by J. J. Pavlov
"Where is the transportation circle?" Not thinking too much about it, I ask despite knowing that he's going to lead me there anyway.
"In the basement of the main keep. This entire fortress was built here because the ancient circle was discovered by empire spies at the time." Adano explains while pointing at the castle-like building towering above the barracks and other structures.
"What did they want with it? It's not like normal people can use it." This is something I've been subconsciously wondering about back in the academy, but I was never able to grasp the thought properly until now. Why would the academy go through so much trouble to hide the transportation circle if only those who have a space affinity can activate it? The Khurut Sultanate readily destroyed all theirs when they found that the demon armies could use them to invade, so shouldn't the kingdom have done the same?
"It's true that people without a space affinity can't use the ancient transportation network. But some circles directly connect to one another in two-way paths which anybody can activate." The dark elf makes this huge reveal in a hushed tone. This is the first time I hear of this. "The nexus for those is located in Vertex Mundia."
"So is this one of those? Will we come out over there instead of where we want to go?" That's quite important to me because we'll have to be prepared. Vertex Mundia is the capital of the empire and the largest human city in the world. And the empire is in a direct alliance with the Fatas Triarchy, meaning many have seen them for real unlike the people in the sultanate or the republic. Hestia's black wings will draw all the unnecessary attention when we appear there.
In fact, the Royal Academy could have sent wanted fliers of us just like how Daica used the dark elves network to find me. Her letters have reached even a town as remote as Kalava at this point, so it wouldn't be a stretch to think the academy, with its much larger pool of resources, has done something similar.
I was lucky that the old lady in the scribe's store directed me to Adano and his family rather than call the guards.
"No, this is a universal one. Back in the day, the empire had several mages with the space affinity." He explains, causing me to feel relief. Then I begin to wonder.
"How do you know?" Asking without showing my growing suspicion of his knowledge, I look ahead instead of staring at him to appear casual.
"The ancient records say so. Nobody has cared about Castra Legionis in a millennium, so it's not being kept a secret." If he thinks I'm suspecting him, he doesn't show it on his face and replies with a shrug.
"Have you been here before?" Reading ancient books is good and all, but if whatever is written in them isn't true, our journey here would have been pointless. If this circle leads to Vertex Mundia instead of being universal, I'd rather spend time searching for the right one.
"We have visited the ruins before, but never entered the keep." Adano gestures at his son walking next to Asoko. It must have been a family trip.
"Weren't you interested in seeing the interior?" I ask when we reach the open gate to the courtyard. Even if I didn't know space magic, I'd still go on an exploration tour of the ruins.
"We were, but were never able to enter." He points ahead toward the doors of the keep. The two wings seem to be made of solid gold and are richly ornamented with an intricately carved relief. One side depicts a woman with such long hair that it falls to the ground and curls around her feet, wearing armor and wielding a sword in her left while reaching out with her right. She seems to be beckoning the feral-looking woman on the other side over, who has messy, medium-length hair and wears only an animal's fur draped over her shoulders.
The typical setting of civilization meeting a so-called savage.
"How has this not been stolen yet?" I mutter to myself rather than intending it as a question. All ancient ruins in my world that aren't first discovered by archeologists usually have no traces of treasures left. I doubt that this place is under cultural heritage protection - and that the concept even exists in this world.
"So you can't open it?" Asoko ascends the dozen steps leading up to the golden door. I'm sure she's letting the Crawling Chaos body take over on the inside to increase her strength. But I'm reasonably sure that it's not the problem here; otherwise, a group of people would have been able to pry it open with tools in the past millennium.
She puts one hand on each wing of the door and begins to push with all her strength, but it doesn't budge. Blinking her eyes in surprise, she then tries again, only to get the same result. Then she alternates between the two wings one by one, at which point I shake my head.
It's obvious that there's more at play than just the door itself. The unnatural strength of a Crawling Chaos is incredible, but if the interior is barred with rocks, it won't be able to achieve much either. The best course of action would be to find another way inside, and if it comes to it, make one ourselves by opening a hole in a wall with earth magic.
"Maybe this has something to do with it." Kozii points at the arrangement of five weathered pedestals. There's a square of checkered black and white stones free from any lichen or moss a few steps away from the bottom of the stairs. One such pedestal stands in each corner, and one in the very center, as if marking a ritualistic site.
"Let's see." I walk around the right one closest to the stairs and find an abstract symbol of fire on top of it. When I inspect the other three in clockwise order, I find that they show water, wind, and earth respectively. The one in the center has no marking, so I can only guess what it is.
Senka isn't here right now, but I'm sure she would comment that this seems too convenient to be a coincidence.
"Mico Ignis." I mutter and point at the fire pedestal. Then, in quick succession, I cast one spell of each element onto the others. "Pilos Aquos, Ventus Circuitior, Illapsum Lutum."
But nothing happens. Everybody stares at me in varying degrees of surprise, wondering what I'm doing. I glance around as the spells fade away one after the other. Especially the ephemeral ones like fire and wind don't stay that long for me to try out different things on the central pedestal, while water and earth both more or less still cover their corresponding ones. Do I have to physically light a fire and keep it going? Will I have to keep blowing wind too?
"I can help with those two." Asoko comes down the stairs and offers while pointing at them.
"Guess I only have to figure out what the center one is." Scratching my head, I look at the unmarked pedestal. There are three magic affinities that could fulfill the requirement of it, two of which I never learned any spells for. Luckily, I have a pretty good memory for things that have been used in a fight against me. Basarab summoned a shadow blade to slash me with, and Thorvald let me hear plenty of incantations; I don't remember all of them, but I should be able to replicate the easier ones.
Timing it with my other half, I gesture at her when to cast the spells while I try with light magic first. The spirit spear is the most obvious choice here, so when I give the signal, we count down from three. Just to make sure because she has to chant two spells while I have only one that also has a quick execution, I wait until she has activated the fire pedestal.
"Hasta de Lumin!" I point at my target and let loose a spear made of light right at the moment when the whirlwind spell hits the wind pedestal.
Once again, nothing happens. But I don't let this discourage me and signal for Asoko to go again. This time, I'll be casting the shadow sword Basarab blocked my bone blade with. I'm sure it was something like...
"Sarapi Baleda!" This time, I need to concentrate on the form of the magic. I've never used this spell before and don't even know what it's supposed to do except for look menacing, but it unexpectedly comes out of my hand as I wanted it to. Since this thing lasts a bit, I cast it before my other half even starts chanting the first one.
Timing it right after the whirlwind spell is cast, I slash my target with the shadow blade. It passes through the stone without causing any damage, leading me to believe that this magic may have some hidden propertie
s I'll have to test another time.
And as before, there's no reaction from either the pedestals or the golden door. Adano and Kozii have sat down on the floor a distance away and are watching us in curiosity, while Hestia is staring at me with an encouraging gaze. Couldn't she have helped with wind magic too?
"One left." I glance at Asoko, who nods in understanding. Magic doesn't use any form of energy such as mana or spirit in this world, so we can keep casting spells forever. This would be a whole different affair if we could run out and have to wait a while to recharge it.
For this attempt - hopefully the final one that will open the path for us - I have to replicate Thorvald's magic. Two incantations stayed in my mind the best: The one he used to increase gravity so that I could be impaled by Bjorn and Magni's stone spikes, and the one at the very end when he pushed Hestia toward me. Both should fulfill the criteria for space magic if that's what this pedestal requires in the first place.
"Gravico Slosito!" At the end of Asoko's part, I chant the gravity-increasing spell and accidentally catch myself in it. My knees nearly give out from the pressure, but I undo the spell just in time before I could fall.
I don't even know whether I also hit my target or it just went off on top of me instead. With a single look from me, my other half understands that I want to go again. This time, I position myself right next to my target.
"Gravico Slosito!" I cast, but it seems to have been with too much intent. My upper body bends under the sudden increase in gravity, and my face slams straight down onto the platform of the pedestal.
"Woah! What was that?" Asoko asks with a worried expression but then turns away, and her shoulders begin to shake. "Going through the wall head-first... pfft-"
It seems that was from suppressing the urge to laugh. Now she just points at me and lets herself go. Adano and Kozii exchange a glance, but when they see that I'm not only okay but seething at hearing my own voice making fun of me, their faces lose all expressions, and their mouths turn into straight lines. It's fair to say that they were about to laugh too, but reconsidered just in time.
"Are you alright?" Hestia comes over from outside the square where she has been waiting and motions to put her hands on my face. The moment her fingers touch me, the ground underneath our feet quakes, and all five pedestals start turning while disappearing into the ground.
"Huh?" Asoko looks around in surprise. When the square tops of the pedestals complete the checker pattern on the floor, the golden door slides open sideways instead of swinging in- or outward. Of course, nobody would be able to push them open if that's how they actually move.
"What was the last one?" Adano comes over and asks with a confused expression.
"I don't know, but it doesn't matter." I reply while pointing at the door. "Let's get inside quickly, in case it closes on us again."
In reality, I have a pretty good idea what that last element could have been. Fire, water, wind, and earth are the four classical elements, and some sources would say the fifth is void, others that it's aether. Neither of those was present, but when Hestia touched me, she must have fulfilled the conditions.
"The fifth element is love, huh?" My other half whispers to me as we ascend the steps together ahead from the dark elves. Hestia's cheeks redden a little when she overhears this but then looks at me with an affectionate smile.
"I guess so." Replying to Asoko, I return my beloved fallen angel's expression with my own. We discovered this purely by accident, and if she hadn't been with me, we wouldn't have been able to open this door without using excessive force. It's no wonder that nobody else succeeded so far; being able to use all four elements, even when in a group, as well as have two people in love with each other inside the square should be an exceedingly rare occurrence.
Moments after Kozii walks through the doorway as the last member of our group, it begins to close again. Now that I think about it, how are they getting back out? I doubt it's going to be as easy as pushing a button or moving a lever. They didn't need to come inside with us.
But when I look around, I find that there really is no mechanism to open the door from the inside. Maybe there's some kind of puzzle on the inside as well, but if the two dark elves don't look bothered by it, then I don't need to be either.
There's a short corridor with one opening on the right and the left before us. Asoko and I each take one side, and we peer inside to see that they're empty guard rooms without even a trace of furniture left.
When we come into the entrance hall, I find that there are some arrow slits on the second floor, reachable by two stairs on either side of the large room. Asoko and I could have squeezed through there without having to break anything. Hestia is another matter, though, so that point is moot. Maybe there are bigger windows further upstairs, but now that we're already inside, it's no longer of importance to find out.
It's unexpectedly clean in here as well. This place has been abandoned for such a long time, but somebody kept the puzzle mechanism outside clean for all this time. Maybe it's not abandoned after all, and they're living here after they managed to find a way inside.
"That must be the entrance to the cellars." Kozii points forward. At the back of the hall, there's a single set of stairs leading down. If I were in an explorative mood, I'd have tried looking through the doors on either side of those stairs, but now I just want to get on with things. After all, returning to see Kamii has come so close within my grasp.
"Be careful of any potential traps." I say even though this is most likely just some boring ruin. But as a gamer to whom dungeons are synonymous with monsters and hidden traps, I can't help but look around searching for the obvious clues to such things.
We reach the bottom of the stairs without incident and find a metal door. It's not golden, so it opens with a simple push - although it's quite heavy. The interior consists of a corridor with naked stone walls just like in the entrance area.
"Now we black out, and when we wake up, it's flooded, and there's an invisible monster in the water." Asoko comments what I hold myself back from saying. I'm the only one who's going to get that reference here, but I do chuckle at the fact that we both thought of the same thing once again. Even after half a year of separation, either of us is still mostly me.
"That monster should be afraid of us." I give her a toothy grin and lift a hand to cast a light magic spell to illuminate our surroundings. I know for a fact that dark elves have some level of night vision, but Hestia's eyes aren't the best anymore.
Only in the light do I see that the floor of the corridor is built covered by even-sized square panels, with the one in front of us being an obvious pressure plate. All the others beyond the first have coin-sized holes in them.
I just had to go and jinx it by thinking about traps, didn't I?
Just in case, I try stepping on the plate to see whether or not the mechanism even works, considering how old this place is. The snapping sound of spikes shooting up from below confirms that they do. But to my chagrin, they don't stop anymore; the spike trap in front of me comes up about every five seconds, stays for about three and takes two to go back down. Each subsequent trap does the same with alternating timing, meaning that at any given moment, every other panel is occupied by sharp spikes.
"Screw this." I state and grow four stilt-like legs from my back with which I hook myself into the deep groove where the curvature of the ceiling begins. It's the same technique I used in the academy when I snuck through the corridors at night and had to avoid detection.
There's plenty of space between where the spikes stop and the ceiling, so Asoko and I can just carry the others over. I won't waste my time carefully walking from one panel to the next.
"Alright, I bring Hestia, you bring Adano and Kozii." Suggesting this once I'm back, I speak to Asoko. A part of me just wants to make sure my beloved angel girl is safe, though it's a fair separation of work. Hestia's wings increase her bulk to about the same as the two child-sized dark elves, so we'll both have our hands f
ull - although she's very light.
"What are you?" Kozii asks, his big blue eyes filled with awe but also a hint of fear.
"That question is getting old. We're demons with very convenient bodies." I still put time into responding while placing an arm around Asoko. She strikes a pose and makes a peace sign, though that's also something nobody here will get.
Once the two dark elves get over their initial surprise and then apprehension of our strange bodies, Asoko carries them across the trapped corridor with ease. Once they're on the other side, I follow with Hestia in my arms. A part of me thinks that I may have subconsciously asked them to go first to see whether or not there were hidden traps to punish such cheating; I would never risk my beloved angel to try that out.
"This is so exciting." She comments while in my embrace. This isn't a joyride, and the chance of getting injured or dying somewhere along the way is still present - if not for me, then for her - but I can understand her sentiment. It's an adventure, in a trap-filled ruin that is most likely also filled with treasures.
Not like I have any use for it, but if we do come across a room full of gold and trinkets, I might as well dive in and take it all inside me for future use. Even if it's not for me, I'm sure Maou-mama could use it to fund things in the Dominion.
Suddenly, I feel one of my stilt-legs stepping on a tile that gives way by about an inch. That can't be anything but the activation switch for another trap. I instantly flatten myself against the ceiling and pull Hestia up with me.
The spikes on the panel right underneath us shoot up far higher than they should. The fallen angel closes her eyes and turns her head as the sharp implements nearly reach her face. But luckily, the existence of somebody like me wasn't within the expectations of whoever created this contraption. No human could have reached a position like the one we're in, so it doesn't go all the way to the ceiling.
When we make it across, Hestia's knees wobble at the thought that she was very close to being turned into a honeycomb. I couldn't react fast enough to pull her inside me, so we were fortunate that the machine had its limits.