Chapter 6: Spring Palace (part six)
I ran down the dark stairs of the palace.
(Aah, it’s a great thing that I had changed my clothes–)
I feel light compared to when I was running in a dress.
I mean, it is painful to wear a dress as someone who has a modern human’s sensitivity.
Or it might just be my low femininity.
After a while, I arrived in the underground transfer gates.
The place was illuminated in the night by the warm light of the star crystal lamps.
“Maybe he’s not here anymore.”
I wish he was still sticking around in front of the transfer gates, but this is not the easy mode.
All around me, there were a lot of arched stones of the transfer gates lined up.
These are the transfer gates which are used for going to the important places all over the country.
Each transfer gate was given a design representing its destination.
Every transfer gate has a faint glow with rotating magic circle floating around it.
They are magically sealed so they can’t be activated without one-time keys.
Without hesitating, I ran towards the deepest transfer gate.
It is where the transfer gate to the ancient Ruins of Visitor is located.
I arrived in front of the intended transfer gate and I felt disappointed.
“It needs keys…”
In addition to the one-time key magic circle, it also has a physical lock.
Even if you falsify the one-time key in some way, you still can’t use the transfer gate.
What an awful ending!
Even though I borrowed supplies from my older brother’s Wunderkammer and assembled the perfect battle preparation.
However, rather than something happened, it is better that nothing happened.
–A sense of relief……is it alright to feel it?
But then, where did Klaus go?
I used the Wand of Glam Sight just to be safe.
Huh? This – this lock, it is a phantom!
The genuine lock was destroyed by someone.
But, somehow the one-time key magic circle is also an illusion.
The phantom image that showed the lock as it was before destruction was created by Klaus Hafan.
He made it about thirty minutes ago.
The illusion of the one-time key was the thing that Duke of Aurelia, my father, made ten years ago.
The transfer gate to Ruins of Visitor is already outdated and old.
Therefore, it might not have been possible to set up a one-time key seal.
Instead, it was locked with a physical lock and disguised with an illusion as if there is a one-time key seal.
It is an effective camouflage for someone from the western Aurelia who need to spend a huge amount of money just to use Glam Sight.
But as the opponent is from the East, on Klaus who is also an excellent mage, it wasn’t effective at all.
Klaus looked at this camouflage and immediately realized that the seal was fake.
After destroying the physical lock, he disguised it with a phantom lock identical to the one my father made in order to mislead others.
As a result, the false images of the magic and physical locks were completed.
“As expected, I have to go to the ruins and bring them back.”
To be honest, I am scared.
Even in my past life I was not good with evil spirits and ghost stories.
It is very scary to go to the Ruins of Visitor where such things really exist.
But—
“Wait for me, Klaus, Ann.”
If the Hafan siblings are in such a place—
If they are lost in the ruins without knowing what is going on or what is in there, then I have to save them.
I took a step forward into the transfer gate to the Ruins of Visitor.
If I am not mistaken, the words praising the land of the destination should be the command words to activate the magic.
I read the command words engraved on the transfer gate.
“Come, my friend, let’s give a new name to the Promised Land over this sea.”
☆
—I felt a slight dizziness.
When I opened my eyes, I was on the first layer of the Ruins of Visitor.
It is an ancient system in which spells are engraved on the floor openly.
In contrast to the Spring Palace which was made of white solid stones, the ruins were created by cutting out ordinary stones and piling them up.
The ruins are located near the western coast of the Aurelia territory.
I thought that I could smell the waves slightly.
Even though evening has come all the way, it is not completely dark.
The lamps which contain star crystals are installed on the wall, the weak gentle light which has a faintly yellowish color is illuminating the room.
Long time ago, the family who founded Aurelia of the West, were the last people who visited this continent.
Ethnic groups who had lived in this area first called them the Visitor’s Clan.
They were excellent navigators, alchemists and people of a destroyed country who had lost their homeland.
Or maybe, they might have destroyed their homeland through excessive alchemy……but the details were uncertain.
Where they came from and what kind of past they had, were all covered in the darkness of history and disappeared.
Due to the inclusion of a piece of truth among those lore, the people of Aurelia had destroyed some of their forbidden technologies.
An example of this was their homunculus creation technology, which was imparted only through the lore.
It is said that the secret of the ancient alchemy which has not yet been elucidated is preserved in this Ruins of Visitor.
I looked at my surroundings carefully with the Wand of Glam Sight.
At the moment, there are no other traces of magic than the magic of the transfer gate.
First of all, that is a relief.
(As expected, this thing is useless when I apply it on the ruins.)
Additionally, I used the Wand of Urd Sight five times.
Five white lights generated from the wand spread throughout the room and converged on my eyes as the ripples reflected and returned.
Through the Urd Sight which reads and interprets the incidents that have passed, I could see the back of Klaus leaving from the exit on the left side of the room.
“Klaus……you came alone.”
When I continued to look around the room, I saw Ann reach this room through the transfer gate.
She seemed to have noticed something and searched for one point in the room.
After that, she also headed for the exit on the left—
The past view ended there.
Apparently, after Klaus headed alone for this ruins, Ann who had noticed it appears to have been following him. It would’ve been preferable if the only one to enter the ruins was Klaus who has some skills.
I also looked at the place where Ann seemed to find something.
There is a spellcard.
But it seems that the magic has not been executed yet.
Since it is in a state of not holding magical power, my Glam Sight didn’t notice it…!
The spellcard, which is made with a parchment, has spells written in ancient characters of the eastern Hafan.
I am not particularly fluent in foreign languages.
If I could read the letters I might have gotten more hints, but even this alone is enough for me to keep track of them.
Let’s chase Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs1 of unused spellcards.
As I passed through the exit on the left side of the room, there were several rooms with a similar composition.
Ah, I can see a narrow passage in the distance.
Once I arrived in the passage, there were lamps. It was not completely dark.
But, this is scary, though?
This ancient building, the Ruins of Visitor is in the underground and it has the atmosphere of an underground dungeon.
“I’m not scared of ghosts, I’m not scared, not scared……!”
For the sake of giving myself a fighting spirit, I raised my voice repeatedly.
Mustering a little bit of courage, I used the Wand of Glam Sight and Wand of Urd Sight alternatingly and chased the back of the past Klaus and Ann.
Have I moved 200 meters from the entrance? I walked down the stairs four times, so my sense of direction has become ambiguous.
I thought that monsters and ghosts were scary, but as I ran down the dark passage, I suddenly remembered my past life.
It was a memory of the time when I was hit from behind at night during high school.
It was not fear that froze my spine, it was just a dark, gloomy feeling.
(No, I’m scared of human beings……Ah, I feel like I can score easy victory against such things like ghosts.)
Yes, humans are very scary.
The resentment of living humans, the envy, the hatred.
Such things are really, truly frightening.
As I remembered that memory, I met a human.
“You, are you Erica……!?”
There was the exhausted face of the eastern mage, Klaus Hafan.
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1 She compared the Hafan siblings with Hansel and Gretel, so if in the H&G story they used bread crumbs to remember the way, the Hafan siblings used unused spellcards.