped off the metal stairs of the Iron-Horse and onto the platform of the Grand Central Station of Ironhold. The ground beneath my boots wasn’t stone; it was a grate of reinforced steel, vibrating rhythmically from the massive machinery churning deep within the mountain’s bowels.
"Clear the way! Move it, long-legs!"
A gruff voice shouted from waist-height. I side-stepped just in time to avoid being rammed by a floating cart pile-high with glowing ore, pushed by a dwarf with arms as thick as my thighs. He didn’t even look at me, his beard braided with copper rings swinging as he shoved his cargo through the crowd.
"Charming," Maria muttered, stepping down beside me. She pressed a handkerchief to her nose, her eyes watering slightly. The pristine white of her Arcadia uniform looked almost blindingly out of place against the soot-stained gray of the station.
"Welcome to the real world," I replied, my voice low. "Don’t expect red carpets here, Maria. In the North, respect is weighed in tonnage."
I looked around, taking in the scale of the place.
The station was a cavernous hollow carved directly into the bedrock of the mountain. The ceiling was lost in a haze of steam and smoke, illuminated by thousands of runic lamps that glowed with a harsh, amber light. Huge pipes, some wide enough to drive a carriage through, ran along the walls like the arteries of a titan, pulsing with mana and heat.
Everywhere I looked, there was movement. Dwarves in leather aprons shouted orders; Gnomes with multi-lens goggles scurried over machinery checking gauges; massive Steam Golems lumbered through designated lanes, carrying crates marked with the symbols of the major clans.
It was chaotic. It was loud. It was magnificent.
"Group up!" Arthur’s voice cut through the din, amplified by a subtle pulse of mana.
The Arcadia team gathered around him. We were a spectacle. Twelve humans in black and gold military-style coats, standing tall and sleek amidst the squat, muscular locals. I could feel the eyes on us. They weren’t looks of admiration like we got in the Sky Island. They were looks of assessment. Calculating. Predatory.
"Stay close," Arthur commanded, his eyes scanning the perimeter. "We head straight for the Athlete’s Village. No wandering. No buying souvenirs. And for the love of the gods, do not touch anything that glows."
"Aww," Aiden grumbled, pulling his hand back from a glowing rune on a pillar. "It’s warm."
"It’s a thermal exhaust vent, you idiot," Varkas, the Vice-Captain, growled. "You’d lose your hand."
We began to move, Arthur forming the spearhead, with Gareth bringing up the rear. I positioned myself in the middle-left flank, next to Jax, the Second Year rogue.
Jax was edgy. His eyes were darting everywhere, his hand hovering near the daggers concealed in his belt.
"Too many blind spots," Jax whispered to me, his voice barely audible over the hiss of steam. "Too much noise. I can’t hear footsteps. Anyone could walk up and shank you in this crowd."
"Relax, Jax," I said, keeping my gaze forward. "Nobody is going to attack us in the open. Not yet. We’re guests of the King."
"Guests," Jax scoffed. "We look like targets. Look at those guys over there."
He nodded toward a group of dwarves leaning against a pillar. They were covered in soot, smoking pipes that billowed green smoke. They watched us pass with open amusement, spitting on the ground as Eric William walked by.
"Southerners," one of them grumbled in Dwarvish. I understood the language thanks to the All-Tongue passive I picked up from a skill book back in the library, but I pretended not to hear. "Look at their skin. Soft as butter. One hit and they’ll pop."
Eric stiffened, clearly not understanding the words but catching the tone. He gripped the hilt of his rapier, his knuckles turning white.
"Don’t," I whispered sharply, stepping slightly closer to him. "Ignore them. If you draw a weapon here, you disqualify us before we even register."
Eric glared at me, his pride warring with his logic. "They are mocking us, Michael."
"Let them," I said. "We’re here to win a war, not a bar fight."
We exited the station and stepped out into the city proper.
If the station was impressive, the Ironhold itself was suffocating.
The city was built inside the hollowed-out core of a dormant volcano. The "sky" was a jagged dome of rock miles above us. But it wasn’t dark. A massive central pillar of crystal, suspended by chains the size of ships, hung from the center of the dome, radiating a daylight-strength glow.
Below, the city was a tiered nightmare of brutalist architecture. Buildings were carved from obsidian and iron, stacked on top of each other in dizzying layers. Bridges of steel spanned across massive chasms where magma still flowed, providing heat and energy to the foundries.
The heat hit us instantly. It was a dry, searing heat that sucked the moisture from your throat.
"By the gods," Leon breathed, looking over the railing of the walkway we were on. Below us, a river of molten metal flowed like water. "It’s... incredible."
"It’s a fortress," Gareth rumbled from behind us. The massive tank of a man seemed to be the only one enjoying this. He took a deep breath, his chest expanding like a barrel. "Smells like home. Smells like iron."
I tuned them out. My eyes were focused on something else.
Something that shouldn’t be here.
I activated [Quantum Analysis Mind].
The world slowed. The colors desaturated, replaced by the wireframe grid of mana flow.
I looked up at the smog hanging over the industrial district—the heavy, dark clouds that I assumed were just coal smoke.
My eyes narrowed.
[Scan Complete]
[Atmospheric Analysis]
[Composition: 60% Coal Dust, 30% Sulfur Dioxide, 5% Mana Residue...]
[Warning: Anomaly Detected.]
[Trace Element Identified: Nether Iron Particles.]
[Concentration: 0.04% and rising.]
Nether Iron.
My heart skipped a beat.
In the game lore, Nether Iron wasn’t a natural resource. It was a corrupted metal found only in the fissures of the Demon Realm. It was highly unstable, toxic to living beings over long exposure, and violently reactive to mana.
If it was in the air... that meant someone was smelting it. Here. In the capital.
The Demon Cult wasn’t just planning an invasion. They were manufacturing weapons right under the King’s nose.
"Michael? You okay?"
Maria’s voice snapped me out of my trance. I blinked, dismissing the blue interface.
"I’m fine," I said, forcing a neutral expression. "Just the fumes. It’s heavier than I thought."
"It’s dreadful," she agreed, coughing lightly. "My ice mana feels... sluggish. It’s like the heat is eating it."
"Keep your circulation tight," I advised. "Don’t project your aura. Keep it internal. If you try to fight the environment, you’ll burn out in an hour. Accept the heat, don’t resist it."
She looked at me, surprised. "That... actually makes sense."
"Basic thermodynamics," I shrugged.
As we walked further into the city, heading toward the upper tier where the foreign dignitaries were housed, the reality of our situation began to settle on the First Years.
The gravity was unrelenting. Every step felt like walking up a steep hill. I could see Lyra breathing heavily, her face flushed. Even Aiden, with his beast-like constitution, was sweating profusely.
This was the "Home Field Advantage" Arthur had warned us about.
"We’re almost there," Arthur called out, pointing toward a massive complex of stone buildings near the upper crust of the city. "The Athlete’s Village. We can rest there."
But as we approached the gates of the Village, our path was blocked.
A group of students was exiting the complex. They wore pristine white and gold robes, embroidered with the symbol of a sunburst.
The Solaris Blade Academy. The pride of the Eastern Human Kingdoms.
And leading them was a young man with flaming red hair and an arrogant smirk that I recognized all too well from the novel.
Rion Blazeheart.
He stopped, his eyes scanning our group. When he saw Arthur, his smirk widened, but it was when his eyes landed on Leon that the spark ignited.
"Well, well," Rion drawled, his voice carrying easily over the noise of the city. "If it isn’t the ’Heroes’ of Arcadia. I heard you boys had a nice vacation on Sky Island."
Arthur didn’t stop walking. "Move, Blazeheart. We aren’t in the mood."
Rion didn’t move. His team fanned out behind him, blocking the gate.
"Just wanted to see if the rumors were true," Rion sneered, stepping closer to Leon. "They say you First Years saved the island. But looking at you now... you look like you’re about to faint from a little gravity."
He laughed, and his team joined in.
Leon stepped forward, his golden eyes flashing. The air around him shimmered, the heat intensifying.
"We’re fine," Leon said calmly. "Move aside."
"Or what?" Rion challenged, his hand drifting to the hilt of his sword. "You’ll cry for your mommy? Or maybe you’ll ask the ’Extra’ behind you to carry your bags?"
He pointed a finger straight at me.
I sighed internally. Why do I always get dragged into the protagonist’s drama?
I looked at Rion. I didn’t flare my aura. I didn’t reach for my weapon. I just looked at him with the dead, tired eyes of someone who had graded too many papers.
"We have had a long trip," I said, my voice flat. "And we are hungry. If you want to fight, save it for the arena. Unless you’re afraid you won’t make it past the prelims?"
Silence.
Rion’s face turned a shade of red that matched his hair. "What did you say, trash?"
"Enough."
A new voice boomed.
The ground shook. Not from a machine, but from a footstep.
A dwarf, standing only four feet tall but seemingly as wide as a boulder, stepped out from the guard post of the Village. He wore the golden armor of the Royal Guard, and his beard was braided with mithril.
"This is the Athlete’s Village," the dwarf grumbled, his voice sounding like grinding stones. "Not a tavern. Fight here, and you both spend the night in the cooling cells. And trust me, lads, you don’t want to know what we keep in the cooling cells."
He glared at Rion. "Move along, Solaris. Or are you deaf?"
Rion clenched his jaw. He shot one last venomous look at Leon, then glared at me.
"Watch your back, Extra," he spat. "The arena is a big place."
He signaled his team, and they brushed past us, bumping shoulders as they went.
"Friendly guy," Jax muttered, rubbing his shoulder where a Solaris student had checked him.
"He’s scared," I said quietly.
"Scared?" Eric asked, looking at me with confusion. "He looked ready to kill us."
"He’s loud," I corrected. "People who are confident don’t need to bark at the gate. He knows Arcadia is a threat. Let’s go inside."
We passed the dwarf guard, who gave Arthur a respectful nod, and entered the Village.
As the heavy iron gates closed behind us, shutting out some of the city’s noise, I allowed myself a moment of relief. But my mind was still back in the smog.
Nether Iron.
The particles were drifting down, settling on the roofs, on the clothes, in the lungs of everyone in this city.
I looked up at the artificial light of the central crystal. It looked beautiful.
But to my eyes, it looked like a tombstone.
The plot has already started, I thought, gripping the strap of my bag. Phase 1 is underway.
I needed to find a forge. And I needed to do it tonight.
(To be continued)
