The Sealed Entrance
"Messi, I'm sorry. I should be going with you..."
"Captain! From Messi's side of things, fewer people to look after is probably a blessing. Let's not worry so much."
"Haha, Gaston's right. Hold the fortress for me. And keep an eye on the Village Chief and Uncle Leto while you're at it."
Before setting out for the ruins with the knights, Messi exchanged farewells with Ayla and Gaston. As planned from the start, they would not be joining the expedition.
Ereb had no objection. At the mercenaries' level, they would only be dead weight if they went.
"Ahem! I'd love to go with you too, but... perhaps it's old age, these knee joints of mine... ngh!"
"Chief, that's not your knee. That's your thigh."
"Ah—my mistake. My knee...! Ugh!"
The Village Chief wanted, by any means necessary, to force his way into the party. The trouble was that if they dragged that man along, Uncle Leto would probably follow for no good reason.
To think that old man, only thirty years ago, had been a handsome, strapping, easygoing fellow who looked after people in hardship...
For the first time, Messi found himself wanting to contradict his master's words.
"Uncle Leto, has our village ever changed chiefs?"
"No. Unfortunately, that man is the founding Village Chief of Benuda Village."
"..."
Time, Messi thought, was a terrifying thing.
"All right. We move out."
Ereb gave the signal to depart. Taking only simple provisions, the knights and Messi left the fortress. Forty-seven knights, one guide, and one insect—that was the entire column.
We're finally heading out, kkyu!
What are you so excited about?
I've always wanted to see those ruins, kkyu! Mother never told me a thing about what's in there, kkyu~
It would've been nice if the Queen had shared some information. Shame.
"Form groups of ten. Follow at a proper distance. Do not lose the tail of the group ahead—not under any circumstances."
"Yes, Young Master!"
The last group was short on numbers, so it had seven—six of whom were yesterday's traitors. Whether to wash the stain from their names or not, they volunteered for the dangerous rear. They would follow, they said, while erasing the column's traces as they went.
Ereb could not readily agree. Leave them free back there, and there was no telling what they might try.
Messi caught his eye. Only then did he grant permission.
"So you volunteer for hardship of your own accord. I like the look of that. I'll trust you with it. When all this is over, there will be a reward."
"...!"
"Th-thank you, sir!"
The six were visibly moved as they shifted to the rear. Ereb was acting exactly as Messi had taught him.
"That's all it takes?"
"Don't they say praise can make even a whale dance, Young Master? As for a reward, even something trivial is fine—the important thing is to put it into words."
"What's a whale?"
Ah. There are no whales here. He had forgotten this was a place without an ocean.
"A monster from where I used to live. The size of a mountain."
"A monster like that exists... So the forest really does grow more dangerous the deeper you go."
"How did you survive a place like that? Remarkable."
Both Ereb and Ramang seemed to have gotten the wrong idea entirely, but Messi did not correct them. It was precisely because this "Messi" had survived a forest with monsters of that caliber that they relied on him.
Group One cut through the forest at a rapid march. Whenever Messi spotted the rare monster trace crossing their line of travel, he changed direction.
The knights followed without a word of complaint. Ereb had given him full authority, but even within the knight corps an atmosphere of acknowledging Messi had already taken hold.
It was all the more so once they learned his influence had weighed heavily on the disposition of the six traitors. In each moving group, Messi was the main topic of conversation.
"Just look at how he talked our Young Master into moving. That kid's no ordinary fellow."
"Heh, damn right. And our Young Master's no ordinary man himself."
"The Commander praised him plenty for that, too."
"I heard that kid went straight to the Young Master and told him to treat us properly."
"Wait... why us? I'm grateful, but..."
"Even Messi thought the Young Master was going too far."
"Well... that's true enough."
"On top of that, the Commander advised him to follow the Young Master for certain this time. One of the men on watch the night before last overheard it."
"Heh. If it's all like you say, then the real power behind the throne isn't who we thought, is it?"
And just as those words suggested, the one with the real power brought the entire column to a halt with a simple signal.
"Hold. Stop."
"What is it, Messi? Monster traces?"
"No. It seems we have a visitor."
"...What do you mean?"
Ereb cocked his head, but Ramang looked as though he had already understood.
"Ah, that friend of his? Young Master, a useful talent is about to join us. Haha!"
"A talent is suddenly joining us? In this forest?"
Ereb and the knights could only look bewildered.
And then they were horrified.
"All hands, battle stations!"
"It's an ant! The General Ant!"
"Protect the Young Master and Messi!"
The General Ant burst through the violet undergrowth.
As if it knew the humans escorting the princess were bound for the ruins, it had been waiting right on their path.
The moment they saw the compound eyes occupying a third of its face and those long, questing antennae, every knight in the corps drew steel.
"Please, everyone, calm down. It's an ally—for now."
"...What?"
"Janggun-i. Come here."
Come here, kkyu!
......
When Messi crooked a finger, the General Ant lumbered over with heavy, ground-shaking thuds. In truth it was the princess who had called it, but to everyone else it looked as though the creature were obeying Messi.
As the distance closed, the knights raised their weapons in a taut line—but there was no weapon in the General Ant's hands.
"So it wasn't an exaggeration that it helped enormously in the fight against Laud..."
"Everything I told you was the truth, Young Master. Knights, please put your weapons away. Janggun-i isn't even armed. Don't tell me you're frightened?"
At Messi's mild come now, you can't actually be scared, the knights sheathed their swords one by one. The wariness in their eyes, however, was unmistakable.
"It's been following us to protect the ant princess. Think of it as a kind of bodyguard knight."
"Ah... that... larva?"
Ereb frowned, looking at Messi's pocket. Something the size of a forearm was wriggling around inside.
"I wondered why you were raising a larva like that. So there was a reason after all."
"As long as I keep this one close, it handles my protection on its own. You just need to stay near me, Young Master."
"...No. I'll look after my own hide, thank you. You enjoy raising it."
Once you knew it had this kind of effect, you would think anyone would covet the princess—but Ereb was uniquely, stubbornly strict about insects.
The column moved again. The General Ant and Messi walked abreast, keeping about ten paces from the rest of the line.
The knights watching from behind had a great deal to think about.
He commands something like that at will? I suppose that's possible if you're of the Forest Tribe.
He already brought the Young Master to heel, and now even an ant... Pick a fight with Messi after this and they won't even find your bones.
Better not call him an other-race to his face.
Unintentionally, Messi was growing into an increasingly fearsome presence among the knights.
The area around the ruins was as bleak as ever. Gray light drowned everything, wrapped in gloomy, withered vines, and the vines had grown so wild that the ruins' true shape could not fully be seen.
Whether that place was a cave of vines or a building was impossible to tell. But the exposed section at the entrance was stacked stone upon stone, proof that the fruits of civilization lay within.
Forty-seven knights, one guide, one larva, and one bipedal ant entered the ruins.
The entrance was a wreck of collapsed masonry, so they had to spend a long time clearing a path. From a certain point inward, however, it was so well ordered that no fallen stones could be seen at all.
Messi examined the interior of the entrance.
"There's a huge difference in preservation between the entrance and the interior. That suggests there's still magic maintaining the inside of the ruins."
"Is that a good thing?"
"Well. It means there are still achievements you can claim, Young Master... but if there are traps, it also means that system is still alive."
Half good news, half bad.
"We'll know once we go in."
Ereb did not flinch. He went inside. As the vanguard moved, the knights followed.
The ruins resembled an ancient temple. Whether from the influence of some old religion, remnants of idol worship remained. Wherever there was spare space on a wall, a statue was sure to be waiting.
The problem was that looking at the statues, you could not tell at all what they were meant to represent. Whether they belonged to an age when information itself had been severed, or were some fragment of knowledge never passed down to the people of this world, it was impossible to say.
Among the party, only one being knew the knowledge of that era.
It's a temple from at least five or six thousand years ago, kkyu.
How do you know?
The murals, too, kkyu. The statues are of the gods who were worshipped at the time, kkyu.
Were the gods of that era a bit... monstrous?
To Messi's eyes, they had a rather grotesque quality for statues of gods—more hideous than holy. A plump human woman with a snake bursting from her back. A body like a wild boar, six-eyed, bristling with sharp spines...
You have to understand the circumstances, kkyu. Back then, the Second Great Cataclysm had just ended, so it was a fierce age of survival, kkyu. Of course they had to be strong, and to become strong they worshipped only strong gods, kkyu. The gods' appearances couldn't be anything but that, kkyu.
What's the Second Great Cataclysm?
There was an age when the whole world was submerged in water, kkyu. That was the Second Great Cataclysm, kkyu.
It reminded him of the Bible. The story of Yahweh flooding the world on a massive scale to wipe everyone out because the world had grown too corrupt. Noah's Ark appeared at that point.
And the first?
It's said the world was covered in fire, kkyu. Even our species has almost no knowledge of that era, kkyu. It was simply too long ago, kkyu.
Fire, then water...
Then, perhaps?
So there was a Third Great Cataclysm too?
Looks like you've figured it out, so what's the point of saying it, kkyu~ Your guess is right, kkyu. The next cataclysm was Wood. The whole world became forest, kkyu.
Mythic talk that was hard to believe—fitting for a world where gods actually existed.
So that was why the humans of this world had come to live inside a vast forest.
In any case, it meant civilization within the forest was only a few thousand years old.
These ruins, on the other hand, had been built long before forest civilization ever took root. How much immense power would it take to keep the interior intact across such an enormous span of time?
Wasn't the common cliché of fantasy that the older a thing was, the stronger it became? As someone who regarded this place as a fantasy world, Messi could not help but be conscious of the power the ruins held—the power that had preserved the temple's interior for so long.
Even Messi no longer wanted to go any deeper.
I didn't think the ruins would be that old... This is a size we can't handle.
If, as the princess said, this place was at least five or six thousand years old, he could sketch out any number of scenarios. But he could not easily see a scenario that would benefit the party.
He did not know what this place was for. But if they had intended to maintain the interior for over five thousand years, they would not have left only preservation magic without also leaving a means to defend this place from intruders.
For example... the existence of a Guardian. That was the most dangerous scenario of all.
It would be a being from an era before the current civilization, and according to the princess, that era was one in which you had to grow strong to survive—an era that worshipped only strong gods.
A Guardian made in that era... just how powerful would it be?
The deaths of forty-five Woodcutters were starting to make a certain kind of sense.
"Young Master. I have something to tell you."
"Did you find something out?"
Messi relayed what he had heard from the princess, suitably adapted. He framed it, for instance, as a tale long passed down among the Forest Tribe.
After hearing the whole story, Ereb and Ramang wore very different faces. Greed flowed in Ereb's eyes; worry clouded Ramang's.
"Heh. I thought this wasn't an ordinary place. Of course. It'd have to be at least this much."
"This is no time to be pleased, Young Master. Didn't I tell you yesterday? When it's time to retreat, you retreat."
Last night, when Ereb had asked Messi to participate in the ruins expedition, Messi had attached a condition. If he proposed a retreat, it was to be carried out immediately.
"Don't tell me you're saying we should turn back?"
"Yes. I hope you haven't forgotten our agreement. This is where forty-five Woodcutters died. Whatever caused it, something is here. A sentinel guarding this place, perhaps..."
"You seem to be imagining there's a monster from at least five thousand years ago in here. Something like that."
"Yes, Sir Ramang. That's the worst-case scenario. I am keeping that in mind."
When the Woodcutters developed the forest, they occasionally encountered ancient magical beasts, it was said.
The problem was that even those ancient magical beasts were beings born after the Third Great Cataclysm. If this was a being from before that, how strong it would be was anyone's guess.
We'll run into a primordial magical beast.
Ereb seemed to have recovered his reason, falling silent. He appeared to be weighing desire against reason on a very serious scale.
If we turn back like this... I definitely won't be able to produce results that can beat my brother's achievements.
But I obtained that fellow. That alone is clearly a personal achievement of mine.
If he had not obtained Messi, his feet would not have been able to turn around at all.
Ereb made his decision. The knights swiftly reversed direction.
From the grotesquely shaped stone statues to the murals that captured the world's destruction in a single panel—this place. They, too, had long wanted to get out of this unidentifiable space.
There was no hesitation in their retreating steps. Then someone at the front made a sound of swallowing empty air.
"Huh?"
Originally the last group, now standing at the very front—the former traitor, Knight Hulan. He could not hide his dismay.
"Hold on—everyone stop! Something's wrong!"
"What's going on?"
"What?"