Chapter 8: Ruins of Visitor (part two)
I handed over a Wand of Urd Sight and one of the alchemist’s leather gloves to alleviate the reaction of the wands to Klaus.
And for myself, I took out a brand new wand.
“This wand of Aurelia, how do you activate it?”
“To use it, just wave it while saying the spell in your mind.”
“It looks like it’s surprisingly easy. Is it okay to try it?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
Klaus carefully waved the wand.
The magic of Urd Sight activated safely and white magic circle converged on his eyes.
Klaus looked around while blinking over and over.
His long eyelashes made pachipachi sounds as he blinked with vigor as if his eyes had dried out.
“…This is useful. I myself didn’t consume any magical power at all, I could see you from a few minutes ago.”
“Events that have passed over time cannot be pursued by Urd Sight. Keep in mind about what you want to know when you activate it, you should focus on events related to that particular person.”
“Do I have to explore while thinking about Ann?”
“That’s right. Let’s go then.”
The lamps in the surroundings are weak because the oxidation of the star crystals are proceeding.
This might make us overlook important places.
I searched my bag and took out a lamp.
“Klaus-sama, please also have this lamp.”
“Hm.”
Klaus attached the lamp he got from me to his staff.
When I thought of what he wanted to do, he demonstrated that he could light up high places with his staff.
Ooh, that is great.
……Well, there is no Ann in such a place.
You still somewhat want to explore, right? That is not good, you know?
We occasionally waved our wands and walked with two lamps carefully shining on our way home.
“Somehow, I can see the past you were mumbling.”
“Please don’t tease me.”
“Erica……You, are you scared of monsters or ghosts?”
“Klaus-sama, please concentrate on finding your sister.”
Klaus looked amused as he turned his line of sight to the front.
I will be in trouble for a while.
Because, right now I am an innocent 8-years-old girl, you know?
Isn’t it okay to be scared of something?
Aah, but if I consider my actual age in the previous life, it is painful to say whether it is okay or not……ahaha.
“Your mood was terribly suspicious and you had gloomy eyes……Are you really an 8-years-old child?”
“Hey! Please search for Ann-sama seriously!”
“You, you sometimes have eyes that say you have given up on life…”
Eei, I don’t want you to tell me that!
Because until his affection grew in the game, he would have dead eyes!
I managed to hold down what I wanted to say.
Even though sometimes it seems that Klaus has the tendency of a small animal, when it comes down to it, he can grasp the opponent’s weakness and play with it…!
Is this a glimpse of someone who will become a Do-S character in the future!?
No, no, now I have to focus on searching for Ann!
“Klaus-sama, have you seen the back of Ann-sama yet?”
“No, I can’t see anything about Ann yet. For now, I have only caught on to you in my Urd Sight.”
“Are you keeping your sister in mind properly?”
“Oh, I am definitely thinking about her. Even so I can only see you, it’s annoying.”
This, this guy……!!
No, no, no, this is not the time for such a thing.
“Did you really see Ann? There is no trace that she ever went through here before.”
—H-huh?
Just now, I felt like there was something weird.
“……Hey, Klaus-sama, could you please show me the place of the spellcard you installed for Auto-mapping?”
“Oh, I remember…The spellcard in this room is……”
Klaus ran to the corner of the room and looked around the wall.
Oh, he seems to be having some trouble.
He walked around while lighting the walls many times and then returned with a strange expression.
“It’s not here.”
“Really?”
“What does it mean? I’m certain that I put it there……It’s strange, this is—”
He is not wrong.
I don’t remember it very clearly, but I remember seeing an unused spellcard around the area he was looking at.
But now that spellcard doesn’t exist.
—-I got a bad feeling.
“This Ruins of Visitor, seems to be moving the rooms and passages, it’s probably not magic, but mechanical.”
At that time, I heard a rumbling sound.
It sounded somewhere in this ruins.
“A mechanical labyrinth……!”
“I have heard from my father that it is a kind of mechanism that the ancient Aurelia people used to avoid thieves, but I never thought that there would be a mechanical labyrinth in such a large building.”
Along with the tremendously loud sound of moving mechanism, our feet shook unnaturally.
It is not an earthquake.
Right now, the room where Klaus and I are standing is moving.
“……You saw Ann and I come out of the transfer gate.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see Ann that one time in the first room?”
“Yes.”
Klaus wrinkled his brow,
His sharp eyes stared at me.
“When I passed through and when you chased me, it was probably the same passage, but when Ann passed through, that passage was connected to another place.”
“That’s probably right.”
“And now, too, the trick of the labyrinth has started, and we have lost our present position……That’s how it is, Erica.”
“Yes. In this way, there is no guarantee that we can go back to the transfer gate.”
We lost the clues to find Ann and also lost the way to return to the Spring Palace.
The mummy hunter himself became a mummy1.
We intended to find a lost child, but we ended up becoming lost children.
We were too late in noticing it, and everything else may have been lost.
“You’re quite calm.”
“Of course? I will act flustered when I feel flustered.”
“Well, aren’t you cheeky.”
The thing I am most worried about is Ann.
I am calm because we are still together.
A small girl is wandering around alone in this dimly lit Ruins of Visitor.
Just thinking about it, I feel my heart squeezing tight.
Besides, if she has already been touched by the ancient evil spirit—
No, I have to stop the pessimistic thoughts right now.
Look for Ann, return to the original place, I only have to think about these two.
However, I feel stuck in this search.
Waiting for the night to come like this, wouldn’t father and Duke of Hafan notice and send a search party?
—-No.
If that happens, Ann will die according to the original game.
Because my relationship with her is changing, I don’t know if she will kill me six years later.
However, no matter how much death flags are broken, I don’t want such a thing to happen.
I don’t want to give up on the life of the young girl I have become emotionally attached to.
“If we move thoughtlessly, things will likely become worse.”
“There should be something we can do. Let’s think together for a little while, Klaus-sama.”
I spread my leather bag on the floor.
What can we do with what we have right now? We have to check the means that can be used.
“You have brought so much.”
“I didn’t know what would happen, besides, it is said that there is no regret if you are prepared.”
Is there any magic that can break through our current situation?
I turned over the box of wands and checked the label.
“……Wand of Grease? It’s a magic to improve slippage. If you put it on your opponent’s hand, their hand would slip and they wouldn’t be able to grasp anything. But what are you going to use it on in this labyrinth? Something like a niche magic.”
“Because I was in a hurry, I packed it noncommittally!”
Klaus looked into the bag curiously and started picking out items together with me.
“There is no convenient wand that will turn this situation around in one shot. It’s difficult, huh. At most if the wide area search magic is effective.”
“Please blame that matter on my vigilant ancestors.”
Klaus also carefully read the labels, but it seems that the idea is not readily apparent.
But I can’t give up yet.
When I was persistently searching my leather bag, a weak light different from the star crystal lamp came from the deepest part.
“This is Moonlight Gallnut Ink, huh?”
“Ah, I often use it back in Hafan.”
There is a mineral particular to the eastern Hafan region called moonlight ore.
It begins to shine faintly as the moon rises and loses its radiance as the moon sets.
When clouds shade the moon, the moonlight ore becomes shaded as well.
It is such a strange stone.
Since ancient times, the eastern mages have utilized the characteristics of the moonlight ore, which is specialized to respond to the moon, to make Moonlight Gallnut Ink.
“The rise of the moon……right now it’s roughly 20 o’clock.”
From the ink bottle, a bluish yellow light is permeating and swaying gently.
It is a much weaker light compared to a star crystal lamp.
The night sky is cloudy.
“Klaus-sama, this is……”
I covered my star crystal lamp and gazed at the moonlight ore’s light, then I noticed something.
Pale light of the same color as the ink was also shining on the walls of the room.
Moreover, it was blinking repeatedly at the same timing as the ink.
“You also noticed?”
“Well, it is sparkling just like the ink, isn’t it?”
Perhaps the intensity of the light is linked to the flow of thin clouds shading the moon.
I noticed that it is such a weather.
I put the lamp into my leather bag and Klaus covered his lamp, which was attached on the tip of his staff, with the sleeve of his robe.
Since the strong lights were blocked, the faint light of the characters drawn on the wall was emphasized and emerged.
What was drawn on the wall was a crescent moon mark.
And under the mark was a familiar handwriting—
It was a message left by senior explorers who had challenged this labyrinth.
What the illumination of the golden moonlight revealed was truly a bright light2.
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1 An idiomatic expression, means: intending to persuade someone and instead being persuaded himself. Or, a person who went to bring the person to his side will instead stay on the other side.
2 Bright light here means hope, but the author made it a pun, so I keep it as it is.