The Traces of Ruins Speak of the Past (2)
The ruined Demon Lord Castle had become a desolate pile of rubble. This eerie ruin only hinted at its past glory through the few remaining walls. Much of it had been destroyed in the fierce battle against the hero’s party and the dragon Kerdihak a thousand years ago, and it seemed the Humian army had set fire to the remains, perhaps finding even the rubble distasteful.
The throne room on the top floor of the Demon Lord Castle, where the renowned strongmen of Hemonigent once gathered to pay homage to their ruler, was now nowhere to be found. All places—the banquet hall where many had laughed and chatted, the office, conference room, dining hall, training ground—existed only as faint memories.
Lusteria crossed the moat, now impossible to traverse due to the missing bridge, using flight magic. As she landed gracefully on the other side, she frowned at the stench rising from the stagnant, rotten water in the moat.
Following Lusteria, who waved her hand to signal all was clear, Neromeltia also crossed the moat. Seeing the castle ruins up close made the reality that everything from the past had perished sink in even more.
“If we were looking for something useful, I figured the castle would be the best bet, and I was right, wasn’t I?”
“Yes, well done. I’m lucky to have such a smart secretary.”
“Hehe…”
When Neromeltia patted Lusteria’s head as she spoke energetically, the succubus blushed shyly and smiled.
The two ascended the crumbling stairs and entered what had once been the interior of the Demon Lord Castle. The place that originally required passing through the vast central hall and navigating complex corridors could now be reached simply by walking straight through the hollow ruins. With no walls or pillars left, only piles of rubble, the only difficulty was the uneven footing—nothing else posed a challenge.
“You found this place buried so deep quite well.”
“Right? I used metal detection magic and got a reaction. Most metals are valuable or useful, so I searched for them, and it paid off.”
A massive black door made of Cornium was firmly embedded in the ground. Located at the bottom of a deep pit created when Lusteria dug through the rubble, this door was originally a hidden one that had never been used. Instead of the stairs that should have been there, the black door had been installed to conceal and protect the laboratory in times of crisis. When an alarm sounded, it would block intruders from entering the stairs themselves.
“If the Humians had discovered this door, they would have tried to break it down and loot it somehow……”
“It looks like they couldn’t even attempt to dig through because there was too much rubble from the castle.”
It was shameful that they had allowed a surprise attack leading to their downfall because they couldn’t handle even this much rubble and failed to conduct a proper search. With time and effort, clearing all the debris wouldn’t have been impossible, but without certainty that something valuable lay beneath, they probably didn’t want to invest in uncertain labor. Moreover, since all the treasures of the Demon Lord Castle were stored inside Neromeltia’s Dimensional Storage, there was no way they could have found proper rewards among the collapsed ruins. No matter how much they searched, it was nothing but trash and building debris—a tomb of rubble. Thus, the ruins of the Demon Lord Castle were dismissed as the worthless shell of a fallen past and escaped the hands of looters.
“Shall we open it?”
“Yes. I’ll use the unlocking spell.”
The two descended into the deep pit and stood before the door. Lusteria stepped forward first, casting the magic so that Neromeltia wouldn’t have to exert herself. She felt it was a special duty given to the secretary who assisted the king, and the thought of being helpful to her master made her smile broadly.
And that innocent expression of hers looked incredibly adorable to Neromeltia.
Fshing!
“Huh, what?”
Fshing!
“Uh oh…”
However, the sturdy Cornium barrier door completely blocked Lusteria’s mana, and the spell couldn’t even be completed. After several failed attempts, Lusteria’s face fell, and she looked back and forth between the barrier door and her master before saying urgently with tears in her eyes.
“I really studied magic hard… I can do it well…!”
“I know, don’t worry. It’s not your fault.”
Neromeltia gently stroked and comforted the teary-eyed Lusteria, then cast a defensive spell on her precious secretary. It was a high-level spell whose immense mana flow was evident just by looking. A spherical, transparent mass of mana enveloped Lusteria completely without gaps. Neromeltia then grabbed the sturdy Cornium barrier wall and spoke.
“It’s probably designed to only open with the administrator’s key… but since we don’t have the key now…. In times like this, we have to force it open with strength.”
Creaaak!!!
When Neromeltia applied a bit of force, the black iron barrier door, which had withstood a thousand years without a single scratch, began to emit a loud screech. This was a glimpse of Neromeltia di Isis, the strongest Demon Lord in history, who, unlike past Demon Lords, had demonstrated her prowess on the battlefield with powerful physical abilities rather than magic.
Creaaak!!
Clang!!
Crunch!!!
The barrier door seemed to bend violently before cracking loudly and tearing apart, then was ripped out along with the ground that fixed it.
Though they had removed the door, the pit Lusteria had dug was too narrow to deal with the detached door panels. Neromeltia placed the two door panels she had torn off against the rubble walls on both sides and pushed them away with great force.
BOOOOOOM!!!!!
Rumble rumble rumble…!!!!
In an instant, all the surrounding rubble exploded outward, and everything was easily cleared away, making the thousand-year history of the castle ruins seem meaningless. Like a sandcastle swept away by a strong wave, the rubble disappeared cleanly. Following the intense roar that sounded like an explosion, the surroundings became an empty clearing. It was hard to believe that someone had created this simply by exerting force inside the small pit in the middle of the rubble. With a single application of strength, all the debris piled high around the pit had been cleared away.
And a few pieces of debris that had flown high into the sky fell with loud noises, neatly resolving everything.
It was for this reason that she had cast the defensive spell on Lusteria in advance. For Neromeltia with her powerful body, it was a trivial matter that didn’t even warrant defense, but if the delicate Lusteria were hit by the violently scattering rocks, it would have been disastrous.
“When you have strength, you don’t have to trouble your head. Don’t you think?”
“You cleaned it up so easily… I’m feeling drained……”
Neromeltia affectionately wrapped her arm around Lusteria’s shoulder and descended together into the interior of the laboratory.
In the dark interior, Neromeltia used illumination magic out of consideration for Lusteria. She had once vowed to handle such minor magics herself so her master wouldn’t be bothered, but now Lusteria was so overwhelmed by her master’s overwhelming response that she could only follow her lead.
After descending the rather deep stairs, Neromeltia placed her hand on a crystal orb embedded in the side wall of the stairs and began infusing it with mana. It was an all-too-familiar action, indicating that Neromeltia knew this place inside out.
Wuuuung
After the devices activated by mana emitted a resonant operating sound, the interior of the laboratory began to brighten. Crystal orbs embedded in various parts of the ceiling, which emitted light on their own after receiving mana, illuminated the inside brightly.
Metal skeletons mimicking the human body were lined up in various forms. On the workbench lay the skeleton of a doll that had been in the middle of production, with its mana circuits exposed. On the three or four desks that had been joined together, all sorts of blueprints, research journals, and records were scattered about. Liquids that had deteriorated or rotted beyond recognition after a thousand years were dried black inside flasks, and among them was a flask placed next to a white porcelain cup, suggesting that the laboratory’s owner had brewed tea or coffee in the flask to drink.
“Still… it doesn’t smell bad or have bugs swarming… It’s relatively clean, isn’t it?”
“A laboratory can be disorganized but never dirty. You never know what tiny thing might become a variable in an experiment. I remember disinfecting the whole place frequently too.”
“Come to think of it, you and Professor Ronald were quite close, weren’t you?”
Neromeltia looked at the porcelain cup with thousand-year-old coffee dried black and spoke with a bitter smile. The happy memories of the past were also needles that pierced her heart, and she couldn’t get used to them at all.
“He really was an incorrigible person.”