Chapter 448 – The Holy Sword and the Arena (19)

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There was a space in the crystal ball that I had never seen before.

“What is this…?”

It felt a bit different from the places I had seen so far. Until just now, if there was only a sneaky angle for surveillance, this one was staring honestly at the front of a certain room.

But even so, it is only a dusky outline.

Yuri, who saw it, said.

“I can’t see it well because it’s dark… Can you zoom in on this?”

“There is no such thing as magnification in this crystal ball. It can’t be like that… It can’t be.”

When I gestured as if I was zooming in on my phone, the screen of the crystal ball became a little bigger. Seeing that, Ariel muttered something absurd.

No matter how much she received the grace of the Goddess herself, isn’t this enough of a scam…

Ariel seemed to be in a complicated mood in many ways. She must have been dumbfounded and embarrassed because everything she said she couldn’t do was solved with my cheat key. I honestly think the cheat key is right. But it’s not something I can do, I decided to focus on what I can see.

“What is that? It’s dark, so I can’t see.”

“Uhm…Ah. I’ve seen something like that Isn’t that like an altar in a church?”

As Yuri tilted her head and said, Lenny frowned at her.

“It looks similar, but to build an altar while doing such a disrespectful thing…Do you want the blessing of the goddess while doing something like this?”

Blessings of the Goddess…

Lenny’s words reminded me of my encounter with the goddess.

An urgent quest that suddenly popped up when I came to the dungeon before. And the sanctuary of the goddess that appeared out of nowhere. Unlike these gloomy caves, the place was sleek and well-decorated. I can understand Lenny’s disrespect, but…

But she didn’t think that the goddess would care about any of these things.

The goddess I met at that time was like a tired office worker.

What exactly did he say She said that seeing the true form of a goddess would burn her brain. So she told me to go through some kind of system calibration to make it look familiar to me.

Being unable to use the language and skills of another world without difficulty is part of that system.

Anyway, the goddess seemed to be busy and tired somewhere. So she told me to leave things to me that she couldn’t directly intervene.

The goddess was a nuance as if there were restrictions. However, she glossed over what the restrictions were. What could be the reason?

“Wow?!”

Suddenly, the glass jumped up.

“What, what is it? What’s the matter?”

“I thought something moved over there?!”

Yuri pointed at her crystal ball and made a fuss at her.

“Didn’t you see it well?”

“No, I saw it clearly. Something moved on the edge.”

“Um…”

But even when I zoomed in, I could only see her gloomy outline, and I couldn’t find her movement.

“Mr. Eugene.”

“Huh?”

When Lennie called me and turned around, he had an unusually determined face.

“I need to find it. Maybe she has someone left… I don’t know what she’s been up to here, but I can’t ignore her if she still needs help.”

Indeed. If there is a person, do you mean to look for it first? She’s usually a bit brash and often oblivious to her lewdness, but this time Lenny was a bit determined.

“Eh, save me?! Do you know what people are doing? These guys are the ones who make terrifying hybrids of monsters here and spray them in the city! Why are you going to rescue them?!”

Yuri jumped up at Lenny’s words that he had to save people.

“No, releasing monsters in the city, I didn’t say that. It’s just speculation…And what are you going to do with the monsters released?”

“Ugh…!”

Yuri flinched, but now she began to pick her up at will.

“Come to think of it, I think I was wrong. That’s right It’s an optical illusion because I’ve been in a dark place for a long time!”

“Hey…”

Why is he so frightened If you think about it, this is also the essence of glass. He set out to become an adventurer, but in reality he is just a timid petit bourgeois.

It’s not that I don’t understand If I didn’t have a cheat key of a goddess like a minimap, I would never have entered the spooky cave.

After thinking for a while, I said.

“Whether there are people or not, I need to find out where it is.”

The room with the altar looked tidy, unlike the ruined research commons.

“Maybe we have evidence to wipe out all those conspirators over there. Ariel. Maybe that room is far from here?”

“Ugh. I don’t think so.”

Ariel stroked his chin for a moment and then said.

“Maybe that place is far from here, but to do that, we need to install equipment like an amplifier in the middle. It seems unlikely that such expensive equipment will remain intact in the dungeon.”

“Aha.”

So, it is said that a relay station is needed for long-distance communication like a cell phone. But unless it’s a safe point, installing equipment in a dungeon is like telling a monster to destroy it.

Well, in the first place, if the communication orb was working properly, there would be no reason to send us.

“But isn’t there a passageway to that room?”

There were small rooms all over the common area, but there was no road leading beyond that.

“But… They must be connected. It is inefficient to create a new space that is completely separate from it.”

At my words, Ariel turned skeptical.

“That’s true, but if we made a decision and made a secret passage, wouldn’t there be a way for us to find it?”

“It’s a secret passage…”

I tried to bring back old memories. I definitely remember finding a secret passage before… That’s right. I used the cheat key the goddess gave me when I was looking for the holy sword.

“Wait a minute.”

I started walking on the edge of the joint.

“What are you doing right now? There’s no way you’ll be able to find it by looking at the wall like that.”

Yuri said it was ridiculous, but I ignored it and continued to touch the wall.

The minimap only shows a black screen.

However, the mini-map had the characteristic of showing all potentials. It is said that the minimap just shows things that can only be found if you focus your mind and spend time looking for them.

Besides, the minimap doesn’t just show a flat surface. Like this, if I look around me while rotating in 3D…

I silently turned the minimap and walked around the edge. If you look at it from the side, it must be a bit dumbfounded, staring blankly into space and muttering. As it took a long time to find it in such a state, noise began to flow from behind.

“Oh, sister. Is that okay? He’s muttering like he’s out of his mind… Ugh, didn’t you get hit by something like mental pollution?! Is there no divine magic that can be used at times like this?!”

“Um, mental pollution, I read too many novels. But if you stay in such a dark space for a long time, it’s not that there’s no chance of delirium.”

“Eh, Yujin-sshi can’t be like that… Now, wait a minute. Just in case…”

“Found.”

“What are you looking for? There is nothing. I finally came to my senses… Huh?!”

There was a tiny gap in the floor. I put my hand in the gap and lifted it up, revealing a staircase leading down.

“Look at this. There is a road down here.”

“As expected, you are amazing…I believed in you!”

“This is truly amazing…”

“…”

Profane things. Until just now, they said it was mental pollution or delirium, but they changed their attitude like flipping their palms like this? Let’s see when we go back I’ll give you a sense of what it means to be deranged.

I looked down with that promise. The stairs leading down are wide enough for two people to go down together. Looking closely, it wasn’t even that secretly hidden. It’s just that the cave was dark and cluttered, so I couldn’t see it very well.

But even when I try to go down, I somehow feel bad. Yuri opened her mouth first to see if it was just me.

“Can’t we just go back here? It could be a monster, not a human, right? And…”

“It’s okay to stay here if you’re scared.”

“Profit…!”

It was a sincere statement, but Yuri made a noise as if he thought he was ignoring it.

“Okay, okay, I’ll go, it won’t be enough!”

We went down the stairs with a lot of clutter.

# # #

The second grader had no choice but to leave it behind. It seems like it’s a long way until the work is finished. The visuals are good, but there is no substance.

The stairs going down were dimly lit. However, it was not a light that reassured people’s hearts, but an unpleasant light that was sticky like slime.

And smell.

Oddly sweet yet unpleasantly sticky, the smell of rotting fruit.

Yuri, who was walking down her aisle, suddenly started muttering.

“Maybe there is a treasure in this. Then we’ll be rich. Yes, after all this hard work, there must be a great treasure. That’s right. There must be treasure enough to bathe in gold coins… Hee hee…”

I was trembling even just a moment ago, but it suddenly sounds like a treasure. And that she bathes in gold coins. Doing something like that bruises all over her body. Is this guy okay? Looking back with a little worry, Yuri’s eyes were shining strangely.

She used to make similar noises when she first entered this cave. But it was a kind of self-suggestion, not the strangely confident voice like now.

“No, there might be a magic artifact rather than that. It must be a rare and valuable artifact. If you can get your hands on it…”

This time, Ariel also started muttering something.

Normally, she wouldn’t have uttered such a strangely snobbish remark. And if it were me normally, I would have stopped the party at this point.

But I had a separate corner that I was interested in.

It is a deep and narrow passage. There’s a corner that’s a little shady somewhere. Once you start having shady thoughts, accidents keep happening.

I want to go back to the mansion soon. I came all the way here and I don’t know what this is.

Somehow, it feels like the accident keeps flowing in a strange direction. Shortness of breath, strange feeling in the lower extremities.

Honestly, I admit that I’m a guy who’s in heat all the time, but I’m not the kind of guy who wants to be at the risk of sacrificing the safety of our little ones. But what to say now…

Feeling a little out of control.

Lenny suddenly grabbed her hand. Does Lennie feel the same way as I do? If so, she’s fine with a sneak peek and go…

“Eugene, are you okay?”

“Yes?”

Contrary to my expectations, Lenny did not have an excited face. For some reason she seemed worried, but she had a strange frown on her face.

“I feel bad.”

“What, what?!”

That I’m in a bad mood?!

I feel a bad vibe in front of this. Profane and heterogeneous…Mr. Eugene?

I was so caught up in a thought that I couldn’t hear Lenny’s backstory.

Lenny who says such mean things needs to be punished! Once he ate her heart and tried to capture Lenny, a strange phenomenon occurred.

“…!”

No, wait. Why is this?

The system UI crackles as if there is noise.

Throbbing.

I feel a sense of deja vu. I’ve experienced this phenomenon before. It was an experience I will never forget.

The crazy old man who messed with that goblin a long time ago. When I made eye contact with his corpse, my system made noise as if interference had occurred.

At that time, I thought it happened by chance and just let it go, but if the same thing happens twice, it is not a simple error.

As the accident reached that point, the back of his neck felt chilly and his hot head calmed down.

“Eugene…?”

“For a moment. Wait a minute.”

Fortunately, the UI soon returned to normal, but I was still stuck.

Come to think of it, I was weird myself.

Why? No matter how stupid I am, did I ever think of attacking Lenny in this situation?

Something is interfering with my mind.

“Guys, stop for a second. What’s the matter… Guys?”

“I-I’m in front of you!”

The two of them ran forward before I had time to say anything.