The next day, when I woke up, Valcy was already awake and waiting for me with breakfast on our table. It seemed like she was planning to go somewhere early. After checking my phone, I realized it was approximately 6:30 am, and today was Thursday, September 4, 2025.
"Yawn. Good morning, Valcy. You're up early today. Are you planning to go somewhere?" I asked her while yawning. I wanted to sleep more few hours; I was not a morning person even in my old world.
"Yes, I'm planning to search for the entrance to the Ken ruins," she said.
"Okay, yesterday I chose the quests. Today, is your turn," I assured her. I didn't want Valcy to see me as a self-centered boy.
"I'm not interested in the Guild quest. I'm planning to find the entrance and explore the ruins," she corrected me.
'Okay, I'm noticing a pattern here. Valcy is always interested when it comes to exploring ruins. Maybe she's looking for something,' I contemplated.
"And are you sure you want to explore the ruins so soon? The last exploration ended in disaster. Don't you have traumatic experiences from the last one, considering you almost lost your life?" she asked with a curious expression.
"Okay, I definitely had a traumatic experience from that—life-ending injuries and all that horrible pain I suffered. But now I have some means to defend myself," I said to her with a wry smile on my face.
"What do you mean by 'life-ending injuries'? You're still alive, right?" she asked me, her face filled with confusion.
"Sorry, you're right. I'm very much alive and ready to gamble with my life again," I said to her jokingly.
She actually started laughing at my humor.
"Okay, silly boy, your parents went missing during a ruin exploration as well, right? If you really want to find their whereabouts, you need to get stronger first. If it's a tomb of ancient mage, we're not taking the risk. Are we clear?" she said with a stern tone.
"I understand, elder sister," I replied in a jovial tone. I understood her worries, as ancient sorcerer's tombs can be extremely dangerous, with only S+ tier beings leaving legacies before they die.
Those are legendary beings—essentially, godly mutant beings, strong enough to rule an empire and destroy kingdoms single-handedly. Currently, only one famous person comes to mind: Alina, a 1000-year-old legendary being also known as the Elven Empress. Rumours have it that the Dark Elves were also hiding a legendary being. Due to this reason, these two races have limited their wars to espionage and trickery instead of full-blown wars. The involvement of legendary beings often causes massive destruction to the surrounding environment.
I could only think of one weapon from Earth that might cause harm to such beings: a nuclear bomb. Maybe I'll need to have that in my arsenal, just in case I have to fight those, I contemplated seriously.
After freshening up and having our breakfast, we made our way to the guild to claim our rewards from the quests.
Upon seeing us again, the guild receptionist from yesterday was shocked to find out that we had completed all the quests so early. If only she had known that we had completed the quests and came back to the city yesterday itself, she would have been even more shocked.
As promised, we were paid 10 gold coins for the subjugation quest and given an exchange token for the healing potion from the fetch quest. We could exchange it for 50 healing potions at the Alchemist Guild.
After finishing our business at the mercenary guild, we headed to the alchemist district of the town, a more crowded area where many alchemists made potions for coins. After about 20 minutes of walking through the potion stalls, we finally reached the Alchemist Guild.
An apprentice alchemist, who was working as a receptionist, greeted us at the counter. "Hello, young sir and miss. Are you looking to commission any potions from our alchemists?" he asked us politely.
"Actually, we're here to claim our reward. Here's the token," I said to him. After he took the token and authenticated it, he handed us a bag filled with potion vials. The bag weighed roughly around 5 kg.
We also sold the venom we extracted from the larva queen. I didn't expect that yellow-colored juice to be so valuable. We were offered 20 gold coins for 3 liters of it.
While we were there, we also purchased other potions like the temporary speed boost potion (C tier) and the temporary strength boost potion (C tier). Valcy warned me about the potions' side effects, but I wasn't sure how severe they were. I was really curious about these types of potions and thought I might need them just in case of emergencies.
"Thank you for doing business with the Alchemist Guild," said the receptionist with a smile.
After we were finished at the Alchemist Guild, we headed to the butcher shop to sell the remaining crab corpses that were still in my inventory.
This time, the butcher offered us 8 gold coins due to high demand. He was also quite curious about how we hunted so many crabs. He thought that we had found a way to domesticate sand crabs or farm them. To satisfy his curiosity, I only revealed my guess that there might be a king crab roaming around the area, but we weren't able to locate it.
After hearing my information, the butcher actually decided to post a quest for the king crab at the guild tomorrow.
Valcy and I shared a glance. We were quite certain that reaching that location would take a minimum of 2 or 3 days of nonstop travel by camel for other mercenaries. The reward he was offering was only 3 or 4 gold coins. At this point, spending time searching for a king crab, which might have relocated somewhere else, wasn't very appealing. Moreover, we were already quite wealthy from our quests, with a total of around 43 gold coins.
After returning from the butcher shop, I asked Valcy, "Now what's the plan?"
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"No plan, we just search for the entrance. Can you read ancient runes,?" she inquired. She probably realized my ability when I deciphered the Astan runic language at the Stainhera ancient ruin.
"Even though I learned to read some runic languages from before the era of the first human emperor, there were so many dynasties, religions, and races—all forgotten by time with no records of their language. It would have been so much easier if this world had the internet for archaeologists to record and share all those ancient languages," I mused to myself.
"I might be able to decipher the entrance, if i can read the runic languages," I replied to her with an unsure tone. I wasn't even sure why the ruin was called Ken, so I didn't want to give her false hope.
"Okay, then what are we waiting for? Let's go," she said hurriedly.
Once again, we
left the city, this time heading towards the Ken ruin site. By my estimate, there were probably many locals from the town at the site, all trying their luck to find the entrance.
"It's not a good idea to attract too much attention and cause trouble wherever I go. If we're doing this, we need to be discreet," I contemplated.
Again, we had to walk a mile or two from the city before summoning the vehicle. We also purchased a newly made map location of the Ken ruins from the guild, so we knew where to go. The map instructed us to go north of the city; the Ken ruin site was just 5 or 6 miles from the bone dragon's den, an S-tier monster. In my perspective, it was dangerously close to the den, but we put our fears aside and headed there.
After about an hour of travel, we stopped near some rocky hills. The ruin site was two miles away, just below the hills.
I considered doing some reconnaissance before going there uninvited. Climbing to the top of the hill, we stopped to observe from a distance the many tents and workers digging at the ruin site. Among the tents was a large stone tablet that stood out like a monument.
"We'll need binoculars to see them clearly," I informed valcy, herinstanly understanding the importance of the 8x scope attached to her sniper rifle. She started observing the people through the scope.
"I can see workers, mercenaries, guards from the Doon Kingdom, and archaeologists," she informed me.
"If there are already archaeologists present, they'll likely find the entrance sooner or later. We'll need to hurry," I told Valcy.
"Okay, we need to move quickly," I said to Valcy.
'If there are clues written on that large stone monument, we might have no need to go there in person,' I thought.
"Can you see the runic characters on that monument?" I inquired.
"Yes, you can take a look," she said, attempting to pass me the rifle.
"No need, I will summon something lighter," I chuckled.
I murmured, 'Summon binocular.' After a moment, the 12x40 zoom binoculars appeared in my hand.
With the binoculars, I was able to see the characters on the monument clearly. They were written in nomist characters.
The monument read:
‘It has been two dragon sleep years since the relentless and bloodthirsty armies of the false deity Zac descended upon us. We fear the inevitable. The false deity will soon descend himself. We had spread our seeds of civilization in case of our extinction. This is our beacon of hope for someone to carry our flame of vengeance and rebellion in the distant future when the false deity rises from his slumber again. Only the fated ones may enter. Here lays no entrance; only by finding the friend of nomes may you find the entrance.’
'Wow, this is truly a rare nomist monument,' I contemplated.
From the history books, I remembered that nomes were inventors, tinkers, and pioneers of advanced mage-tech. Rumors had it that they were cursed by a deity to be born without any magic. Instead of accepting their fate and being treated as slaves forever by mages, they worked hard and dedicated all their race' efforts toward discovering a way to harness magic. With the help of engineering and tinkering, they were able to develop mage-tech that helped them harness magic from tera. This enabled them to rebel against the mages who ruled the continents at that time. They earned respect and fear for their ingenuity and unity, and their dynasty flourished in mage-tech. However, due to their arrogance and stubbornness to seek vengeance on the deity for the suffering of their forefathers, they wiped out even the devotees of that deity during their era.
The nomist era in Lux continent came to an abrupt end because the deity feared their conviction and rapid development in mage-tech, and personally sent down his powerful armies to wipe them all out. The war was legendary and horrific. At the end of the war, there were no nomist survivors, and their mage-tech high cities were turned to rubble. The deity's armies brought death and destruction, relentless day and night.
After the end of the era of nomes, their mage-tech was destroyed or buried under the surface. The method of producing mage-tech was lost with the race.
Some philosophers theorized that if the Nomist race were given more time to develop, there would have been equality and peace in a world where people's faith and status were decided by their blessings.
‘This is not the tomb monument of some ancient mage, but a legacy of the nomest race. If we can find the entrance, there's a possibility of gaining mage-tech artifacts,’ I informed Valcy with excitement. After telling her the truth, for a moment, I thought I saw her disappointed face, but she gave me a smile.
"That's great," she said. Maybe I was just seeing things, I thought.
"But that’s not the location of the legacy; it’s just the monument. It says that 'only by finding the friend of nomes may you find the entrance,'" I informed Valcy.
"What do they mean by 'friend of nomes'?" she inquired, sounding perplexed.
"I don’t know either. Do you have any guesses?" I replied, equally perplexed.
My first guesses were races that were close to the nomist race before the war or at least friendly to them. But I quickly dismissed that notion because during the War of God and Mortals, anyone who had offered refuge to nomes was also hunted relentlessly by the deity's armies. At the end of the war, all the races that had once looked up to the nomes or were friends with them had betrayed them for their own survival.
Even if some races knew the location of the legacy, what’s stopping them from looting the legacies for themselves? Mage-tech weapons are powerful artifacts that even deities fear. If one is discovered now, many kingdoms will go to war over it.
‘Looks like the monument was only discovered recently. In this world without the internet, the news was spreading very slowly. But I'm certain that very soon more mercenaries from other kingdoms will gather here,’ I mused to myself.
"I can’t think of anyone who would have wanted to be friends with the nomes during the war," she replied, sounding baffled. It seemed she had come to the same conclusion as I had.
After brainstorming in frustration for a while, a revelation finally struck me.
“Knowledge and progress had always been a friend to the nomes when the world betrayed them,” I explained to Valcy in an excited tone. She still looked confused by my sentence, so I had to complete my explanation.
“We need to look for the primordial God of Knowledge constellation. The legacy is in that direction. It won't be far from here. The nomes followed a custom to cremate their dead six miles away from their homes,” I explained.
To be clear, she asked me, “Okay, do you mean the Wisdom constellation?”
“Yes, the Wisdom constellation,” I confirmed. I knew different continents and races had different literature, even for the elves, one of the ancient races. Most of the humans' literature were copies or alterations of elf scholars' works.
“So, do you know which direction it is?” I asked her. I knew she would remember all the constellations because she loved to gaze at the skies, especially at night. But when she pointed toward the direction of the bone dragon, the S-tier monster, my smile froze. She understood the danger too.
“Gray, I think we should give up on this one. It seems very dangerous,” she tried to persuade me.
We at least need to try, and if there is an actual mage-tech artifact in there and the news spreads, there will be endless war between kingdoms. I was sure even the Arther kingdom would be embroiled in a war with the Doon kingdom, which was so close to their border. In war, the upper nobles were the ones involved, which meant my sister would be on the battlefield too, and I really didn’t want that.
“Okay, we are going to kill that undeath bone dragon a second time,” I proclaimed to Valcy.
She looked at me as if I were a dead boy walking. She wasn’t confident in my claims at all. 'Okay, this is getting embarrassing.'
“At least have faith in me a little, elder sis,” I said to her with a hurt tone. I knew it almost seemed impossible with our level and equipment, but I had a plan. But without asking about my plan, she started rambling.
“Do you understand that the undead bone dragon needs at least an A-tier holy spell to take damage, and we don’t have a holy weapon or a holy priest? Maybe if you were at least a B-tier summoner with the ability to summon angels from the holy dimension, we would have a chance,” she reprimanded me like a responsible elder.
I totally understood her worries, but she was starting to annoy me. She
was treating me like a child who didn’t understand the consequences of my words and actions. As a 25-year-old in a 15-year-old virgin body, it was really annoying for me to be reprimanded by a hot elf who was every virgin boy's dream girl.
My hormones and ego clashed often when I was with her. For example, my hormones wanted me to submit to her every whim and call her 'mommy,' but my ego as a 25-year-old man was not happy to be a spoon-fed boy. So, I was always in a dilemma whenever she showed me concern or care. Maybe old Gray had ‘lost mommy syndrome,’ I mused to myself.
“Okay, I totally understand your worries, but I have no choice but to take risks and take whatever is in those ruins before any kingdom or bad individuals with violent tendencies get there. Eventually, if that happens, I am certain that this part of the continent will devolve into war and many innocent life will be lost,” I explained to her in a serious tone.
“And it’s not like I don’t have a plan. You seem to underestimate Earth 1218 dimension a little too much. Even if Earth 1218 is a world with no magic and supernatural beings, the primates living there are like the nomist race. They have the propensity to make lethal weapons that can destroy worlds and challenge gods,” I informed her with a proud smirk on my face.
She peered into my eyes for a while, as if she was peering into my very soul for truth and lies. “Okay, you can take the lead again,” she said with a resigned sigh in her tone.
"Okay, tonight we move.
To be continue...