Visitor from Another Dimension (3)
“Huu. No way. Is this really the potion research lab we were looking for? What a fucking bust.”
Dana said that like a kid who’d just unwrapped a Nintendo English-immersion game from Santa Claus. I felt exactly the same.
Ancient civilization potion labs had been discovered in droves long ago. The analysis of their technology was already well underway. At this point, even the highest-grade potion—the Elixir—could be reproduced if you threw enough money at it. That was how thoroughly devalued any ruin connected to potions had become.
“It’s too early to be disappointed. There might be other facilities on the lower floors.”
Franc tried to comfort her, but Dana shook her head.
“Franc. See that big glass orb over there? That’s a professional distiller. It’s so damn old we couldn’t use it even if we wanted to, and it’s way too common to sell as an antique. But if you see one of those installed, it’s a potion lab nine times out of ten.”
“R-really?”
“Yeah… Still, you’re right. It does feel too early to give up. Let’s look around a little more.”
At Dana’s words, we dropped our shields and began the investigation. The researchers of old probably hadn’t bothered setting traps inside their own lab. The old instruments were covered in rust and mold, and even the mold looked like it had given up and died.
“Here!! It’s a journal!!”
Tirsi found a notebook made of high-grade material that had endured the passage of time, but it was another dud. The ink must have been cheaper than the paper; it had bled and soaked through until nothing was legible.
“Ugh……”
Her cheeks flushed bright red, embarrassed at having shouted in excitement only for it to be worthless.
─In the end, thirty minutes of hard work amounted to nothing but wasted sweat.
Franc tapped on the walls, and Dana and I drew on every bit of experience and knowledge we had, but we turned up nothing. The only documents left were papers too ruined to be useful. The room was filled with nothing but the sour stench of rotten herbal vinegar.
The combo of that grassy reek and the damp, acidic smell spreading through the unventilated ruin was indescribably awful.
“……Shall we head back?”
“Let’s do that.” I answered Tirsi.
We tried to shake off the disappointment of our wasted effort and leave.
“──Huh?”
Until I spotted a scrap of parchment beneath the collapsed section of wall.
The wall hadn’t shattered; it had simply toppled over intact, looking like one giant go board or chessboard. It had been buried under the stone debris, so none of us had noticed it during our search.
I called out to the party.
“Wait. Let me check that first.”
“What? What is it?”
“Looks like something’s pinned under that wall section.”
Seeing is believing. I carefully examined the paper trapped beneath the collapsed stone. Given how badly preserved it was, the thing could tear the moment I tried to lift it.
─Rustle.
─Swipe.
I cleared the stone fragments and pinched the edge of the parchment. The texture was thick and slightly squishy. Was this leather paper? Afraid it would rip if I pulled too hard, I pressed my face to the floor and peered at the writing.
The characters, written in ancient Romanian, read like this.
<## ## Temporary Base Coordinates.>
Translation: The front portion is damaged and illegible.
“──Temporary coordinates?”
I muttered in shock after deciphering the letters. The beginning was too damaged to read, but they must have used excellent ink; the characters were surprisingly clear given the parchment’s age.
Coordinates on parchment? A base?
Even in an almost airtight space with almost no airflow, for something like this to survive hundreds of years! This wasn’t ordinary parchment—it was paper processed from the hide of some monstrously resilient creature. If they had written on it with high-grade ink and fastened it to the wall──
“──Isn’t this a fucking map?!”
“A map?!”
Dana, who had been frowning at my strange behavior, cried out in astonishment.
A map from the ancient civilization era! These were priceless artifacts that could sometimes function as treasure maps. If an old map recorded a facility in southern Britannia but no modern reports of ruins there existed, the odds of discovering an untouched site were extremely high.
That meant we could monopolize a brand-new ruin that literally no one else knew about!
─Whoosh!
Thud!
I sprang to my feet and shouted.
“It says some kind of base coordinates! Dana! Paper reinforcement potion!”
“Reinforcement potion?! Fuck, I only brought Kancis Type B!!”
Dana cursed as she pulled a potion from her bag that strengthened old paper.
Kancis Type B—in other words, the cheap version. Like needing milk for a recipe but only having low-fat in the fridge.
“Damn it. No, it’s fine. That’ll do! It doesn’t come off on your hands when you touch it, so it should work.”
There was no time to go back for better potions. We had carved a path through a trap-filled area; if we left this place empty, other scavengers would sniff it out and destroy the map. One hundred percent chance.
“How many?! Two bottles enough?!”
“We’ll have to try! No pickaxe—of course not! Franc! Lend me your core knife and hammer!”
“Huh? Ah, okay!”
Gathering whatever tools we had, Dana and I got to work.
Fuck, how many months had it been? I wasn’t sure I could still do this properly.
If you screwed up the reinforcement, even a restored torn map would be hard to read. Dana must have noticed how tense I was; the corner of her mouth curled up.
“Hey, dumbass. Why are you so stiff? Haven’t you done this before?”
“Wait a sec, you fucking auntie. It’s been over two months since I last held a hammer. You expect me not to be nervous? Bragging just because you’ve been a wage slave longer than me—my fists are itching.”
“Look at this little shit talking big. Why am I an auntie, you reserve-army daddy-to-be bastard?”
“You’re my wife, so you’re an auntie, fuck. Sis, aren’t you going to marry me?”
“……Oh. Yeah? When did I become a married woman?”
“This thick-skulled bitch. You’ve only got love for your husband left in that thick skull of yours. Take off that ‘PhD mom’ title, you.”
“This fucker…… Whatever, you little shit. I don’t know why I can’t live without an idiot like you.”
“Is it because I’m the sweetest guy in the world?”
“Hand over the hammer, fucker. So I can reinforce that face of yours first.”
While bickering, Dana grabbed Franc’s golem core knife. This iron-skin woman who could stay calm even if the flying hammer smashed her hand! That was why Dana always held the pick while I hammered holes into the stone.
“Excuse me~? Could you two stop having so much fun and explain what you’re doing~?”
Larilura tilted her head.
I answered while staying hyper-focused.
“We’re reinforcing this scrap of paper. We drill holes in the stone and pour in the potion that strengthens it.”
“Ah, so that’s why the holes? Wouldn’t it be easier to just lift the wall?”
“It’s stuck to the floor with moisture. If we lift the stone, the map will tear top to bottom. Besides, I have to be extremely careful not to crack the wall while drilling. Can our junior please just stay quiet for three minutes~?”
“──What?! Y-you want me to pee?!”
“Shh. Sorry, I meant shh. Don’t talk to me. I’m not in my right mind right now.”
Treasure map! Ruins! Thesis! Dr. Nord, perfectionist! My brain had flown off to an awesome future and I couldn’t even remember what I’d said three seconds ago.
I struck the knife Dana was holding with the right amount of force.
─Clang!
The tip sank in slightly. The hammer weight and knife size were so different from the excavation tools I knew that it was hard to focus. It felt ten times worse than lying on a new bed after replacing a ten-year-old pillow.
This is driving me insane, fuck.
“Ah, this is suddenly so fucking annoying? My beloved wife. Why did you leave the pickaxe and hammer behind when we came to explore ruins? Just to piss me off?”
“I’m sorry. My mistake.”
“Wait, if you apologize there, what does that make me?”
“The average Kitai man?”
“Why can’t I live without this woman? My mind is completely gone.”
─Clang! Clang!
Shut up. Focus. Focus.
I poured everything into hammering while cold sweat ran down my back. If I accidentally split the wall with a huge crack? The map would follow that goddamn fracture and be divided into three kingdoms. Zhuge Liang appears after three visits, but restore this map over thirty days and the word “Romania” would turn into gibberish. Then you’d go looking for a “treasure warehouse” only to find a sewage warehouse and end up filming a grand exploration of an otherworld flush toilet that summons storms.
Badabam bababam badabababab~
badabababa badabababa badababab~
“Ah, fuck. This guy’s flipped the crazy switch again.”
I felt like a universal handyman as I drilled through the stone.
─Kang!
A hole opened with a sharp cry. Fuck yes, success!
─Tap tap tap.
I tapped the sides of the knife with the hammer to widen the gap so it could be pulled free.
“Sssuuuup……”
Dana pulled the knife from the collapsed wall. I kept my weight spread wide so the wall wouldn’t lift. We repeated the process four times, creating holes to pour the potion through.
“See that? See? Awesome, right? Skills haven’t rusted, right? Natural talent, right?”
“Yeah. The kid’s damn good at digging holes. Your hand movements are making even me synchronize with these holes, you bastard.”
“……Sis. Larilura and Tirsi are right here.”
“………………I’m sorry. Please pretend you didn’t hear that.”
Dana, who had forgotten time and place because she was too busy snapping back at me, hung her head and trembled with shame.
“Get your head on straight, fuck. I’m actually going to die here.”
─Tremble tremble tremble.
With hands shaking like they had Parkinson’s, I poured the potion into the funnel Dana held steady. The excess that leaked through the wall pooled at my feet. This was correct. This was how it had to be done.
─Gurgle gurgle.
We emptied both bottles to reinforce the map. Once the protruding sections were sturdy enough not to tear even when pulled, we stood up.
“Franc, Larilura. Come help lift it. Grab the corners and lift at the same time or it’ll rip.”
“Huh? I might not be strong enough……. Can I leave it to Ringling?”
“No. You can’t. The height difference with Franc is too big.”
“Ugh. Nord, that’s too much……”
Franc let out a small groan after taking the surprise hit.
Sorry. Just this once, forgive me. I’ll make it up to you at the inn later.
“Okay, on one~ two we lift. One~ two!”
“Ughiiit!!”
With Larilura’s weird battle cry, the wall was raised upright.
Tirsi’s eyes widened.
“I-it’s intact! It’s a little smudged but it’s almost perfectly preserved!!”
“Careful!! Set it down gently so the wall doesn’t collapse!!”
─Thud.
It was a chilling sound, but considering the weight, we had set it down lightly.
I looked at the map now standing against the wall with relief. My mouth opened as wide as physically possible.
“Oh my god. The performance is solid.”
What we had restored was a world map drawn on brown leather parchment. There were smudged areas, but at this level, if we put the researchers on it, they could recover the original within a month!
Then Dana’s eyes flashed as she pointed at a corner of the map.
“The corner! Look at the corner! Check the date! Fuck, this is insane! The publication date is from before the Golden Age!!”
“What?!”
I shoved my nose against the publication date like a neighborhood mutt sticking its head in a dog hole.
“Holy shit! It’s real!!”
It was from before the ancient civilization fell—from the Golden Age calendar! An intact world map from the ancient civilization period that had never been reported to academia!
“Treasure map!! Got it!!”
─Slap!
Dana and I high-fived with pure ecstatic joy.
“This is a jackpot!! Even without full restoration, it’s lab-level thesis material! What if I become lab director and stand on the seminar stage in just half a year?!”
“What do you mean what if!! Just give a slick presentation and become a professor! Our sis can do whatever the hell she wants! Become a 29-year-old female professor!!”
“The damn bastard just had to mention the age. You’re asking to die!! But I’m in a good mood so I’ll let it slide!!”
“Hehehehehehet!! Franc!! Franc, come dance too!!”
“Huh? Me too? I kind of don’t want to…… Ah. O-okay! Don’t pull!!”
“Ehehehehehe!! Ehehehehehe!!”
We couldn’t contain our explosive happiness and dragged even Franc into the dance. Since it was nothing more than frog-leg dancing only slightly better than throwing a skinned lizard on a grill, Tirsi—from a fallen noble house—and Larilura—who had learned dance in the circus—kept a polite distance as if they weren’t part of our group.
“Ah, shoot! This isn’t the time! We have to peel it off!”
Having fully expressed her joy, Dana wiped her sweat and laughed.
“Franc! You’ll help me remove the map, right?”
“Y-yes…… I will…… My head’s spinning from all that turning with the ring on……”
Because I had spun her around 3600 degrees while hugging her, Franc walked toward the map with the unsteady steps of someone drunk. She must not have been able to adjust the sensory enhancement ring properly.
─Riiip.
Rip.
Dana peeled the map off with extreme care, dried it thoroughly, and placed it in her bag. Her caution was like a job-seeker carrying their company application into an interview.
“Uhu hu hu hu hu!! Once this map is restored, we might be able to locate even more undiscovered ruins!!”
Dana’s excitement still hadn’t died down.
“I’ll delay the academic report as long as possible. No—I should handle the restoration myself. That way we can keep racking up achievements by excavating ruins only we know about!”
“C-congratulations.”
“C-congratulations……?”
The girls couldn’t quite match her energy, so Dana finally calmed down a little.
“A-anyway, let’s head back for today. We’ll hide the map in the lab safe first and resume exploring the lower floors tomorrow.”
─Ahem.
She cleared her throat and returned to her usual bored dark-circle-girl expression. Let’s just consider the twitching at the corner of her mouth as cute.
“Ahaha♡! Big sis and senior were having so much fun we didn’t even have time to be happy ourselves!”
At Larilura’s remark while she wrapped things up, Dana and I bowed our heads together.
Hey, you just don’t get it. How fucking amazing this is.
I had to endure the embarrassed feeling of an otaku who’d just been called a damn nerd for geeking out. But please understand. We couldn’t help acting like this.
With just that map, we can locate the ruins of the ancient civilization!
It wasn’t simply about piling up academic achievements and making money! This map could bring us dramatically closer to my goal of researching spatial teleportation magic!
With a heart full of excitement, I led the party back toward the surface.
──However.
“……Huh?”
The second floor that had been so noisy until now………… was completely silent.
A deathly stillness stabbed at our ears. If noise dug into the brain, silence seeped into the chest.
“W-what is this?”
Even Dana forgot her earlier excitement and tensed up. It hadn’t even been three hours since we went down to the third floor—how could every person disappear?
“……I’ll try detecting.”
Franc listened carefully on behalf of the group. Mana glowed from the ring’s rune, sharpening her five senses.
“……I hear something.”
With her ears perked, Franc spoke haltingly.
“Footsteps…… Something is eating. The steps sound wet, like it’s splashing with every stride. But… it seems extremely large……”
Franc, hands clasped as if in prayer while she listened, suddenly opened her eyes. She looked down at the floor.
“──Below?”
That was the moment.
“──Korrrrrrrrrrrrrrooo.”
With a low growl, a gigantic crustacean-like hand pierced the floor like a ghost and burst out. It moved exactly like a vise crushing an apple, aiming straight for Franc’s body!
“──Franc!!”
“──Sis!!”
The only ones who could react in time were me and Larilura, who had been paying closer attention to Franc’s words than to our surroundings.
─Thud!
The instant I shoved Franc aside and Larilura caught her falling body and threw her clear—
“Fuck?!”
A hand that looked like human skin transformed into insect carapace seized both me and Larilura.
─Whooooosh!!!
The floor vanished. The sensation of sinking far, far down. Under that merciless pressure, Larilura and I were helplessly dragged away, sucked into an unknown space.