The Hidden Elixir
“It’s open!!”
The two scholars who had been glaring at me like they wanted to devour me shouted in unison. They looked like they were having a seizure, the way people do when they pull the character they wanted from a gacha right before hitting the pity counter. Their aggro instantly shifted to Larilura, who had given the correct answer.
—Whoosh!
“Haha! That’s it! It matches the hint in the cipher! But how could you be so sure it was the right answer?!”
“Is that phrase from some kind of document?! Which book?!”
“Huh? It’s not from a book or anything! I just heard it somewhere before!”
Larilura shrank back and hid behind me when the scholars rushed her. A textbook Friend Shield. Using me as a meat puppet—how cheeky.
“Ahem. Our apologies.”
Still, the sight of the young girl (age notwithstanding) cowering was enough to cool the bearded men’s heads. They seemed embarrassed at having lost their composure.
‘More importantly… that was actually the right answer.’
I stared at the door that had opened in classic irasshaimase fashion and felt my jaw drop. So the password really had been taken from the writings of that court jester, Crown Crown or whatever his name was!
‘……It wasn’t his tower, though, right?’
A court jester wouldn’t have been pulling in billions in salary. There was no way the man himself had bought this massive tower and converted it into a frontline base. Even if he had, assuming the building was his just because a line from his writing was used as a password was a massive logical leap. By that logic, my adult video site username would belong to Tolstoy.
‘He was famous, so the architect probably just borrowed something he’d heard or read.’
That made sense. The time periods were roughly the same. It felt like someone from the World War II era pulling a cipher from a Charlie Chaplin film. Thinking about it that way suddenly made the cipher feel a lot less dignified. It was like the security question for a frontline logistics warehouse being “What was Yoo Jae-suk’s old nickname?”
“Are there any monsters?” Nathan asked.
Now that the door was open, he was probably bracing for a boss fight. At his words, Franc and the Goldak thief used their detection skills to scan the interior.
“No signs of life.”
“No temperature changes either. Even if something’s there, wouldn’t it be a golem?”
Franc spoke while using her spy-dwarf senses to check the temperature as well.
“Let’s investigate carefully.”
I made the suggestion while dodging the scholars’ silent interrogation—the way they were staring holes through my face. Damn it, if they ask later I’ll just say it was a coincidence and bolt.
Like proper tomb raiders, we began searching the inside.
—Clack, clack.
Most of what remained in the boxes were potions. It seemed the place had continued operating as a potion research lab even after the modifications. While we were rummaging through the boxes, Selena suddenly cried out.
“Over here!! It’s a skeleton!!”
She pointed at a set of white bones. A skeleton sprawled on the floor, one hand stretched out as if reaching for something! Except it was just human bones. I thought she’d found some huge discovery or something. The urgent tone made it sound like a skeleton had risen from the dead.
Dana hurried over to examine the remains.
“Probably a researcher. No trauma to vital areas. Likely died from a curse, old age, or some heart condition.”
Dana had removed her gauntlets and put on sanitary gloves before reporting her findings. In the modern otherworld, crime-scene magic became useless if too much time had passed or if countermeasures had been taken. It was like luminol—examining bones this old in ruins required specialized equipment.
“I’ll take a few bones and check the year of death.”
Dana asked for Selena’s permission, then carefully collected the bones and placed them in a leather pouch. Combined with her nun-like outfit, the reverent way she handled the remains made her look almost like a priestess. The Goldak team’s cleric drew a cross for the departed soul as well.
“The fact that the body was left like this means no visitors ever came!! We might not find anything major, but let’s keep investigating!!”
Once Dana stood up with the bones, Selena took control of the atmosphere and shouted. Her voice was shrill, yet strangely not grating. Was that what charisma looked like? I’d heard that gold-spoon types always seemed relaxed and bold—maybe this was the otherworld version.
“Senior, senior.”
Just then, Larilura tugged secretly at my sleeve.
“About the password on that door. What do you think happened?”
“Probably just a coincidence. If someone clever enough to use that kind of cipher when sealing the door had money to spare, they could’ve seen Crown’s performances or read the book you have.”
I pointed toward where Tirsi was investigating. There were bookshelves in the lab. Most of the books were paper, and even though the room had been sealed, time had reduced them to tatters. Maybe while looking for books, the person had found one with Crown Crown’s monkey nonsense and read it? Since it was half-autobiographical, that wouldn’t have been strange.
“But why ask? You think that skeleton over there might be Crown?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just… finding traces of someone I respect in a place like this feels strange☆!”
“If you’re curious, why not go check the shelves with Tirsi? Who knows—maybe even one more volume from that series survived intact.”
The moment I said that, Tirsi stopped her investigation and came over to us. I wondered if she’d overheard, but she was holding a book in one hand. It was small and thin, more like a pamphlet.
“Miss Larilura. This book—doesn’t it belong to the same series as the one you received from Nord last time?”
“Huh?”
Larilura took the book and examined it. The sturdy paper and ink had kept the contents almost perfectly preserved despite the passage of time.
“Y-you’re right. This is Volume 1 of Even a Monkey Can Be a Court Jester! It doesn’t say it’s the first edition written by a disciple, though!”
“No way, seriously?”
All the research materials had turned to dust, yet this alone remained intact. Maybe because it was his own book, he’d printed it in small quantities on high-quality paper? But the whole situation was getting suspicious enough that I was starting to have real doubts. Was there actually something to that jester?
“S-senior? About this book… I can’t keep it, can I?”
Larilura asked with upturned eyes. She looked like a little niece holding a toy she wanted and checking for permission—it was a little funny.
“I’ll ask the others later. Doesn’t seem like anyone else would want it. Just put it in the discovery box properly instead of sneaking it away, okay?”
“Yay~! I knew you were the best, senior~♥!”
—Squeeze.
Larilura hugged me in thanks. Her face as she walked away with the booklet looked genuinely happy. Seeing her like that, she really did seem like a kid. Well, even a forty-year-old could feel pure joy over a beloved collection, I supposed.
Tirsi smiled as she watched Larilura go.
“It was just sitting there among all the shabby books. The others were ordinary paper, so they’ve all turned to rags—I couldn’t even pick them up.”
“That’s a shame. Ancient potion recipes are secrets only a few people know. It would’ve been nice if you’d found something like that, Tirsi.”
“Hehe. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope. Still, as I said before, it’s a tower. Half of me expected something, and the other half knew better.”
“Very rational.”
It was an extremely smart emotional diversification strategy. If you got something, great; if not, oh well. I should learn from that.
Tirsi shrugged lightly.
“I’ll keep looking through the shelves. Maybe there’s a secret passage or something.”
“Haha. Just be careful not to get dragged into a secret summoning circle.”
“Oh? Even if that happened, you’d come save me, wouldn’t you, Nord?”
With a wink, Tirsi walked off with light steps to continue her investigation.
Left alone again, I tried to find something as well. First, I used runes like last time to check if the skeleton’s soul remained, but it was a bust. Damn it. Disappointing, but I let it go. Unless someone had left their monitor on while jerking off, there was no way a soul could linger for this long on lingering attachment or regret alone.
—Glance, glance.
That said, I could see the occasional look from other expedition members that said, ‘This guy’s gonna pull something off again, right?’
‘Why the hell are they expecting anything from a dumbass like me…’
Still, this was my own fault. Maybe because I’d pulled off two miraculous survivals—living in another world and surviving the tower—the expedition members were treating me like some kind of MacGyver of ruin exploration. I was getting the otherworld John von Neumann treatment. Archaeologist John von Neumann. Or was it Fuck von Nord?
‘Give me strength. Give me the strength to think, Professor Slayer. The truth is always one!’
I oiled up my elite brain and started thinking.
‘Why was this room sealed?’
If my earlier deduction was correct, this tower had been a secret research facility sending recovery supplies to other frontline bases. Burying the lab underground had been to avoid detection by the “enemy”! Sealing the room was probably to keep the enemy out.
‘A shelter? No, that doesn’t make sense.’
A shelter in a place with only one skeleton? Then the remaining possibility was—
“—A potion storage warehouse?”
I muttered. Franc, who had been investigating nearby, perked up her ears.
“Nord? What did you just say?”
“Oh. I was thinking this might have been a storage place for potions before sending them to other frontline bases.”
“A warehouse? Wouldn’t they have sent the potions to other bases as soon as they were made?”
Franc asked. I’d thought the same at first. But that method would have been incredibly wasteful.
“That would’ve required an absurd amount of mana for .”
“Ah, I see. They wouldn’t have wasted mana like that during wartime.”
“Right. This tower was built as a space that could only be accessed via . You could make sealed rooms to use as ‘warehouses’ and teleport things in, but I don’t think that’s what they did here.”
“Yeah. Oxygen and stuff could be handled with magic, but the mana consumption would’ve been insane.”
“Exactly.”
I crossed my arms and groaned. Could one person cover all that with their own mana? If so, that bastard belonged on the front lines. He must’ve been an absurdly powerful mage. Probably the had been activated using some ancient civilization magic item or magic circle prepared in advance, like a summoning circle. With magic items or circles, you could use pre-charged mana, just like Tabula’s mask.
“So they wouldn’t have made a secret space that could only be accessed via . This tower itself was already that kind of space. Using the same trick twice after it had been discovered once would’ve been 100% detected by the ‘enemy,’ and they wouldn’t have bothered with such a strict seal. It would’ve been too much of a mana waste for a mere trick.”
That was why I’d considered the possibility of a potion storage warehouse. After muttering that, I examined the skeleton. Three years of archaeology experience hadn’t gone to waste—quite a bit of information came together.
—Slice!
I extended Beast Regression’s mana claws and cut through the bone. Even to my amateur eyes, the cross-section showed low bone density.
“There are cracks in the tibia and femur. Signs of osteoporosis too. The owner of these bones wasn’t someone who trained their body in life.”
“The cracks could just be from the passage of time, couldn’t they?”
Dana answered my words. It was also true that there were no fatal wounds on the bones. Weathering or old injuries weren’t wrong either. Dana’s diagnosis was accurate. But I shook my head.
“Maybe. Still, the bones show a lot of characteristics of old age. I think this person’s bones were already weak before death, and they fell and became unable to move due to fractures.”
In the 21st century, lonely deaths among the elderly were sad but common. News about grandmothers and grandfathers dying alone after fracturing their hips, phones just out of reach! Hearing that, my father had given Grandfather a lanyard so he wouldn’t have to keep his smartphone away from his body.
“So a supposed potion master starved to death alone in this room. It’s sad, but what does that change?”
Dana asked with expectant eyes. Recalling 21st-century knowledge, I put the bones down and observed the direction the skeleton was lying in.
“If this person collapsed and died, why were they here? The research equipment is on the upper floors. And why did no one come to this place until they died alone?”
“One: because the other researchers didn’t know the password. Two: because this person worked alone here, and no one knew the location. Three: because this person’s colleagues had all been wiped out. One of those, probably.”
Tirsi, whose head worked well, counted on her fingers. Honestly, I hadn’t thought of the third one. It was possible they’d been abandoned after getting wrecked in the war.
“Yes. Anyway, the important thing is that the equipment upstairs is clean. This tower probably wasn’t attacked until the very end. In that case, the owner of these bones died in an accident.”
“—I see!”
Dana snapped her fingers. Then her eyes followed the direction I was looking—the direction the skeleton’s hand was reaching toward.
“If they had a few days before dying, they would’ve tried to find a potion! They would’ve thought there was still a chance to treat their injuries until the pain in their lower body made it impossible to move!”
“I was thinking the same thing. So the direction this person was trying to crawl toward—”
“—might be where the potion warehouse was hidden!!”
Selena, who had been listening intently to my words, shouted.
“Investigate! Investigate! We need to investigate! Bazrant! Miss Francesca! Please investigate!!”
“Tch. If it’s that, I’ll help too.”
“I’ll check from the left.”
Franc and the Hermaion Guild expedition’s thief, the Goldak thief, began investigating the direction the skeleton had fallen in a friendly manner.
“—It’s here! Nord! It’s really here!”
The discoverer was our Franc. While investigating with thick gloves on, Franc pulled a lever after widening a small gap.
—Rumble!
A small door appeared as it opened! I’d been feeling uncertain about whether this was right, but amazingly, my reckless scientific deduction had hit the mark.
“Kuh—!! This is crazy, this is crazy—!!”
—Whoosh!
Dana trembled as if overcome with emotion, then wrapped her arms around my shoulders. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement.
“You bastard! You crazy bastard! What the hell? How did you know? Is our husband actually insane?!”
“Haha. Whose husband do you think I am—of course I’m crazy. Still, Franc found it, not me. You should thank her more than me.”
“Hehe. Thanks for the praise. I worked hard, right?”
When I tried to comfort Franc for her efforts, she smiled and hugged me.
“But I wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t told me. We couldn’t check every single place like that, could we?”
“Kuhaha. You’re right. It’s not every day you find a new passage in ruins that were discovered over a hundred years ago. If you don’t notice, you could spend your whole life not knowing about a treasure vault right in front of you.”
The other thieves nodded at Franc’s words.
Anyway, we had found the secret warehouse less than an hour after starting the serious investigation. After the thieves checked for other traps, we examined the space. It was a narrow room. The word “warehouse” fit perfectly.
“Nord? You have the right to check that box first!!”
Selena pointed at the most intact box. A box placed on a one-way receiving magic circle! That would be the potions that had been sent to other bases.
“The lock’s already been picked. I’ve staked my neck on proving it’s safe.”
The Goldak thief waved his wrist. I nodded confidently, channeling my inner machismo, and opened the box. I’d used 21st-century scientific knowledge to make an educated guess, but luck was part of skill too!
—Click.
I opened the box and saw four bottles inside. Potions properly packaged in cheap bottles! Ancient civilization was an era so distant that a hundred or two hundred years didn’t even count. Potions made that long ago still remaining as liquid in the modern day! Such potions were the only amazing and magical things in this otherworld.
I recalled Tirsi’s words at the sacredness of the purple potion. The ultimate healing medicine also called the tears of the gods!
‘Holy shit. It’s a Power Elixir.’
My first legendary item in this life was a goddamn Elixir.