White gave way to stone as Gaius descended down a flight of steps. It had taken him a few minutes of wandering around the first floor before he located a set of stairs in a small room. On the way there, he’d noticed that the house was dust-free, another confirmation that someone had been dusting this place regularly.
“A nice house, if nothing else,” said Nexus. Looking around at the clean, white walls, Gaius couldn’t help but agree. The decorations hanging off the walls and the ceiling were small and pleasant to the eyes, even the ones that were hanging around the basement level. The basement itself was rather boring to look at — empty shelves lined the walls, with a corner of the room filled up by a stacked pile of empty boxes.
“I agree,” replied Gaius. “It’s not ostentatious and pleasant on the eyes, although, I must say that Tsurugi’s family was a bit more thorough than I thought it would. There’s nothing in their basement…and probably the same for the treasury.”
“Or so they want someone entering their house to think,” said Nexus. “Isn’t that the first reaction of many people?”
“Reverse psychology, eh?” Gaius looked at a set of double doors, where a small plaque sat at the side. “Three times a day.”
“Probably the number of times you can try inputting the passcode in,” said Nexus.
The sculpture pointed at an odd-looking box installed on the door, and the boy flipped the cover on it open to reveal a set of reels with numbers on it. Gaius looked at the box and said, “You seem rather familiar with this.”
“There’s something like it in the Library too,” replied the artificial intelligence. “I’ll bring you there if we ever need something from inside one day.”
“I’ve heard that before…”
“Anyway,” said Nexus, “do you have any idea what the passcode was?”
“Tsurugi was sending me some numbers with his fingers before he left. I wasn’t too sure about what he meant, but I think I do now,” said Gaius. “Of course, now that I knew that artefacts able to listen into our conversations were installed right under our feet, I can see why he did that.”
He reached out for the reels, and adjusted the numbers on them, before pulling a lever at the side. Machinery hummed, creating clanking sounds that weakened as the doors swung open. A faint glow entered Gaius’ eyes as the reels on the lock changed back to four zeroes all over again.
“Shiny.”
“Got it right, didn’t I?” Nexus patted itself on the back with a soft squeak. “Why else would they move things out from the basement if the things outside didn’t seem all that important in the first place?”
“Good job. You know, you seem more human than the best of us at times,” said Gaius. “Come, let’s look at what Tsurugi’s family left behind as they left Seireiden. There’s probably things we can use there.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
He stepped over a small pile of gold coins, and entered the vault. “Gold, gold…and more gold. I suppose one can never have enough money, but I wonder if there’s anything else here.”
“Check underneath the pile of gold — there might be a trapdoor or something underneath,” said Nexus. “Never mind, let me do it myself.”
The sculpture leaped off Gaius’ shoulder and plunged into the pile of coins. Gold scattered as it dug through the pile, creating pleasant jingles that Gaius could never stop hearing enough of. He looked around the place, and noted the nice array of swords and maces hung at the walls.
“Found it,” said Nexus, its voice oddly distorted from being buried by a mound of coins. “There’s a trapdoor here too. As I expected.”
“So, what’s under the trapdoor of our vault?”
“The one in the Library?” asked Nexus. “Items that my previous items held dear. Most of them are items they brought over from their old world, items that they wanted to preserve due to sentimental reasons.”
“Are there any I could use?”
Nexus climbed out from the hill of gold. “Even if there were, I won’t let you use them. Their owners entrusted these items to me as proof of their existence and nothing else. Furthermore, most of them are little mementos that have little practical use whatsoever.”
“Something I can’t give to you, it seems.” Gaius tapped his foot in contemplation. “Whatever.”
“Don’t think too hard about it,” said Nexus. “Anyway, you can begin to shift the pile of gold away now. There’s around eighty to ninety thousand gold coins here, so it’d take some time.”
Gaius felt somewhat lazy at the thought of doing that. The amount of work in shifting the gold and packing them into the four corners of the vault didn’t sound particularly fun.
“I really want to put that off until tomorrow,” said Gaius, “but I’m never going to get it done if I did that.”
“Or, and hear me out, you use your qi,” said Nexus. “Why are you thinking with your muscles right now? Did you forget that you have mystical powers at your command?”
Gaius thought back to the pain he felt whenever he moved the energies in his body, and shuddered lightly. He took a deep breath, and the sea of gold coins moved away from the room’s centre to reveal a floor of grey. A small square, barely one metre in length, entered his eyes. A small handle was sticking out of it, and Gaius pulled it up to reveal a small cistern of water.
“Water?” Gaius asked. Nexus peered at the oddly shaped container and hissed lightly. The boy blinked. He didn’t know how the artificial intelligence managed to do that.
“Water from the Fountain of Life.” The sculpture took a few steps back. “And there’s more than that. There’s a lot of water inside here. Like…basement-sized. Bathing in this would be nothing short of life-changing — it’s just that much.”
Gaius whistled. “Looks like I should do that.”
“It’s not a replacement for the Crystal, however.” Nexus extended a wooden arm and scooped out a small amount of water, and drank from it. “Yes, not a replacement.”
“I’m quite sure we can do something with this…” muttered Gaius. He got up, and headed upstairs, an idea in mind.