Chapter 9
Kimiko Pov
She had felt that gaze but before she could find it, it hid itself from Kimiko. Kimiko narrowed her eyes. Not just anyone could escape from her detection. It seemed to have its focus on her for a brief moment though but she was sure that she had not raised any kind of ruckus. They all entered the big gate. The gate led through a dark corridor that looked like a cavern, as if the people who had created the gate, like the structure outside, could not finish building those structures inside. It looked incomplete and she could see it due to her skills. However, for the rest of the group it was not so easy. The Fire mages cast a spell as red circles glowed in the dark.
[Will-o-wisp]
A small ball of glowing fire emerged. It lighted up the cold and damp cavern. It was revealed to be a cavern inside with stalactite forming on the roof of the cave. The ground was uneven. Sword wielder like herself was on front of the whole party with her hands on her sheathed sword. She was the vanguard with Martin and other close combat oriented Adventurer. The mages and Archers were at the back of the formation with some other close combat oriented Adventurer in case they were attacked from behind. The Elf was in the middle of the formation. Judging from the way he moved, he should be experienced in combat. They all looked around the eerily quiet place.
'Still not one monster has been sighted. It's strange. Martin did say that these underground ruins would mostly be infested with insects and nocturnal creatures.'
Even in her radar nothing had appeared. So she just stayed vigilant due to the fact that there was something in the air as well as what she had sensed before entering.
At first part of the expedition everyone was tense but as time passed on as their vigilance grew slack. Then they started talking to each other. The silence was drowned by talk about things. Some even cracked a few jokes to liven up the place. The clumsy archer named Hayley seemed to be following the cat girl like a puppy.
'How cute but when I think about it, that girl seemed to have no confidence in herself. I wonder what happened to that girl.'
Kimiko thought for a bit. It had been an hour since they had entered but not a shred of ruins could be found nor did monsters pop out. They had used just the sound based magic to roughly determine the exact scope of this ruin. If the map was to be believed they were few minutes from entering directly into the main body of this underground ruin. Just then the ground gave a clear crisp sound as if to indicate the material beneath them had changed. The ones in front looked beneath them to find that there were paths made with interconnected white brick.
"What!?"
One of the members was astonished by what he was seeing. Martin gestured him for the reason, that man just pointed and casted a fire spell.
[Illumonos]
A light spell that attached itself into an immovable object and produced light. A simple but useful spell like the one before. As it illuminated the surroundings, people could see that not only was the path made of white brick so was its surroundings. But that was not the only thing, there were big hollow spaces in the wall. Inside there was a stand made of slab of rock. On top of it was a coffin, decorated with design of animals and monsters. In fact, the walls had monsters sculpted into them as well as many hieroglyphs as if depicting a story with something written below it. Though many of these sculptures had broken in half while some had cracks on it. It was like a catacomb here. Kimiko looked at one of the coffin and the whole pathway as a whole. She narrowed her eyes.
[Status Check]
[Successful
Name: Tomb of Despair
Description: A last city of the kingdom of Atlantis where refugee gathered as a final stand against the calamity that destroyed their kingdom. They took every pieces of Treasure from Atlantis and stored it in this place. Eventually they all starved to death waiting and a tomb was dedicated and built for each and every person that died in this place by the last person alive. The refugees died in despair and the city forgotten. It is soaked in malice and despair of 1,000,000 refugees.
Age: Estimated 15,000 years.]
No wonder she was getting a chill from this place. A million refugees died in a slow and agonizing way. Not that it was surprising. She had already seen such places and ruins. Even the Elf who was studying the hieroglyph was showing a disturbed expression. The only reason she could gleam the information on this place was she had found the ruins of the Kingdom of Atlantis in her previous life. She had learned the language of Atlantis and the system seemed to have compiled it for her from the language written below the hieroglyph. Before it came to ruin, it was known to be the place which had the information of past 50,000 years of Ancient history. In Vesperia, it was very rare that any information of the past survived. Even the Library of Babel, said to be the biggest library only holds information up to 2,500 years of past.
The first Demons had only arrived during the Matra Dukedom Age meaning 20,000 years ago. Before Matra Dukedom, there were records of Kingdoms and Empires of past destroyed by something. Not broken up or something but destroyed. The Kingdom of Atlantis expanded almost to half the continent size. They were foremost researchers of ruins. From many expeditions they had conducted, they stored the information of the past 50,000 years of history of Vesperia. They were strong as well. No demons could have the power to destroy them but then this 'calamity' shows up and destroys them. The elf asked them to move forward towards their destination.
None of them could tell that a dark figure emerged from the coffin after they all went ahead. It was as if from the side of the coffin, dark air coalesced and formed the figure but it was different than the one that looked at Kimiko. It was something else entirely. It looked at the group before intently looking at Deena. Nothing could be seen except for its cat-like eye and the malicious grin. Deena suddenly felt a chill go down her spine. It was as if something was thrumming in her body. She looked around for anything that caused such a sensation but could not find anything.
The corridor stretched on with more and more sighting of these coffins. Now the malice was getting stronger and stronger as well. Even Martin looked pale. He looked at the Elf, who had a solemn expression which continuously became more and more grim the longer he studied the hieroglyphs. Martin asked worriedly.
"Dr. Isaac what is wrong here? We have not even encountered even a single monster yet and I feel like something ominous is here. My gut feeling is never wrong…."
Isaac replied as he turned pale.
"You are not wrong. I have studied a few languages and this one definitely comes from Atlantis. I could not read all of it but it is said that this was a city full of refugees. They had escaped from the destruction of the Kingdom of Atlantis and they all died here.... starving. What a horrible way to go. We can feel the resentment and despair."
Martin looked uncomfortable.
"So it is a mass graveyard? Of the people that died?"
Isaac was sweating a bit.
"Yes of at least a grave of 1,000,000 people."
Now everyone looked uncomfortable. Yes, they were not grave robbers as some might say. Ruins are mostly empty due to the fact that people of that time left those places but this place was full of corpses. It was beneath them to desecrate the dead. The Guild would likely Quarantine this place because it could likely contain [Hex] of the dying people as well. The more number of people involved in a hex, the stronger the curse would be. They all looked at each other and decided to leave. This matter was mostly left to the Guild to solve.
"I guess we leave this ruin for the Guild. Dr. Isaac, could I ask the Guild to handle this? I believe, no we all believe it is best left to the Guild."
Even Theta was trying to get away. Her instinct screamed that something terrible could happen to her if she stayed around. At least to most of them decided it’d be best to leave. But there was still an idiot among the group.
Wallace looked livid.
"So I wasted my fuckin' time in this shit just for us to leave? Huh huh?!"
He started cursing around and moved towards an ugly looking statue. It was a statue of a laughing goblin. He looked at it and it seemed that the goblin was laughing at him.
"Hey, what is this ugly shit?"
And kicked it. It bent a little. Sounds as if gears were turning could be heard everywhere. Everyone knew that some shit was about to happen. Kimiko's eye widened as she had encountered such traps while visiting the Atlantis ruin before and she alerted everyone.
"THE STATUE IS A TRAP! RUN FORWARD!!"
Then the cave ceiling began trembling and started collapsing, starting from the way they came in. Everyone was screaming and running forward. They moved towards the light at the end of the corridor. Just then the clumsy girl named Hayley slipped and fell down. Her companion, the cat girl Deena, looked at her before screaming.
"FUCK!!"
And promptly went back avoiding the pieces of rock tumbling down before carrying Hayley on her shoulder like sack of potatoes and ran with everything she got.
Even the buffoon who caused the mess in the first place was busy running.
"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUKIITY FUUCCKK!!"
Kimiko desperately wished she throttled him then and there. Her defensive stat could handle even mountains crashing down on her but it was a bitch to remove it. And yes once she had a whole mountain as well as meteors crash on her. Those were good times then.
They all reached towards the end of the corridor before everyone jumped forward into the open space. It seemed everyone was fine more or less. It was a nasty piece of trap. Back in Atlantis ruin, the ceilings often concealed the heaviest metal found in Vesperia on top of it and when someone moved forward the trap activates itself by sensing the vibration causing the ceiling to collapse. The person would have no choice but to move forward because it usually collapsed from where the person was standing.
It was a cruel trap because when the person reached the end of the corridor, he will have found that there are no exits from that place. He would be trapped and the place was enchanted to be nigh-indestructible as well. It seems that due to time, the trap became almost useless until someone physically interacted with it.
Now that they were huffing and puffing out of breath, everyone took 5 minutes to regulate their breath. Those who were unfortunate enough to be struck by the rocks were being healed by the healers. Kimiko looked at her surrounding and found that there were half destroyed buildings. There was a whole underground city inside the cave. Tall buildings were snapped in half due to erosion of time and many small houses had their floors and roofs collapsed.
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Everything looked grey from pristine white of the catacomb. On top of the whole place there were mana crystals, crystallized and condensed form of mana, embedded on the top of the roof of the enclosed cave. It was passively emitting light which lighted up the entire cave. This underground city was kind of big. It was enclosed in a circular space inside the cave. The diameter looked to be 2-3 km long from where she was. There was even a huge pillar in the center that extended and touched the roof. It was what supported the roof from falling down. No wonder 1 million people could fit here so easily.
Then someone grabbed her on the shoulder. She looked and it was Martin and everyone else was looking at her.
"Thanks for the warning."
The others nodded. They began to murmur.
"Yeah if we didn't have a head start then someone would have been buried alive back there."
"Yeah, preferably this idiot who keeps on whining and caused this whole mess."
Kimiko just nodded. She really did not know how to deal with gratitude that much from strangers. Then they all remembered who was the reason behind they were in such a mess. Everyone slowly turned their head back at the same time towards Wallace who was trying to shake dirt out of his boots. He felt as if the room's temperature had dipped down or something and looked up to see that everyone was looking at him including his party members.
He gulped.
Five minutes later
One could see a beaten up Wallace with bump and bruises and tied up to an earthen pillar. All of them had their fill of beating him up. Now all of them including Kimiko were searching for a way out. Kimiko however was frowning at something. Where are the bodies? If that corridor was the only way in and out then it the body counts didn't reach even 300. Where were the rest of them? Using [Farsight], she couldn't even see the bodies inside the broken ruins. She then saw the Adventurer Hayley hug Deena, who was deep in thought, into her 'big bosom'.
Theta Pov
Theta was fuming in rage. A simple grab and go mission she imposed on herself became a clusterfuck of an operation. Now they were trapped inside this forgotten city until the Guild comes to help. By then it will be too late and the [Cult] will target her. She did not know what to do and she was getting a chill just by being here. An ominous feeling rose in her heart. Her instinct screaming at her to get away from this place. She was then grabbed from behind and enveloped by two squishy objects. She could even smell the hint of milk on them. That's it, she could only smell that scent but nothing more. No fresh air could enter through her nose.
'Is it the Cult member that I had somehow missed?'
She was suffocating god damn it. But she did not know why but she was ticked off by this pair of squishy objects. She flailed her hands in order to convey her suffocation but the person who was enveloping her seemed to be saying something she couldn't quite hear.
'Is this the end for me?'
Until she was suddenly released from her 'suffering'. She was taking in huge amount of air by her mouth. She looked at her attacker who was a sorry looking Hayley with the Black haired lady who had shouted out the danger.
'Oh it was just Hayley.'
Hayley looked like she was about to cry.
'Oh come on! What did I do this time?'
"I am sorry, I just wanted to thank you for saving my life when the cave collapsed......But I did not know they would end up suffocating you.....but....but.....when I did that to my friend, he looked so happy and pleased....."
'What?'
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. So did that black haired lady's.
"It's ok but do NOT do that to anyone. Especially to 'males'. I will forgive you if you promise me that."
The girl brightened up,
"Really? Then I promise."
Really? Who was the child here? It seemed that the black-haired lady was looking at her and muttering something like.....
Kimiko's Pov
".....A Tsundere..."
'Wow acts real haughty but really cares about her in the inside. Ladies and Gentlemen, a real life Tsundere.'
The cat girl's face reddened.
"Hey! Who you calling a Tsundere!?"
'Ah it seems the inhabitants of this world know its meaning.'
Kimiko just shrugged. Then the clumsy girl Hayley interjected in between.
"How about we three go on searching this place? An adventure!"
Kimiko just shrugged.
"....Sure"
"Hey you two are ignoring me!"
Then by saying that much they started to explore the ruins. It seemed that the place was paved with stones everywhere. Kimiko could even feel remnants of magic on those stones. She could see infrastructures much advanced than those of current ones. There was plumbing system, heck even an electric wiring. If the build wasn't so primitive she might have guessed that it was people from Earth that had built it. But that hypothesis wasn't out of the question. Everyone was already either searching for the exit or searching for something of value. The more those three looked the more grim Kimiko looked. Even Deena was getting suspicious. She finally spoke to Kimiko and Hayley.
"....Hey where are the bodies?"
Hayley asked, puzzled.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the elf had told that there were more than a million residents who died here. So, where are the bodies?"
"Maybe they decayed and you know, got destroyed?"
Kimiko interjected.
"Hayley..."
"Ah yes Kimiko?"
Even the cat girl was raising one of her eyes at her.
"I can read some Ancient Atlantis language.”
Both of her companion were surprised. Kimiko said, trying to keep it small.
“The inscription said that they were all placed inside a casket."
Hayley looked confused.
"But where are they?"
Kimiko nodded and replied.
"We have yet to find it."
Before Hayley could say anything, Martin came from the corner. He looked at them before saying.
"Everyone gather at that huge pillar. Everyone's gathering there to hear what Dr. Isaac found."
Kimiko narrowed her eyes. Martin seemed......different. But before she could check it he disappeared around the corner. She tilted her head, was it just her or was Martin looking intently at her.
Even Deena found him suspicious. Then they all went towards the pillar.
At the Pillar
When Kimiko and her party arrived, there was no one at first. Then one by one parties of Adventurer arrived including Wallace and Dr. Isaac. At last, one of the adventurer asked.
"So what have you found?"
"Huh? I heard you found something."
"Wait a minute, I thought it was someone named Haku who found something."
"Huh I did not.....by the way who let you be free?"
"Martin did. But that was uncalled for, you shitty people!"
"Hey, Martin also said to me that you had found something."
Even Martin, who arrived with his party members, was just as confused.
"Huh what did I say? I was called by Dr. Isaac who said he had something to share to everyone. I was even at the far side of the town to even tell anyone."
And it devolved into a heated debate. Then Kimiko again felt that stare she had gotten before she entered the ruins. She looked up. There was someone standing on the pillar perpendicularly. It looked like someone but there was definitely something wrong with him. Kimiko tried to check him.
[Check Status]
[Failed! Requires a stronger version of Check Status to gain a glimpse of the stat.]
[Equip Origin Gazer? Y/N]
[Y]
[Skill: Origin gazer Lvl. Max used! Target partially appraised,
Name:---------- Race: Parasite
HP:--------- MP:----------
Made from *&%$#$%, only contains 1/100000 of it’s power
Used for scouting and complete control over the host. Made from foreign race not recorded in the Ode of The World or the information on it has been restricted!!]
Kimiko was surprised.
'huh! Same as the one before.'
It jumped from the pillar and landed at the foot of the pillar with a loud bang. Instantly everyone's focus was now on him. Now that she had gotten a closer look the man was as pale as a corpse. His eyes weren't focused. He looked dead through and through. Then Wallace gasped.
"Hey what the fuck are you doing here? I kicked you out of the party yesterday weirdo!"
The man started to shake as if a seizure had occurred to him. Suddenly, like before, grey white thin long arms started to sprout out of his body and grasped his body parts and merged. Then the man's mouth widened until he tore the side of his mouth. An eyeball seemed to emerge out of the mouth which perfectly fit the mouth like an eye socket. A pretty gruesome sight. Some Adventurer was shaking by the disgusting sight. Even Hayley seemed to be whimpering behind Kimiko and Deena. Then a low chuckle seemed to be heard.
"he...he....he"
That parasite then raised his host's hand and seemed to keep his hand on the only black colored brick of the entire white pillar and pressed it inside. Then the world was shaking around them. Cracks and more cracks seemed to form from the pillar extending towards the outside radius of the city. Then Kimiko looked down all of a sudden. She remembered what the Atlantis Civilization had a plate by plate structured underground city.
'How could I forget about it? No, the structure and the making suggest this place is far older than the one built by them. Was this a prototype city?'
Then the floor crumbled inwardly. All of them were now free falling down alongside the broken pillar and debris. They all screamed except high level Adventurers. They tried to use magic. The ground below was much deeper than anticipated. It was more than a kilometer deep. It was a circular pit but at the sides there was hollowed out spaces. She looked inside to see more caskets. As the ground came closer and closer, even the high class Adventurer was sweating. Only she and the cat girl Deena weren't. Kimiko sighed and a green magic circle appeared on her hand.
[Air Cushion]
When they almost reached the ground a gust of air seemed to decelerate them from being pancakes. They all reached the ground quite unharmed. But it was wet as if they just landed on some body of water or so. They tried to stand up and compose themselves. One of them muttered in a panicked voice.
"What the hell was that?"
One of them looked up to see the light was very up and they were in almost dark place. They all started to panic.
"Where is this place? How the hell do we even get up?"
"What is under me? It feels like water. Hell I don't even know how to swim!"
"Can someone light the damn place? I see shit out here!"
Just then as if magically, the torches at surrounding circular wall suddenly blazed to life one by one, brightening the place. There were debris all around them and what felt like water was in fact pools of blood.
"What the-!"
Then at the middle of the whole basement like place there was a place untouched by debris. A huge throne could be seen. It was so huge that as if it was made for a person who was at least 10 foot tall. Sitting on the throne was a skeleton. A huge skeleton at that. It was almost identical to that of human except humans weren't that big and they did not have huge curved horns out of their skull. It could have been Beastman like species such as Minotaur or Deer or Antelope but something told to Kimiko that it was a Demonic being. Like those of the Demon King's species. It was wearing armor as well as a huge weapon that looked like a slab of stone shaped into a broadsword. But what was surprising was its value.
All of it seemed to be [Legendary Tier].
At that moment the parasitic being descended. It looked at the Adventurer party and clicked its tongue in disappointment. Then it looked straight at Kimiko and said in a raspy voice unlike that of the Demon King's parasite.
"Should have known that the one marked by our Eminence is a troublesome one. But still you are too weak to even fight our Eminence.”
It looked at the skeleton before screaming at it.
“What are you waiting for beast? Your revenge is nigh. Consume them and restore your vitality! In exchange you shall answer only to me!!"
Then all of a sudden the blood churned and vibrated. It started to float into droplets of blood from the ground as well from the caskets around them which was revealed to be leaking blood from its lid. All of them were leaking blood and those bloods poured into the ground by sliding from the walls. Then the elf gasped.
"This .... This is not blood! It is a condensed hex. Hex from the negative feelings from millions of people!"
The entire Adventurers looked around in panic.
Those bloods then converged into the skeleton and it was enveloped in a hurricane of blood. Then the blood imploded and from it a figure emerged out. Its armor looked black, polished, new and full of curses. The Helmet which had nothing except the skull and horn took a new turn. It was black and the skull inside could not be seen, instead two bright glowing light could be seen where the eyes were supposed to be. It seemed to have grown red wild hair that was as long as his waist. It seemed to feel as if you were burning just from getting near it. His greaves as well as the armor covering his thigh gained a wicked feeling of dread. His sword seemed to be covered in purple web like structure that seemed to give off the feeling of curse. Overall it was very intimidating sight.
Then the monster screamed with all the rage it could muster and it felt as if thousands of people were screaming at once.
"GOOooOooddDDdsssSs!!"
[Status Check]
[Successful
Name: Eleazar the Vengeful Age: - Level: 455
Description: An amalgamation of vengeful spirits of millions of people]
Just as Kimiko was about to intervene, the parasite used a teleportation spell on her. She felt herself arriving at the entrance of the ruins. There were confused looking Guild staff members there. They looked at her and at the twisted monstrosity figure of a man. The parasite looked at her.
"Nope, you deal with me!"
Kimiko looked unimpressed as she asked.
"Just you?"
The eye in the mouth sounded smug.
"Nope. With this."
And in its hand was a spherical crystal that had some black taints on it. Kimiko's eyes widened.
"A summoning crystal?"
The parasite aimed it at her.
"Not just any, but a special one as well!"
It forced its mana into the summoning crystal causing black miasma like things appearing on the crystal.
"Know the mercy of the benevolent God,
Cause the evil Dragon God shall show you none,
Rise [{DARK BAHAMUT}]!!"
Then the whole cavern darkened and a dark red circle with unknown symbols appeared underneath her. Then she felt herself being transported into a pocket dimension. Just as she got up she could see herself on a piece of rock which seemed to be floating. The rock was 400 meter in length and breadth. The floating rock seemed to be inside the eye of a very huge tornado. Just then a huge shadow seemed to have appeared. Kimiko looked up to see a massive, long and sinuous dragon with dark black scales with 3 pairs of big leathery wings. However, it's eyes were glowing in red lights. It looked at her and then roared.
[ROOOAAAARRR!!!]
[Check Status]
[Successful
Name: Dark Bahamut (Corrupted) Lvl: 800]
It seemed that the thing had an ace up its sleeve. This thing certainly was a hard creature to deal with. Though she wondered how the others were doing. Kimiko hoped they would be alive by the time she deals with this [Corrupted] being.