Chapter 213: Waiting Person
I rest halfway down the stairs. It’s a lot cooler now that we’ve come this far underground, although the shade must’ve also contributed.
I placed my bento package on my lap, and when I opened it, the mouthwatering sight of white sesame seeds sprinkled in a straight line on the white rice, stewed pork cubes garnished with okra boiled in brine, boiled egg cut in half and showing its vivid orange yolk greeted me. For the side dish, there’s a salad made with scallops and thinly sliced radish root, red turnips pickled in sweet vinegar, and crunchy pickles.
It’s so convenient being able to make a lot in a batch and storing it in 【Storage】! — was what I thought, but I kept on making them fresh. Cooked dishes keep on piling in【Storage】so what should I do?
The pork cube stew was so soft that it almost melted in my mouth. I let it rest for a whole night then removed the lard so it’s still delicious even when cold.
When I gave X-Stick some pork stew, he gobbled it all up in one gulp then he rested, so it’s quiet now.
I could hear the trickling sand falling. A lump of sand would fall from time to time, making a dull thud in the ground. Back when I was in Japan, I always wanted to go explore unfamiliar places, particularly ones that were spacious and nothing in it but nature. I never imagined my wish would be granted here.
Ah, but this place was narrow, it’s inside a well after all.
I listened to the sound of the sand for a little while, then I began naming the spirits. 【Search】said no monster would attack around. Maybe it’s because we already slayed the bigger one earlier, so the tiny ones didn’t dare approach us.
Still, I didn’t have a single clue what sort of thing awaits us at the bottom of this well. For safety’s sake, I should increase the spirits that would help me.
I finished naming them once I reached a suitable number, then continued walking downward. It had become cold and dark so I took the lantern out. The walls looked black underneath the shadows, and they seem to have become damp unnoticed.
The water on the bottom of the well was one-inch deep. There was a stone door.
Surely this door must’ve been submerged in water usually so no one would be able to enter it. The only time one could enter the ancient temple is during this period when Es River overflows. The other wells would be filled, but not this one. This well served as the entrance to the temple so its water would go down and the path would open up. The well written in the books must’ve referred to this one, no doubt about it.
But.. the door was tightly shut. I held the lantern above my head and tried fumbling here and there. Maybe it has some sort of mechanism, like, there’s a place you have to light with fire before it’ll open? Ah, no, there’s none, huh.
Push didn’t work; how about pulling? Nope, didn’t budge. Slide sideways — nah. Actually, the only place you can put your hand is this round hole here….
「………… 」
The door opened when I placed a magic stone in the hole. It’s the stone I got when I temporarily 【Teleport】 back home and disassembled that huge nematode-ish thing. Was it a mid boss? Was it? Why the heck would a game-like setting appear here out of nowhere!?
I 【Teleport】back and took a shower, patted Riche, then slept for 30 minutes. I didn’t name the big spirit, but I did name a lot of the tiny ones so I had to recover my mana.
Ahh ~ the cool sheets felt like heaven.
After I recovered my energy, I went back to the door. There’s a staircase leading upward beyond it, probably for water control. The stairs led up and then down again until we reached a straight corridor.
A series of broken lights lined the walls left and right. The lights were actually hemispherical saucers made out of the same stone as the walls topped with spherical glass. I peered in one of them and found a single hole in the glass, and a sleeping spirit of light inside.
I already knew from the books that spirits usually use glass and gemstones as their sleeping place, but it’s the first time I actually saw one being used in real life.
The whole thing looked like a cage locking the spirit in so I felt a bit opposed to the idea, but I didn’t know it was also okay to create a sleeping space and summon the spirit in it. If there were many ‘spirit bunks’ ready, then it’d still be bright even if they didn’t cram many spirits inside one. But it didn’t look good.
I took out the wooden box that was in the corridor and inspected it under the light.
Ah, there’s a magic stone inside; the color is faded because it’s already used. I see, so mana had been weakly poured so that spirit would enter the box entirely.
The whitish magic stone immediately crumbled the moment I poked it. Kinda like ash. I removed one of the glass spheres that didn’t have any spirits in it — so there was a magic circle carved on the stone, huh.
Hm, hm, I see, okay. Let’s make this in the tower later.
The doors that couldn’t be opened also had magic circles engraved inside them, so I also memorized that. The circles were invisible from the outside, and the only way you could enter was to bring a magic stone. Maybe they made it difficult to enter by keeping out those without any magic stones, and the magic circles were also complicated so it’s hard to decipher them. The difficulty level of analysis jumps several notches if you couldn’t see the magic circle after all.
I enjoy solving riddles so I held back, but if I had been short-tempered then I’d probably be on the verge of hacking the entire thing down with『Zanzenken』.
Satisfied with what I discovered, I moved forward. Another huge door stood at the end of the hallway. 【Search】 detected two ‘something’ beyond the door — one was the spirit who guided me here, so what’s the other one?
『…He’s late! How long has it been since he solved it, huh!? 』
『I sent someone to check where he is a while ago; he’s in the corridor, apparently. 』
『What the heck is taking him so long in that corridor, huh!? 』
Ah, sorry. I never thought somebody would be waiting for me, so after I opened it I returned to my house and took a nap.
I hesitated opening the door after I heard their conversation from inside.
NEXT CHAPTER
RELEASE RATE
I Got Transferred in the Middle of a Mountain
Speed up schedule by 10 hours
Current schedule: Every 80 hours
Thanks for the treat.