Chapter 32
The First King's Hundred Years Ploy
Akira's party walked in cautiously, eyes and ears at ready. They looked up, left and right. Trying to find any signs of the Hunter Slayer. Akira turned on his ‘cheat’ with a wary expression. As he did so, he could feel his Mana depleting. A drawback of passive usage of his ‘cheat’ was that it depleted once for every second. With his current level, he could only maintain it for 10 minutes. That was why he brought a number of Mana Potions in his Item Ring. Sadly Mana Potions are very expensive and he could only buy 5.
The chamber was large, with a row of massive pillars rising to the ceiling. Unlike the walls outside that were carved from natural rock and had a slight glow to them, here the walls were made of normal bricks. There were dark spots on the floor with signs of mold.
A natural light shone from a broken window at the side, directed at the feet of a giant statue sitting on a stone throne. Though age had laid its hands on the finely carved body, it was apparent that it used to look majestic. A large tree had taken root on its body, green tendrils of it running down from the right shoulder down to its chest.
“The First King,” Hannah exclaimed in reverence the moment she saw it. She recognized that face. She had seen in countless times in the castle courtyard. A large, stout man in armor with a heroic face. Square jaws and prideful eyes that seemed ethereal. On its left hand was a massive stone sword. Dirt had accumulated on its chipped edges.
“That’s weird. Where’s the Boss?” Akira wondered. He did not sheathe his sword in anticipation for a surprise attack.
“Look!” Jack pointed at the pile of treasure between the statue’s legs. Gold and jewels and precious stones was piled up to surround a single ornate sword with a strong presence. Even from afar, they could feel its majesty.
“I-is that it?” Eleanora said nervously. “I sense magic coming from it.”
Akira’s heart jumped and he quickly walked towards the sword with excitement.
“Finally! We found it!”
“Wait!” Jack, who was still thinking of how to approach the seemingly harmless thing shouted in alarm.
“Relax. My ‘cheat’, True Clairvoyance did not sense anything.”
He walked towards the sword and gripped the hilt gingerly. He tried to pull it, but the sword was really stuck in there.
“Strengthen!” He said out loud and a red light enveloped him. With the added power boost he managed to pull the sword out.
But as soon as he pulled out the sword from the mount, his True Clairvoyance activated and Akira saw the image of a giant stone sword descending onto him. When he returned to his senses, Akira saw the giant raising his sword and quickly rolled away to evade the oncoming death.
The rest of the party was surprised by the sudden movement. Jack did not expect the sword to be so long, and it was coming so fast that he had no chance to react. All he could do was stand there and cursed.
“Shit.”
The end of the sword came down right on top of Jack and the thief was flattened into meat paste.
“JAAACK!!”
Akira shouted in despair as the giant statue began to move.
“No! How can this be?! How did my True Clairvoyance did not see his death?!”
They then realized what the black spots and the dark colors on the stone sword represented. They were remnants of the tenderized flesh of unlucky victims of the vicious golem.
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Outside, the 4 people were happily oblivious to the death battle inside the door.
“Slayer of Hunters,” Nick spat. “Scary name. Scarier still, the monster attached to that name.”
“An Ancient Stone Golem?!” Illumca repeated the name in disbelief.
“What is that?” Connie asked. She was familiar with golems, but she had never seen one in this world. “Is it strong?”
“Not just strong. It shouldn’t even be in this region,” Illumca said with suspicion. “In some places in the elves’ dominion, it is used to protect the cities from invaders. A single golem could break through even the strongest barrier. Normal golems are no match for it. Legends say that an Ancient Stone Golem created by Gultha Ed Nahar from the North Continent once toppled a kingdom all by itself.”
“The Hunter Slayer…without knowing what it really is, most people will have a hope of defeating it. After all, if you died to the boss, people will think that they are too weak. But once they know what the Hunter Slayer really is, the meaning changed,” Connie said, impressed.
“But what does not make sense is how it came to be here,” the dark elf bit her lips in wonderment.
“Unless,” Martell’s words trailed off. “Unless someone deliberately brought it here.”
“What do you know, the kid is smarter than the elf. That’s exactly what the First King did. Now hush.” Nick said. He seemed to have found what he was looking for and tapped gently on the wall. A dim runic circle appeared on the surface of the wall that had been hidden by the rubble.
Nick touched the rune and sang softly. “Smile, though your heart is aching.”
The rune began to shine, reacting to the melody, then vanished. Revealing a hidden passage.
“What was that melody?” Martell asked. “It sounded sad.”
“They said the First King was an otherworlder. People say he was a very good king. But judging from the password he chose, he was not a happy man.”
“He gave the location to only one family, manipulated a dungeon for hundreds of years, including the lives of hunters and the kingdom’s royalty,” Illumca could not help but feel a certain feeling of camaraderie with that kind of malice. “That was not simple unhappiness.”
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“The First King’s trap is devious. Devious indeed,” Connie nodded with an awed expression. The audacity, the hatred. These kinds of malicious traps that last for hundreds of years over many generations would not be thought up unless the King really hated the kingdom that he created. To go so far as to create such an elaborate trap.
“Alabaster Atrium is a facade. That fact has been forgotten after more than a hundred years, even by the Hunter’s Guild who found it. There are no riches or treasures in the deepest part. Only Grunford.”
The First King. What is it that caused you to hate your own kingdom?
Nick lit another torch and gave it to Illumca to hold before leading them down through a series of winding stairs that went on and on downwards. The path was narrow and long without end, as if they were walking through the insides of a giant snake and the walls were its innards.
The only sound that they could heard was the occasional drip of water that made the cave moist and the sound of their footwear. A series of clanks, clicks, and taps.
Illumca began to feel unsettled from the eerie silence and felt nauseous. The narrow dark path reminded her of the long years of confinement.
She grasped out and found the tip of Connie’s sleeves and held on. Only then did she feel a bit better.
Connie, feeling bored began to play with her newly acquired Item Ring.
From the outward look of the ring, it was not that different with a regular one. It was made of shining white metal with a cube shaped ornament surrounded by intelligible glyphs.
“How do I use it?” she slightly regretted not asking how to use the thing from Hannah. She was pretty but was blinded by her own sense of honor.
“Any of you know how to use an Item Ring?”
“Do you think I’d still be lugging around my armor if I have one?”
“I know how!” Martell said out loud. “You just touch the cube in the middle and say ‘Open Storage’. A screen will appear with the items. Touch one of them and it will appear from inside the screen. I learnt that from one of my past masters. He was very fond of buying unique Item Rings.”
Connie touched the cube gingerly and said. “Open Storage.”
Then a white screen appeared, floating slightly above the ring. On it was the picture of items placed inside some rectangles.
“Oh, so that’s how it works. I see…so this is an item screen,” This was the first time Connie had ever seen a screen. It was a very novel experience.
She touched the picture of a skirt. Then from the screen, out came the skirt. She then placed the skirt back to the screen and it vanished inside. A picture of the skirt once again appeared on it.
“Ah, how convenient.”
By the time she finished playing with the new toy, they had already reached the bottom of the stairs. It was a dead end.
Nick used the torch on his hand to light two sconces made to the shape of wyverns.
With the sconces lit, a line of flame began to run from the wyverns towards the wall and formed a similar runic circle with the one before.
“Smile even though it’s breaking.”
Once he said those words, the sigil dimmed, and the wall’s bricks shifted and turned to reveal an entrance to a massive chamber.
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Akira’s party was in a desperate struggle as the Ancient Stone Golem Golem fought with abandon.
Initially the other fell into despair the moment they saw Jack’s miserable death and the giant golem that killed him. But with Akira’s leadership, they managed to pick up and assumed battle formation.
Akira looked worse for wear as he chugged a bottle of mana potion to maintain his True Clairvoyance. Hannah dodged with a lithe movement as she attacked its core at the chest while Kaihaku drew its attention with his powerful attacks. All the while, Sidonai kept up the Strength, Speed, Focus, and Magic Buffs expertly. Moving this way and that so as not to get caught up in the attacks.
Even with that teamwork, their strength was not enough to break the solid rock that formed its body. Thankfully Eleanora told them that like any golem, an Ancient Stone Golem had a core crystal in its body and all they should do to defeat it was to destroy it.
Eleanora stood at the back while conjuring a spell. “By the Grace of Udurr, I summon the fire of judgement to burn my enemies!! Pillar of Flame!”
A large pillar of fire appeared from under the Golem and burned it. The tree roots that grew on its body burned and revealed a blue colored core crystal.
“That’s it! Focus your attacks on it! I’ll draw its attention!”
The giant sword was not sharp, but it was extremely and heavy and was enough to kill any one of them in one hit. Using his ‘cheat’, Akira evaded all of its attacks easily. However, each attack was heavy and deadly so he could not lose his focus.
While Akira did his job, Hannah focused all her power into a powerful thrust while jumping up. An orthodox Calendia Spear Skill. The edge of her spear glowed green as she yelled out. “Armorpiercer!!”
A yellow stream of energy pierced the core, but it only made a small crack.
Kaihaku followed suit by using another skill. “Dragon Rising to the Sky!”
He spun his quarterstaff and slammed the edge against the core, releasing an image of a fierce dragon biting into it, cracking the core even further.
The golem staggered back and the core began to dim.
Not losing this chance, Akira used Shield Bash empowered with True Focus, giving him twice the strength, against the Golem’s leg. The damage was enough to cause it to fall on its back.
“Eleanora!” Hannah yelled out.
The mage finished her conjuring and shouted. “I summon thee, the lightning of heaven, the Spear of Mydirr the Blind! Lightning Spear!”
A spear made of lightning formed atop the golem and strike at the core, now losing half of its form. The Golem struggled to get up but it appeared to be losing its power. Not missing a beat, Akira climbed atop its chest and used the sword that triggered the Golem and stabbed down.
Yet as the sword touched the core and broke it apart, the sword also broke in half.
Staring in disbelief at what happened to the legendary sword, Akira felt despair.
“No! This can’t be happening!” Hannah exclaimed in terror.
“Grunford…broke? How is that possible?!” Eleanora’s eye began to swim as tears of helplessness ran down her smooth cheek.
Kaihaku’s expression was intelligible as he tried to calm the younger ones down. He was not as easy to affect as them, but he could not help but be downhearted.
Sidonai, unlike the others, did not fall to hysterics and casually inspected the chair that the golem was sitting. She felt around and found something jutting out beside the armrest.
“Aha,” she grinned as she pushed down on the switch.
The bottom of the stone chair began to open up and revealed a hidden passage.
The sound caused Akira to look back. When his eyes spotted the entrance, he realized that it was all an elaborate trap. “That’s it! This must be a fake one. The real Grunford is in there!”
Without even waiting for his party, he ran inside.
“W-wait! Akira! Be careful!” Hannah followed him in.
“How did you know about t-the switch?”
“Experience, Eleanora. Experience,” Sidonai replied with a mysterious smile before vanishing into the dark passage. After that, Eleanora and Kaihaku also went into the passage with the burly man behind her to guard from ambush.
While this was happening, none took notice of the tree growing on the golem, which had begun to form a face.
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Akira ran down the stairs without stopping. Down and down he went without caring for the bruises he got as his armor brushed heavily against the walls. He saw the light at the end of the passage.
“Finally. Grunford!! My sword!!”
By now he did not care about his initial goal.
The sword itself was his goal.
When he finally got to the end of the passage, his heart sank.
In that massive chamber surrounded by pillars the height of two houses was an altar made of alabaster. Set atop a set of grand stairs that resembled ones made for the Calendia’s throne. 30 steps in all, symbolizing the age upon which the First King took his place as the founder of the Kingdoom.
With wyvern sconces burning brightly for each 5 steps on either sides and the dimly glowing walls, the place felt forbidding.
He could see the sword stabbed into the middle of the alabaster altar shaped into the likeness of 4 wyverns holding an offering. Even from the entrance he could feel the sword’s power.
And yet, all his attention fell towards the familiar small figure of the noble girl, standing with her back facing him.
The hateful girl was standing before the sword with her hands clasped behind her while the rest of her party were gathered at the base of the steps on either side, gazing at her. Much like a demon lord inspecting a prized weapon while her subjects looked on in reverence.
The atmosphere was so heavy that Akira almost lost his faculty and the curses that he wanted to let out was stuck in his throat.
It was said that the back of the powerful could speak of many things.
And right now, her back spoke of arrogance, superiority, and most of all…
Fury.