[Translator - Peptobismal]
[Proofreader - Max]
Chapter 107
"Haaa!"
Even sturdy shields and armor were meaningless against an aura blade.
Zeke threw the shield he was holding at the charging Antonio.
Slice!
Antonio cut Zeke's shield in half.
But in the next moment, Zeke, who was right in front of him, disappeared.
'Where...?'
Before he could even finish the thought in his mind, Zeke struck Antonio's helmet with his sword.
Clang!
Since it wasn't an aura blade but a normal sword, it didn't kill him, but Antonio fainted from the impact.
Morgan gaped at Zeke, who had defeated three champions in a row.
He hadn't imagined that the knights he had sent would lose.
"N-No way..."
Zeke took off his helmet and said to Morgan in the spectator seats,
"It seems the match has been decided."
Morgan's face flushed red.
He gritted his teeth and stood up.
Then, glaring at Zeke, he said,
"Sir Zeke... You're interfering too much in matters that don't concern you."
"Indeed. If you just leave the beastmen alone, they'll live well on their own."
It was a warning not to cause conflict under the pretext of meddling with the beastmen ghetto.
Morgan, with a frown, left the border headquarters without even properly greeting Princess Melissa.
Melissa, coming down from the spectator seats, ran towards Zeke.
"Sir Zeke! Oh my god! I can't believe you defeated all the Empire's knights!"
"I was just lucky."
Melissa knew very well that it wasn't just luck, as Zeke had overwhelmed the Empire's knights with his skills.
The imperial army, which had made insulting provocations with their superior strength, was defeated and returned empty-handed, leaving the Alencia side feeling as if they had relieved themselves of a decade-long burden.
Zeke said to Melissa,
"The imperial garrison won't go back quietly. They'll try to interfere with the beastmen ghetto under some pretext."
"I don't understand why the Empire is so obsessed with that place. And hindering the treatment of Red Flower Disease as well."
"Your Highness. There's something I need to show you."
Thinking that he should inform her of the situation immediately, Zeke headed to the place where the monster's body was stored with Princess Melissa.
Liam and Felix were guarding the monster's body in the morgue located in the basement of the headquarters.
Zeke showed it to Melissa and explained what had happened in the beastmen ghetto.
"Are you saying you found traces of the monsters and the missing carriages near the ghetto?"
"Yes. Except for that monster, the bodies of the other monsters were melting and rotting away."
"Oh my god. What on earth is happening in the ghetto?"
Melissa frowned and examined the monster's body.
Just then, Melissa discovered something.
"Sir Zeke. This monster... has traces of having suffered from Red Flower Disease."
Zeke looked at the spot Melissa was pointing at.
"Are you referring to the rash marks on his face?"
"Yes. When Red Flower Disease progresses to the terminal stage, the rash becomes severe, and even if it's cured with medicine, the marks remain on the face. But this person has very severe marks."
Now that Melissa mentioned it, there were traces of rashes not only on the face but also all over the body.
"A Red Flower Disease patient turned into a monster."
Just then, something crossed Zeke's mind.
'The plague that occurred in Mycenae...'
He remembered the story of people infected with a plague similar to Red Flower Disease turning into zombies.
They were like zombies, but different.
Zeke felt that they were somehow similar to the monsters.
'Red Flower Disease, demonic energy, monsters, and those mysterious zombies. Are they all connected? Moreover, Abel has come here...'
It felt like putting together a puzzle with missing pieces.
Zeke felt the need to investigate these monsters further.
"Felix, Liam. You two stay here and protect the princess."
"Where are you going, Master?"
"I'm going to the beastmen ghetto to investigate further."
He wanted to find out if the Empire was really trying to excavate a dungeon in the beastmen ghetto.
Melissa looked at Zeke and said,
"Sir Zeke. Will you be alright alone?"
"I'm just going for a quick exploration. Don't worry too much."
He was curious about the Empire's motives, but his main purpose was to find out what Abel was trying to do here.
If he rushed here as soon as the Guardian Knight proposal was canceled, there had to be something going on.
As night fell, Zeke donned his armor, concealed his face, and headed back to the beastmen ghetto.
Although it was the beastmen ghetto, the beastmen's residential area was further inside, so they were nowhere to be seen.
'The beastmen's territory without any beastmen in sight.'
Caught in the territorial dispute between the great nations, it was the beastmen who were suffering.
The beastmen were gentle and nature-loving, but after being oppressed by humans for so long, hardliner tribes had emerged.
They fought against human knights with their hard beaks, innate bravery, and tamer abilities to control beasts and monsters.
The reason the beastmen ghetto was created was that humans, unable to deal with the powerful beastmen warriors any longer, drew a boundary line and made a pact not to invade each other's territory.
But after hundreds of years, humans were trying to invade their territory again.
Zeke, pondering these things, passed the cave where the monster had appeared and went deeper into the canyon.
Red sandstone cliffs, taller than towers, stretched out endlessly.
Zeke scanned the canyon with Dragon Eye, trying to find traces of a dungeon.
'Hmm, there's nothing here.'
If the Empire had discovered an ancient dungeon, there should have been traces of the hounds.
Zeke calmly scanned the surroundings again.
Then, he found a narrow path leading into the canyon.
Zeke used Dragon Eye to find traces of someone entering that path.
'Is it this way?'
It was a path he would have missed without Dragon Eye.
Zeke opened his map and entered the path into the canyon.
Fortunately, the path itself wasn't complicated.
After passing through the narrow path, a sandstone cliff of enormous scale appeared.
Zeke, who could see clearly in the dark thanks to Dragon Eye, discovered statues carved into the sandstone cliff.
'Oh my god. What is this?'
Dozens of giant beastmen warrior faces were carved into the canyon wall, seemingly by ancient beastmen.
Zeke was astonished by the scale.
Even in the Empire or Midland, there were no statues of this size.
'I heard that the ancient beastmen had built a civilization almost on the scale of a nation. It wasn't a lie.'
Zeke had been watching the recordings left by Kaisir in his spare time, absorbing knowledge from the Chronos Kingdom era.
And in Kaisir's records, there were quite a few stories about ancient races that were no longer known.
Kaisir described the beastmen as a race with very powerful forces, and there were even records of them greatly assisting in the founding of the Chronos Kingdom.
So if Zeke were to tell Kaisir that the beastmen were now living in a protected area without their own territory, he would never have believed it.
With a somewhat complicated feeling, Zeke passed the giant statues carved into the wall and looked for the entrance leading further inside.
As expected, the stone wall was carved to resemble a giant entrance.
It looked like a temple built by ancient beastmen.
Zeke, cautiously observing his surroundings, used the Stealth skill to conceal his presence and went inside.
'What's that smell?'
As soon as he entered, a foul smell stung his nose.
It was a terrible stench, as bad as the smell of the rotting monsters.
Zeke held his breath and went deeper into the dungeon.
It was then.
Growl!
Two monsters walked out from inside.
Zeke hid himself and observed the monsters.
Their appearance and attire were almost identical to the monster he had seen before.
'The hypothesis that the Empire created these monsters is becoming more and more plausible.'
The Empire was conducting human experiments in a secret laboratory in the South.
It was highly likely that they were conducting experiments to turn humans infected with Red Flower Disease into monsters and testing their power in the beastmen ghetto.
'If those monsters become weapons of war, it would be terrifying.'
One question was that Zeke had never seen such monsters on the battlefield when the continental war broke out in the future he lived in.
However, it was too early to conclude anything, as the experiment might have failed, or they might have been deployed only on inconspicuous battlefields.
Zeke passed the monsters and went deeper inside.
Just then, a message appeared before Zeke's eyes.
[Detected entity eroded by demonic energy.]
'Eroded by demonic energy? Is it referring to a monster?'
Zeke slowly moved towards the direction indicated by the system.
But what he found there wasn't a monster.
A knight clad in black armor was guarding the door.
'A knight eroded by demonic energy?'
Zeke recalled Cain, whom he had fought in the Southern dungeon.
He too was neither human nor beast, contaminated by demonic energy, but different from the monsters, with an outward appearance like a human.
'Should I call him a demon?'
Zeke used Dragon Eye to examine the demon clad in black armor.
Outwardly, he couldn't sense any difference from an ordinary knight.
But when he looked closely with Dragon Eye, there was something clearly different.
'The heart? There seems to be something attached to his heart.'
He could see something like tree roots clinging to the heart.
No matter how he looked at it, it didn't seem like a normal organ.
'Don't tell me he enhanced his body with black magic.'
He had heard that such forbidden magic was prevalent a long time ago, but it had almost disappeared in the present day.
This was because the abilities gained were too insignificant compared to the risks, so there was no reason to use forbidden magic.
Zeke tried to see through the door that the demon was guarding with Dragon Eye.
But even with Dragon Eye, he couldn't see through the door.
'I need to see what's inside...'
Since this door was guarded by a demon, he had to find another way.
Zeke opened his map and found another detour, moving in that direction.
The inside of the dungeon was like a maze, with paths branching off in many directions.
If he didn't have the map, Zeke would surely have gotten lost.
Carefully examining the map, Zeke found stairs leading underground.
'Alright. There must be something down here.'
If he could find evidence related to Abel or the Empire, it would be another trump card in addition to the evidence from the Dortas Republic.
Zeke slowly descended the stairs.
The stairs, carved out of the stone wall, remained sturdy despite the passage of time.
Reaching the dungeon's basement, Zeke found himself facing another maze-like path with multiple branches.
'This is the first time I've seen a dungeon with such a complicated layout.'
Looking to the side, he saw murals, seemingly carved by ancient beastmen, lining the walls.
They weren't just simple pictures, but a continuous record with a story.
'To think they carved pictures one by one on such a hard wall.'
It showed how prosperous the ancient beastmen civilization had been.
Zeke examined the murals carved on the wall.
He couldn't understand the exact contents, but it seemed to be a story about a large-scale war.
'A war? Was there a big war before Bahamut?'
Scanning through the murals, Zeke found something strange.
Not only beastmen and humans, but all races were fighting together in the war.
'Who are they fighting against?'
Zeke looked along the wall, trying to find out who they were fighting.
After wandering for a while, Zeke finally found who they were fighting against.
Surprisingly, there was only one person facing this large army.
A mysterious figure floating in the air, wearing a robe and looking down at the allied forces.
'What on earth is this?'
It didn't match any history Zeke knew.
He had never seen anything like this, even in the records of the Chronos era he had seen in Kaisir's records.
Looking at the murals, Zeke spoke to the system.
'System. Can you record the pictures on the wall here?'
[Checking available functions according to the administrator's request.]
[You can scan and save the contents using the Dragon Eye skill and a Area of Effect Buff.]
[You can create a new folder in the inherited secure archive and save it.]
'Then save the contents.'
[Please specify the folder name.]
'Folder name? What's that? Just name it anything.'
[Saving the contents to a new folder 'Anything'.]
Light shot out from Zeke's left eye and scanned the murals.
Amazingly, the contents of the murals were saved as his gaze swept over them.
[Saving complete. You can check the saved contents in the secure archive whenever you want.]
Zeke nodded with satisfaction as he looked at the record of the murals displayed before his eyes.
'I'll have to take my time to figure out what this is about.'
It was then.
Growl!
At the sound, Zeke turned around to see three monsters approaching him.
[Translator - Peptobismal]
[Proofreader - Max]