Chapter 120
Chapter 120
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 120
Chapter Title: The Tomb of Shed Skins
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"...Hah, in a way, you could call this my collection of shameful pasts, but right now I should be grateful to have even this. Hahaha. Ah, that's the Knight Armor."
Beonald's gaze drifted to the armor placed in a corner of the screen.
It was a fairly large size for an ordinary person to wear, but that was the result of some rather innovative research.
'Knight Armor'. A magical armor designed to replace a knight—a combatant that, even in martial families, required at least 15 to 20 years of training to produce one—by inscribing numerous magical formulas to achieve knight-level combat power. The ideal was splendid and it achieved some results, but it ultimately fell far short of a true knight in terms of 'combat sense,' leading to its eventual consignment to this Tomb of Shed Skins.
"And over there, a whole bunch of failed golems. Hahaha."
He looked at the golems lined up in a corner of the ruins.
Normally, a mage would construct a magical core, then shape common materials like dirt or stone into a form to create assistants for defending their workshop or helping with chores. But the reason Beonald had dabbled in this was a bit different.
'It wasn't even my field originally... Tch, all because that damned Emperor asked me to make it...'
'Duke Beonald! Duke! I had a great idea! I had a dream where golems were fighting! And those golems were all decked out in red, blue, yellow, gorgeous colors, fighting with punches and kicks, even shooting hot beams...'
'......?'
About 500 years ago, shortly after becoming Duke and just beginning to grasp the Empire's real power, while Beonald was barely balancing the triple pressures of political relations, governing the Empire, and ruling the Neumel Family, the Emperor, sitting in his wheelchair with an innocent face, had made this request.
'Your Majesty, so... you want golems... painted red, blue, yellow, to fight each other with punches and kicks... and shoot hot beams?'
'Yes! Make them for me!'
'...Golems are the specialty of mages, and I am not a mage, you know?'
'Make them anyway! Make them! Duke Beonald!'
It was a memory from 500 years ago, but Beonald still felt a headache coming on.
Since serving the Emperor was the foundation of his own power's legitimacy, he had no way to refuse. In the end, over several months, squeezing out even sleeping time, he dabbled in all sorts of trivial research and finally succeeded in creating fast-moving, red, blue, and yellow gorgeous golems and demonstrating their beams.
'Wow! As expected of the Duke! You really made them!'
Red, blue, and yellow 10-meter-tall metal golems. To meet all the Emperor's demands, Beonald had used Beonald Steel, as well as orichalcum, adamantite, and other super-metals, inscribing formulas on them. For the magical core, he condensed hundreds of magic stones from dangerous monster species, enabling him to implement fast movement and even beam-firing capabilities.
'...I am simply ashamed, Your Majesty.'
'Then, if we make about ten of those and have them fight on a large scale, it would be even more fun. Let's do that for next year's Founding Day. Is it possible?'
'...Yes?'
'Is it possible? Huh?'
In the end, he managed to produce ten of those golems and prepared them for Founding Day. But by that time, the Emperor had already lost interest in golems, so these works, prepared with immense effort, ended up heading straight to his Tomb of Shed Skins.
'...Well, on the other hand, I embezzled a ton of development and production costs under the guise of development... It was ridiculously hard work, but since it ended up useless, I had no choice but to stash it away.'
So these golems were actually in a delicate position when it came to being labeled as failures.
They were outrageously expensive and he had no intention of maintaining them, but they were technically finished products.
However, such flashy and expensive items had no practical place to be used, and during the peaceful, prosperous era of the Unified Empire with no wars, Beonald had ultimately stashed them away in this Tomb of Shed Skins.
"And besides those... there are so many. Magical war chariots, steam engines I made out of boredom, failed medicines... Hahaha, nothing but embarrassing items."
However, now that Beonald himself had returned, this place could no longer be called a 'Tomb of Shed Skins' for failures.
Depending on how they were utilized by his hands, and given the opportunity to be active in this era, failures could become successes again and serve as their foundation.
Thus, Beonald continued to examine various data in the central control room, checking if there was anything else that could be helpful.
A few hours later, morning. The excavation site of the Haldeon Ruins.
In stark contrast to Beonald's joy, the ruins were currently in an uproar due to a sudden incident.
As morning broke and the Kermel Family's investigation team prepared to resume work, they found that the underground entrance to the ruins, which had been open just yesterday, was now blocked by a massive metal wall, making further entry impossible.
The on-site supervisor, Alserus, wore a dumbfounded expression as he drew his sword, infused it with aura, and swung at the metal wall. It only left scratches and didn't budge an inch.
"What the... what on earth happened? What happened last night? Hey! Call everyone who was on guard duty yesterday! Magicians, is there no method?"
"Hmm... I don't know the specific formula, but a high-level magical formula is applied. It will likely be difficult even with magic."
"Damn it! What the hell did the guards do?"
There was no reason for the ruins to suddenly activate. Angered, Alserus gathered all the soldiers who had been on night guard duty and began questioning them.
The soldiers who had been on night duty were all sweating bullets, insisting they hadn't seen anything.
And the two whom Beonald had drugged with sleeping pills naturally couldn't admit they had fallen asleep while on night guard duty—their lives would be in danger. So they had woken up before the shift change and coordinated their stories.
"...Damn it, no one knows. Then what the hell happened? Damn it!"
Alserus grew irritable, drawing up his aura and glaring at the soldiers with killing intent. But they trembled and endured.
They were all seasoned soldiers who had worked for the Kermel Family for over a decade, going through battlefields and monster subjugations, so there was a limit to how much he could pressure them.
So, as Alserus was about to give up, one of the scholars spoke up as if realizing something.
"Come to think of it, that student named Beonald wasn't seen this morning. The griffon he had with him, even his tent, all vanished... Could it be?"
"That bastard? No, even so, there's no way he could have entered through the guarded entrance..."
"He seemed to have been looking around the area for another entrance for the past few days... Perhaps he found another entrance?"
"...What?"
"He seemed suspicious, sneaking glances at our magical tools from our tent, so I followed him... He was carrying a shovel, looking around. I thought something was up, and it seems he did find an entrance. And then inside... he probably tampered with something again."
Thanks to the report from the magical tool scholar who had fortunately witnessed Beonald's movements, the hypothesis that he had secretly gone through another entrance was presented, allowing the soldiers to breathe a sigh of relief.
Alserus, too, recalled from his vague memories the sight of Beonald looking around here and there, trying to enter the ruins, and had no choice but to accept it.
"I see. That rat bastard...! He should have just stayed quiet and left, but he dares to interfere with our work? Damn it! First, search the surroundings! There must be another entrance he opened. Search thoroughly! And send word to the Kermel main house and the mansion in the capital!"
"Yes! Understood!"
"Right! And also inform the surrounding territories under our family's influence to report immediately if a griffon and a suspicious person appear!"
Alserus immediately made a reasonable judgment and gave orders to his subordinates.
They had discovered ruins from the Unified Empire era, and although there had been some sacrifices, they were on the verge of breaking through the dungeon to retrieve magical tools and treasures. To have it blocked so pointlessly was utterly unacceptable.
For the glory of the family and his own merits, Alserus absolutely had to get his hands on the treasures of those ruins. He headed back to the sealed door with the mages.
"Is there really no way?"
"It's difficult. We also thought of various methods to try to open it with magic, but even if we tried to blow it up or push it aside with attack magic, there's a risk the ruins' entrance could collapse. We'd rather rely on the knight's 'aura.'"
"Hmm, if only I had a better sword..."
Alserus glanced at his own sword with a look of regret.
Of course, as a member of the prestigious martial Kermel Family, his sword had far superior sharpness and durability compared to what common mercenaries or bandits used. But it seemed impossible to cut through that sturdy-looking door with it.
'I'll have to request from the main house.'
In the end, all Alserus could do was request from the main house. While he didn't have one, the main house's treasure vault surely contained weapons or secret magical tools stored for such occasions. Using those, they could probably break through a door like that.
Anyway, he decided to do what he could, left the ruins again, and focused on finding another entrance while expecting support from the main house.
While the Kermel Family's people and troops were moving outside, Beonald was busy figuring out the Tomb of Shed Skins facility.
Checking if anything had been taken or lost over the 500 years due to earthquakes, accidents, or other thieves, inspecting if any part of the facility was broken or damaged, and so on... There was a lot to do.
"Well, I was prepared to stay here for a while, but... those guys outside definitely won't stay still, right?"
He had sealed it with a wall for now, but they surely wouldn't give up and would try to find a way to break through.
The wall was made of Beonald Steel with high-level magical formulas inscribed, so they wouldn't be able to break through immediately. But he didn't think it could be an absolute defense.
For starters, the supervisor here, Alserus, was estimated to be around the strength of a high-ranking knight, and Beonald knew that with a good enough sword, he could cut through it with aura.
'I need to block it so those thieves can't target this place anymore.'
Beonald pondered various options. Should he just collapse one area so they can't enter? Starting with that, he considered many plans, but no good method came to mind easily.
Once the fact that there were relics from the Unified Empire era here was confirmed, countless people would flock here, and blocking them one by one was practically impossible.
'...Time is short. I need to decide as soon as possible.'
There were no issues with water or food, but it was certain that human greed would continue to target these ruins.
Beonald worried if there was any solution, but it wasn't easy to come by.
But driven by the conviction that he must find one, while rummaging through his 'failures,' Beonald finally discovered something usable.
"Well... I've salvaged one, at least. Wow, haven't seen this in a long time."
It was one of the boxes stored in the central control room. The tag, written in the Unified Empire language from 500 years ago, read 'Unfinished Extra-dimensional Storage Backpack.'
Opening the box revealed a leather bag, its preservation magic having worn off but still intact. Opening the bag revealed a faint blue extra-dimensional space inside.
"Great! At least the transportation issue will be a bit easier."
'Unfinished Extra-dimensional Storage Backpack'. It was the kind of item often found in legends or myths, carried by adventurers or heroes, but in reality, such convenient items that defied the limits of physical laws didn't exist in the world.
So, Beonald had collaborated with mages from the Magic Tower to try and research making one himself, but ultimately failed.
"Ah... Still the same. Tch~"
He succeeded in implementing various magical formulas to allow infinite storage as long as it didn't exceed the bag's opening limit and to easily retrieve items from the extra-dimensional space. But it was labeled 'unfinished' because he couldn't solve one crucial problem.
The problem was that the weight of the 'items' placed inside was fully distributed across the entire bag.
'...Couldn't solve this. Sigh~ Ended up stashing it away. Although the research on extra-dimensional magical formulas yielded some results.'
Even though the weight issue wasn't solved, some thought that reducing the volume and capacity for transportation was innovative enough. But the problem was that considering this bag's production cost, it was cheaper to just build roads to improve logistics distribution capabilities. So it ended up stored in this Tomb of Shed Skins in its unfinished state.
"But it's the perfect item for right now."
This 'failure' of a bag was also the optimal item for the current Beonald, because it offered overwhelming efficiency by allowing him to stuff all his existing belongings inside and reduce volume.
The increased weight could be sufficiently handled by Beonald, tempered by aura, or by the griffon Alterio.
"...I've salvaged one thing, but... Hoo~ What do I do now?"
After organizing his luggage into the new bag, Beonald began thinking of ways to protect this facility and mess with the Kermel Family people.