The Undersea Temple (1)
After a short discussion with Ter, I decided to enter the dungeon together with her.
The decision came fast, and our movements came faster still. We quickly gathered what we needed and finished preparing for the trip.
Squeeeak.
“We've arrived.”
The brakes engaged, and the limousine's wheels, which had been rolling along steadily, ground to a halt. Ter and I opened the doors and stepped out.
Not far away stood the gate — the entrance to the dungeon.
“Thanks for the ride, Diana.”
“I have merely fulfilled the duties assigned to me.”
Carrying herself with all the dignity befitting a maid, she parked the car and saw us off.
“Don't forget this, either.”
“Thank you.”
She handed me something pulled from the trunk of the limousine — an object rolled up in cloth. I took it and headed for the gate.
“What is that thing?”
Ter followed at my heels, eyeing the bundle in my arms with curiosity. What on earth could it be, that I'd bring it along like this?
“A monster's corpse. It's going to be our ticket in.”
“Is it connected to the dungeon where the Divine Artifact sleeps?”
“That's right.”
The undersea temple, Atlantis. There was no way to reach it by ordinary means. Even within the otherworld — the realm of monsters — it was a completely isolated region. The only way in was to force open the dungeon's sealed entrance, a gate that demanded an offering: the corpse of a monster native to Atlantis. And right now, the thing in my hands was the only Atlantis-born monster corpse to exist in the present world.
Thank goodness Palad gave her permission.
The reason the protagonist's party in the novel had managed to claim the Divine Artifact ahead of the Celestial Clan was simple: Palad had been quietly keeping the passkey all along.
Daon, the artifact's original owner, had been a member of the Celestial Clan's hardline faction. After losing the war against the Archmage, he quietly ended his life in Atlantis, the territory that was his domain — leaving the key to the dungeon with the one person he'd been close to, the neutral stalwart Palad.
"The Water Dragon's scale, ye say? And how would a student like yourself know about that, hmm?"
When I first contacted her, her voice had been thick with suspicion. It was a secret even the Celestial Clan didn't know — one she'd hidden from the Archmage Kairos himself, despite all the secrets they'd exchanged over the years.
"'I'll present the Divine Artifact, so bring it quick,' ye say? How am I supposed to trust the likes of you?"
"Ter? That girl becoming the next owner of the Divine Artifact? Ye want me to believe that?"
"What?! She shaped the form of a borrowed Divine Artifact? Is that true?!"
"A gun, of all things. That's the exact same form as the artifact I knew. And besides, she's of House Citrine—"
"Fine. I'll grant permission. But ye'll be signing a contract first."
Every fact Palad would recognize as true, plus the story surrounding Ter — I laid it all out, piling on the persuasion. She must have been drowning in questions, but the one thing that mattered was that Ter was fated to be assigned as the artifact's next owner. I pushed that single point relentlessly, and she finally relented, albeit grudgingly.
Sure, she'd pressed her thumb onto a contract that would claim her life the instant she betrayed it — but as long as I didn't do anything reckless, there'd be no problem.
“Let's get going, then.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I placed the cloth-wrapped monster corpse onto the altar beside the gate. The blue flames lighting it flared as they devoured the offering, burning higher and brighter. Then the firmly sealed iron door swung open of its own accord, like a sliding door sensing an approaching guest, and I wedged myself through the gap.
Shaaaaa!
The sound of water. A violent roar, like a waterfall crashing against the surface of a pool below. My vision blacked out as if a heavy curtain had been drawn over it. I floundered helplessly in the darkness, unable to see even an inch ahead. My breath caught as if a hand were squeezing my throat, and my limbs grew sluggish.
Eek, what is this! I can't breathe—!
Eva's line from the novel, spoken the moment she set foot in this place, flashed through my mind. She'd weathered the crisis here with Palad's Divine Artifact. With a broken-cheat-code relic that granted any wish you made, it was like blowing her nose without lifting a finger.
But what about me?
There had to be a way through this crisis. All I needed was to understand the cause and find the solution — and I already knew both the cause of my suffering and the nature of this environment.
Whoosh!
I dredged up the mana coiled around my heart. Golden rays of light, the emblem of the sun itself, shoved back the darkness and lit up my surroundings.
Hack—hack!
“You okay?”
I held out a hand to Ter, who was coughing and spitting out the water she'd swallowed.
“I'm fine. Just startled — water got in my mouth out of nowhere.”
“Sorry. I forgot to mention you'd be underwater the moment we passed through the gate.”
“Underwater?”
“See for yourself. That'll get you up to speed a lot faster than any explanation of mine.”
At my words, she rubbed the water from her eyes and looked around. We stood at the heart of a boundless expanse of water. There, at the very deepest point of that endless sea, a city rose.
Corroded and broken though it was, a ruin now, the sprawling traces scattered everywhere made it plain that this place had once housed a brilliant civilization, back in the distant past when it still served its purpose.
“Ta-daaah. Welcome, one and all, to the undersea temple of Atlantis.”
“The undersea temple? But this is the otherworld — the land of monsters. Why is there a city here?”
“Well, people used to live here, back in the old days. Not anymore, of course.”
“People... in the otherworld...”
A look of pure curiosity rippled across Ter's face for an instant — then she shook it off and turned serious.
“You said the Divine Artifact is here, didn't you? Come on, let's hurry up and find it!”
“Hey, hold on—!”
I tried to stop her as she marched ahead, but she was already dashing off before I could grab her shoulder.
SPLASH!
Glub-glub!
“That's why I keep telling you to hear people out to the end.”
I hauled her out of the water, snagging her by the collar and dragging her back toward me.
Bleeeagh! What was that, water rushing at me out of nowhere!
“It didn't rush at you — you stepped outside the mana barrier I put up.”
The undersea temple of Atlantis, just like the myths and legends, was a city sunk beneath the sea. From the moment we set foot here, we had reached the deepest depths of the otherworld's ocean. Charge in without a plan and you'd flail around underwater until you suffocated, nine times out of ten.
“This is the inside of the sea. Wander off thoughtlessly and you'll get lost and never come back, so watch yourself.”
“Then why is it safe where we're standing?”
“Because I'm using my mana to flash-vaporize the water pressing in around us.”
I tapped a finger against the bracelet wrapped around my wrist — the Solar Halo.
“Emit mana through the Divine Artifact like you're raising a barrier, and you can carve out just enough space for us to breathe.”
What I didn't mention to her was that my other Divine Artifact, the First Heartbeat, was also periodically producing oxygen — the very thing living creatures need to survive.
In the novel, Eva had begged Palad's Divine Artifact to remake her and her companions so they could live freely underwater, like fish. There had been complications — actually turning into fish, sprouting fins, faces warping until they became merfolk — but after all manner of trial and error they adapted, laying the groundwork for their exploration of the undersea temple.
I couldn't use Eva's method, so this was my crude way of patching the gaps.
Huh. Better than I expected, honestly.
For a fix slapped together like caulking a leaking wall with glue, that glue was performing beyond all expectations. Fitting for a domain spread by two Divine Artifacts — our safety was guaranteed even on the ocean floor. And with solar mana scattering through the water, the space around us, once as dark as a night beneath clouded skies, brightened brilliantly.
It was thanks to the Halo's sun that Ter and I could take in the scenery of Atlantis at all. It wouldn't take long to pinpoint the altar where the Divine Artifact slept, either.
Skitter-skitter.
Glub!
Of course, if there was one flaw, it was that annoying little pests came swarming the moment you switched on a lamp at midnight — just like moths to a light.
“Monsters...”
“They sure showed up in force.”
A horde of monsters guarding Atlantis — the residents of this place, the fish-folk. With human arms and legs and the bodies of fish, they leveled their weapons at us.
“We have to fight. If we can't get past even this...”
Ter readied herself for battle and gathered her mana, but it was a sorry sight. Nothing like the Ter I knew — the blue lightning she held was failing to put out anything close to its proper output. It wasn't just because her artifact had been taken from her. After Yupi had shredded her so viciously, her confidence had plummeted through the floor. These days she couldn't even trust in her own strength.
“Step aside for a moment.”
“Solis?”
Well, no helping it. The original plan had been to let Ter take on the fish-folk here and grow through the fight, but we didn't have that kind of time.
“This'll be over in a flash.”
Skip the trash mobs.
The thought had barely finished forming when I flooded the bracelet with mana.
SHAAAA!
The Halo rose behind my head, and a radiant light lit up the deep sea. A flash too dazzling for the eye to bear — so bright it threatened to blind me entirely — swelled in intensity before sweeping across the entire firmament.
The supreme technique of the Solar Halo.
A pure-white flash heralding the hour when night ends and morning approaches — incinerating all who stand against me.