172 Buried Histories
Click.
A metallic sound echoed through the cavern.
The group turned their heads sharply.
From the far side of the chamber, a section of the wall was shifting—splitting apart and sliding open.
A concealed passage.
And once again, it had nothing to do with the puzzle on the floor.
William let out a quiet whistle, impressed despite himself.
"The one who built this really went all out," he mused.
The actual entrance had been placed at an angle where no one would dare strike it carelessly.
If an intruder had tried to forcibly break through, they would have risked collapsing the entire staircase above.
"Now the real question is… why go this far to hide something?"
Felicia hesitated. "Should we proceed, my lord?"
William didn’t even pause to consider.
"We’re going in."
"But we don’t know what’s inside—"
"If there were any real traps, we’d have triggered them by now," he pointed out.
House Calix had been stomping around this cavern for years.
They had removed the lighting, tampered with the puzzle, and even prepared to destroy the entire floor.
Yet, despite all their interference, there wasn’t a single sign of a trap having been sprung. Not even a bloodstain.
"If they wanted to keep people out entirely, they would have hidden the entrance altogether," William continued. "Leaving traps inside the passage after that would be pointless."
"…Fair enough."
Hugo still looked wary, but he didn’t argue further.
Raymond, on the other hand, had gone silent, his gaze flickering between the open passage and the rest of the cavern.
William could tell what he was thinking.
This place… it feels unfinished.
For a space this massive, it was eerily bare.
No decorations, no structures, nothing but a useless puzzle and a hidden doorway.
Typically, a chamber of this size would be full of artifacts, statues, or even just records—something to reflect its importance.
Instead, it was… empty. Discover stories with freewebnovel
Which only meant one thing.
It had either been abandoned before completion or something had been removed long ago.
William exhaled through his nose. Maybe this entire place is a reflection of House Grimaldi’s fall.
Pushing aside the thought, he stepped toward the newly revealed passage.
If there were any answers to be found, they would be waiting beyond that door.
The group entered the hidden room, only to be met with disappointment.
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It was a small, unremarkable chamber.
The only objects inside were a single bookshelf, a few worn-out books, a stack of paper and ink, and an ornate key.
That was it.
William’s eyes flickered over the items, unimpressed.
A bunch of blank pages and a random key?
The bookshelf was an old, half-rotten piece of furniture.
The books looked hastily bound together with twine.
The ink and paper were cheap and common—nothing worth hiding.
The only item of real interest was the key in the center of the room.
It rested on an elaborate display stand, as if it were important, yet there was no indication of what it was meant to unlock.
William frowned.
"Well, this is underwhelming."
Raymond stepped forward. "My lord, let me check—"
BZZZT!
A surge of static filled the air.
Raymond jerked back, grimacing.
"Damn… What was that?"
William’s gaze sharpened.
Something else was hidden here.
And whatever it was… it wasn’t going to reveal itself that easily.
Raymond reached toward the ornate display case—only to recoil as a sudden arc of lightning surged toward his hand.
He barely managed to pull back in time, but the sheer force of the magical discharge made his fingertips tingle. If he had been even a fraction slower, the lightning might have charred his palm.
"A magic trap?! My lord, this is a magical artifact!"
"Tch. No decent furniture, but this they go out of their way to protect?" William clicked his tongue in annoyance.
Shaking his head, he turned his attention to the bookshelves and pulled out a random volume.
The magical security didn’t seem to extend to the books.
As he flipped through the brittle pages, faded ink barely clung to the parchment, and entire sections had been erased by time.
-…Rejected again. Like his predecessor, the new Emperor refuses to return Asagrim… How long must we wait? The past glory… it has already crumbled. How long must… I grow weary…
Asagrim?
William’s eyes narrowed.
The text was barely legible. Not because someone had deliberately erased it, but because the book itself had been left to decay.
Carefully, he turned the pages one by one.
Most of this is unreadable, but the more recent entries seem intact…
It didn’t take long for him to realize what he was holding.
These were personal records—journals written by the successive Dukes of Grimaldi.
Unlike a formal history, it seemed that writing them was not a strict obligation, as some entries were separated by gaps of a hundred, even two hundred years.
Growing tired of deciphering ancient script, William flipped straight to the most recent entry.
That should be the easiest to read… wait. What the hell?
Nearly the entire page had been blacked out.
Ink had been smeared across the parchment, deliberately destroying whatever was written there.
However, the very last page—added later, it seemed—remained perfectly intact.
-Grimaldi is finished. My daughter has left the family, and there is no heir to succeed me. The Empire has endured for a thousand years and ultimately crushed Grimaldi. Our ancestor’s dream dies with our bloodline. It is bitter… but at the same time, strangely liberating.
William felt a shiver crawl up his spine.
Extinction.
From what he had gathered in his research, the House of Grimaldi had never once adopted an heir.
For centuries, its lineage had continued without interruption—until his grandfather’s generation.
The only time the bloodline had come close to ending was when the Duke had only one daughter.
And if this journal spoke of an heirless end… then this was undoubtedly his grandfather’s final entry.
-The legacy of our ancestors is nothing but words now. Even the records have been erased. The desire to reclaim lost heritage has long since faded. There is no hope, no reward for bearing the burdens of the past. How could a fallen Grimaldi ever hope to reclaim Asagrim? Even if the Empire were to collapse, some other great power would claim it and cast us aside once more.
He’s not wrong.