Chapter Six: Ruins
Paladin, Ray Starling
As we were leaving the inn, Shirley told me that lots of merchants set up shop near the ruins to sell battle items for the explorers.
And that was no lie — there were lots of simple stalls on the sides of the path leading to the place. They felt somewhat like festival food stands or small jewelry shops.
I bought all the pure light magic attack Gems I saw and walked while using them on my Black Warcoat. Doing that seemed to be clearly way more effective than normal sunlight or Purifying Silverlight.
“What are you doing?” Azurite asked. I couldn’t blame her. It was pretty weird.
“This coat is a special reward,” I answered. “One of its skills can only be used when it absorbs enough light damage.”
“You have a Prism Steed and a special reward?”
“Not just one. These bracers and boots are special rewards, too.”
“Normally, only Superior Jobs have that many. In fact, three is rare even for them...”
That reminded me that Marie, who had a Superior Job, had only two. Strange to think that I’d already surpassed her on that front.
Not that that meant I was better than her. It would be a long time before she would be below me as a fighter.
“Anyhow... light damage, you say?” Azurite continued. “I have a light-based attack skill called ‘Laser Blade.’ Should I try feeding it to your coat?”
“I’ll pass,” I replied. “That probably deals physical damage, too.”
For all I knew, it might even be capable of damaging my coat. Not to mention that its name made it sound like a sure-kill attack.
Talking about this and that, we walked on a freshly-made footpath leading up to the mountain, and it didn’t take long until we saw the entrance to the ruins, surrounded by lots of armed people, Master and tian alike.
I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen Tom in the inn this morning. He wasn’t among these people, either, so I could only assume that he was already inside.
“So... we’re finally here,” said Azurite.
“Yeah,” I nodded.
Her mask did nothing to hide the fact that she was absurdly tense about this. Although a part of me felt like she was overburdened, rather than just tense.
It would make sense, too. Yesterday, she’d told me she felt like the very fate of the kingdom depended on this investigation.
I might have to keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t do anything rash, like her attack on me yesterday, I thought.
“Let’s go inside, you two,” she said before walking ahead.
“Yeah,” Nemesis and I replied and walked after her.
The entrance to the ruins was entirely dirt at first, but halfway in, it became covered by a strange, glossy metal.
However, some people were using tools and attack skills to remove it, which made me assume that they were responsible for the dirt walls leading to this point. The entrance must’ve been metallic, too, at first.
Well, I can totally understand taking this metal. It’s probably a good material, I thought. But shouldn’t places like this be preserved?
“Whatever is most important here has to be deeper in. Let’s move on ahead,” said Azurite, as she threw a glance at the wall-breakers.
The hallway was completely devoid of monsters, but the burns and bullet holes in the walls told me that it hadn’t been like that at the start.
These ruins weren’t a created dungeon, so monsters would never spawn here for no reason. The monsters in this part of the ruins had clearly been beaten over the course of the three days since their discovery.
And so, following an uneventful walk through the hallway, we arrived at a larger space.
It was about the size of a high school gym. The floor and ceiling were metal, too, but the design seemed to be different than the hallway’s. At the very least, the metal didn’t look like it would be as easy to remove.
“Perhaps this is where these ruins truly begin,” said Nemesis.
“Perhaps. This place even has that,” I replied as I pointed at the large crystal at the center.
A few of the Masters that were already here were looking at it, touching it, or opening their menus around it.
That had to be the crystal I’d heard about — the one that let people switch to Prism Rider. I’d interacted with a similar one back in a church where I’d become a Paladin.
A while had passed since then, so it was best to refresh myself on how these things worked. I took a few minutes to do so.
These large crystals were the reason why certain jobs were limited to certain areas of the world.
You could switch between jobs you’d already acquired at any save point or by using a small, consumable Job Crystal. However, getting a new job required more than just fulfilling the job’s conditions — you also had to touch the appropriate large crystal.
That was why Xunyu’s Master Jiangshi job could only be acquired in Huang He, while Miss Aberration’s High Priestess job could only be acquired here in the kingdom.
Speaking of Miss Aberration and job switching, there was a little something regarding that.
All the crystals for priest grouping jobs were within churches.
Or, rather, churches had been built around those crystals.
Naturally, those priest grouping crystals were limited, and that was the reason why Miss Aberration, instead of building her own churches, had tried to acquire the ones owned by the state religion.
After all, churches built in random places were little more than empty boxes.
Because of her slimy dealings, she now owned quite a large number of such facilities.
...Too many, actually.
At this rate, she would monopolize the priest grouping, and then make it a rule that anyone who wanted to take those jobs would have to join her cult.
Since Infinite Dendrogram had healing magic, the church were both a religious and a medical group, meaning that Miss Aberration was doing the equivalent of putting every hospital in Japan under her cult’s control.
No country or person who knew how bad cults could be could tolerate something like this.
However, despite Miss Aberration’s obvious efforts to drive them out, the state church didn’t seem to be all that bothered by this. In fact, they welcomed it.
This was because their doctrine could basically be summarized as “Use priest grouping skills to heal the ill.”
Thus, they gladly let The Lunar Society take their churches and crystals, saying things like, “There is no problem as long as we get more Priests,” “We lost a few churches, but this allows us to dedicate more workers to other medical facilities and orphanages. A lot of us were lost to Gloria, you see,” and “Let us do our best for the sake of the people, together.”
Basically, they were good to a fault — too clean to deal with this appropriately. And this despite the fact that they would be the ones most hurt by Miss Aberration’s scheming.
I mentioned all that to Azurite. “The higher-ups in the capital must feel really uncomfortable about this.”
“Oh, they are...” sighed Azurite with an odd degree of certainty. She seemed to be connected to the country’s leadership, so she might’ve experienced that firsthand. From what I could tell, the person she worked for was really troubled by Miss Aberration’s machinations.
“All right, then...” I muttered, as I touched the large crystal.
I got a list of jobs I could switch to, and instantly found Prism Rider.
Before choosing it, I looked at the other options.
There were Mechanic, Engineer, Pilot... a bunch of really “Dryfe-like” jobs.
Forget whatever’s deeper in — this crystal by itself may have a great impact on the war, I thought.
“But the kingdom doesn’t have the foundation to make good use of these jobs, right?” Nemesis commented.
“Oh, that’s true.”
Mechanical knowledge wasn’t something you could gain overnight. The kingdom would need a lot of research to reach the technological level of Dryfe.
“Well, whether they even want to do that is up to the kingdom,” I said as I resumed doing what I’d come here to do.
Touching the large crystal again displayed a menu of jobs I could switch to. Without any hesitation, I picked Prism Rider and initiated the process.
There was no sound or fireworks or anything — the main job in my stat summary just changed to Prism Rider, and that was it.
Becoming a Paladin, a high rank job, I remembered there having been some light, so this felt a bit underwhelming.
Shu and Marie told me that the switch to Superior Jobs is really flashy... I wonder if I’ll ever get to see it.
Suddenly, I got a message saying, “Switching your main job has rendered some of your skills unusable.”
Oh, right. Certain jobs couldn’t use skills that were from groupings too distant in nature.
I looked at my skills to figure out which skills I’d lost.
Naturally, Horse Riding was still there.
Paladin’s Aegis and Purifying Silverlight were available, too. They were Paladin skills, and I could only guess they had stayed because Paladin had elements from the rider grouping.
The only skill that was now unusable was the healing spell.
I had been able to learn it as a Paladin because that job was partially in the priest grouping, but switching to Prism Rider had severed that link.
Oh well... I’d been questioning my healing magic’s usefulness, anyway. The amount it restored wasn’t too great. Instead of moping over that, I would just be thankful that I still had Aegis and Silverlight.
“Though you might need to start keeping a keener eye on your healing item stocks,” commented Nemesis.
“True,” I nodded.
Losing that skill made me wonder if I’d gained any new ones, but when I checked, I found nothing.
I guess I’ll need to level up, just like with Paladin.
“Are you finished?” asked Azurite.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “That’s my objective done. Now I can focus on helping you.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Anyway, where do we go now? There are four paths we can take here.”
Three, if you ignored the one we’d come through.
“According to the information I was given, the path leading deeper underground is beyond that door,” Azurite said, as she pointed to one of the paths.
There was an automatic door there, and many people, tian and Master alike, were walking through it.
From what I could tell, the hallway beyond it was at least five meters high, and it was fittingly wide, too.
“You’ll fit there just fine, Silver,” I said as I took my trusty steed out of my inventory and jumped on him.
This was my first time riding him as a Prism Rider, but nothing seemed different from before.
“It might be related to some Prism Rider skill, so I’ll ride Silver, if you don’t mind,” I said.
“I have nothing against that, but...” Azurite muttered.
Hm? But what?
“If you don’t have anything against it... could you let me ride him later?” she asked. “I’ve always wanted to ride an original, but my mentor only let me ride his during special occasions.”
Well, Langley Grandria’s Gold Thunder was a national treasure, after all. It’s not something they can put up for rent, I thought. There might’ve been other reasons, but still.
“Why not just sit behind me?” I asked. “You’ll have to get off when we run into monsters, but it should all be fine until then.”
“Can I really?”
“Yeah.”
I can’t imagine why you couldn’t, honestly.
“What of me?” asked Nemesis. “Should I sit before you?”
Oh, right, it’s about Nemesis.
“Well, either that or you go into weapon form.”
“Mm-hm. Very well. This is a dungeon, and you can never be sure what will come for you, so I will go for the halberd for now. There might be nasty debuffs waiting for us.”
And so, she became The Flag Halberd.
Figuring she had a good point, I put on the Black Warcoat’s hood to prepare for any ambushes.
“Excuse me,” said Azurite, as she sat behind me.
It suddenly hit me that Silver was carrying two people and a pretty hefty weapon. The combined weight had to be pretty big, but it didn’t seem like much for a Prism Steed. We went deeper in without any trouble at all.
“Just what I expected of a Prism Steed!” exclaimed Azurite. “We will reach the inner parts of these ruins in no time!”
“Yep!”
Careful not to trample over the people surprised by Silver, we made our way deeper in.
In unrelated (?) news, later in the day, a strange rumor was born. People said they saw an unnerving creature holding a dark flag, as well as a shady-looking masked woman, both of whom were riding a silver horse...
Thirty minutes on horseback later, we were in so deep that there was literally no one nearby.
Still, I kept Silver galloping slowly enough to not crash into any people that might jump out at us.
“What are we gonna do when we’re there, anyway?” I asked Azurite.
“First and foremost, we will investigate the technology kept in these ruins,” she replied.
“You said that you can never tell what these ruins contain, right?”
“Yes. Also, there are two types of ruins — storehouses and factories.”
“Oh?”
“Storehouses are full of items left behind by the pre-ancient civilization,” she explained. “But there is no equipment to produce more of them, so you never gain much technology from them. You can salvage parts of it from the items, but it’s still very little. Factories, on the other hand, are places that actually make the items. If the equipment isn’t broken, you can use it for production right away, and even if it is broken, you can still look into how the items were made.”
I see, I thought. Storehouses are like huge treasure piles, but factories are way more useful to countries.
“What do you think about these ruins?” she asked. “Is it a factory or a storehouse? I don’t mind if you aren’t too certain.”
“A factory,” I replied with confidence. “Yesterday, Dr. Mario was asked to examine stuff like artificial diamonds and metal plates — things that were more like materials than products. I think it’s likely that this is a factory where they were making items using those and other things.”
“But that’s not quite enough to discard the possibility that this is a storehouse, is it?”
“Yeah. And that’s where the large crystal comes in.”
She nodded. “Fair point.”
It was just like the matter of Miss Aberration and the state religion’s shared monopoly over the priest grouping crystals.
Looking at it from that angle, it was safe to assume that the crystal here was secured so that the workers here could have easy access to jobs like Engineer and Mechanic.
Or, rather, this whole factory had been built around that crystal.
“I saw no corrosion on any of the walls here,” said Nemesis. “If this is a factory, the equipment must be intact, as well.”
“True,” Azurite nodded. “That is likely.”
The idea that a factory could still be running after two millennia spoke volumes about the technological prowess of the pre-ancient civilization.
Thinking about that made me wonder how a culture so advanced had collapsed in the first place.
Hugo had told me that it was destroyed by a god and his thirteen servants, while B3 told me something about another ancient civilization that had collapsed at about the same time.
I couldn’t help but wonder about that.
“I’ll have to ask Dr. Mario,” I muttered.
An archeologist like him is bound to know something about that... hm?
“Ah!” I gasped as I saw a light coming from further ahead in the hallway.
In a haste, I moved my Black Warcoat to hide my face with it, and a second later, I felt it absorb something.
“Ray!” Azurite exclaimed.
“I’m all right! But there’s something up ahead!”
Soon enough, the monsters that were out of sight came into vision.
There were two of them, and they were much like the construct that had attacked Shirley yesterday.
That extended to having names that didn’t suit them at all — Goblin Warrior and Pashi Rabbit.
One of them was wielding firearms similar to yesterday’s Teal Wolf (?)’s, but the other one had a design focused around the energy pipe it had for a head.
“That’s the thing that fired the beam!” I exclaimed as I made Silver accelerate towards them, figuring that being too far away from them was a bad idea.
The one with the firearms responded by attacking us with bullets and shells, but I avoided them by making Silver gallop across the wall.
The one with the beam gun aimed at us and fired again, but just like the previous beam, I saw it coming.
“OARGH!” I roared as I made my Black Warcoat dance and block the beam.
Soon enough, I was right next to them. Not wasting any time, I howled, “Vengeance is Mine!” and destroyed the head of the beam model (Goblin Warrior).
As I did that, Azurite used what looked like the skill she’d talked about, Laser Blade, to split the firearm model (Pashi Rabbit) in half.
The two monsters stopped moving, released particles of light, then ceased all function.
“Phew...” I sighed in relief. That battle had been really sudden, and I was glad it’d gone so smoothly.
“The first attack you received here was a laser straight to the face,” commented Nemesis. “How gruesome.”
Yeah. If I hadn’t had Monochrome, I’d have probably lost my head, I thought in response.
It had given me some Shining Despair charge, though. A silver lining.
I asked, “You okay, Azurite? Got hit by any stray bullets?”
“No, I’m unharmed. That aside, these monsters with absurd names... I’ve heard of them from the countess.”
Azurite and I examined the two monsters we’d beaten. The names above their heads had already vanished, and the particles of light were a sure sign that the monsters were dead. However, the machine parts, though broken, were still there.
It was the same as yesterday.
“This one’s the same model as the one I saved Shirley from,” I said.
“Are you implying that the monsters from these ruins escaped outside?”
That would’ve come as no surprise. Ruins were natural dungeons, meaning that, unlike how it was with created dungeons, the monsters inside weren’t bound to them. It was entirely possible that they’d leaked out.
For all we knew, there might be ways out of here other than the main entrance, and the monsters might be capable of leaving through them. Thus, the idea of them leaving the dungeon wasn’t strange at all... unlike these things.
“I heard of this, but it’s still so odd,” muttered Azurite. “These are monsters, so why are they not disappearing?”
Azurite had the exact same question as me.
Normally, monsters became light and disappeared the moment they were defeated, and non-living creatures, such as golems, were no exception. I’d seen this happen many times with the Balloon Golem Kasumi often summoned, so that was pretty much certain.
Despite that, these mechanical monsters actually had physical remains.
And no, these weren’t drops... Based on what’d happened yesterday, it was clear that these were their actual parts, left behind despite their destruction.
I picked up a part, examined it, and just like yesterday, the only description I got was: “The remains of a mysterious machine.”
Perhaps an archeologist like Dr. Mario would know more about this? I thought.
“Let’s take these remains with us, shall we?” Azurite suggested.
I nodded in response, and we gathered the pieces and stored them away.
Ten-odd minutes had passed since our clash with those two monsters.
We were in another part of the hallway, stunned by what we were seeing.
“Looks like those two were left functioning by accident,” I muttered, as I eyed all the mechanical remains lying around.
These remains were of the same types as the two we’d encountered, but there were at least ten of each.
“The destruction on the surroundings is fresh, and the split constructs are still sparking,” said Azurite. “They were destroyed only recently.”
She wasn’t wrong there — the damage on the machines was clearly new. The damage looked pretty varied, too. Some machines had three parallel cuts on them, some had a single cut that split them apart, some had holes that looked like they were caused by arrows in them, et cetera.
It felt like the aftermath of a fight from someone in the gladiator grouping. Someone who’d used many various weapons.
There was another thing of note, here...
“These are... traps,” I noted.
There were machines poking out of the walls and the ceiling.
Most of them were gun-like in appearance, but there were also some lens-like devices that seemed as though they’d been designed to horizontally slide on the walls.
That’s the generic SF laser trap that splits people apart, isn’t it?
“It’s quite clear that these traps were triggered,” said Azurite.
“There’s nothing on the ground, though, so whoever triggered them made it through.”
A tian’s body wouldn’t disappear, and a dead Master would leave behind a set of random drops. This meant that whoever had passed this place had been unfazed by the traps and gone on ahead.
The kind of person could do that and... Hm?!
There was a sudden sound that seemed very familiar.
“Ray!” Azurite called out.
“That sounds like battle, all right,” I nodded.
“Mm-hm,” Nemesis joined. “Those echoes are coming from further in the hallway.”
The hallway took a turn about 100 meters ahead, and it sounded like someone was fighting someone up ahead.
“Let’s go check it out,” I said, as I made Silver gallop towards the source. He arrived at the corner in a flash, and we could now see what was happening beyond it.
There was a bigger space, much like the room with the large crystal. Floor, ceiling, walls... everything was covered in metal.
And there were nearly 50 mechanical, battle-ready monsters.
However, not a single one of them was looking at us.
They were shooting their guns and lasers at something moving in seemingly every direction at incredible speeds.
As I watched this dumbfounding battle...
“Grimalkin at the mercy of the waves.”
“Grimalkin at the tail of the wind.”
“Now dance, Octachrome Cat — Grimalkin.”
The moment he said that, Tom’s trademark cat, Grimalkin, jumped off his head.
The Embryo landed on all fours, then stood up on its back legs.
It didn’t end there. The cat then grew, lost its fur... and became another Tom in a blink of an eye.
That was surprising enough, but there was even more. Both the original Tom and the Tom that had been Grimalkin multiplied, and the two Toms became four.
Then the four Toms became eight.
“Grimalkin says goodbye.”
Suddenly, they all attacked the mechanical monsters.
They were too fast for me to follow with the naked eye.
I’d already seen supersonic movements from Figaro, Xunyu, and other top duel rankers. Thanks to all the mock battles I had with them, I was more or less used to such speeds.
It was pretty obvious that Tom’s job, The Lynx, was an AGI-focused job that allowed supersonic movement, and normally, I’d have been able to follow him with my gaze.
However, I couldn’t do that with eight of him.
Some were running on the floor, some dashed up the walls, others moved through the air.
All eight moved in all three dimensions, and with unparalleled precision. They even left afterimages so solid that they seemed like new clones, making it even more difficult to follow them.
One had claw-like bracers, one had a longsword, one had a bow... their weapons were varied, and it felt like there were even more of them than there actually was.
Eventually, the entire room became completely filled with Toms and their afterimages. It was as if this very space belonged to him alone.
Their ferocious, supersonic attacks quickly dealt away with the mechanical monsters.
“Monster Cat Mansion.” I unwittingly muttered his nickname.
This was the first time I’d seen him fight, and it was abundantly clear how he’d gotten that nickname. It was his immensely powerful self-cloning ability.
Of course, this wasn’t the first such ability I’d seen. Marie’s Death Shadow job gave her something in the same vein. However, that skill divided her stats between the clones. The more clones, the weaker they were.
Considering that made Grimalkin seem even more fearsome. Creating seven clones as powerful as yourself was stunning, even for an Embryo’s ultimate skill, and combining that with a speed so great that you formed solid afterimages was just insane.
Staring at the eight, I couldn’t follow them at all.
“Right, up... landed,” muttered Azurite, standing at my side.
She was moving her head as though she was looking at something... someone... specific.
“Are you still following the original Tom?” I asked.
“Yes. Only barely, though.”
That wasn’t something I’d expected from a high-rank job. Perhaps there was truth to the idea that tians were the better technical fighters, and we Masters only surpassed them because of skills and stats.
Well... there were exceptions like Shu and Figaro, but my point still stood.
“That aside, do you perhaps know Monster Cat Mansion?” she asked me.
“We’re acquainted, yeah. You too, I assume?”
“I do not know him in person, but I have heard of him, of course. He was the kingdom’s duel champion for years, after all.”
“Good point.”
Tom had been the king of the arena until Figaro had come and taken the crown, so it was only natural for tians to know of him, too.
Hold on, I thought. Figaro became top duelist when he was still in his sixth form. That was over two years ago in Dendro time, so... when, exactly, did Tom become the champion?
“Ah! Ray!” Azurite exclaimed.
“Eh?!” I brought my attention back to Tom’s battle with the monsters.
With most of the monsters destroyed, the winner here was as good as decided.
But then, a great number of gun-like objects with lenses at the muzzle protruded out of the walls.
They were the same as the sentry gun traps Tom’d destroyed in the hallway.
I didn’t know if it was because they were old, but only about half of them properly worked. However, that was more than enough.
The Toms were suddenly assaulted by a barrage of lasers, more than 100 of them. Not even supersonic speeds allowed the many clones to avoid that number of high-velocity projectiles. Both the afterimages and the actual clones alike were shot.
“They hit the original!” Azurite exclaimed.
“What?!”
Azurite pointed at one of the countless Toms.
The Tom wielding claw-like bracers was shot in the head and became particles of light... but then transformed into a fat cat, meowed, and vanished.
“Huh... eh?” Azurite was dumbfounded.
“Sure it wasn’t a clone?” I asked.
“N-No! I was certain that was the real one... huh?”
We looked back at Tom. The afterimages had vanished, and only one of them was left now.
He then became two, and a second later, the one that had been there from the start was turned into swiss cheese by a barrage of lasers.
However, despite seemingly being the original, he became a cat, meowed, and vanished.
Then the Tom that was seemingly a clone began multiplying again.
And so, the Toms were eight once more. They started moving at supersonic speeds again, creating afterimages and making short work of the sentry guns.
“What is that?” Azurite exclaimed, utterly flabbergasted by what she was seeing.
I, on the other hand, now understood the true nature of Tom’s ultimate skill.
It didn’t create “clones,” oh no.
It created new “originals.”
From what I could tell, they all shared a single consciousness, but when the “original” housing the consciousness was beaten, it would move to another “original.” Thus, the supposed “original” would become a “clone.”
That ultimate skill couldn’t be countered unless you defeated all eight Toms quickly enough to prevent the remaining ones from multiplying.
This was the power of Grimalkin, the Embryo of the previous duel champion.
“You didn’t know about this, either?” I asked Azurite.
“I only knew that he could create clones... I never saw any of his duels.”
I see. I never saw him fight, either, so I’m pretty shaken right now.
“Few Embryos give their Master as much survivability as this one does,” commented Nemesis.
Yeah.
This also gave me a decent idea of how Figaro had won against him.
At first, he’d focused entirely on defense, bearing Tom’s onslaught until his battle length-proportionate enhancement had given him the power he needed to defeat the Toms before they could multiply again.
And then there was Kashimiya — the third in the rankings. Juliet had told me that he couldn’t beat Tom because of compatibility issues, which probably meant that he had no way to stop him from multiplying again.
And that was exactly why I had no chance against him, either.
“Strange to think that he isn’t a Superior,” I muttered.
I felt Nemesis nod in response and continued to watch Tom clear the room.
Once the room was completely emptied, Tom noticed us, waved, and walked over.
“If it isn’t Ray and... a masked lady I don’t know. Hellooo,” he greeted us.
“Meoww,” Grimalkin joined him. Despite having disappeared many times during the fight, he was back on Tom’s head as though nothing had happened.
“Good job handling them,” I said. “That was an amazing battle.”
“Well, there were lots of them. I had to give it all I haaad!” Tom replied before bending forwards a bit and sighing. “I’m realllly tired...”
I had no doubt that he was telling the truth, but the way he was bending made it look like he was weighed down by the cat.
“I’ll leave today’s exploration at that and go back to the inn,” he said. “Ah, it’s safe to explore the room now. There should be no more traps.”
“Eh? Thank you,” I said, slightly confused.
“Thank you,” Azurite joined in. “But shouldn’t you be exploring this place, as well?”
I could see why she was asking that. All Tom had done here was take care of the monsters and traps. He hadn’t looked around for any magic items or anything like that. In fact, he wasn’t even retrieving the remains of the monsters he’d beaten.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I don’t need any of thaaat stuff. Do what you want with it.”
“Meoww.”
With those words as his last, Tom casually waved his hand and walked away.
The moment he went behind the corner in the hallway, Nemesis muttered, “What was his purpose here, I wonder...?”
I was curious about that, too, but my top priority right now was the investigation.
We got off of Silver and started exploring the room. Nemesis went back to her human form.
All the machine remains here made it a pain to get around, but this place was much like the room with the crystal.
The most notable feature here was the large painting on one of the sides of the room. Although, it looked less like it was painted and more like it was burnt into the wall.
That painting displayed countless people clashing with a horde of beasts, then another horde of beasts howling atop a place that looked like a castle.
There was some writing under it, but unlike the text you’d find on signs and the like, it wasn’t getting auto-translated.
It seems pretty important, though, I thought.
“Can you read this?” I asked Azurite.
“I can’t.”
If a tian like her couldn’t read it, it meant that this wasn’t written in Infinite Dendrogram’s common, but some language they’d used in the pre-ancient civilization.
In that case, all we could do was show it to Dr. Mario.
“Do you have a camera?” I asked. “Polaroid or digital cams would be the best for this.”
“I don’t know what ‘Polaroid’ and ‘digital cams’ are, but I have a magic camera that instantly develops the picture,” she said, as she reached into her inventory and took out an object much like a polaroid camera.
Well, she sure came prepared. It’s clear she’s taking this investigation seriously.
Azurite took a number of pictures and gave me one displaying everything on the wall, including a close-up of the unreadable text.
“You’ll be showing this to the archeologist, I assume?” she asked.
“Yeah. Is that bad?”
“It isn’t... but I will want to hear the translation, as well.”
“Of course,” I nodded as I took the photos.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that Dr. Mario was making Azurite uncomfortable. Yesterday, she’d said that it was strange for an archeologist to be in the area this early. However, he was the only archeologist we had access to, so we had to rely on him if we wanted to know about this text.
“You don’t trust Dr. Mario?” I asked her.
“This is not about trust. I’m merely uncomfortable about involving outsiders. If it was possible, I would make this investigation more confidential... but the kingdom currently has next to no people who know archeology.”
“Really?”
“Yes. My teacher, the Arch Sage, was well-versed in many things, archeology included, but he passed away in the war. His apprentices, too, were lost either in the war or during Gloria’s attack.”
“Ohh...”
According to Liliana, the knight orders had suffered severely in the war, and it looked like the other major groups of the kingdom were no different.
“These ruins are far larger than I anticipated, and there’s a lot of specialized language that’s a challenge to analyze,” said Azurite. “We need outside help to find out what this factory produces.”
“What?” I raised an eyebrow. “But we already know what they make here.”
“...Eh?”
Azurite looked surprised, but it seemed plain to me that we already had enough info to make an educated guess about the nature of this place.
Yesterday, someone had brought Dr. Mario a metal plate as tough as a magic item and an artificial diamond used for lasers.
Additionally, despite presumably protecting this place for two millennia, the machine monsters were functioning without any problems to speak of.
About half of the sentry guns here weren’t working, so it was odd that the monsters we’d fought had been running so smoothly.
Which led me to believe that this place was...
“It’s producing mechanical monsters,” I said. “These ruins are basically a weapon factory.”
What we’d defeated weren’t guards from millennia ago, but newly-produced machines.
“A weapon factory,” Azurite muttered as she put her hand on her forehead and began thinking.
If used well, a weapon factory would surely be a powerful asset to the kingdom. Nothing would increase the country’s military strength as greatly as that.
However, there was a problem...
“Ray,” she spoke up. “Assuming this place is what you say it is and these machines are the products... there’s still one major question that remains unanswered.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
I knew exactly what she was getting at. It was the most notable thing about these mechanical monsters.
“That doesn’t explain why they have unrelated names like ‘Teal Wolf’ and ‘Goblin Warrior,’ right?” I asked.
“Exactly.”
Normally, monsters had their names displayed above their heads. Golems and the like were no exception.
However, these monsters here were different. There were only two models, but the names above their heads were many, varied, seemingly random, and had little to do with machines.
The only explanation I had for this was the idea that producing these machines required using other monsters as material.
The fact that fur had been sticking out of the machine I’d destroyed in the forest made it likely, but...
“Monsters that are produced like that always end up having names different than their material,” said Nemesis.
“Yeah, exactly.”
Franklin’s creations were a good example of that.
The base monsters had different names than the resulting ones. If this really was a factory that made mechanical monsters from other monsters, there was no reason for the names to stay the same. In fact, I would expect the two models to have their own names, which would be uniform across all units.
Not to mention that, unlike these machines, produced monsters would become light and vanish just like any other monster.
What the hell is this?
“I must say,” Nemesis spoke up, “these look much like Hugo’s Magingear.”
“Well, it was made by the lab coat bastard’s clan, but the tech was still Dryfe’s, and since Dryfe’s tech is based around analyzing the pre-ancient civilization’s tech, there’s a link there, so... ah!”
A sudden realization made me cut my words short.
Magingears.
Pre-ancient civilization tech.
Silver and replicas.
Reactors and a lack of them.
This factory and the mechanical monsters.
Those keywords came to mind, and everything slotted into place.
The conclusion I came to made me cover my mouth.
“Ray? What’s wrong?” asked Nemesis.
“You don’t look well,” commented Azurite.
So it shows on my face, huh? Of course it does. The conclusion I came to is just that bad.
I hadn’t felt this way since entering the basement in Gouz-Maise Gang’s hideout.
...Disgusting.
“What did you realize?” asked Nemesis.
“These aren’t monsters at all,” I replied.
My words made her and Azurite tilt their heads in confusion.
Ignoring that, I continued speaking the truth of these ruins. “These things... all the scrap here... is special equipment.”
“Eh?” Azurite muttered as she looked at the only functioning piece of special equipment in this room: Silver.
Nemesis closed her eyes. She was probably thinking about Magingears.
“But what about the names above their heads?” Azurite asked.
“They disappeared because the monsters equipping them died. All that’s left here is the equipment. There’s nothing more to it.”
“So, we were attacked by armed monsters?”
“No. If that was the case, completely different species like Goblin Warriors and Pashi Rabbits would never cooperate. Hell, Tom fought fifty-odd machines in this room. Did you see any infighting between them?”
“...No.”
Exactly.
“Their cooperation when fighting Tom was flawless, like they were commanded by a single will.”
That was the keyword here — “command.” The monsters inside meant nothing.
“Ray, you don’t mean that...” Nemesis muttered and looked at the remains with an astonished expression.
And so, I spoke what they really were: “These things are special equipment that take control of the user.”
“?!” Azurite gasped in shock.
I was fully confident I was right.
Not every piece of equipment was good for the user.
The Cursed Bloody Regeneration Armor that I’d uncursed and used before Monochrome’s destroying it was a prime example of that.
“This is cursed special equipment... no... they were designed to be like this,” I muttered.
“Wait. Ray, hold on!” Azurite raised her voice, still unable to fully process what I’d just told her. “Why would anyone make special equipment like that?”
“My Silver is an original Prism Steed,” I said. “He has an engine that produces all the MP he needs to gallop around, so he doesn’t have to drain my MP.”
Based on what Hugo had told me, the pre-ancient civilization’s machines made their own MP. Though Silver was an unofficial prototype or an experimental unit, he still had the engine for it. However, the same couldn’t be said for the replica Prism Steeds.
“Replicas, by contrast, function by using the MP of those riding them. This is probably because of cost. They couldn’t fit all the mass-produced units with the MP engines.”
Original Prism Steeds were amazing pieces of equipment, after all. If the creators could have, they surely would’ve made more than just five of them, and we’d have more of them in the world today. However, most of the ones around were replicas.
“So what about these, then?” I asked.
“...!” Azurite gasped again.
“We’ve seen dozens of them so far, and they are now scrap on the floor. Do you think they’re luxury units with engines, or your common mass-produced models?”
She was dead silent.
“It’s pretty obvious that it’s the latter. And that’s why they need fuel... living creatures.”
They were clearly great war machines. Not every unit had to be as luxurious as an original Prism Steed. Sometimes quantity produced way greater results than quality.
The fact they could function just fine after taking in weak monsters like Pashi Rabbits and Teal Wolves showed they also had good MP efficiency, as well.
The equipment took something that couldn’t be used in battle and turned it into something useful, and there was no arguing that it made them into excellent weapons.
I’m gonna be sick.
“Yesterday, when I ran into the first one of these, it was assaulting Shirley,” I said. “However, it didn’t try to kill her.”
It’d fired at me the moment it saw me, but it had treated Shirley differently. It’d attacked the Master, but not the tian.
“It was planning to take her back alive.”
“Wait... are you saying that...?!” Azurite raised her voice, the panic in her tone all too apparent.
I nodded and spoke the answer that made me so nauseous.
“To these things, even people are just fuel.”
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