Ending Maker Chapter 8
Ending Maker Chapter 8
Chapter 2 - Dungeon Book #2
Two days later, in the afternoon.
Wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a full skirt, Cordelia left the Count Chase Household with Dahlia.
Clop, clop.
The horse pulling the carriage made its hoofbeats, and the carriage wheels rolled. And as if matching the rhythm, Dahlia hummed a tune.
Judging by her thoroughly flushed face, it looked like Dahlia, not Cordelia, was the one going on a date.
'No, it's not a date. It's not a date.'
It was nothing more than a business meeting.
It was nothing more than a business meeting.
Because it was important enough to repeat twice, Cordelia did her best to ignore Dahlia's high spirits and turned her gaze out the window.
The Temple of Baruna was located on the outskirts of the border city as a whole, but it was a place with many people and many buildings.
Temples of Baruna were built in places with heavy foot traffic—not only throughout the Saelun Kingdom but across the continent—and the reason was simple.
If you want to hide a tree, hide it in a forest.
The best way to hide a secret was to make people lose interest in the secret itself.
If there were many people coming and going, those visiting the Temple of Baruna would naturally be concealed as well.
"My lady, we're almost there. You'll be able to meet him soon."
"Y-yeah......"
Cordelia forced a smile and hoped the carriage would arrive quickly.
It wasn't so much that she wanted to see Yuder, but rather that she wanted to escape this awkward space and Dahlia's excited gaze as soon as possible.
"We've arrived."
And at last, the carriage came to a stop.
Cordelia, relieved by the coachman's heavy voice, let out a sigh of relief, and Dahlia once again continued her own private misunderstanding.
'She was nervous. How adorable.'
Cordelia had reached the point where she could tell what Dahlia was thinking just from her sparkling eyes, but she deliberately ignored it again. There was nothing she could do about it right now, after all.
"Anyway...... let's go!"
"Yes, my lady!"
Cordelia got out of the carriage with Dahlia and looked around. Since it was the afternoon, followers of Baruna were visible here and there.
But it was right then.
"Hello! Are you Miss Cordelia Chase?"
A child who had been crouching in a corner of the temple came running over and asked.
The child looked to be about five or six years old and was holding a small folded note.
"What is it?"
Dahlia had been showing nothing but strange behavior lately, but she was still the escort knight of the Count Chase Household.
She reflexively blocked the child's approach and asked in a low voice, and the frightened child hesitated before answering.
"Th-this! A really handsome older brother told me to deliver this!"
What the child thrust out was indeed the note they had been holding.
It was suspicious beyond belief, but Dahlia's face instantly relaxed when she saw Yuder's name written on the outside.
"My lady."
"Mm."
When Cordelia gave her permission, Dahlia took the note from the child.
"Then I'll be going. I definitely delivered it!"
Perhaps because Dahlia had frightened them quite badly, the child ran out of the temple as soon as they handed over the note.
But both Cordelia and even Dahlia had long since lost interest in the child.
"Hurry and open it. Hurry."
"Y-yeah."
When Cordelia unfolded the note at Dahlia's urging, it contained another simple message.
I will see you in the confessional.
The confessional.
One of the reasons Baruna, the god of secrets, enjoyed cult-like popularity.
In the Temple of Baruna, there existed a confessional where one could confess any secret—in other words, a confessional that protected any secret.
In truth, confessing a secret didn't mean Baruna would bestow some kind of miracle, but for people living under the weight of secrets, the mere fact that there was a place where they could confess their secrets was a comfort.
"Oh my...... a secret lovers' rendezvous in the confessional? Hehe, how adorable."
For a moment, Cordelia worried that something might be wrong with Dahlia's brain—that she had now become someone who simply had to attach love to everything—but she didn't voice it.
"Anyway, let's go."
"Yes, my lady."
Cordelia had visited the Temple of Baruna a few times even before awakening Yellow Storm's memories.
When Cordelia moved to the eastern section of the temple where the confessional was located, a middle-aged priest who appeared to be in charge of the confessional approached and guided her.
"He is inside."
The priest hadn't said who, but it was obvious whom he meant.
The priest smiled and stepped back, and Dahlia beamed and stopped in front of the door.
"I'll be right here."
And then a wink.
It was genuinely considerate of her, but somehow Cordelia only felt as though she were sinking deeper into a swamp.
"......I'll be back."
"Yes, my lady. Do well in there."
"Y-yeah."
Cordelia answered awkwardly and entered the confessional as if fleeing.
And it was at that moment.
"Hey, long time no see."
Inside the confessional, where a small desk and two chairs were placed, Yuder was waiting just as expected.
Cordelia had suffered through every possible misunderstanding, yet Yuder looked bright and healthy, as though life had been treating him perfectly well.
"Haah, I'd rather die than suffer like this."
"Cordelia?"
Instead of answering, Cordelia asked Yuder.
"How did you rent this place?"
"Huh?"
"The temple confessional. Did you get something on the priest?"
Outboxer009 was someone who even knew the personal affairs of street NPCs.
Seeing that the priest had even come out to greet her, it seemed he had gotten quite a significant piece of leverage.
At Cordelia's question, Yuder blinked once, then laughed lightly.
"Leverage? It's money."
"Money?"
"Yeah, money. I gave him money, and he rented it to me."
Why would he bother getting leverage and blackmailing someone?
He had money.
"You keep forgetting, but I'm a count's son, you know."
And not just any count’s son—the son of the Count Bayel Household, one of the Twelve Northern Houses.
Even if their influence had declined from its heyday, House Bayel was still one of the region's prosperous noble houses.
"What are you talking about? I'm a count's daughter too, you know?"
"Right."
When Cordelia, now feeling sheepish, grumbled for no reason, Yuder chuckled softly and offered her a seat. Cordelia sat down across from Yuder and asked with slightly narrowed eyes.
"How's the Nine Yin Meridian Blockage?"
"It's recovering, little by little."
"Hmm."
Perhaps because of what he said, Yuder's complexion seemed better than before.
"What about you? Made any progress?"
"A little more and I think I'll become a 2-star mage. I got a decent amount of leveling done last time."
A smile spread across Cordelia's face as she recalled the fight(?) with Leisegang.
She wanted to do it once more if she could, but unfortunately, Bellastin's Magic Circle was single-use. If she forcibly summoned Leisegang again, the seal might actually develop a problem this time.
"Anyway, why did you call me here? There's nothing here."
"What do you mean, nothing? There is."
"Huh? There is?"
"Yeah, there is. A hidden event."
Cordelia blinked at Yuder's answer because she couldn't understand what he meant.
"That...... can't be. There was nothing on the strategy sites either."
She wasn't talking about ordinary strategy sites.
She meant Hero Legend Tales, a site created by countless rotten fossils from the Hero Legend series.
Was Cordelia herself simply not remembering?
But no.
Yellow Storm's memory was accurate.
The cause of the problem lay not with Yellow Storm, but with Outboxer009.
"Of course it's not there."
"Huh?"
"Because I'm the only one who found it."
When he discovered it, a first-discovery notification had appeared.
And Yuder had kept this event only in his own mind.
I mean, why would he post hard-earned hidden event information on a strategy site?
"Wait, you don't post strategies on Hero Legend Tales?"
"I do post, but only the things everyone already knows."
A secret only had value when it was kept as a secret, after all.
"What? So you just post everything? Seriously?"
Cordelia didn't answer, but it was obvious just from her face.
"Right, so that's why you're #2. No wonder you were always stuck in second."
"F**k, you bastard. No wonder something felt off. No matter what I did, I could never catch up."
"Our Yellow Storm is so innocent. I never imagined you were giving away every trick you knew."
But in truth, she had suspected it.
Because the delight she took in reading people's comments was plainly visible in her strategy posts.
"Anyway, so what is it? What's hidden here? Is it yours again?"
When Cordelia asked with a pout, Yuder hid his smile and continued.
"There's something for me, and something for you. You know dungeon books, right?"
"I know them. Don't tell me there's a dungeon book hidden here?"
"It's hidden. And the rewards are pretty decent."
A dungeon book was, as the name suggested, a book that allowed entry into a dungeon—more precisely, a virtual dungeon implemented inside the book.
"What's the reward?"
"For me, a martial art. For you, probably magic."
"A skill book?"
"A skill book."
Using a skill book allowed one to instantly acquire the corresponding skill without a separate learning process.
Cordelia, now intrigued, leaned toward Yuder and asked.
"Specifically, what kind of martial art and magic?"
"The martial art is a movement art, but I don't know about the magic."
"Why don't you know?"
"Because I haven't cleared it as a mage yet."
"I see."
It was a reasonable explanation. You had to clear it to know.
"What's the rank? If it's something you can challenge at the very start, it won't be that high."
"B-rank."
"B-rank?"
"B-rank."
Cordelia's pupils dilated. And with good reason—it was B-rank.
Of course, in the grand scheme of Hero Legend 2, B-rank wasn't especially impressive.
But for someone who had only just started, B-rank was far beyond anything normally within reach.
Normally, what you could obtain at this point was usually E or D, or at best around C-.
"Hey hey, so the magic would be B-rank too, right?"
"Probably?"
A bright smile spread across Cordelia's face.
"Great! Then let's clear it quickly! Where is it? Where's it hidden?"
"Here."
"Huh?"
"Here. I already found it."
It was located in a secret room deep within the temple library, but he had come in the morning and found it.
That was also why he had suggested meeting Cordelia in the afternoon in the first place.
"Time is money, right?"
Yuder finished with a grin and took out the thin book he had kept inside his coat, placing it on the desk.
Baruna's Dungeon Book.
Cordelia, who had been quietly staring at the cover of the red book, raised her head and asked.
"Right now?"
"Right now."
No further discussion was needed.
Yuder opened the book and recited an incantation, and pure white light filled the confessional.