by SOW
“But, I’m not sure they want to use it... or at least they mentioned something like that... What was it they said?” Marlene struggled to remember what she had overheard them say.
“What?” Sven screamed at her. “You’re telling me they brought explosives down there when they don’t intend to use them? What for? If vomiting was the trigger for you to remember that much, then maybe if you spew everything a few more times, you’ll come up with more!”
When a person throws up everything in their stomach and then is made to vomit even more, stomach acid comes up as well. The resulting pain is severe. So severe that a method of interrogation and torture is to repeatedly force the victim to drink gallons of water, and then throw it all up. The captive is tortured from the inside out.
“Wai—Sven! Just calm down a little, okay?”
Lud held Sven back as she looked ready to put this regurgitation technique into practice.
“I thought it was strange to bring a tank to take control of a mine. That might have something to do with it... Marlene, can you remember anything else?”
“Hmmm... They mentioned something about a door... a dragon... And something like, ‘we’ll use this when things go bad.’” Marlene sounded unsure but seemed to slowly remember.
“What does this have to do with anyt—”
Sven interrupted Marlene impatiently but then fell to the ground, clutching her head and writhing in pain.
“What?! Unh, AAAAAAAAHHH!”
“Sven?! What’s wrong?!”
Sven couldn’t hear Lud as a grating pain tore through her. “Wh... Why... This can’t... be!”
What is this, this pain... exactly... what am I...
Sven was thrown into confusion by the sudden incomprehensible pain. She felt like something extremely sharp was being screwed into a small hole deep in her body.
“A contract is a contract. You have the right to that.”
———?!
Sven suddenly recalled the voice she had heard when she lost consciousness earlier that day. Abruptly she understood.
Dragon. Door. Open.
“That’s not it... that isn’t a door.”
Sven stood up in a haze. Her vision was blurred and she could barely feel her feet touching the ground. But she had figured out what was inside the mine.
Chapter 6: From Behind the Door, the Dragon Roars
The deepest part of the mine was wide enough for a row of tanks to march through, and looked more like an underground palace. Dolchev came off the elevator and moved forward with the T-3 II. He had reached his goal.
“So this is the Door... It’s the real thing.” Deeply moved, a gasp of wonder escaped his lips.
In front of him was a stone door about two meters tall with a stern-looking dragon carved in the middle. Dolchev had come to Organbaelz as a spy, made contact with the terrorist group, and used them as his cover, all so he could finally stand in front of this door.
His motherland, the August Federation, did not tolerate anyone whose will didn’t align with that of the state. Even if a soldier like himself had reason for failing to carry out his mission, he would be purged as a traitor for betraying the state’s trust.
“T-3 II activate! Prepare the artillery. Smash down that door!”
The T-3 II—the all-purpose think tank of the August Federation—was almost three times as large as a conventional tank, with an upper body that resembled the torso of a lizard man from old legends. The shape of its hands and arms was also peculiar, and unlike the Hunter Units of Wiltia, which resembled a warrior clad in armor, this tank looked cruel and hideous. There was a turret affixed to its head where the different sensors were gathered in a large reptilian shape that extended from its chest.
The T-3II’s guns boasted the greatest destructive power in use by the Europea countries, but its on-board AI was not as sophisticated as those in the Hunter Units, and a gunner, a pilot, and a commander were required to operate it.
Under orders from Dolchev, the tank commander, his subordinates completed the firing preparations.
“Artillery shells loaded. Firing preparations, all green.”
“Shock resistance preparations, all green!”
These were professional soldiers who had served under Dolchev since the Great War.
“Fire!”
With the order, fire spewed from the largest of the tank’s colossal guns and shot an artillery shell toward the door. The explosion and concussive blast howled through the cavern. The tank’s cannon shot covered the area in a dust cloud so thick it was impossible to see a meter ahead.
“Did we break through?!”
“We can’t tell yet. One moment, sir,” the gunner responded.
But Dolchev couldn’t wait and emerged from the hatch of the tank to confirm for himself. The dust slowly began to settle. The door in front of Dolchev looked exactly the same as before.
“It didn’t break... Even from an attack like that?!”
Dolchev was astonished. He didn’t have another choice. He had brought the Zeihombomber with him, along with the T-3 II, and his only choice was to use it to blow up the entire mine before Wiltia found it. However, a human sacrifice would then be necessary.
Himself...
With his plan’s failure, he couldn’t return to his home country. He once again commanded his men.
“Fire one more shot... no, fire everything we’ve got at it!”
“Wait a minute, sir! Captain Dolchev! The Door!”
“What?!”
The Door that didn’t have so much as a scratch after being hit with a round from the tank, slowly started to open. It was opening from the inside. As if its refusal to budge up until that moment had been some kind of joke.
“Has no one taught you Augustan polar bears any manners? Could you try knocking?”
From behind the Door, wearing her uniform of a white dress, a black shirt, and a headband in her silver hair, emerged the bakery waitress.
A few moments after her sudden collapse, Sven had sat up as if nothing had happened, and led Lud and Marlene away from the mine shaft. They stood in front of a shabby tombstone. If there had ever been an inscription on it, years of exposure to the elements had erased it. Lud touched the stone with his palm and the rock face behind opened, revealing a passageway leading underground.
Could you even call this a passageway?
It looked more like an elevator shaft than a passageway. They continued down the path, and came to the inside of what Dolchev referred to as “The Door.”
“So this is the Door... I didn’t believe it actually existed.”
In front of the dumbfounded Dolchev and the triumphant Sven, Lud unintentionally murmured to himself. Lud had heard of its existence. It was said that the Door was left by an ancient empire.
“I’m shocked,” Sven went on to Dolchev. “Wasn’t it August that denounced imperial rule? To think that they would be after the legacy of the original Europea Empire that spanned all of the kingdoms. I can’t believe it.”
Sven was snickering as she tried to provoke him, and her smile was the sadistic smile of someone who had crushed their enemy’s most delicate parts with no hesitation.
The Door was a treasure chest that held the legacy of the Europea civilization that had fallen into ruin years ago. The imperial capital had disappeared, but there were many such treasure chests scattered on the frontier. These treasure chests contained Europea’s scientific and technological legacy, which so far outstripped current knowledge that it was closer to magic.
After the empire fell, those who thought of themselves as its successors—the current nations of Europea—placed the treasure chests under safeguard and let no one near them.
“The continent is vast. It’s not surprising that untouched ruins have yet to be found. So you located one in Baelz Mine and deliberately incited the terrorists in order to get in. And now you’ve tried to pry it open by blasting it with your tank...”
“Grrww...”
Dolchev’s growl confirmed the truth in Sven’s words.
“The Zeihombomber... That’s to prevent Wiltia from discovering the Door’s existence in case you failed to open it?” Lud concluded.
Zeihombomber was as valuable as ten Hunter Units so using it to destroy a mine didn’t add up. Unless, perhaps, it was worth it to conceal something that could rewrite the power relationships between the two countries.
“You are a pitiful bunch... Taking the artifacts of a long dead king to improve your own technology, and sneaking in like a common thief to steal it. How pathetic.”
“I’m not sure that you’re in a position to talk, little girl.”
“Hm?”
Dolchev hid the gnashing of his teeth as he snapped back at Sven.
“This T-3 II... It seems your people like to call it an imitation Hunter Unit but I wonder if you know that it was developed by defectors from Wiltia.”
“So that’s it...”
Lud understood what Dolchev meant.
When Lud was in the military, stories about this “Door” were so outlandish they sounded like tales of the supernatural. For August to dispatch a unit and spend significant resources on a campaign based on such a story could only mean that they had serious grounds for believing it.
“The Hunter Units came from technology that Wiltia discovered from one of these ruins?”
“That’s exactly it, Silver Wolf. Your country asserts dominion over the continent as the rightful successor to the Europea Empire, but by that logic, the Doors should open according to your will, correct? Why did you need to pry them open?”
That was inescapable proof that Wiltia wasn’t recognized as the successor to the ancient empire either. The engineers who created the Hunter Units, who had analyzed the technology found behind these Doors, must have told the August Federation what they knew about the ruins when they defected.
The suppression of the Doors’ existence was a giant, national scandal. However August didn’t make the information against Wiltia public. Instead it used it to ensure its own technological power.
So August has been driven that far into the corner, is that it?
The August Federation’s strategic advantage was their enormous human capital in the form of massive armies. Wiltia had only a tenth of August’s population, but the Hunter Units helped them gain strategic superiority. The Hunter Units displayed enough fighting strength that even one could defeat a whole battalion of soldiers. So, for the August Federation, getting their hands on a weapon that could match the Hunter Units before the next war was the top priority.
“Now I understand your reasoning...” Lud told Dolchev.
“And now that you understand, what will you do? Risk your life to protect it?” Dolchev snarled.
“No. If you want to take whatever is in there, I don’t care. Just don’t harm the people of this town any more than you already have.”
“What?”
For Dolchev, who had pledged his allegiance to his country, Lud’s words were unbelievable coming from a battle hero, and he looked at him with surprise.
“I’m not a soldier anymore,” Lud explained. “I’m just a baker. The next war has nothing to do with me. So let Milly go and do what you want in here.”
“Huh... I see... It seems that what I brought along just in case has produced some curious results.”
Dolchev reached inside the T-3 II and pulled out the unconscious girl, bound with rope.
“Milly!” Marlene shouted.
“Marlene... so you led these two here?” Dolchev seemed unconcerned, as if Marlene’s betrayal was beneath his curiosity or contempt.
“Mr. Dolchev, why did you bring her here? You said you wouldn’t touch any of the children... that they didn’t have any use to you!”
“Oh, well, I heard a legend, you see, that ‘Ancient Doors will open with the blood of the promised maiden.’ If the blasts failed, I thought I might need the fresh blood of a virgin.”
Dolchev wasn’t joking.
It seemed they weren’t able to find a way to open the Door either. So they arranged the maximum amount of firepower and had this supernatural method ready as well.
Lud didn’t laugh. They were people who—for the sake of their country and their mission—would spill the blood of a girl “just in case.”
I’m...
Thinking that he was once the same as the man in front of him, Lud felt anguish.
“That’s not true... Master, you’re different!”
As if Sven had guessed what was in Lud’s thoughts, she grabbed his hand to reassure him.
“Yeah... thanks...”
Strangely, Sven’s words did a little to help heal the splinter in his heart.
“Master... um... I understand that you want to save Milly. But, if we show them what’s inside the Door...” Sven whispered to Lud.
“I know, but they have a T-3 II. And they have Milly. We need to first accept their demands.”
Lud and the others were at a serious disadvantage. Lud had to listen to Dolchev and wait for the opportunity to strike back.
He turned to Dolchev. “Follow me. I’ll show you the Great Empire’s legacy that you’re so desperate to see.”
“Where... am I... huh?!”
When Milly opened her eyes, she saw the ferocious face of Dolchev, who looked to her like a giant bear.
“You keep quiet.” Dolchev’s voice was quiet and cold. The young girl understood instinctively that he would happily kill her.
“I’m sorry, Milly. This won’t last much longer. You’ll be safe very soon.” It was the voice of the person she hated most in the world, the former soldier-turned-baker, Lud Langart.
Why, how did this...
She slowly remembered what had happened. After that frightening waitress had left the church, a bunch of strange men showed up. Before she could figure out who they were, Milly and the rest of the children were forced to inhale some kind of drug. The pungent drug seeped into her eyes and nose, and Milly remembered coughing violently but had no memory of anything after that. While Milly was unconscious from the sedative, Dolchev had taken her captive and brought her with him to find the Door.
“How exactly did you lot get inside the Door?”
“............?!”
Dolchev held his pistol to Milly’s temple as he demanded an explanation from Lud.
“I think that you found the back door. We came in through the main entrance by chance. That’s it...”
Lud couldn’t explain any further. Lud suspected that Sven knew more, but she and Marlene were outside at Dolchev’s insistence. Sven had led them inside the Door, so she would have been able to give a more detailed explanation, but this was all Lud could say.
“The main entrance, is it...” Dolchev muttered.
I have to try and find an opening...
Lud wanted to grab Milly, but Dolchev didn’t give him an opportunity to make a move. His pace, his line of sight, and the space between them were all just out of reach for Lud to grab her. Since he had neither a gun nor a knife, Lud would have to get close enough to Dolchev to incapacitate him. If he challenged Dolchev, he might crush the small girl’s head.
While Lud contemplated his choices, they arrived at the inner room beyond the Door.
“Wow...” Entering the ancient empire’s treasure chest, Dolchev’s voice filled with awe.
Inside was a pure white space. How the room was made, and what it was made of was entirely beyond their comprehension. As if they had stepped inside a white porcelain vase, the square room was a glossy and lustrous white, without a single joint or seam.
It was just big enough to fit Lud’s old truck inside. It wasn’t small enough to be suffocating, but it wasn’t spacious. There was a cylinder extending from a half-circle foundation in the middle of the room like an altar, and on either side were two boxes, also made from an unknown material.
“This is the artifact of the Europea Empire!”
Dolchev drew closer to the bo
xes, but despite his excitement, he kept the gun pointed at Milly’s head without dropping his guard.
“This is... this is... this is... what?” His voice, after opening the boxes, sounded disappointed.
Inside one box was what looked like a black carcass. Its shape had eroded long ago, and without the protection of the box, it would have broken into pieces and been swept away.
“What in the world is this? What is it?!”
In the other box he found a dry, sandy substance. Neither box contained the treasures of an advanced civilization that Dolchev—and the people who had given him his orders—had hoped for.
“That is the remains of some sort of plant. It’s at least one thousand years old so it decayed to something like sand. Inside the other box is the corpse of some animal. Like the plant, it’s been in here for years.”
“Plants... Why would something like that...” There was a look of puzzlement on Dolchev’s face.
Lud had felt the same when Sven showed him the boxes earlier. For some reason she knew how to open the Door and go inside, but she didn’t know the details of what was stored there. But from deciphering the characters on the boxes, and the messages around the room in a script that only she understood, Sven discovered the secret.
“In that case, what’s with this altar?! This small, movable door...”
Dolchev opened the small double window in the middle of the altar-like structure, but there was nothing inside.
“Most likely it’s an instrument that was used to heat up the animal and plant remains to make them edible.”
“What? Then... this is...”
Lud nodded.
“It’s a kitchen. And this is an oven or something similar to it.” Lud pointed to what they thought was an altar.
It was ridiculous. Inside the mysterious room, behind a door built to withstand direct fire from a tank’s cannon, was cookware? It could be the punch line to a joke.
But it wasn’t unbelievable. It was a door with a lock, just as you’d find in any house. If a monkey with only enough intelligence to brandish a stick looked at a regular locked door, what would it think, Lud wondered. Surely it would wonder exactly how such a thing was made, and what exactly it could do, even questioning whether it was the work of God himself. It showed just how large the gap was between our knowledge and that of the lost empire. But why were the Doors deep underground?