Chapter 1018 Finding Clues
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Ding!
[You have found one of the clues!]
[Clues: 1/5]
Aw, it only counts as one clue…?!
Oh well, that still got us something.
"Let's keep the tablet for now, it might be useful somehow." I said, quickly storing it. "I remember that these things always can open secret passages in the ruins, so might as well keep this."
"You're not wrong." Nodded Aquarina, patting my head. "Now let's get moving, this is only one of the dozens!"
"Yep, let's go!"
Pyuku and Nephilim rushed outside the little cave as I followed them behind…
On the way out of the tunnel, Aquarina intentionally bumped on my butt at least five times!
I think she even kissed it once…
"…"
I was glaring at her with a bit of embarrassment, anger, and some horniness all mixed up.
"W-What?"
Aquarina tried to act aloof…
I punished her by grabbing her butt even strongly!
"Eep~"
After that, her butt hurt a bit, so she was rubbing it…
"So mean~ What's wrong with bumping into my girlfriend's ass every now and then?" She complained on our way to the next ruins.
She's sure a shameless little brat!
But I guess I am not too different myself…
"Master has grown rather pervert these last years…" Commented Pyuku. "I'm sorry for her behavior. She just happens to really like you, Sylphy."
"Ahahah, don't worry, I know." I laughed a bit. "Oh? There's another unexplored one over there!"
We arrived at a second one. While the first unexplored area was almost square shaped, with a huge growth of Sunstones, this one resembled a rising triangle, with several sunstones here and there.
It had a large entrance, so no more tunnel shenanigans for now…
"Huh? What's this?"
Aquarina wondered as she walked forwards.
In the middle of this tiny cave, there was a huge, tree-shaped sunstone growing all the way to the ceiling, its branches connected to the ceiling.
And inside of that tree, there was… a skeleton.
"W-Why are there bones in here?" I wondered. "W-What in the world happened?"
"This is… what?" Aquarina was just as confused.
"Is there a panel around here?" I wondered.
"No, nothing…" Pyuku said. "Just… this."
"Even for me, this is… bizarre." Nephilim commented.
The skeleton seemed well maintained, and at the same quite grotesque. Sunstone was entering its eye sockets and mouth; it had been completely engulfed by it.
I couldn't sense any Soul or presence either… it was just this gruesome scene.
"I wonder… This skeleton is… human!" I said, as I analyzed it with my eyes. "And it says… what?"
"What is it?" Aquarina wondered.
"Something odd?" Pyuku wondered.
"The description… It says that this person died gruesomely, victim of the Curse of the Sun." I spoke with a rather serious tone of voice.
"Eh?" All three of them were left speechless…
Ding!
[You have found one of the clues!]
[Clues: 2/5]
"Whatever that Sun's Curse was…" Nephilim spoke. "Maybe… no, it can't be, right? Let's not jump to conclusions yet."
"I guess it is better to find out by ourselves…" I sighed. "Let's move. Aquarina?"
I saw Aquarina and Pyuku looking at the skeleton with sorrowful eyes, and then leaving behind fruits and some flowers they picked up on the way here.
"May your soul rest in peace." Aquarina said.
"…" Pyuku remained in silence.
The Amazonian Tribe usually always paid respect to the dead, whenever someone died, they would make a huge ceremony. According to their beliefs, it is to let these souls reach the afterlife peacefully.
I waited for her patiently as she got done, and then we started moving again. This time we moved slightly more to the summit, I could sense and see everyone else nearby, they were all safe so far.
"This one's rectangle shaped!" Nephilim said excitedly.
"Huh? There's not really any cave in it though, sadly." Said Pyuku. "Wait, is that…?"
However, we found some strange marks in the enormous rectangle-shaped piece of rubble, alongside a weirdly shaped growth of sunstone.
Which had the slight shape of some sort of screaming face…
Very creepy.
However, the marks we saw in the walls were the most unnerving ones. They resembled nails marks, as if several people were trying to grab on it…
"Could these marks have belonged to people?" I wondered, caressing the walls. "So there were a lot of them… Their anguish, could it have been formed into this weirdly shaped sunstone?"
"Maybe…" Said Aquarina, feeling rather interested and at the same time, looking quite thoughtful. "This most likely confirms there were many people inside a room, and that the went through something so horrible they all tried to escape, grasping on the walls and scratching them…"
"This is an incredibly tough metal, doing that could have most likely broken their nails and fingers…" I analyzed. "To go so far… It must have been truly the stuff of nightmares."
Ding!
[You have found one of the clues!]
[Clues: 3/5]
"Let's move on, I don't like this one…" Aquarina said.
"Yeah, me neither…" Pyuku agreed.
"Alright."
We kept exploring the land, sometimes bumping into huge goats walking around, gently eating some of the sunstone or the tall growths of grass around the area.
It didn't take long before we found another unexplored area while we moved past a few groups, this one was triangle shaped, but it had many red and yellow sunstones instead of the common orange.
This time, we found another tablet piece in the depths of the small cave there was, Pyuku quickly tried to analyze the words as we looked around the growths.
Nephilim then, noticed something odd to the left of the caves.
"Is that…? Another face?" Wondered Nephilim.
And indeed, this time, it wasn't on the sunstone, the face was on the black walls, as if it were coming out from them.
It was the face of what looked like a young girl, screaming her lungs out…
"T-This is…" Pyuku muttered, as he deciphered the tablet engravings.
"What does it say?" I wondered.
"Failed experiment… Soul crystallization… Harvest… Demon… King?"
Those words…
Could it be?
Ding!
[You have found one of the clues!]
[Clues: 4/5]
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