Chapter 163
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 163
Chapter Title: Diablo's Altar
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Raida, who had been approaching Leon slowly to make a proposal, flinched in surprise.
Leon gave her a puzzled look.
"Huh?"
"Why... do you ask?"
Leon immediately turned and started walking toward the back.
Raida, carrying Ravena on her back, quietly followed behind him at his odd behavior.
And so, about thirty minutes after they set off...
Leon tapped on one of the walls at a fork in the tunnel, far before they had entered the gallery.
Then, he lightly smacked it with his hand.
Crack...
At that moment, something shattered.
A certain magic that had been maintained using the massive torrent of energy as fuel was dispelled.
Raida hadn't noticed the existence of the hidden space.
No, even Leon seemed unaware of such peculiar traces of magic amid the overwhelming torrent.
Interest sparked on Leon's face.
"An altar or something?"
The intricately crafted altar had no unnecessary grotesque features.
On the contrary, it gleamed with a clean, pure white light, much like one in a temple.
Strange characters and symbols nowhere to be seen across the continent.
And something floating at the center of the altar captured both their gazes.
Eventually, Leon slowly approached the altar.
"Uh... hmm. Guess I have to ask directly."
"That... it feels just like a holy relic from the Holy Kingdom. It's like gazing upon something sacred. It seems familiar somehow..."
"Your speech has gotten a bit more formal."
"You deserve such respect. And thanks to you, I've overcome a great wall. I won't forget this favor."
"Do as you please."
Leon nodded at Raida's newly polite demeanor.
Afterward, Leon pulled out a communication artifact.
Communication wouldn't be easy deep in these tunnels, would it?
As expected, when the artifact didn't function properly, irritation crossed Leon's face.
"Machines are such a pain..."
What Leon did next startled Raida.
He slammed the artifact against the wall—bang! bang!
Surprisingly, it reacted to Leon's mana, sparking and starting to work.
"Gotta hit it to fix it."
"Whoa..."
Was a communication artifact really something that listened after a good smack?
Her doubts were short-lived.
Leon's voice echoed in her ears.
"Luna, looks like we've found a holy relic."
-Holy relic?
"Yeah, wanna come take a look?"
It took less than thirty minutes for Luna to arrive flying at tremendous speed after the call.
"This is...!"
Luna's eyes widened round.
Luna, who had flown in at incredible speed, widened her eyes the moment she saw the object hovering above the altar that I was holding.
"Th-this...!"
"You know it?"
"No idea."
Then why react like that?
She took the strange object I'd handed her, turned it this way and that, then seemed to lose interest.
"Gotta crack it open to know for sure, but it doesn't quite feel like a holy relic."
Though she said it wasn't, the fact that angelic power could be felt from it suggested something special.
"Can you read the characters on that altar then?"
She strode inside and swept her gaze over the altar.
"Obviously ancient script. I've seen similar before, but scholars gave up decoding it."
Ignoring Raida's supplementary explanation, Luna narrowed her eyes.
"Hmm..."
"Can you read it?"
"Demon, Diablo."
Raida flinched at the short murmur.
"Demon Diablo? Demon...? Kinda creepy."
To the people of the continent, demons were bound to be unsettling existences.
"You know the name?"
"Isn't it from fairy tales? The demon of slander. They say people who speak ill get possessed by Demon Diablo or something."
When I shot her a 'really?' look, Luna stared at the altar and shrugged.
"Humans don't know much about angels or demons."
Luna had once said angels and humans weren't all that different.
If demons were the same...
It was almost laughable to call demons inherently dangerous just because they were demons.
In truth, despite countless bizarre rituals, rumors of actual demon summonings lacked any credibility.
"Looks like that thing's connected to Demon Diablo. No harm in recovering it."
With that, she tossed it into her subspace.
"I'll hold onto it, just in case."
"Fine by me. Oh, before that, check on her?"
Luna glanced at Ravena, who was still unconscious, and narrowed her eyes.
"Just exhausted. Leave her be, she'll recover."
"That's a relief. Young Master Leon, would it be alright to stay here a few more days?"
"Any reason?"
"To report the mine stabilized, I need data. I plan to stay a few days, investigate if it's truly stable, and record it."
Of course. That's how they'd lift Bergal's ban on this development-prohibited zone.
"Do as you like."
He bowed his head to me.
"Young Master Leon."
"Speak."
"Thank you for the valuable lesson. Thanks to your guidance, I overcame a major hurdle. I won't forget this debt. That said... any plans to share that technique with the world?"
Mana mines just needed management, and unstable ones were rare.
So there were hardly any places causing this much chaos now, but he seemed eager to eliminate the possibility altogether.
"There aren't many, but using your magic circle, you could save countless from mana disasters."
Luna glanced around and stared at him.
"Impossible."
"What do you mean?"
"They wouldn't understand it even if explained. Only way is Leon installing it himself."
"Then if Young Master Leon..."
"Leon has no obligation to go that far."
Raida bowed his head, out of words.
"Understood. I won't ask more. But if you ever need my help in the future, please contact me. I'll gladly lend whatever aid I can."
"Just report properly to the Association."
We'd clashed verbally, but from his position managing mana disasters, he prioritized keeping people out of high-risk areas.
His actions were reasonable; I had no intention of blaming him for fearing casualties.
Otherwise, I wouldn't have even talked to him.
Either way, the mine incident needed formal reporting to Melissa.
"Here."
"What's this?"
Having spent most of her time outside work hours by Arsha's side, Melissa tilted her head at the white lump I handed her.
"What does it look like?"
At my question, she turned the lump around.
"Silver? No, not silver... Mithril? From the mine?!"
Her eyes widened as she shouted.
Mines yielded iron ore, copper, lead, and countless others, but mithril was exceedingly rare among them.
Naturally mined in only a tiny fraction of mines, mithril's value was sky-high.
Her eyes urged me to confirm it was.
"Eyes okay? Does this look like mithril to you?"
"What? It's not? I thought we'd struck mithril at our mine."
Realizing it wasn't, disappointment flooded her face.
She'd hoped for a jackpot mithril find, but no dice.
"Too bad. I thought our mine hit top-tier ore like mithril."
"No need to be disappointed. This is better than mithril."
"Huh?"
"Oriharcon."
At my words, she stared blankly at me for a moment.
"What?"
"What."
"No, did I hear wrong? What'd you say this is?"
"Oriharcon."
She dug at her ear.
"Uh... hmm. Am I mistaken? That... the metal of the gods? Oriharcon?"
"Yeah."
"Uh... hmm. Oriharcon gets mined from mines?"
Oriharcon's value dwarfed mithril.
The amount circulating was minuscule, and whenever any surfaced, it caused a massive stir due to the scarcity of supply.
In this clash of common sense and reality, I gave her a rough explanation.
"It's a mineral, so of course it's mined."
"How?"
"You know mana veins? It's in the reports."
"Uh... hmm. They produce magic stones, mithril, mana-infused high-quality iron ore."
She quickly scanned the documents.
"Normal mana veins can be mined fine with a mage managing them."
"Right."
"But unstable mana veins are different, right?"
Her eyes widened at my words.
"That... mana disaster..."
"I handled it."
As if casually saying he'd stopped a massive typhoon, bewilderment crossed her face.
"Handled... what? Is that even a disaster you can handle?"
"Why not? Just do it. I'll compile a report with details, so read it. Anyway, in the most intense mana blood veins among unstable ones, oriharcon forms in tiny quantities under extreme conditions."
In short, making the unmineable mine mineable let us extract the oriharcon inside.
"So there are no oriharcon mines on the continent because it forms in impossible environments... and you fixed that."
Such intensely mana-blood-flowing veins were rare, and even finding them didn't make mining feasible.
That was why oriharcon was nearly nonexistent on the continent.
Of course, the yields were minuscule too.
"Whoa... reality can't keep up. Oriharcon... Oriharcon..."
Overwhelmed by the sudden bombshell, she panicked.
I glanced back to see Luna fiddling with the ornament from Diablo's altar.
She claimed ignorance, but she didn't look clueless to me.