I Have Found the Inheritance (3)
I Have Found the Inheritance (3)
A moment later, all the monsters collapsed, and the Firebird Hunter came over, beaming.
She hugged me with all her might, and I ended up buried against her stomach.
Geez, with our height difference, it must have looked ridiculous.
On top of that, her arms were incredibly strong.
"W-Wait! I can't breathe!"
Only after flailing my arms several times was I finally able to break free from her grasp.
Stepping back, she seemed to realize she was only in her underwear, then hurriedly threw on her outer clothes and armor.
I roughly wiped the water from my face and said to her,
"Whoa! You only added a shield, but the difference is massive!"
"From before?"
Ah, right. I was the only one who had experienced that, wasn't I?
"No, I mean, you're so different from when you fought with just a sword at the Marquis's estate. Did your skills improve in the meantime?"
"Ah, you saw me back then. My skills didn't improve. Just as you said, it's because of the shield."
She stroked the shield with a smile.
Fortunately, it seemed my comment passed without issue.
I needed to watch my mouth. After reliving my life several times, I was starting to slip up one by one. My body was fine, but it seemed my attentiveness had deteriorated after all the repeated deaths and pain.
"Ah, right. Look at this."
Still stroking the shield, she hurried toward the reservoir.
At the water's edge, a fairly large iron chest was resting halfway up the bank.
Could it be?
I followed her and approached the iron chest.
Unlike the shield she was holding, the chest was made of ordinary iron.
It had been submerged for so long that it was rusted and decayed.
If it hadn't been made of thick iron, it would have been destroyed long ago.
"Was there something like this at the bottom?"
Was it because the light hadn't gone out underwater? It was a chest I hadn't seen when I searched.
"There were probably more originally. Maybe they've been submerged for so long that I could only find this one chest."
She channeled mana into her sword and struck the side of the chest where the broken lock was attached.
Slash.
The lock was sliced off with ease, and...
"Now, shall we see what's inside?"
She flung open the old chest.
Flash!
A brilliant light burst from the open chest, blinding us.
Rubbing my eyes against the sudden glare, I was finally able to get a proper look inside.
First, what dazzled me was a thick layer of gold coins lining the bottom of the chest.
And not just any gold coins, but Old Empire gold coins, worth several times their face value on the market.
"Did they use gold coins as a floor mat?"
Yet even as she looked at the gold coins lining the bottom, the Firebird Hunter merely nodded with a lukewarm expression.
No, a mercenary shouldn't make that kind of face.
Perhaps because her tension had eased, the Firebird Hunter was unconsciously revealing her true nature.
I pretended not to notice that side of her, too.
On top of the gold coins lay other items, half-buried among them.
A small sword that looked like a dagger, and an old booklet.
With a delighted expression, she picked up the old booklet.
Then she handed me the dagger.
Oh? There was a soaring bird pattern on the dagger, too.
"There's a pattern here, too."
The relics engraved with the pattern and a single book were the items she wanted. I had contracted to take everything else.
Thinking about it now, the deal seemed to have turned slightly against me, but...
"Because the items fell into the water, the contract ended up being too favorable to me. Just having the shield and the book is more than enough reward."
Well, just looking at the fight earlier, anyone could tell that the shield was a pair with the sword.
The remaining book was probably about the inherited ability she'd said she had lost.
But the dagger she'd given me also had the same pattern on it. The fact that it was with the book meant it was definitely part of the same set as that sword and shield...
"That dagger is an item known as an inheritance, along with this sword and shield."
See? I knew it.
"To other people, it's just a sword that cuts a little better, but it's meant to show that I—no, our family—owe you a debt of gratitude. If you return that sword later, our family will repay the favor."
Hmm. She really was stubbornly honorable.
For me, it wasn't a bad deal, but...
Surely, when she said "family," she meant a noble house. But she was too stubbornly honorable to fit the image of a typical noble.
I shook my head inwardly.
Well, everyone is different. I suppose there are people like that, too.
Thinking that, I asked again,
"Are you going to tell me where I should go to find you later?"
When I said that, she nodded firmly.
This was actually for the best. The reward was important, of course, but honestly, I was most curious about her true identity.
And all the gold coins lining the bottom of the chest were my share, and there were certainly other items still lying at the bottom of the reservoir, waiting to be found.
The reservoir wasn't going anywhere; I could take my time searching for them later.
"The place to visit later is..."
She opened her mouth, and I focused so intently on her words that I practically channeled mana into my ears.
But just as she was about to speak—
Rumble.
The sound of rumbling earth came from the direction of the reservoir.
Then a stream of water shot into the sky.
Bang!
It shot past the ceiling and all the way up to the hole in it.
Splash!
The two of us were drenched in an instant.
"What on earth..."
Dumbfounded, I stared at the Firebird Hunter, bewildered.
"Why is the reservoir suddenly acting like that?"
At my words, she furrowed her brows. Tilting her head, she muttered softly,
"The chest was wedged between rocks, so I did break the rocks, but..."
"Don't tell me you hit an underground water vein?"
"Did I? It wasn't that hard to climb up even while holding the sword and the iron chest in both hands, though..."
She'd definitely hit it!
The rock she'd broken must have been the one blocking the reservoir's waterway when the ceiling collapsed.
Now that the rock was shattered, the waterway that had been blocked for hundreds of years was open.
Bang!
The water that had been spouting like a fountain poured down onto the ground.
As it poured down, the reservoir gradually expanded.
No, its water level was rising rapidly.
The Firebird Hunter and I looked at each other.
"We should run, right?"
"That's our only option!"
Luring the monsters into fighting us one by one, or waiting for a chance to deal with the large monsters—none of that was possible now.
Right now, we had to trust the Firebird Hunter, who had grown stronger than before, and flee from the surging water.
I stuffed as many of the gold coins into my pockets as I could and began running with her.
The Firebird Hunter leaped into a nearby cave first, and I followed, shoving the dagger into my waistband and slinging the greatsword over my shoulder.
Bang!
As we ran, the sound of the rising water continued to echo behind us.
Perhaps because of the vibrations and the sound of the water, the monsters blocking our path behaved differently from before, too.
Rather than surrounding or trapping us, they seemed even more startled than we were when they ran into us.
Even if things had changed from before, there was no way she would know, and she certainly wouldn't show them any mercy.
As her shield and sword moved, the monsters blocking our path were sliced apart and sent flying.
She and I didn't bother finishing off the monsters she'd knocked away; we just kept running forward.
The wounded monsters would be taken care of by the rushing torrent behind us anyway.
Dealing with the monsters and passing them by, we kept climbing upward.
During the climb, I didn't even have the chance to swing my sword.
The gold coins stuffed into my pockets and against my chest were getting in the way, and the weight of the greatsword slowed my steps. But more than that, her movements were simply too fast.
Ever since she picked up the shield, she had been growing stronger nonstop.
As she fought, she was gradually getting used to wielding the shield and sword together, and the flow of her mana was becoming smoother.
By the time we escaped the cave, she would undoubtedly be twice as strong as she had been before picking up the shield.
I had absolutely no complaints about simply chasing after her.
Unlike her, I had already fought enough monsters to be sick of them.
Unless I could grow stronger while fighting like she did, stopping for no reason might get me swept away by the water.
I couldn't die again for such a foolish reason. This time, I was determined to escape no matter what.
After running diligently like that, we arrived at a completely different cave.
"Wait, this place looks like people have worked on it."
Just as she said, from here on, it was a man-made underground passage.
It was the very passage where the treasure warehouse was located.
"Ah... Is this the passage that leads to the treasure warehouse?"
She quickly realized it, too.
Unlike last time, though, she was incredibly calm.
And for good reason, since she knew the treasure warehouse had been completely destroyed.
With a calm expression, she was about to take another step.
But this time, I stopped her.
"Hold on. I think we should be more careful from here on. It doesn't seem like all the monsters have come out yet..."
The two large red monsters were still nowhere to be seen. It didn't seem like we'd killed all the gray ones yet, either. Unless they'd drowned, they were bound to be waiting nearby.
But explaining it like that sounded too flimsy...
As long as I couldn't reveal my secret, it was difficult to give her a proper explanation.
She stared at me for a moment, then nodded.
"All right. Your intuition seems to be quite good."
Fortunately, she listened to me.
With her shield and sword raised, she spread her mana, while I retightened the gold coin belt made from the monster hide I'd acquired along the way.
Then I slung the greatsword onto my back and gripped the dagger in my hand.
Since the passage wasn't wide, using the greatsword would likely get in the way of her fighting.
At this moment, assisting her from behind would be far more helpful in battle.
Seeing me draw the dagger, she smiled. It seemed she liked it.
And so the two of us slowly walked down the passage.
A short while later, the iron door we'd seen before began to appear in the distance.
As expected, monsters were gathered in front of it.
The gray monsters we'd been killing all this time, and behind them, two red monsters twice their size.
The 'Red Mice'—true to their name—were guarding the entrance to the treasure warehouse.
But judging by the situation, they hadn't gathered there to block us.
Amusingly, those monsters had gathered here to escape the rising water, too.
Perhaps they intended to deal with us while they were at it, but either way, a fight had become unavoidable. Not that there was any reason to avoid it.
"I thought it was strange that the Red Mice weren't red. Were the rest of them mutants spawned by those two?"
Unlike in my previous life, when she'd told me to run, she showed absolutely no fear at the sight of the two monsters.
"I'm leaving my back to you! Let's finish this quickly before the water rises."
She spoke to me energetically.
But I couldn't reply.
At that moment, my mind was in disarray from the illusions and auditory hallucinations echoing in my head.
The illusion had begun when I held the dagger and channeled mana into it.
Flames gradually erupted in midair, then transformed into the shape of a bird.
Seeing it pass translucently through the surrounding objects, I could tell at once that it was an illusion. The Firebird Hunter didn't notice it at all, either.
As the illusion grew larger, auditory hallucinations began to reach me, too.
The moment the illusion of the firebird, flapping its wings, opened and closed its beak, these words echoed in my head:
"-Do you desire power!"