The moment the door closes behind us, I cancel my barrier. Even though there are most likely tonnes of rock and stone filling the place where my barrier used to be, we hear nothing.
Observing the door for a while, I see that the inscriptions are up and running once again, powered by an unknown source.
I wonder, should I use the anchors I left far behind in the tunnels to get us out? It wouldn't be that difficult, to be honest. I just need to activate the skill and get out. A few people might agree to become test subjects in desperation. To be honest, I'm not sure if I can take someone else with me, but probably yes?
In the worst case, we can do it slowly, destroying the rock and strengthening the newly created tunnel. That option would take much longer. Looking around at the expressions of people from the Storm Brigade, I guess that no one has some sort of group teleport skill.
“Biscuit, the corpses are not food,” I say to the corgi next to me just in case, and he looks at me like I'm crazy.
I guess he has different tastes now, getting expensive food from Isabella all the time.
“Why the fucking tunnels again,” Maya stops by my side.
Soon, other members of the group join us as well, and no one is particularly interested in moving inside the room.
“There are so many traps,” Sophie sighs.
Tess also nods, mana shining in her eyes, [Farsight] allowing her to see mana.
“Let's just take it easy for now,” says Hadwin, who doesn’t seem to be that worried either. From what I noticed, with the exception of Tess and future animal Absolute, he seems to be the best at dealing with what happened when we spent twenty days in the tunnels, constantly threatened by the Living Tree.
“I'm a busy man, Haddy, and I really want to get to the auction in time. People kept teasing me with it for months,” I say and take a step ahead, pulling out my second epic item.
Mana Core Sphere (epic): This enigmatic sphere contains a pulsing core that can be filled with mana, which then resonates with other magical energies nearby. When activated, it can disperse a wave of mana that disrupts the magical abilities of foes in the vicinity.
I feed it mana and then activate it. A pulse, stronger than I would be currently capable of, bursts into the room and deactivates most of the traps in there, as well as disrupting the mana of some weaker members of the expedition.
I send more mana inside the stone and activate it again, this time sending an even stronger effect through the massive room we are in.
Then I do it again, the amount I use big enough to create a few tricolored orbs, yet my new Arcane resilience allows me to shrug it off easily.
Finally, the weird field inside the room breaks, and I put away the epic item. At the same time, the corpses on the ground start breaking apart, as if up until now they were unable to rot naturally.
It's both fascinating and disgusting to watch them crumble, the flesh rotting, hair falling off, and eyeballs dissolving.
Soon enough, only bones are left on the ground, still easy to tell apart much taller lynthari from humans.
“Why don't we check what's left? Maybe there are some nice items? I will keep watch,” I tell my group as well as Obelia's while I take the first step.
Some carefulness is fine, but too much of it is no good, to be honest. Making mistakes is fine too, but the important part is to not make the same mistake twice or be able to deal with it, isn't it? As for the door and trap that got us here, it's my fault; there is no going around it, I triggered it.
But it won't happen again, and I will handle whatever awaits us here.
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It takes around ten minutes, but the room is checked over; there are no hidden rooms, no more items to take. The results are some rare items, a few empty mana stones, broken weapons, and that kind of stuff.
Apparently, each tier of items is separated into 3 tiers: Upper, mid, and lower tier.
For example, the Ethercrystal shortsword, an epic sword I have is mid-tier or grade. The mana core I have probably as well. The epic crown and sword we got from the king and his warriors on the 3rd floor are low tiers. The Valorplate of the Fallen Hero, one of the Calamities, is most likely upper epic tier.
The difference between lower and mid isn't that high, but apparently, the jump from mid to upper tier is quite massive. Well, not as big as the jump in between grades, but big enough to be clearly noticeable. That's something I have learned as well, sometimes against my will, sometimes when I was bored.
The rare items we got from the bodies of lynthari are of upper rare tier, and then there are some mid-rare tier as well. Anything below that seems to have turned to dust when the weird field around the cave disappeared.
“How long do you think they were here?” Lily asks the question I also wonder about.
“Obelia said the mines have been empty for three hundred years, so maybe that long?” Tess's voice sings next to me, answering Lily's question.
“Or even longer, and the miners found the door while mining stuff, buried it and continued to excavate stuff,” hearing that, I turn to Dennis, who said it.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The young blonde boy with striking blue eyes, a carbon copy of his brother, shrugs his shoulders.
Huh, is he maybe a bit smart?
“I wonder what Obelia wants from here, she seems to know more than she told us,” Lily's eyes aren't exactly friendly as she stares at the guild master of Storm Brigade.
“You know her the best, what do you think, Tess?” Hadwin asks.
For a moment, Tess ponders and then sighs, “Yeah, that would be just like her. I don't think it would be something that would put us into danger, more likely something she doesn't want us to know.”
“We should ask her,” Dennis shifts on his feet, a small smile on his face, “I'm sure she will…”
Oh, maybe he really is smart.
I collect a bit of mana and take a step out of the field Tess created to block the sounds. Taking a few steps, I stop in front of Obelia.
As I give her a second to react, I see understanding flicker in her eyes. For a moment, I see her thinking quickly as she realizes what I most likely want. Obelia is smart, a very smart and logical-thinking person. So, in the end, she comes to one conclusion and a long sigh escapes her mouth.
“Do you trust your guild members?” she asks, glancing over my shoulder at the members of my group behind me.
Out of everything she could ask, this surprised me probably the most, and for a moment I give it serious thought. Do I?
I glance back at their faces, ones I got so used to seeing. Some of them close to a thing called a friend. A thing I tried to avoid so much. The reason is simple. If you don't trust anyone, you won’t get betrayed. That's how it should work, and that's what I tried to do.
Yet, this bunch of twerps somehow got under my skin, and if I spend more time with them, I know they will get deeper, and it will be harder and harder to look at them the way I would like to.
Hell, it might be too late even now. It's annoying, but it's also something I decided to do after the start of the 4th floor. After I witnessed Lily sacrificing all of her limbs just to help us, after I heard Tess talking about camaraderie. Seeing Min-Jae looking at me with such admiring eyes and listening to every word I say to the point it felt heavy. And also after hearing Sophie nearly beg for a second chance. Not crying, but close to it, and only being able to say it out loud thanks to Izzy using her skills to help her.
All of this stuck with me, and I'm unable to just ignore it.
In the end, I push away the memories that flash in my mind and ignore the question. All annoying stuff is for future Nathaniel to deal with.
“Just say it,” I tell Obelia.
She nods, “It's quite simple, really, and I won’t bother you with too many details. The main thing is that there are people who believe that lynthari don’t originate from this planet. We believe that only humans used to exist on our planet and then, lynthari invaded it and tried to take over.”
I see, looks like the mystery of the 4th Calamity is close to be solved.
“The Living Tree and The Colony are most likely weapons, created during the war either by human or lynthari . The Fallen Hero is the last human Champion, killed by lynthari, and his body is used as a power source by his Valorplate.”
Everyone from her guild listens quietly and without much surprise. Something they all kept in extreme secrecy, yet all of them keeping the secret that could result in the destruction of their guild.
“And I believe we can find some answers here,” she nods towards the second door that is on the opposite side of the room we are in.
“What is this place?” I ask her.
“I didn’t lie before, I think it's a vault of a disciple of the Champion that is now the Calamity called the Fallen Hero. A vault with information left behind and hidden from lynthari.”
“And what if you get it? What if it all is true and lynthari really came here hundreds of years ago, fighting with your predecessors? What will you do?” I ask her.
Then I observe her expression. This is something that really makes me curious. How would she behave? Will she want to take revenge for people she never knew? Will she try to punish lynthari for sins most of them probably aren't even aware of as they didn't live back then?
The war, if there was one, most likely took a toll on both humans and lynthari, looking at the state of what is left afterward. Two races without their Champions and the world without the Absolute.
“I am not sure what I will do with this information, but it’s something I want to confirm,” the expression on her face changes, and for the first time since I met her, there is passion bordering on obsession in it.
Obelia sounds almost urgent as she continues, “I didn’t know these long dead people. I don’t know if even the lynthari know about what happened, but I still want to find out what happened, what this all means, and why it happened.”
“What will you do after you find out?” I repeat my question.
To that, she just closes her mouth, Obelia herself unsure of what she will do. And partially, I can understand that, the need for knowledge she doesn’t know what to do with. She just wants to know the truth and find out if she is being lied to.
Well, that much isn’t a problem. If she doesn't betray me, I don't mind helping a little, “Let’s find out then, shall we?”
I take the few remaining steps and put my hand on the door, sending my mana inside I immediately find the traps similar to before and quickly destroy them. There are even more of them and better hidden, yet I destroy them too. Making the same mistake twice isn’t something I like to do.
Inscription after inscription gets examined by me, looked at, worked around. I find and destroy the traps, find the circuits that need to be used, create an image of the key in my head. I examine the mana and resonate with it.
When I inscribe the mana stone with the circuit, I don’t even check and put the stone against the door, and the stone cracks right after.
With a loud crack, a vertical crack appears through the entire length of the door, mana leaking from the inside. I push and the door open wide, the mana disappearing from them slowly and they start crumbling too, the stone they are made of pushed away with a blast of kinetic energy and then with one more to clear the way.
[Perception] shoots inside the room, taking in its size and looking for mana signatures. There is only one signature right in the middle of the circular room and nothing else.
There are no riches, no epic items, no monsters, and no traps.
In the middle of the room lies the corpse of a man in light armor. He is wearing a dark blue cape with dozens of holes in it and some of his limbs are missing chunks of muscles, showing the bone underneath.
From that corpse, a constant field is generated, and I have a hard time identifying what it is, but it apparently notices us and an extremely weak signature is sent to the beautiful mana stone that is imbued into the man's chest.
Even looking at it I'm amazed by it, the circuits that cover it are the most intricate I've seen on the 4th floor.
Receiving some sort of the signal the corpse then starts moving. It grabs the bow from the ground, ignoring the fact there are no arrows and the pose it takes is confident and relaxed. Slowly, the eyes of the corpse open, revealing beautiful eyes made out of mana stones, also with delicate mana circuits in them.
The mana that then radiates from the mana stone imbued in the chest expands and fills the room with pressure that makes it feel as if I can touch it.
[Arcane Archer - lvl ??]