Chapter 369: The Gate

“No, these shouldn’t be automatons.”

After a brief shock, Muen quickly calmed down.

“If they were automatons, we’d probably have been attacked the moment we stepped in—there’s no way we’d walk in this easily.”

He carefully swept his gaze across the visually overwhelming phalanxes around them, then his eyes sharpened:

“And if you look closely, these dog-shaped statues don’t even have joints. There’s no way they can move.”

“Indeed.”

Vicki mustered her courage to step forward and tap lightly. A dull sound rang from the metal hound’s body.

“Bronze? No, it should be some kind of alloy—seems cast as a single piece. I don’t feel any trace of mana either. No matter how you look at it, these things can’t possibly move.”

As the daughter of a great merchant guild, Vicki’s knowledge was far beyond ordinary; she quickly formed a preliminary analysis of the material and construction.

“Then these... are just statues?” Seviel clicked her tongue in wonder. “Wasting so much precious metal just to make decorative statues—truly worthy of a Lost Land. I can’t comprehend the mindset here at all.”

“Maybe they were just bored.”

Muen suddenly recalled certain lines from that diary and said casually:

“In a world where you can eat and dress well without effort and aren’t allowed any conflict at all, people have to find something to do, or they’ll go mad from idleness sooner or later.”

“Idle?” Seviel thought it over. “Fair point.”

If she ate and drank well all day yet couldn’t do anything, she’d definitely try new things too.

“I can’t understand it either!”

Liya followed with a little pink fist, unusually in agreement with Seviel.

In her view, wasting the Goddess’s power on such selfish things was outright blasphemy against the Goddess.

“Save those words for when we actually meet the natives.”

Muen looked at Liya’s profile and couldn’t help smiling.

“Judging from the traces here, plenty of people have already gone ahead of us. Let’s keep moving.”

...

After passing through those vast ranks of statues, they finally escaped the previous gloomy corridors and saw a passage engraved with strange patterns.

Below the passage was a staircase.

The steps spiraled downward, plunging into the dark.

They advanced with caution. After the trap and scares just now, everyone was much more careful—who knew what else lurked here.

Liya kept her detection magic active to handle the unknown.

Even Seviel took out a tool that looked like a little mouse and let it chatter its way down the steps.

But the farther they descended, the darker their expressions became.

“We... must have gone down at least a thousand steps by now.”

Vicki’s face was pale. As a pure mage, her physical condition lagged behind the others, and she was too embarrassed to have Liya’s Holy Light used on something so trivial. At this point her legs were turning to jelly.

And yet, when they looked ahead, the spiral staircase still extended onward, no end in sight.

Damn it. Even knowing the natives here were idle, who would be so idle as to build such a long staircase underground?

“If we’re not seeing things, then it means... someone’s messing with us.”

Muen rubbed his chin, eyes sweeping around. Suddenly, as if remembering something, he called out, testing:

“Ailag?”

“......”

Silence in the dark.

But Muen looked absolutely certain now, gaze locked on a point.

At his side, black metal plates threaded with holy filaments were already floating around Liya, her expression unfriendly.

“Sigh.”

A soft sigh sounded.

The scene before their eyes shifted all at once; bright firelight flooded in, making them squint reflexively.

“See? I told you we couldn’t stop them.”

Ailag shrugged helplessly at his startled companions beside him.

Muen’s eyes adapted to the sudden light, and he arched a brow, looking not far ahead.

Another relatively open space—only unlike before, the firelight was bright, and the walls bore massive carvings, grander yet even harder to decipher than the murals Muen had seen in that mountain cave last time.

But what Muen cared about wasn’t the walls—it was what lay ahead.

“Quite the crowd.”

At the moment, aside from Ailag and the companions in Origin Tower robes beside him, quite a few others had gathered.

Freya—and the boot-licking shadow at her heels.

Margarita, and Paul.

The loli Annie, who glared murderously at Muen and Seviel, and Rayta.

Even Phil, whom they hadn’t seen earlier, was over there yawning and waving at Muen, with the adventurer titled Thunder Lance standing ramrod straight behind her.

All the Saintess candidates had assembled.

And not just them—Muen also spotted some familiar faces, like that same ugly mug who’d envied and hated him in the dark earlier.

Although the numbers were at least half what they’d been before entering—many likely lost in those grim corridors—this scene was still beyond Muen’s expectations.

“What’s going on?”

He thought for a moment, then threaded through the crowd to stand before Freya.

Though people stood scattered, it was clear many subtly formed a guard around this most famous Saintess candidate.

Asking her was the simplest and most direct.

“See for yourself.”

This time Freya didn’t bother with pleasantries, nor did she ask anything strange—she simply stepped aside.

Before her stood a door.

A grand door seemingly carved from gold. Unlike the dazzling murals around it, the door bore no extra ornamentation—yet Muen felt a needle-prick chill rise on his skin just by approaching it.

“The door the Church mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t open?”

“Apparently.”

Muen shot a look at Liya.

Liya nodded in tacit understanding and stepped forward.

This sort of thing needed their own specialist to confirm.

She placed her small hand on the golden door, letting a touch of mana spread.

Soon she withdrew, her pretty face gone pale.

“An extremely complex chimeric array. Not only that—it seems combined with Alchemy, multiple sequential mechanisms, and Ancient Magic.”

“It really won’t open? Not even you?” Seviel asked curiously. After what had happened earlier, she’d developed an inexplicable trust in Liya.

“No.” Liya shook her head with a wry smile. “What’s on this door is too complex. Unless one reaches the Truth Level, a single individual can’t break it—and you might tug one thread and set everything off, and then...”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know much about the sequential mechanisms that follow, but...”

Liya pointed upward and swallowed.

“We’re at least several hundred meters underground.”

“Hiss—”

Seviel drew in a sharp breath.

Underground?

What usually happens when mechanisms fail beneath the earth?

From Seviel’s years of exploration: sixty percent... no, eighty percent chance the hundreds of meters of rock above would bury them alive then and there.

No need to doubt it—those ancients were all equally dull and joyless, even their dirty tricks were the same.

“I see. No wonder everyone’s crowded here.”

Muen rubbed his chin, then noticed Freya watching him with keen interest.

“So, what will you do?”

“Hm? Me?”

“That’s right.”

Freya twirled a lock of hair and leaned close to Muen’s ear.

“Tell me what you think.”

That rich fragrance washed over him again, warm breath tickling his ear.

For a moment, Muen could clearly feel all the jealous stares around him.

But he only cast Freya a cool glance, edged back a few steps without making a fuss, and fell into thought.

“What to do... let me think... ah, got it.”

Meeting Freya’s expectant gaze, Muen suddenly ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) clapped his hands.

“Let’s go back.”

“Eh?”

The holy smile on Freya’s face froze.

“Go back?”

“Yeah.”

Muen gave her a strange look.

“Since we can’t open it, why are we still here? Planning to do a group workout?”