WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

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◈ I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss

Chapter 31

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Tomb Raiding and Excavation (2)

Clack. The sound of Ortes's heel meeting the stone floor of the temple.

Breaking the tranquil darkness that filled the temple, Ortes pressed forward without hesitation.

At the end of the direction Ortes headed was a massive stone relief. The picture, carved by hollowing out the entire wall, was clearly inscribed with stories of ancient myths.

And at the midpoint of the myth. The place Ortes headed to had a door carved into it.

A stone door. And yet, it was merely a carving etched into the wall, not a door that could actually be opened and closed. Ortes slowly ran his hand over the carved door.

"What is that?"

Karisia asked. In the myths of this world, there was no myth that particularly highlighted a 'door.' Even if there was, it was not an important enough story to be carved in the very center of this grand relief.

Presumably, the Blasphemia agents who had visited before must have also investigated that door.

And they must have returned empty-handed.

The divine power that would have filled it in ancient times had scattered and vanished, and the abandoned ruin, without any altar or symbol, was exactly as Blasphemia had recorded it: 'No divine power reaction. Detailed original purpose unknown.'

Ortes seemed to ponder for a moment before opening his mouth.

"As you see, it is a door."

Was that a joke? Karisia, pleased by the fact that Ortes had joked with her, examined his expression.

But his expression was quite serious for it to be merely a joke.

If others had read Karisia's thoughts, they would have wondered, 'He's grinning the same as ever, how can you tell the difference?' but Karisia's analysis was accurate.

Ortes's words were not a joke.

"Let us think about extradimensional beings. They cross the sea of dimensions and cast their shadows onto this world. Though everyone is reluctant to speak of it, that is truly a power akin to gods."

Those who possess power like gods and reign from the heavens like gods.

Then what else could they be called but gods?

"Do you mean that the vanished gods and extradimensional beings are fundamentally the same?"

"My wisdom does not reach so far as to speak of such grand matters as the essence of gods. But I know that the gods too once descended from outside into this world. This door is a metaphor for that descent."

Ancient tales not recorded in the Ten Commandments, or perhaps intentionally omitted from the records.

Ortes's appearance as he spoke of forgotten wisdom evoked the image of a prophet of the gods recorded in ancient times.

"The space connected to this door is the true temple. A place where the gods metaphorically reflect all of heaven. That is where Phoibos's sacred relic will be."

***

Having answered Karisia's questions by wringing out my memories of reading the original, I continued to wrestle with this damn door.

That protagonist guy, as soon as he arrived, just spouted lines like 'Heh, such an old-fashioned protective formula?' and opened it in one go.

I have no idea how to open this thing.

'Should I just use my eyes after all?'

My eyes are all-purpose, but I am not all-purpose. If I opened my eyes, I could probably discern everything from the structure of each atom composing that door to what kind of spell formula was applied in what form.

But the problem is that magic with this 'ancient' label tends to have a structure that is exceptionally complex. Spells that compress information beyond the level of ordinary data leave aftereffects that linger for quite a while after a single glance.

It might be that my brain's processing speed is insufficient to read such ancient magic, or even beings as complex and powerful as archmages among humans.

To use an analogy, it's like video editing. No matter how high the resolution of the raw footage from the camera, if the graphics card or CPU can't keep up, you can't edit it properly.

The resolution my brain can handle is about 2K, but occasionally, phenomena with 8K or 16K or even immeasurable resolution pop up.

As I was pondering for a long time in front of the door, Karisia suddenly approached me.

She placed her hand on the door and poured mana into it.

…Mana?

But this is a temple sealed by the Mage King?

"President! That's dangerous!"

Yet nothing happened.

Chuckling, Karisia looked at me.

"If injecting a bit of mana had triggered a trap, it would have been written in Blasphemia's report. A trap won't activate with this much."

Karisia spread her net of mana even wider. I could feel a vast shimmer as if it would envelop the entire mountain peak.

"Ah, so that's the structure."

It was a sight that most mages wouldn't even dare to imitate. Not because the technical level was high, but because they lacked the amount of mana to continuously project across such a wide area.

If any ordinary mage tried to mimic it, they would faint within a second from the consumption. Karisia closed her eyes and maintained the mana emission for about a minute.

No wonder Blasphemia couldn't find it. Even if you searched the entire Ten Towers, not just Blasphemia, mages as capable as Karisia are rare.

Perhaps there are none.

After a while, Karisia opened her eyes. A pure white light gathered into the gauntlet of her opened hand.

"President. Are you perhaps…."

"Wouldn't smashing it be faster?"

Considering this temperament as well, it's certain. There are none.

"…I won't stop you, but wouldn't we definitely be treated as intruders that way?"

"We'll just smash everything and leave. That's how we've always done it, right?"

'Always done it', that's slander. I was in the position of desperately cleaning up after you went around smashing everything.

***

The moment Ortes nodded, even with a perplexed expression, Karisia's right hand moved.

The light gathered on her black gauntlet did not explode but instead seeped over the entire gauntlet as if soaking into it. The incandescent gauntlet itself became like a five-pronged lightsaber.

Karisia moved the edge of her hand along the patterns carved into the door.

Door fragments cut like butter, not rock. Watching Karisia's delicate yet swift cutting work, Ortes thought.

'Compared to the original where she melted people with that, melting stone now is probably better, right?'

In fact, she had already melted plenty of people. But it was closer to a counterattack than actively melting people like the original White Nameless-

"What are you doing?"

Having finished the cutting work, Karisia turned to Ortes and asked.

Originally, there would have been an automatic shutdown procedure that destroyed the connected portal when the door was destroyed, in response to this kind of intrusion, but Karisia forcibly held onto the fading portal and forcibly injected mana.

The logic that if you pour in water as much as it drains, you can maintain the water level.

Having grasped how Karisia was maintaining the portal, Ortes tried to say something but shook his head.

"No. Let's go."

'I wish I could waste mana like that too.'

***

"You said it was a space of the gods, but it's not as splendid as I thought."

"That was just a metaphor. In reality, it's probably just a place carved out somewhere beneath this mountain."

Phoibos's secret temple was a space finished with white marble. Everything around was white, like a place above the clouds.

On the marble altar in the center lay a gem with dozens of facets. A craftsmanship that must have required considerable effort.

"Originally, there would have been a shrine maiden who looked into this crystal and delivered prophecies. In other words, the place we were until just now was the waiting room. This place is the audience chamber with the shrine maiden."

Ortes stepped forward and reached out his hand to the crystal.

The moment his fingertips touched the crystal.

The white marble turned black.

'No. It's not that the marble turned black-'

The light vanished. The light that had been illuminating the marble room. A mysterious light, whose very source was unknown, was gathering as if being sucked into the crystal that had touched Ortes's hand.

Karisia watched the scene with interest. At the same time, she felt a certain sense of relief.

No one who saw this could fail to notice that there was some kind of connection between Ortes and the old gods. Nevertheless, Ortes had not refused to accompany her.

He had shared his secret with Karisia. Karisia was pleased by that fact.

Ortes thought.

'What the hell is this now.'

***

The crystal, which had suddenly devoured the light, began to shine strangely. Light projected toward the marble wall like a film projector in a cinema.

The wavering shadow coalesced into a silhouette of something resembling a human.

「Why…」

A voice as solemn as an echo, yet as faint as if it would scatter. The volume was immense, but it lacked power, so to speak.

There was no such description in the novel. What is this? Did some residual thought remain because I found it faster than the protagonist?

"Why, you ask. To take this sacred relic."

「That ██ is not it． Why are you together with ██ thing？ You, more than anyone, know the Ten ██… 」

A strange noise creeps in. I can understand that it's questioning my companion, not the purpose of taking the relic.

I opened my mouth with a strange sense of displeasure.

"Whether I am with someone or not is my choice, is it not? Now, tell me what you are. Who are you, to have clung to the relic of an old god and engraved your lingering thoughts upon it?"

「I am the high priest of Phoibos. I have endured this long age to pass on the relic to one who is worthy. You certainly have the qualifications. But the one with you-」

Ah. I see what it is.

The safety mechanism of the relic that rejected the Mage King in the original. So the lingering thought of the priest who served the old gods itself was the relic's safety device.

The violent rejection of Karisia is probably due to the knowledge of the Ten Commandments or the mana granted by the White Light Magic Tower.

I wish I had the magical ability to forcibly stop the relic from self-destructing like the Mage King did, but I don't have that. Karisia might have been able to do something similar.

For now, I need to somehow persuade this old man who woke up far too late before he says 'I don't like you' and self-destructs.

Since he said I have qualifications, maybe I can get through easily.

***

"What is the matter with it?"

「A fragment of the ██ that brought about the fall of our era-」

"She is the person I chose."

For a moment, silence fell.

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