Volume 3 Chapter 9.3
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Translator: Reflet
Editor: Weasalopes
Hearing this roundabout answer, and ancient ruins at that, the priest was at his wits end. It wasn’t like they could just search Torrid Desert from top to bottom. Then again, there was The Sweltering Tower. So it wasn’t so surprising that they went into a ruin or two.
But this was far too out-of-place to be a lie. Usually you would lie with more persuasion. Besides, just like Worldshaker from earlier, the Norton sisters affirmed its validity. So he could establish that this was also no lie.
「……Might I have you fill me in a bit more on this？」
「Of course. We intended to report this to you in the first place. But it’s going to be a fairly long story, so could you perhaps ask anything you want to know first?」
「Understood. I will decide to listen based on the minimum details.」
「Thank you very much. So then, where do we start？」
「Let us see…How about beginning with where these ancient ruins are?」
So that was where he began. Tatsuya and the priest had different intentions but with the same exact idea. Then again, if the priest had to hear this before listening to anything else, Tatsuya would not be able to just gloss it over, so in Tatsuya’s case he was simply trying to run away.
「I’m going to put this out there. It’s a pretty unconventional sequence of events, but everything I’ll be discussing is the truth.」
「I already see this whole thing as unconventional. There is not a huge difference if I have to listen to yet another unconventional story.」
「I will trust you on that. The ruins that we discovered were underground in the Scorching Desert, about 1 kilometer underground.」
「……Underground, you say……」
「According to that idiot over there, we can always expect to find ancient ruins underground in deserts, and, well……」
As Tatsuya spoke, the priest found himself looking at Hiroshi, who for whatever reason was puffing his chest out with a triumphant expression. Clearly he was not remorseful about any of the shenanigans he had pulled.
「……I’m just going to ignore the fact that you’re acting oddly prideful. Anyhow, if you say there were ruins in that area……」
「You want to know how deep we went, right？」
「Yes. In the Scorching Desert, it’s not just the heat that gets you; there are a variety of dangerous creatures. Land organisms can’t live in that region. Even if you were to dig a tunnel, one or two years would not be nearly……」
「In the flesh, yes. But with this idiot over here, a lot of premises just fall flat……」
The priest had a bad feeling about what Tatsuya said. They hadn’t reported a tunnel, but…did they actually dig one? The priest’s thoughts showed on his face. Tatsuya looked at his face and gave a small sigh before continuing.
「If it was just digging a tunnel then that would have been easier. But this idiot made some boat-like vehicle that lets you move around freely underground.」
「……That is, quite……」
「If you know about the car we use then I don’t think you’d be saying that.」
「……Yes. If you can make that golem carriage, I know that isn’t impossible. I know it isn’t, but still……」
「It’s too constricting here, but if we had a wider range then we could show you……」
The priest was at his wits’ end once he heard that casual statement. If they had dealt with Farlane in the same way then the palace probably would have been quite shaken. He couldn’t help but feel admiration for the Farlane nobles and how they had managed to make use of Hiroshi’s group to overcome the crisis.
「And so you took two days to investigate？」
「We spent two nights in the ruins, harvested like we originally planned, went back, got attacked by Barold on our way back, and then as mentioned earlier, we were unable to move any further because of the way we dealt with him.」
「I see……」
Since the investigation didn’t even take up a day with this amount of people, the ruins must not be all that expansive. Then there wouldn’t be an issue with asking the details here. The priest decided to inquire.
「Then might you tell me what you discovered in the ruins?」
「Let’s see…The ruins themselves were recreational facilities for a group living underground calling themselves the “People of the Continent”. More precisely it’s a set of booby traps to snare outsiders with, and the first layer was large enough to fit the entirety of Darl inside.」
The priest stared in wonderment when he heard about these unbelievably large-scale ruins. Wouldn’t this group of individuals be quite dangerous if all that were true? And so the priest spat out his next question.
「The…people of the continent?」
「Yes. About a hundred people worshipping the god of the underworld. Apparently they slept for 3,000 years, but when we went in they woke up and activated the function of the ruins.」
「And the function was something akin to a booby trap, you say？」
「Yes. Although it doesn’t harm intruders, just messes with them for fun.」
The ruins were vast enough to fit the whole city of Darl inside just to mess with intruders. The priest simply couldn’t understand the reasoning.
「……So you completely investigated an establishment the size of Darl？」
「No. We knew fairly early on what our opponent intended, so we simply found evidence to back it up and ended everything. We do have something to prove this, by the way.」
「Do you, now？」
「Yes. We got permission to take back some. Hiro.」
「Roger that. Here’s the easy-to-understand part.」
Hiroshi took out several old books that looked to be at least one hundred years old. The ancient Darl writing on the covers showed they were unmistakably more than one thousand years old.
「The booby trap in the first floor archive. Read the contents and you’re sure to laugh.」
「……What kind of contents were in these books？」
「I can’t read ancient Darlish writing but according to Primula, they’re ancient erotica novels.」
「……」
The priest couldn’t believe what Hiroshi just said, looking at him with suspicious eyes before clarifying what was inside the books. The title of one of them was “Erindel’s Glory”. So at least it appeared to be a novel. The first few lines were fairly innocuous, and at this point it was a normal entertainment novel. Seeing as how it would take time to read any further, the priest skimmed ahead for two pages until……
「……Indeed, it does seem to be an erotica novel……」
He had plowed right through to a sex scene. The priest had gone through many a serious training, and he had in fact read a few of these types of books so as to not fall into seduction. The contents and background settings were different, but this sudden, forceful turn of events closely resembled the books he read.
Already past the threshold of sexual desire at his age, the priest didn’t feel anything in particular with the rich imagery, but it was quite astonishing to find something like this among ancient documents in desert ruins.
「Are…they all like this？」
「The one who put it there said about thirty percent of them were that way.」
「What about the other seventy percent？」
「Ten percent are actual serious books about the history of the underground ruins, thirty percent are educational books that don’t really help you but aren’t necessarily bad to read, and the remaining thirty percent are more mainstream entertainment novels that aren’t quite as graphic as erotica. And any sort of technical book is too dangerous to leave around, so they have those in a separate location.」
「I see……」
The priest felt truly impressed at the persuasiveness of that statement, at least up to the last part about the ruins, to which he felt power leave his body and immediately regretted feeling impressed.
「……So the facility was used to enjoy oneself in every manner possible?」
「The second floor and below, yes. Well, in the case of the second floor, it does seem like a good location for adventurers to train.」
「Third floor was all about athletics and tact, so I dunno if ya wanna call it a fine line for adventurer trainin’ or not.」
「Is that so？」
「True, it did feel more like anyone in general could get some basic training from it. Well, I think you could put the third floor to good use by training there enough first and then going to the second floor.」
The priest wasn’t sure what to think about that last comment, massaging his eyebrows in visible pain. Ancient ruins? People of the Continent? Usually you’d think both would be an amazing find. So why did this discovery feel so worthless?
「Also, we heard the gist of why the People of the Continent have declined so much. That’s why they seek an audience with Igreos-sama or the priestess.」
「It depends on what exactly happened.」
「Three thousand years ago, the god of the underworld, Zanafel-sama and his priestess eloped in the underground temple and have yet to return. So the direct cause of the decline of the People of the Continent is that a bunch of their people set out to look for the eloped priestess.」
「……Is this true？」
「Most likely. We do have evidence to support it.」
Tatsuya held out a piece of paper that had a terrifying amount of divine power within it. If a leader of the priest class were to see this, it would unmistakably be an item delivered directly from a god.
「……May I see it？」
「Go ahead.」
With shaking hands, he took the paper and opened it timidly…
「……There were plenty of head-banging topics today, but this one takes the cake……」
「Yeah, we thought so……」
Enclosed were holy letters used only by those who served divinity, and together they spelled “I’m running away. Please do not search for me.” Of all the unexpected reports today, this one dealt the finishing blow.
「So we wanted to see if you knew anything related to this.」
「Yes, it doesn’t seem like we can just ignore this…」
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