WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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◈ Sword Master of the Fallen Kingdom

Chapter 30

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The Forgotten City (10)

Early in the morning, Kyle and Lena, who had spent the night in the archive, had a simple breakfast. Thankfully, there was no attack during the night. If there had been, they would have wasted a lot of stamina killing people in the dark and disposing of the bodies.

"Tired?"

"No. I'm much better now. If I need to, I can use magic too."

"Good."

Lena looked better than yesterday as she chewed biscuits with water. A full night's sleep seemed to have cleared her head. Thinking one useless worry was off his mind, Kyle resumed eating and continued.

"I'll tell you now. Before we leave today, we're searching the archive a bit more."

"We're not leaving right away?"

"Right. There's still more to take from here. Call it a silver lining, yesterday's fight gave us a lot of loot. We've already reached our target amount, but just in case, I want to search this place a little more before we leave."

Lena needed around two thousand Gold. Since relics were split fifty-fifty, the two of them needed a total of four thousand Gold.

Even with a generous target of five thousand Gold, yesterday's single grimoire already put them far past it. That meant there was no reason to waste time digging through every corner while heading for the center. Still, Kyle intended to earn as much as possible while he could. An archive in ancient ruins like this was not something you came across often.

It would be stupid to leave when a little time in the morning could bring in several thousand more Gold. Large sections of this archive were still unexplored. If luck was on their side, they might find another rare relic like yesterday's grimoire. If that happened, they would exceed their target by a huge margin.

"The grimoire..."

"There won't be another one. Something like that isn't common."

"Then should I focus on books that look expensive?"

"Yeah. The archive is huge, so don't comb through every detail. Just focus on books that look high-end. Plain history books don't sell, so prioritize writings centered on magic research. Some old novels can be valuable to wealthy collectors too, so don't skip them."

"Understood."

After a quick meal, the two of them started searching the sections they had not checked yesterday. The place was so vast it had every kind of book imaginable.

Books on ancient myths. A chronicle of Velia. Deluxe and first-edition copies of novels that had once been famous. Educational texts. Even research journals handwritten by mages.

"Done over there?"

"Yes. I checked this whole area. I picked out what seemed good, but..."

After a while, Kyle and Lena gathered everything they had found into one pile. Kyle examined the books one by one.

"We don't need this. Throw this out too."

"Ah..."

"But this one is good. It'll fetch a lot."

"This one? Isn't it just a novel? I only grabbed it because the cover looked fancy..."

Lena looked puzzled as Kyle tossed aside a mage's research journal without hesitation and kept a novel instead. To her, the books he rejected looked more valuable.

"Not every book about magic research is expensive. And not every novel is cheap."

"Then why? Those journals are worthless because their level is low, and this novel is valuable because it's famous?"

"Exactly. Nobles dismiss this as lowbrow popular fiction. But the original story is very famous, and this is a hardcover in good condition, so it'll sell for a high price. Nobles pretend otherwise in public, but they enjoy low culture in private."

Kyle sorted quickly. Books took up more weight and space than expected, so he chose carefully while considering the capacity of the Inventory Pouch. In the end, only a few remained.

"This is enough to clear the target. We'll pass ten thousand Gold easily."

Kyle carefully closed the open book in his hands. Every one of the books left was worth at least one hundred Gold. They were worth the pouch space.

"Really?"

"It'll take time to sell them through auction, but even if we quick-sell all the relics we've gathered so far, we'll still get over four thousand Gold. And that's without counting yesterday's grimoire. That one will sell for whatever price we ask."

"Ah..."

"You still have the grimoire?"

"Yes. I put it in the very back of my Inventory Pouch."

"Good."

Kyle and Lena split the books evenly and packed them into their Inventory Pouches. It did not take long for the once-flat pouches to fill with relics.

After putting in the last book, Kyle slowly stood up.

The archive looked very different from yesterday. The broken Rune Guardian. The central floor it had smashed apart. Dark bloodstains scattered everywhere from the battle that followed.

"About this archive... what happens if we just leave it? If we take the grimoire it was maintaining..."

Just before they left, Lena looked at one spot and asked.

"It'll rot with time. The books and the bodies."

Bodies were already piled there.

Nyx Varkein, guild master of the Twin Fangs of Silence, his six assassin subordinates, and one female Bronze Rank mage who had asked them for help. Eight corpses in total lay together with their eyes closed.

"Either way, every record of how to clear this ruin will be buried. No more moths will die chasing the light of a jackpot."

Something was sustaining this centuries-old ruin. If that disappeared, no one would be teleported here anymore.

"Let's go."

Kyle turned without hesitation. Lena followed a beat later.

He did not bury the bodies, cremate them, or hold funerals.

Those were luxuries in a brutal ruin like this.

He only buried the weight inside himself, as he always did. In the emptied archive, only the fading footsteps of two people echoed briefly, then disappeared.

***

After leaving the archive with their Inventory Pouches packed full, Kyle and Lena moved quickly through the ruins.

They did not rummage around for relics anymore. They had already earned more than double their target amount. All that remained was to reach the center and find a way out. Just as the man had said, they kept heading north, and the mana flow leaking from the center grew clearer and clearer. At this pace, it would take less than three days.

"Do you think what that man said was true?"

"What part?"

After a long stretch of walking, Lena finally spoke. Ever since Kyle told her about his conversation with the man, she had been quietly thinking, then suddenly asked this.

"The man who said he was the guild master of the Twin Fangs of Silence. Isn't it possible he gave us false information?"

"Possible."

"Then..."

"But he couldn't fool my senses."

It was a fair doubt. Suspecting enemy information was basic.

Still, Kyle cut off her concern cleanly.

He had already fixed their direction toward the center. What that bastard Nyx Varkein said only strengthened his certainty.

Right now, Kyle was crossing north through the complex underground city by relying on a single thread of mana in the air. He had no doubt. His senses had never failed him.

"Still, we haven't seen a single monster or person for a while..."

"Because I'm avoiding them on purpose."

"That's possible?"

"It is."

Though the cost was constant Magic Stone consumption.

Their top priority now was reaching the center. No matter how much they earned in the ruins, it meant nothing if they could not escape. Kyle had no interest in wasting strength on needless fights with monsters or people.

He would not have done this before. Back then, he had to hit the target amount first, whether by killing monsters and looting them or killing people and robbing them.

Now things were different. Their pouches were full enough. Even if it meant spending Magic Stones, they needed to conserve strength. No one knew what would be in that central chamber. Saving time was a bonus. So this was a cost worth paying.

"...I see."

Lena said nothing more. Unlike before, she did not keep asking questions in a curious voice.

Maybe her state of mind had changed. Either way, it did not matter. Yesterday's experience would not affect her only in a bad way.

With a Magic Stone in hand, Kyle picked up the pace.

Avoid people and monsters as much as possible.

Still, he was not avoiding everything blindly. If a detour looked like it would waste too much time, he fought. But they were only miscellaneous monsters he could kill in one strike, so there was no real obstacle to moving forward.

Another day passed, and by the afternoon of the second day after that.

"We're here."

"This is..."

They stopped in front of a massive door. Even by rough estimate, it had to be at least ten meters tall. The mana flow they had been sensing ever since entering this place led beyond that door.

"Kyle-ssi. That pattern..."

"Yeah."

That was not the only problem.

Just like when they were teleported in the cave, the surface of the door was densely carved with geometric patterns. The mana felt similar too. So similar it was as if arriving here had been planned from the start.

"More than that..."

Lena frowned at the door's patterns, as if bad memories had surfaced, then looked around and shrank back.

"There are so many bodies."

"Mercenaries who got here before us. Like us, they probably tried to escape through the center, failed, and died."

"If that's true, why does it look like they killed each other?"

"Some probably did. In places like this, people are scarier than monsters."

Kyle stood in front of a corpse sprawled near the door. Some bodies were fresh lumps of flesh, dead only a few days. Others had been there for years and were reduced to full skeletons.

On several of them, Kyle found familiar blade marks.

Wounds that exactly matched the blade of the rune dagger now in his own Inventory Pouch.

That bastard had confidently claimed the central chamber was three days north, then must have reached the center first and deliberately gone south again to hunt.

"The answer has to be beyond this."

Kyle stared at the corpses for a while, then raised his head. Before him stood the giant door that had held its place for centuries.

He walked up to it. Seen from directly in front, its grandeur was on a different level from seeing it at a distance. Kyle reached out toward the door, and Lena, watching from behind, cried out in alarm.

"K-Kyle-ssi!"

"..."

"If you touch it like that, then again..."

"It's fine. Unlike last time, this is just a door. We won't get teleported."

He touched it.

Just as Kyle expected, the door did not budge.

No light burst out, and Teleport Magic did not activate.

"Can we open it?"

"..."

Lena crept closer and tapped the door carefully. The ten-meter door did not move at all. It was the same when Kyle pushed with full force.

"I-it won't move at all."

"What do we do? We finally made it here, and now we can't even get in..."

"No choice."

Kyle stepped away from the door and backed up. Lena tilted her head, not understanding, and Kyle spoke.

"Get behind me. You might get hurt."

"Huh? Don't tell me..."

Kyle drew the sword at his waist. Only then did Lena realize what he was about to do, and she hurried behind him.

As the Magic Stone crumbled in his left hand, pure white mana coiled around the blade in his right. Kyle pulled in every strand of loose mana in the air and raised the sword in both hands above his head. The surrounding air trembled under the violent mana flow.

Kyle tightened his grip once more.

Then he swung down.

A thunderous impact rang out.

A crescent Sword Aura shot straight out and struck the exact center of the door. The explosion came a beat later. Fierce wind tore through the area. When the aftershock faded, the massive entrance that had seemed impossible to open was now split apart for the first time.

"Let's go."

"Y-yes."

While Lena stood there dazed, Kyle took the lead.

Unlike before, the giant door now opened easily with a light push. It hardly felt like the same door.

"This is..."

After the entrance fully opened, Lena hesitated, followed Kyle, then widened her eyes at the sight before her. Just like the huge entrance, the interior was vast. The ceiling in particular was unbelievably high, so high that the ten-meter door looked almost like a toy.

Just how many meters was that?

Twenty? Thirty?

"An audience chamber. I suspected it, but I didn't think they'd really build an underground ark to prepare for the kingdom's collapse."

Kyle let out a dry laugh and muttered in disbelief. Even that quiet mutter echoed clearly in the enormous chamber.

Kyle slowly raised his gaze from the floor.

A red carpet stretched from the entrance all the way into the distance.

On both sides stood ten pillars total, five on each side, each one seemingly dozens of meters tall. Soft white light leaked from arched glass windows in the walls and slanted across the audience chamber.

Kyle twisted his lips.

Artificial sunlight in a place this deep underground. Did that mean every one of those windows was a magic tool carved with spell formations? No matter how advanced that magic kingdom had been, building something on this scale underground was absurd.

"L-l-l-lich...!"

Lena beside him gasped in horror.

At the end of the red carpet, on a platform higher than the rest, was a throne.

A figure sat on it. Wrapped in a pure white robe, one arm resting on the armrest, it had a face and hands made of bone.

"A Death Knight too..."

Lena muttered in a trembling voice. Directly below the throne, a knight in full black armor was kneeling on one knee.

KOOONG!

At the same moment, something slammed shut.

Lena flinched and turned back. The giant door that had been wide open moments ago was now closed again, exactly as before, as if it would never allow them to leave.

"Lena."

Kyle spoke without turning his head.

"...Yes?"

"Get as far back as you can. Right now."

"Right now?"

"Yeah."

The black armor moved. Creaking rose from old joints, like a song of death. It felt as if an unseen shadow stretched across the ceiling.

"Don't use magic either. Don't stir mana. One mistake and you'll die immediately."

"..."

"Back off."

Lena did not answer. She understood how serious this was, so she held her breath and backed away from Kyle in silence. Even then, the black knight rose very slowly, but surely. Kyle gritted his teeth by reflex.

"...This is insane."

His breathing tightened.

This was on a different level. It could not even be compared to Nyx Varkein, guild master of the Twin Fangs of Silence. The pressure and presence flowing from that black knight belonged to an overwhelming powerhouse.

Kyle felt his mouth go dry.

How long had it been since he was this tense?

Years ago, now feeling like a distant past, memories of battlefields where he crossed death countless times came rushing back. The sensation was like a blade digging in beneath his neck, and every hair on his body stood on end. At the return of a feeling he had long forgotten, all five senses sharpened like needles.

Kyle gripped his sword so hard it felt like it might break.

By then, the black knight had fully risen and was holding the hilt of the greatsword planted before it in reverse grip. The wide blade glowed a dark blue.

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