Grey didn’t hesitate to make his way down. If he wasn’t wrong, these probably led to the very same catacombs that Baron Giyoto had hidden his treasures in.
When he pulled up his map at the bottom of the stairs, he nodded to himself. They were, indeed, at the same elevation. However, there was a huge black gap between where he was now and the highlighted portion of the map where Giyoto’s things had been.
That was fine. Grey didn’t want to go there anyway. If he did, the Baron would probably show up again.
Plus, if Giyoto dared to hide his things down here, it probably meant that travelling through that way was either very inconvenient or very impossible. Otherwise, wouldn’t anyone in the church be able to find it?
There was the possibility that the Baron was hiding things in plain sight, but Grey decided to push down that thought for the moment. All he cared about was the tool belt right now.
If he could get his hands on the Mechanical Lineage Tome again, given the sheer amount of raw materials he had stored right now, there was quite a bit he could get done.
’Now, where the hell do I go?’
This place didn’t have ceilings nearly as tall as the portion of the catacombs he had seen before. Instead, the ceilings were about three or so meters up, and it was far more cave-like than catacomb-like.
The trouble was that there were several paths ahead.
Just when Grey was going to curse his luck, he almost slapped his forehead.
’Fucking idiot.’
Grey took a breath and exhaled, closing his eyes for a moment. He communicated with his inventory again. At first, he didn’t feel anything. But when he focused more on the process of connecting with the space rather than the inventory itself, things began to slowly change.
Then, he grinned.
His eyes snapped open and he shot ahead, moving swiftly through the tunnels with confident steps.
In just about half a dozen minutes or so, the feeling that was once subtle became almost overwhelming. There was definitely a large swath of spatial items in the general forward direction, but there was an uneasiness growing in Grey’s chest at the same time.
It felt like there was a shadowy hand slowly caressing his cheek as though in some poor, creepy attempt to get him to keep going forward. But if anything, the fact it was doing this was making it less likely, not more.
If not for the fact he really needed his tool belt, he would have cursed everything and turned and left.
’This must be related to the Fog of Chaos, at least in part. Is that why they stored all the spatial items down here instead of up on the surface?’
The one thing Grey knew about the rich and powerful was how much they liked showing off how rich and powerful they were. The grandiose nature of the Church Palace proved that enough.
Why would they want to hide how many spatial items they had, then? Even if they didn’t put it on display, having some grand vault to display everything made sense.
Grey remembered how the Fog of Chaos had almost killed him back in the Instance Realm all because he had an inventory.
He had been pissed off when Terran took his spatial item back then, and it certainly wasn’t as though the man was doing it out of the kindness of his heart. But clearly, it made sense that the Goddess wanted to restrict these things.
It wasn’t just a matter of keeping the poor man down like Grey had initially thought.
Grey was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even realized just how much he had slowed down. He was incredibly reluctant to take even another step forward. It just felt so... slimy.
’Is it you?’ Grey wondered, talking directly to Prometheus as though the Spirit would answer him.
To his surprise, there was a slight shift and hum as though in confirmation.
’So you can talk. Well, whatever that was.’
There was no response this time and Grey rolled his eyes.
’Well fuck you too, then.’
Grey was about to round the last corner when voices that had practically been swallowed by the darkness reached him. It was so odd, he had heard nothing at all just a second ago, but standing in this exact spot, he finally heard the inkling of something.
"Yes, I understand. I will cherish this gift, Bishop."
Grey’s heart skipped a beat when he heard this. First because that voice was definitely Joaquin’s, and second because the title Bishop could only refer to a single person. One of the four strongest existences of not just the Church, but the entire city.
’Fuck me sideways.’
It was even worse that Joaquin had a good relationship with him. It sounded like Joaquin was receiving his spatial item right now.
’No. No. No.’
Grey didn’t even need to look. If he knew a dickhead when he saw one—and he most definitely did—there was absolutely zero chance that Joaquin had picked anything but the tool belt.
The bastard had been there when Grey lost his tool belt in the first place. For no other reason than to fuck with him, that was probably exactly the spatial item he would pick—.
"You’ve done the Church a great service. The Mechanical Jaw Lineage cannot be allowed to reawaken. Such Savage Races must be erased from the annals of history."
Grey’s heart sank to rock bottom. This was even worse than he thought.
Joaquin wasn’t taking it for himself, he had given information about it to the Bishop. But how could Joaquin possibly know about its existence?
This wasn’t good.
Even if Grey killed himself, hoping he went far enough back that he could get here before the two of them did, and somehow escape, the fact Joaquin had this information wouldn’t change.
So long as Grey had to kill his way to get here, there would be a trail proving that someone had come to the catacombs, and by then framing Joaquin for lying to the Bishop would be impossible.
The only way for that not to happen was for Grey to somehow find a way in here without killing anyone or leaving any trace, and doing so fast enough to get here before any of them.
But the only path he knew required fighting Baron Giyoto. That was just as impossible as dealing with the Bishop.
Grey clenched his fists, his teeth grinding against one another.
He had never hated one man so much.
That was when he heard something that caught his attention.