Vol 3. Chapter 33: All Over the Place

What is that??

Vinny peered ahead and realized the downward steps had reached their end. On both sides ran a row of dim torches, burning in silence.

Beyond that, a notice board hung at the mouth of the passage.

Yeah—finding text he could actually read smack in the middle of an utterly foreign ruin whose writing he couldn’t make heads or tails of felt wildly out of place.

No need to think hard: this board had clearly been hung by Carillian Academy instructors.

“‘Attention: Area ahead is unexplored by the Academy. Safety unknown. Students intending to explore, make proper preparations.’” Vinny read aloud. A big stop symbol was drawn on the board.

What kind of nuclear torch is this—burning for so many years without going out??

Vinny was amazed. Torches like these were supposed to exist only in games, right? If the fuel could burn this long, then the people of Marsmo were definitely something else.

Aesphyra seemed to sense something. She stepped up to the wall torches on both sides to check them, mulling in silence for a long time.

“What is it? There is something strange about the torches?” Vinny asked.

“These torches, once lit, seem to consume no fuel at all,” Aesphyra said. “Of course, temple lighting could absolutely be made with special techniques and materials that make the fuel burn extremely slowly.”

“Or it might be because the flow of time is abnormally slow here, so even if hundreds of years have passed on the Tyrelis Continent, the torches in the secret realm still haven’t gone out,” Aesphyra added.

Isatia, meanwhile, examined the shape and workmanship of the torches. From a pendant she drew all kinds of survey tools, and—just like with the statue outside—she did form sketches and took notes, zeroing in on features characteristic of Marsmo civilization with practiced ease.

When Vinny turned and saw this, he noted how the cold, black-haired beauty would whip out a notebook and sketchbook practically every time she saw Marsmo architecture—except for the first gate-tower at the beginning.

He really did find it strange. Why was Isatia recording things in such exhaustive detail, as if she meant to copy over every detail of Marsmo civilization?

Also, the tool container she used was a golden gem pendant carved with a crown ringed by several golden spears, hanging at her neck.

Spatial-storage items were exceedingly rare on the Tyrelis Continent—so few existed that only the great old families had them, passed down as heirlooms generation after generation.

The crown pendant Isatia wore had to be the Lanteville Family’s inherited spatial accessory, entrusted to her.

But most of what she stored in there were tools for surveying ruins and artifacts. Shouldn’t it be holding crucial field gear instead??

Or perhaps these were the most crucial tools for Isatia??

Vinny couldn’t guess her thinking—and besides, it was her business. He wasn’t about to pry.

The three of them tacitly waited until Isatia finished recording before continuing forward.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Isatia said as she tucked the notes and sketches back into the pendant. She knew Vinny and Aesphyra had deliberately held their questions and waited quite a while.

“It’s fine. No biggie. None of us are in a rush—and we’re all rather interested in the relics and architecture of Marsmo, aren’t we, Vinny?” Aesphyra smiled at him with crescent eyes.

“Me? I’m not in a rush either. Whatever.” Vinny shot Aesphyra a glance.

As for “interested,” she could say that. But for someone who could barely scrape a passing grade in history to say it—wasn’t that just asking to get laughed at?

They pressed on.

Even with torchlight, the underground palace remained murky, visibility poor.

Then came the repeating corridors. Vinny had no idea how long they walked before something finally changed—they reached a bend.

“Eh—huh?” Vinny stared, dumbfounded, at the totem painted on the mural at the center wall.

A solid wall blocked the way forward, a brazier hung upon it, and the passage split left and right.

“Which way do we go now?” Vinny asked.

“......” Isatia didn’t answer. She simply stared quietly at the totem on the wall, saying nothing. Aesphyra did the same beside her.

Huh? What’s up? Is there something weird about this totem?

Vinny studied the mural on the yellow-brick wall. It depicted three planet-like orbs twining and revolving around each other, ringed by chains of ancient Marsmo script.

“What is that?” he asked, now used to Isatia’s lectures.

“...Different,” Isatia murmured to herself instead of explaining.

“Different? Different how?” Vinny struggled to keep up with her train of thought.

“Different from the totem worshiped outside,” Aesphyra stepped in. “Strictly speaking, the inside and outside of a temple should venerate the same deity. Many deities are opposed to each other; having two deities appear in one temple is taboo for most peoples—but we can’t draw a firm conclusion yet.”

Maybe this was just another way of expressing the Ouroboros totem.

“So which way do we go now?” Vinny returned to the real question.

“Left,” Isatia said, firm and confident. “Then right after.”

“If we take the wrong path, we’ll trigger a death trap.”

Vinny didn’t know how Isatia could be so sure about how to navigate a Marsmo temple—or about the price of a wrong turn—but he chose to trust her.

Given how reliable she’d been so far, it didn’t matter where she got it—trusting Isatia was never wrong.

They followed her into the bend. Another dark corridor stretched at the end.

Vinny looked up. Pitch black—he couldn’t make out the ceiling at all, nor how high it was.

Being in a place like this was suffocating. Thankfully, all three of them had excellent tolerance for pressure.

Another bend. Per Isatia’s call, they went right. Another dim corridor.

Nothing seemed to be happening.

“By the way, if we did take the wrong path, what would happen?” Vinny asked curiously.

“Obviously you’d get teleported back to Carillian Academy. What else would happen?” Aesphyra said with a laugh.

“I mean—what specifically happens when we take the wrong turn!” Vinny snapped.

“Don’t know,” Isatia said curtly without looking back.

So Isatia didn’t know everything.

They reached a third bend. This one was left.

Vinny was spotting a pattern: just go left-right-left-right and that’s the correct route??

He was about to say something when Aesphyra and Isatia abruptly stopped and reached for their weapons.

Vinny froze. He didn’t know what was about to happen, but when two Fated Heroines got tense out of nowhere, odds were something had gone wrong!

Sure enough, in the next instant, the ground trembled.

Vinny felt a slight loss of footing, as if something were about to shake him into the air.

“Rrrrumble!!”

What’s happening??

Feeling the tremor, Vinny hastily pulled the ice-crystal earring from his lobe into his hand, ready to summon [Armor Fortress]—when a sharp, piercing scream rang out from far away.

“Whoa, did the people of Marsmo come back to life?” Vinny blurted.

“Vinny, your imagination is really something.” By now Aesphyra had already sheathed her holy sword, evidently sure there was no danger nearby.

“Then what was it?”

“Weren’t you asking what happens if we blunder into a trap? There’s your answer.” Aesphyra arched a brow and glanced aside. “From the sound of it, the ceiling collapsed.”

“You mean that scream came from other Carillian students exploring here?” Vinny asked.

“What else?” Aesphyra gave him a bright smile. “Still, this works out. Once they go back, they’ll map out the wrong routes, so later teams can avoid the pitfalls.”

Right—so that’s what the Academy meant by allowing students to take part in surveying the secret realm??

With so much free labor around campus, of course they’d use it, right??

“Why do I feel like lab mice?” Vinny pouted.

“Hardly. Lab mice are cuter than you, Vinny,” Aesphyra said with a narrow-eyed smile.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” This damned White-Haired Nut (Ball) never missed a chance to roast him, huh??

They moved on, following the left-right-left-right pattern—until, at the next bend where they should have gone right, Isatia stopped Vinny.

“This one, we go left,” she said.

“Huh? Why? We went left at the last bend, didn’t we?” Vinny pulled his foot back, confused.

“This is the last bend. We should repeat the earlier path,” Isatia said coolly.

Vinny didn’t get it, but he obeyed.

Sure enough, taking the route she chose, nothing happened—just another corridor.

“The people of Marsmo really loved convoluted thinking. They made a temple like a maze. Weren’t they afraid of getting lost themselves?” Vinny groused.

“The temple was built by them. Of course they knew the way. Anyone who didn’t—that’s the enemy,” Aesphyra said.

“So this is the last bend, right?” Vinny trailed behind Isatia as they rounded it into a spacious hall.

The once-dim underground palace flooded with light. Stone walls around them were carved with murals, and huge braziers on both sides lit the whole altar bright as day.

But strangely, at the center of the altar sat only a spherical stone—shattered in half.

Isatia scanned the surroundings and stepped forward carefully to examine it. Vinny and Aesphyra followed, covering her.

Drawing close, they found bits of stone sculpture strewn around the altar—so many, so jumbled—that there was no way to tell what the original statue had looked like.

“These are fragments of the statue that used to stand on this altar?” Vinny asked, uncertain. “Why would someone smash it?”

“Confirmed—different,” Isatia said after a quick sweep of the rubble.

“Different? You mean the statue worshiped here isn’t the same as the Ouroboros outside?” Vinny glanced over the scattered pieces. They were so utterly wrecked that he couldn’t tell what they had formed before, but even he could see—it definitely wasn’t an Ouroboros.

“Then why would a temple venerate different deities inside and out?” Vinny asked. “Temple mismatches aren’t—what, a custom here, are they?”

“Very likely, no,” Isatia said after a pause, giving her judgment.

“And why is the deity inside smashed to pieces while the Ouroboros outside only lost a single claw, the rest intact?” Aesphyra said, crouching to examine the fragments.

“Three orbs,” Isatia said, moving among the rubble again. “These fragments can be fitted into three spheres—the same totem we saw on the mural.”

“Barring surprises, this should be the temple of that deity represented by three spheres,” Isatia ventured.

“But then why does a statue not of that deity stand outside this deity’s temple?” Vinny felt his brain knotting up.

“...The base of the outside statue had some corners chipped, and its placement wasn’t entirely proper,” Isatia said, raising a doubt she’d noted earlier.

“So it was moved there later?”

“No. It doesn’t look like that—and there’s no reason to do so.” As she spoke, Isatia took out her notebook and started writing. Who knew what she was recording.

Vinny looked to Aesphyra.

“So this secret realm is man-made? Why would the people of Marsmo put shattered statues in their own secret realm—and two different ones inside and out?”

It made for a very strange feeling.

“A mess,” Aesphyra said, giving her impression.

If this secret realm really was man-made, it was a complete mess.

“So it must have formed passively from some residual supernatural force?” Vinny asked.

“That’s even less likely,” Aesphyra said seriously.

“The most basic trait of passively formed secret realms is order. Shaped by lingering supernatural force mingled with magic power, they reconstruct the memory of a civilization. Which means the hallmark of a passively formed realm is regularity. It would never be this chaotic.”

“Then how was this secret realm formed?” Vinny’s thoughts were in knots.

“This secret realm may be directly connected to the downfall of Marsmo civilization,” said Isatia, who had been silently investigating—suddenly giving her view.