“Light, come — small illumination — Light.”
Following the lamp Linze conjured into the air, we descended the stone stairs, pushing on into the underground.
The stairs spiraled down at a gentle angle, going on and on. As we walked, an absurd unease crept up — like the staircase might lead all the way to hell.
Eventually the long staircase ended, opening into a wide stone-built corridor.
The straight line of it disappeared into darkness ahead — couldn’t see what was there. A clammy humidity hung in the air, an unmistakably eerie atmosphere.
“Th-this is… kind of creepy… like ghosts could show up…”
“Wh-what are you saying, Lady Elze!? G-g-ghosts could not possibly appear here, indeed! …R-right?”
Yae overreacted to Elze’s mumbled remark. Look — fine — could you guys quit yanking on my coat? I can’t walk…
By contrast, Linze was advancing down the stone corridor calmly. Brave girl.
Linze led, lighting the corridor with her magic; the rest of us followed. The further we went, the higher the ceiling rose, until we emerged into a large chamber.
“What… is this?”
What was there was: an entire facing wall covered in some kind of writing. Four meters high, ten meters across — every inch packed in line after line of script.
Looking closely, it was less letters and more pictographs. Reminded me of Inca, Aztec — that kind of ancient script.
“Linze… can you read any of this?”
“No… not at all. It’s not Ancient Magic Script either, from what I can tell…”
Linze didn’t even turn at my question, just stood there staring up at the wall.
This was definitely a historical artifact. Even amateur me could see that. But whether you’d call it treasure… honestly, I felt no. I get why [Search] flagged it the way it did.
Oh, right. I should photograph it just in case. I raised the smartphone, tapped the camera shutter — flash.
“Eep!? Wh-what was that, indeed!?”
The sudden flash made Yae and the others jolt. I gestured all good and showed them the smartphone in my hand; everyone let out relieved sighs. They’ve gotten used to my weirdness. Well — shouldn’t call it weirdness myself.
I took the whole mural in several shots. Still — why is something like this in a place like this…
“Hey, hold on! Everyone, come look!”
Elze, who’d been searching the chamber, suddenly raised her voice. She was at the right wall, pointing at part of it.
“Something’s embedded here.”
In the wall, right at eye level, was a single brown-tinted, semi-transparent diamond-shaped stone. About two centimeters across. As gemstones went, it looked grimy and low-quality.
“This is… a magic stone. Earth-element. Probably activates some mechanism if you channel mana into it.”
“Some mechanism — like a trap?”
“Can’t rule it out, but… a trap this obvious, normally — no way.”
I followed Linze’s logic, but… what is this unease. When you see a switch, you want to push it. And what if the trap exploits exactly that…? Maybe I’m overthinking.
“All right, Touya — channel mana into it.”
“ME!?”
Elze said it so casually I whipped around. What if it IS a trap!?
“It’s gotta be you. You’re the only one with the earth element.”
Mngh — fair. Linze has fire, water, and light; Elze has Null; Yae no element. And I have all of them. Yeah, no choice… wait…
”…Why’s everyone backing away?”
"""Just, y’know…"""
I shot a flat-eyed glare at the ones laughing-and-edging-back. With one sigh, I channeled mana into the magic stone.
Zzzz, zzzzz… — a low rumble started, and then the wall in front of me crumbled into sand and poured down, leaving a gaping hole. Pretty showy door, this.
“This is… what?”
I peered into the room beyond the vanished wall. Coated in dust and sand, sitting in the center of the chamber, was an object.
How to describe it. The first image that came to me was insect. A cricket. Resembling that. From an almond-shaped thing that looked like a head, six long thin legs extended. A few of them were broken off.
About the size of a kei car. Limbs torn off, suggesting a dead cricket.
But the form was a clean, streamlined silhouette — not so much creature as machine.
“What is this thing? A statue, maybe?”
Elze was peering at it from various angles. Looking closely, deeper inside the part that resembled a head, I could faintly see a baseball-sized red object showing through.
I brushed off the surface dust and sand — turned out the mystery object was made of a translucent material. …Glass, maybe? The dim light made it hard to see properly… hm?
“Linze… is [Light] supposed to last this short?”
“Eh? I’m not great with the light element, sure, but… [Light] alone usually lasts about two hours.”
Linze puffed her cheeks indignantly, then glanced up at the floating orb of light and tilted her head.
“Huh? The light’s gotten weaker…”
“Not ‘gotten’ — definitely gotten weaker. This is…”
“Lord Touya!”
Yae’s shout pulled my eyes back. The cricket’s head, the red ball deep inside, was beginning to glow. The cricket’s body was vibrating in fine tremors.
“Touya-san! The mana from [Light] is being absorbed by it!”
That’s why the light got weak! The ball’s glow grew steadily, and the cricket began to move its body, little by little. Don’t tell me — this thing’s alive!? The legs that had been broken were already regenerating. It’s pulling in mana and resuming activity!?
KIIIIIIIIIIN!
KIIIIIIIIIIN!
KIIIIIIIIIIN!
“Ugh… this is…!”
Like a sudden ringing in your ears, a piercingly high tone resounded through the room. It bounced off the walls, the shockwave rattling our entire bodies. Cracks spidered into the walls. Bad! At this rate we’ll be buried alive!
“Gate!”
I conjured a gate of light in front of me and pushed everyone through to the surface in turn. Just as I was about to step through last, the cricket stood up, and one of its legs lashed out at me at frightening speed. From a full five meters away, it shot toward me like a spear, fully extending.
I rolled through the gate and out onto the surface. The gate snapped shut, the ruins of the surface spread out before us. Looks like we avoided being buried.
“What was that?”
“I have never seen a monster like that, indeed…”
Elze and Yae stared toward the underground entrance, tense. Then gogogogo… — that low rumble again.
A roar erupted deep in the ruins, dust kicking up in a cloud. The underground chamber must have collapsed. The cricket monster surely couldn’t have survived a cave-in like that, crushed in the rubble… probably.
We all held our breath, silence settling.
…kiiiiin…
That sound… no way…
KIIIIIIIIIIN…
Coming…!
KIIIIIIIIIIN!
With a thunderous crack, it burst up through the ground onto the surface.
Almond-shaped head, six long thin legs extending from it. Under the sun, its crystalline body glittered. Translucent — what you’d call a crystal-life-form, maybe?
The cricket extended a leg again and swept it sideways. I ducked under it, and the ruins-wall behind me was sliced clean through like tofu. What an edge.
“Flame, come — red volley — Fire Arrow!”
Linze shot a barrage of fire arrows at the cricket. But the cricket didn’t even dodge — it took them head-on. The arrows vanished, sucked into it one after another.
“The magic got absorbed!?”
“Tch… then!”
Yae drew, and struck at the cricket’s head. But all her blow scored on it was a faint scratch.
“Such hardness, indeed!”
“Damn it…!”
Elze followed with a straight punch into the cricket’s flank. It wobbled briefly, but again, no real damage.
A leg lashed out at Elze. Just before being skewered, she dodged.
“What are we supposed to do with this!?”
Magic gets absorbed, blades won’t cut. What can we…! …Wait. Even if direct attack-magic doesn’t work, indirectly could be… let’s try.
“Slip!”
The instant I dropped the friction at the cricket’s feet to zero, it took one spectacular tumble. Yes!
“Linze! Don’t aim magic at it directly — indirect attacks work!”
“Oh!… Got it! Ice, come — vast ice mass — Ice Rock!”
Linze chanted the ice spell. A huge block of ice appeared above the cricket’s head and dropped, crushing it. Yes! Direct mana attacks get absorbed, but objects born from mana — those it can’t absorb.
“Giiii!”
With a creak like a rusted door, the cricket flinched. But even attacks of mana-formed objects only put light dents in that hardness.
While it was stilled, Elze launched in like a bullet.
“Boost… full power!”
Using [Boost], the body-strengthening Null spell, she drove a full-strength kick at one of the cricket’s long thin legs.
Next moment — with a sound like shattering glass, one of its legs broke clean off.
“Got it!”
It’s not invulnerable. If we can land any damage at all, we can take it down eventually!
“Gi… GIIIIIIIII!”
Suddenly the cricket let out a roar; the red ball in its head glowed. As if in response, the leg I’d thought broken began to regenerate. Hey — you’ve gotta be kidding…
“It regenerated…”
The regenerated leg lashed out at the stunned Elze. A moment’s gap — she misjudged the dodge timing. The leg sank deep into her right shoulder.
“Gah…!”
“Nee-chan!”
Elze leapt straight back to escape the follow-up. Blood flowed from the shoulder wound, soaking the upper half of her clothes. Sweat beading, she finally dropped to one knee.
“Yae! Linze! Hold it off!”
Both nodded — Yae used her speed to harry, Linze started dropping ice masses again. While the cricket’s attention was on those two, I rushed to Elze and cast healing magic. Soft light wrapped her, the wound on her shoulder slowly closing, blood finally stopping.
“Thanks… I’m okay now…”
Like hell you are. The wound’s closed but the damage definitely isn’t gone.
Regeneration, magic absorption, abnormal hardness… how do we kill it…? Is there no weakness?
“If we crush its body and it just regenerates, we’ve got nothing…!”
”…Now that I think of it… when we found it, its body was still in pieces… why?”
Right… it absorbed Linze’s magic, then regenerated. Maybe regeneration requires mana. Come to think of it, the head-ball was glowing back then too. Maybe that red ball in the head is the core…
“Elze, hold on…”
I told her my idea.
“Eh? You can do that!?”
“Don’t know. But it’s worth trying.”
”…Got it.”
Drawing one steady breath, I focused mana on the cricket and pictured the object. Body’s transparent, makes it easy to see!
“Apport!”
A dully-glowing red crystal appeared in my hand. Yes — got it!
“Elze!”
“Boost!”
Toward the ball I tossed up, Elze’s enhanced fist came hammering down. Caught between her fist and the ground, the object shattered with a sharp paki-iin into countless fragments.
“With this… how about it!?”
The cricket, with its core ripped out, stopped moving. Cracks spread across its entire body, and it crumbled to pieces. Glittering as it caught the sun, the crystal monster finally fell.
We kept our guard up for a while in case it regenerated again, but the crystal monster never revived.
“Whew——…”
The tension snapped, and I sat down right where I was. A stab in the dark, but it worked. Looking sideways, Elze and Yae were sitting too.
Linze was picking up shards of the broken monster, examining them.
“This might… be a substance similar to a magic stone…”
“To a magic stone?”
“A magic stone’s properties: amplification, accumulation, and release of mana. This monster absorbed others’ mana and used it for its regeneration — no, possibly its defensive abilities as well. Absorption, accumulation, release. The properties match.”
Maybe that thing can’t generate mana on its own…? That’s why it was inactive in the ruins…? The whole thing’s a mystery.
“Should we report this to the guild…?”
“No — given there’s an underground ruin, and that this was the old royal capital, I think we’d better notify the kingdom. Let’s tell the Duke.”
Right. That’s better.
Off to the Duke’s, then.
“Gate.”
◇ ◇ ◇ ◇ ◇
“I see… such a ruin in the old royal capital…”
The Duke crossed his arms thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair. Sue and Lady Ellen were out, unfortunately. We’d been shown to the parlor and laid out the whole story for the Duke.
“Understood. This may concern the royal house. The kingdom will dispatch a survey team. The monster as well, of course.”
“Ahh — about the underground ruin, it collapsed, so investigating’s going to be tough…”
“What? I see… I had hoped to know what was written on that mural…”
The Duke’s shoulders sagged in disappointment. I feel bad… Well — we weren’t the ones who broke the ruins.
“Ah — I do have photographs of the mural, so that should still be doable.”
“Sha-shin?”
I opened the camera roll on the smartphone and showed it to the Duke.
“Wh-what is this!?”
“It’s a Null spell of mine that records images.”
“H-hoh~… as ever, you’re remarkable, lad…”
The Duke fell for the casual lie without hesitation. Sorry, my apologies. Explanations are complicated.
“If you give me time, I’ll transcribe and hand it over.”
“Please. Possibly the riddle of the relocation a thousand years ago is recorded there.”
Oh — even the kingdom doesn’t know why the capital was moved. You’d think this kind of thing would be in royal records. Or maybe, as the Duke said, the cause is in that mural. And maybe that crystal monster is in there too.
We knew the monster’s weakness now. Next time we faced one, I think we could win.
But something still nagged. The reason the old royal capital ended up that ruined — I just can’t shake the feeling it has something to do with that monster.
Carrying that murky feeling, we left the manor, leaving the after-handling with the Duke.