The interior of the ruins was silent. It had been a place forgotten for countless years, so it was only natural that nothing lived there.
Even so, Ludger did not act rashly.
‘The fact that the entrance was hidden means the ruin’s systems are still operating normally. If that’s the case outside, then the same applies inside.’
The ruins were astonishingly well preserved.
Even if they failed to obtain anything of value from within, simply understanding the method by which this ruin maintained its preservation would more than justify the journey here.
‘But there’s no way things will go that smoothly.’
Ludger came to a halt. Casey and Veronica did the same.
“A fork in the road,” Veronica murmured in a low voice.
The long, single corridor they had followed until now had finally split into two paths.
“Is one the right answer, and the other a trap?”
“Perhaps both are correct.”
Or perhaps both were traps.
“As you saw from the outside, the ruins are quite vast. The interior is likely divided into multiple sections, so of course there wouldn’t be just one path.”
“So from here on, it’s time to choose,” Veronica said.
Ludger nodded.
If they were moving in groups of dozens, they would have split up here.
But there were only three of them.
‘Splitting up is awkward.’
Their numbers were too few. Their individual skills surpassed those of groups several times their size, but complacency was dangerous.
With an ancient ruin of this scale, it wouldn’t be strange if something bizarre occurred inside.
‘I’d like to spread out a mana wave and examine the entire internal structure, but...’
Ludger instinctively felt that he should not do so.
Leaving things to intuition might be considered foolish for a mage.
But Ludger’s intuition was the product of countless near-death experiences, cultivated over time.
If he couldn’t trust that, then he wouldn’t be able to trust even the papers of the most renowned scholars.
Ludger signaled to Casey with his eyes.
Sharp as she was, Casey immediately grasped what he meant and restrained herself. She had been feeling impatient as well, and had been considering using her own mana to examine the ruin’s structure.
Veronica, sensing their hesitation, asked with a puzzled look,
“Are you not going to use magic?”
“It would be best to restrain ourselves as much as possible. If nothing else, this ruin seems unusually sensitive to magic.”
Veronica nodded, finding the reasoning sound.
Mana flowed throughout the place, and even the entrance itself had been concealed by magic.
If a knight like her could feel it so vividly, then a mage like Ludger or Casey would need to be even more cautious.
“So we have to choose one of the two,” Veronica said.
“Wherever we go, it shouldn’t cause immediate problems—as long as we don’t do anything foolish.”
They had entered through the main gate.
At the very least, they weren’t uninvited guests. That was likely why the ruins were so quiet.
But the moment they did something foolish, no one knew what kind of punishment the ruins—long dormant—might inflict upon intruders.
There were no precedents to cite; no one had ever experienced such a situation before.
“This is difficult. Having to choose just one path when we have no idea what’s where.”
“In that case, why don’t we just camp here and block everyone else?” Casey suggested.
“Our goal is to stop relics or artifacts from falling into the hands of dangerous people anyway. If we occupy this spot first, won’t that prevent them from doing anything?”
Veronica visibly panicked at that suggestion.
She clearly hadn’t expected them to come all this way only to choose to do nothing.
“That could be considered a valid approach,” Ludger said. “But I wouldn’t recommend it.”
Casey let out a dry chuckle, indicating she already knew that.
“Yeah. If we wait here, they’ll just form a perimeter outside and wait us out. We’re only three people, and since we’re human, we can’t stay in one place forever.”
“R-right!” Veronica quickly agreed.
Both Ludger and Casey understood why she was being so desperate.
Their powers of observation far exceeded the norm—it was impossible for them not to notice.
“It seems results are important to you, Lady Veronica,” Casey teased.
Veronica was left speechless, her eyes rolling awkwardly before her shoulders slumped.
“Well... having come all this way, going back empty-handed feels a bit—”
“I understand. They sent a master-ranked knight to the field. If all that came of it was stopping some suspicious individuals, there would be plenty of people who’d feel disappointed by that alone.”
“Yes. And more than that, a capable imperial informant died. For their sake as well, I have to make sure we gain something here.”
Veronica wasn’t driven by personal ambition.
Though Ludger hadn’t spent much time with her, he knew how upright and principled she was.
She was the kind of person truly suited to being a knight—perhaps the most knightly knight of all.
Because of that, she couldn’t simply let the deaths of the imperial agents involved in this incident pass without meaning.
At the very least, she wanted to secure concrete results so she could honestly request sufficient compensation for their families from her superiors.
“Well, I don’t particularly like the idea of waiting here indefinitely either. Given the scale of this ruin, there’s no way this is the only entrance.”
Would blocking the main gate really make people give up?
They would try to force their way in somehow.
‘It could be a side entrance or even a window. Or they might just break down a wall and make a door where none existed.’
It wasn’t something three people alone could handle.
“Let’s move right away.”
“Ah—are you sure? Just like that?”
When Ludger chose the left path without hesitation, Veronica showed her confusion.
“Is there something there? Did you sense anything?”
“No. I’m just following my intuition.”
Without any proper clues, it didn’t really matter which path they chose.
In that case, it was better to go where instinct led.
Sometimes, moving according to one’s feelings was better than overthinking things.
“You don’t need to worry about traps. At least, this ruin doesn’t seem so malicious as to reject guests who entered properly through the main gate.”
As they reached the fork, Ludger had felt something.
The ruin was functioning normally. The moment suspicious individuals revealed their true intentions, the ruin would bare its fangs to punish them.
The fact that it remained so quiet meant the path Ludger chose wasn’t wrong.
‘In other words, it’s not a facility that must be hidden at all costs.’
If it were a place that absolutely had to remain concealed, it wouldn’t have been built as such a massive structure.
It would have been constructed deep underground, hidden and unseen.
Choosing the left path, the group calmly proceeded through the ruin’s corridor.
It hadn’t been cleaned in ages, so dust had piled up and a musty smell lingered, but that was tolerable.
“I could feel it outside too, but it really is huge,” Veronica said, perhaps just to break the silence.
“Yes. And it’s far larger than it appears on the surface. When I checked from outside, there was a massive structure underground as well,” Casey replied.
“A structure?”
“I was curious how such a dense forest could exist in this extreme environment, so I checked below. There’s a massive underground water vein flowing beneath the forest—it wasn’t hard to confirm.”
Through that, she learned that beneath the ruin lay an underground facility far larger than what existed above ground.
“This rainforest-like forest is maintained thanks to the groundwater flowing below.”
“Even with groundwater, it’s astonishing for a rainforest like this to exist.”
“That’s what amazed me too. The groundwater flowing below was hot enough to resemble hot spring water. The strange part is that there’s no lava zone beneath it.”
“Wait. If that’s the case—”
“Yes. That means what’s influencing this forest isn’t a natural environment, but this ruin itself.”
Creating a tropical rainforest in a cold northern continent.
Ludger let out a low murmur to himself.
‘If it can completely alter the surrounding environment, then there must be a relic here.’
Perhaps the reason the ruin had remained intact over countless years was precisely because of such a relic.
‘I don’t know the relic’s exact function, but if it can create a rainforest at the pole, it’s certainly no ordinary object.’
It might even be capable of doing the opposite—
creating a massive glacial region in the middle of a desert.
Whatever the case, it was certain that it must not fall into dangerous hands.
If misused even slightly, it could cause a catastrophe comparable to a strategic nuclear weapon.
“I suppose we’ll have to take this more seriously,” Ludger said.
He had hoped to finish quickly and return before the classes scheduled for next week.
But reality, it seemed, would not be so accommodating.
As they continued forward, a staircase descending downward appeared before them.
“Stairs. And they lead underground.”
A hint of joy crept into Veronica’s voice at the confirmation they’d chosen the right path.
“The other path probably led to the upper levels of the ruin. Looks like my intuition did its job.”
They descended the stairs.
The path downward was dark, but none of them had poor night vision.
As Ludger went down the steps, he examined the walls.
Metaphysical characters of unknown meaning were carved into them, as if scratched out with an awl.
It was an ancient language he didn’t recognize. Perhaps his teacher would know it.
‘If archaeologists saw this, they’d lose their minds.’
Such inscriptions filled the walls, so it was no wonder people coveted ancient ruins.
When they reached the underground level, the path split into many corridors, ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) and along both sides of each corridor stood tightly sealed stone doors at regular intervals.
“This is where it really begins,” Ludger said.
He brushed his hand over the nearest stone door.
He could feel mana inside. If he tried to force it open, it would likely trigger an alarm.
‘There are more doors than I expected. As befitting a massive facility, it must be composed of rooms with all sorts of purposes.’
They couldn’t possibly check all of them. At the very least, they needed something like a map to grasp the internal structure.
They decided to spread out and inspect the nearby area.
There were only three of them, but sticking together would only reduce efficiency.
Ludger ran his hand along the walls, checked the ceiling, and lightly flowed mana across the floor.
To be honest, the ruin itself fascinated him.
If not for other matters, he would have gladly stayed here for at least a month, continuing his exploration.
But with time being critical, he had no choice but to push aside minor curiosities.
Just as he was thinking that regretfully, Casey returned, bringing Veronica with her.
“What is it?”
“There’s a trace.”
At those words, Ludger straightened up from where he’d been crouching to examine the floor.
“Let’s move.”
The place Casey led them to was a corridor no different from the others.
But as she said, there were signs that someone had passed through the center of this ancient passage.
It was astonishing. Someone else had been here before them.
‘But not recently.’
Footprints were imprinted atop layers of accumulated time. Even those footprints were estimated to be quite old.
‘Compared to the ruin being hundreds of years old, these footprints are at least fifty years old.’
That was still a long time ago, but relatively recent compared to the age of the ruin itself.
Ludger followed the direction of the traces.
“Here.”
Following them, they finally arrived in front of a stone door.
“How do we open this?” Veronica asked.
Instead of answering, Ludger knocked on the stone door with the back of his hand.
“Hm. About this thick.”
“You’re not thinking—?” Casey tried to stop him, guessing what he intended.
But before she could, Ludger’s body vanished as if swallowed by shadows.
Moments later, with a grinding sound, the stone door opened.
For something so old, it moved remarkably smoothly.
Ludger had opened it from the inside by using spatial movement.
“Moving a short distance by myself isn’t difficult.”
“...You know that if the door were just a bit thicker, you would’ve gotten stuck in the wall, right?”
“I was curious enough to account for that risk.”
Ludger looked around inside the room.
The overall design suggested some sort of command room.
At the center stood something like a stone table, and it was conspicuously clean—no dust or overgrown vines—suggesting someone had been there before.
Ludger approached it and placed his hand on it.
“This is an artifact.”
“That crude-looking thing?”
“Yes. And it’s still usable.”
Ludger gently infused mana into the artifact.
Bluish mana flowed over the surface of what appeared to be a table, and soon the room was filled with brilliant light.
A beautiful glow like a blue constellation spread throughout the space.
At its center appeared a man formed of starlight.
He looked to be in his mid-fifties, a handsome middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed beard.
[It’s a pleasure to meet you.]
He gazed directly at them, his blue eyes shining like stars as he spoke.
[I am Lexuror. A great explorer and mage.]