As the whole cave shook, I held the white box close to my body and protected it with my life. The three girls were ready at the exit when I arrived. I shoved the box into Qing Yue's hands and picked her up in a princess carry once more.

"Don't drop that thing!

"

"I won't!

"

Level One Sky Magic - Flight.

I instantly took off into the skies, Xiang Peng following me, carrying Obsidia. And right as we did, the whole cave collapsed. But that was just the beginning.

The whole mountain began shaking after that, and the snow gathered on top began sliding down violently - it was an avalanche. Luckily, the majority of the snow went down the other way, so the forest below the mountain where the other girls were was completely safe. The same, however, couldn't be said for any unlucky souls on the other side of the mountain. They had no idea what was coming their way.

Still, I didn't care. If anything, I felt good about it. With any luck, this avalanche will help me eliminate some opponents. They would get kicked out of the competition without even knowing who did this to them. How amusing.

"Welp. There goes all that snow.

" Xiang Peng whistled.

"Hehe, do you think anyone was trying to climb up the mountain on the other side?

" Qing Yue asked, giggling as I held her in my arms.

"I mean, if their group only has one person with Sky Magic, it would be risky sending them to search the mountains alone,

" I said.

"It's pretty likely that they will go as a group instead. Besides, there are definitely groups in this competition who don't have anyone with Sky Magic.

"

Obsidia snorted.

"Hmph. They are truly foolish humans if they are attempting to climb this mountain the hard way. They should just give up on this location and search for the map pieces elsewhere instead.

"

"Keep in mind, not everyone participating is human,

" I chuckled.

"There are plenty of elves, demihumans, and other races competing too.

"

"They are all equally foolish, in my eyes,

" Obsidia scoffed.

"That arrogance will come back to bite you in the ass someday,

" Xiang Peng snickered.

"Oh? Sorry, but I am unable to envision such a situation.

"

"Hm... what if I dropped you right here and now?

" Xiang Peng replied with an evil sneer.

"Try it, and I will unleash my dragon form.

"

"Ooh, I've always wanted to fight a dragon.

"

"Perfect. I was just looking for a maggot to squash.

"

"Stop joking around,

" I muttered.

"Let's head down and regroup with the rest of the girls. Maybe they've found something.

"

Xiang Peng and Obsidia continued to send each other death glares, as Qing Yue watched on happily and I sighed in exasperation.

*****

It didn't take long for us to locate the other girls. All I had to do was send Mei Gui a telepathic message, and she quickly rounded up the other girls and came to our landing location.

"So? Did you manage to find a map piece?

" Feng Mian asked once everyone was present.

I nodded and showed her the white container.

"Right here.

"

"Caused a whole avalanche doing so too,

" Xiang Peng chuckled.

"Oh, so that was the loud noise we heard just now...

" Yu An Yan muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Xuan Kai, why do you always end up causing such things?

"

"Listen, it's not like I purposely wanted to cause an avalanche,

" I replied.

"It just... kind of happened.

"

"Well, at least we knyow nyow that the map pieces are most nyikely booby-trapped,

" Amane said, shrugging.

"But the one we found wasn't,

" Lan Xiao Su argued, frowning.

My ears perked up.

"Hm? You guys found one?

"

They nodded.

"Here.

"

Feng Mian handed me the container they found and I took it, before opening the lid. Inside was what seemed to be a jigsaw puzzle piece, 1

/9th the size of the box. Feng Mian did the same with the box I gave her, and inside was another jigsaw piece, also 1

/9th the size of the box.

"So... we can use this box as a base for putting together the map pieces we find, I suppose,

" I muttered.

"That's interesting... here, can I have the other one?

"

Feng Mian nodded, handing me the piece. I placed it into the box with the other piece and attempted to try if the two fit together. Sadly, they didn't, no matter how I oriented them. Neither of them had a clear mark on them either as to where the endpoint either. However... one map piece did mark mountains on it. I assumed that was referring to the mountains we just came down from.

However, what was interesting was that the map piece that showed the mountain happened to be the one I found in the cave on the mountains. This could just be a mere coincidence, but... if it isn't, then following this pattern, the map pieces we find would be the section of the map depicting the area we located the piece in. The piece the girls found in the forest also had a forest illustrated on it, which further confirmed my suspicions. However, only two were not enough as a sample.

"Looks like we'll need to find more map pieces,

" Qing Yue said, peeking over my arm.

"Yeah. Still, two map pieces already is a great headstart,

" I agreed.

"For now, Qing Yue, Xiang Peng, and Obsdia - return all the winter garments to their respective owners, and let's get out of this forest.

"

They nodded and began taking off the coats, boots, and such.

"I'll go scout ahead in the air,

" Yu An Yan added and took off.

*****

As we walked, Yu An Yan came back to us soon after.

"What's ahead?

" I asked as she landed gently in the snow.

"Apparently, we can head even further down. This is still really high up, from what I can see,

" she explained.

In the end, we flew down using the same strategy we had used to get down from the mountain - those with the Sky Magic outright flew down, while those who didn't were carried by Xiang Peng and me one by one.

Once we got down to the very bottom at last, we decided to take a short break. Carrying people up and down through 1000 meters of altitude wasn't exactly easy.

Yep, I said it. 1,000 meters.

And that was just from the forest, not the top of the mountain where we had gotten teleported. This place, made with Space Magic, was even bigger than I had anticipated. Not just landmass-wide, but also altitude-wise.

It seems this would be a tougher fight to find the map pieces than I had expected. But, at the same time, a bigger arena meant fewer chances of us running into other teams, thereby avoiding conflict. That was something I was grateful for.

Fighting without a good reason to do so was just crime, after all.

*****

- A While Earlier, During the Avalanche -

(Qi Feng's Perspective)

My team, who didn't have anyone with a Sky Element affinity, was forced to scale the tall snow mountain in search of the map pieces. Luckily, we had found some ice climbing equipment earlier, so climbing the mountain would be possible.

Still, that didn't mean it wouldn't be difficult.

In the end, only five of us agreed to climb. The other five all wussed out and wouldn't do it, no matter what kind of threats I used. I couldn't kill them either, since that would put us at a disadvantage later on when we got into conflict with other teams. But 5 people, half our team, should be enough to find a simple white container.

I, of course, being the leader, bravely remained on solid ground. If I died, the rest of these idiots would be left without anyone to tell them what to do. They would be a lost cause. Actually, they already were, but I was here holding them together. So, I couldn't take this risk. The others were disposable pawns though - if they died, they died. If they could bring back a map piece, that would at least outweigh the disadvantages of being down a man.

That was the plan, anyway. Just when all five of my group members were nearing the top, about to reach the summit of the snowy mountain, a loud rumbling noise suddenly shook all of us.

My teammates, confused, looked around. I was puzzled at first as well. But then, one of the group members who were still on the ground suddenly yelled.

"AVALANCHE!

"

A-Avalanche? Now, of all times?!

I quickly turned my gaze back to the five pawns busy scaling the mountain, and my eyes widened as I saw a barrage of snow sliding down at an insane speed from above. The climbers, who couldn't see what was coming for them since the ice wall was blocking their vision, had no idea they were about to get swallowed by a massive avalanche. They didn't hear that guy's warning either since they were so far away - they were practically dead meat.

Hell, where I was standing probably wasn't even safe. I immediately started to run in the other direction.

"Oi, you four, follow me!

"

"H-Huh? But t-those-

"

"Leave them! They're already dead!

"

After hearing that, the four of them didn't argue any further and followed me, running the opposite directions as my five other teammates got devoured by the avalanche.