Chapter 337: The Tin Knight and The Kingdom of the Underground (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 337: The Tin Knight and The Kingdom of the Underground (2)
After Adelaide and Franka joined them, they immediately focused on two main tasks.
Scouting. And hunting.
Scouting was a natural first step to determine their location. Hunting was also necessary, as many in their party were injured or exhausted and needed food to recover.
Hilda von Lennart looked at the red wolves and said, “Can’t we just roast and eat them?”
As if they understood her, the wolves all began to tremble.
Maris von Lennart shook her head.
“We don’t know our surroundings. There’s no need to diminish a potentially friendly force. Of course, that’s only if we have no ‘other means’.”
Other means. The wolves seemed to understand perfectly that this meant if there was no other prey to be eaten, they would be.
Without any specific command, they took it upon themselves to dash off, soon returning with decent prey to offer the party.
Those in the group who were relatively less injured or tired followed the wolves to join the hunt, and they all let out disbelieving laughs.
“Are all the creatures here so bizarre?”
A giant worm that chewed through rocks. A lizard that crawled on the ground with countless legs like a centipede. Even a bird with a mosquito-like beak that tried to suck their blood.
Seeing these creatures, which would have been feared as hideous magic beasts on the surface, casually occupying the ecosystem made the slightly large, red-furred wolves seem almost friendly by comparison.
They made the most normal-looking creature they could find—a rabbit (which had a horn on its head and was the size of a wild boar)—their main source of food, sharing it using utensils and cooking tools that Franka had reconstructed from the carriage wreckage.
Franka, who had sent two of her three homunculi with flight capabilities to scout, sighed after receiving their report.
“…It’s certain. This isn’t the continent.”
Maris asked, “Then does that mean we're completely off the continent? Like, another continent across the sea?”
“No, not that either. Even on a different continent, there should at least be stars in the sky, but that's not the case here.”
“Aren’t those stars over there?”
“Those? They look like stars, but they aren't. In fact, that's not even a sky.”
Franka declared in an irritated tone, “You know how when you enter a cave, you sometimes find a huge cavern inside? This place is like that, only the scale is so immense it defies common sense. That's not a sky, it's a cave ceiling, and what look like stars are just some kind of moss clinging to it. As proof, a fair amount of time has passed since we arrived, but the brightness of our surroundings hasn't changed at all.”
“So you're saying we're underground? A place like this existed beneath where we lived?”
“Well… I don't know if we're physically underground or conceptually in a subspace… The problem is, we have no way of getting back on our own.”
A gloomy atmosphere fell over the party at Franka's lament.
It was unfortunate enough to be suddenly transported to an unknown place, but with no clear way back, their despair was inevitable.
It was then that Adelaide, who had been listening quietly, spoke up.
“—Then, we'll have to ask the locals for their cooperation.”
Franka made a strange face at Adelaide's words.
“‘Locals’? Who?”
“The giant I fought wasn't some mindless monster. He clearly had intelligence, and we could communicate. That means there must be residents here with whom we can talk.”
“What guarantee is there that this is the same place where the giant was?”
“The quality of the mana in the air is similar. It's more chaotic than what you or the other mages use, but also denser.”
Franka fell into thought for a moment.
Could they really confirm it was the same place based on that alone? And even if it was, could they really cooperate after she'd killed their representative general?
Adelaide's reasoning had many holes, but it wasn't as if they had any better ideas.
It was better to try something, whether it worked or not, than to just waste time feeling depressed.
Fortunately, finding the “locals” wasn't too difficult.
This was because the underground environment was, in a sense, quite straightforward.
One area was extremely barren, while another was only moderately so.
The closer they got to the former, the more bizarre the creatures became. Conversely, the closer they got to the latter, the more habitable the environment appeared.
There were fruits that, while extremely bitter and astringent, were at least edible, and there were even lakes, though debris floated on their surfaces.
And finally, structures that looked man-made began to appear.
As did the “locals” who lived there.
However, communicating with them was not easy.
“■...! ■■■■! ■■!”
The locals' appearances were unusual.
One had the head and claws of a wolf. Another had the ears and tail of a cat. A third had a bird's beak where its mouth should be.
Looking like a mix of beast and human, they wore clothing over their furry bodies and even held weapons like spears.
Franka flinched at the sight.
As the inheritor of the Wicked Witch of the West's legacy, she noticed that their appearance was strikingly similar to the beings the witch had tried to recreate.
Their armor and clothing alone showed they weren't simple wild animals or magic beasts, but beings who had built a considerable civilization. The problem was that the language they spoke was completely different from the party's.
On top of that, they became strangely agitated and aggressive upon seeing the party, making any attempt at conversation difficult.
The party was at a loss.
It wouldn't be difficult to attack the fortress-like structure they were guarding, but if they engaged in an all-out battle, securing cooperation later would become even harder.
Hilda suggested just beating them all up and forcing them to cooperate, but that had to be saved as a last resort in case things went south.
After a moment of thought, it was Adelaide who stepped forward.
Remembering that she had been able to communicate with the giant Amaryllis, she believed there must be someone among the people of the underground who could understand them.
Therefore, she shouted with all her might.
“—I am Adelaide von Lennart, the warrior who defeated the giant Amaryllis, one of the eight generals of the underground, in a duel! Does no one wish to hear of his final moments?!”
An incredible volume, unbelievable for someone of her small stature.
As her cry echoed across the entire fortress wall, a stir went through the enemy ranks.
“Wh-wh-what are you doing!?”
Franka was horrified.
To declare that she had defeated a general, a symbol of their people, when they were supposed to be seeking “cooperation” with them—in Franka's common sense, this was nothing short of a suicidal act.
“Hey, hey…! Aren't you guys going to stop her!? She's ruining everything!!”
However, Franka was the only one panicking. The other members of the Lennart family were surprisingly unfazed.
“Well, if they react to those words, we can be sure this is the ‘underground.’ And they won't be able to just ignore it; they'll have to try and talk. It's better than before, when there was no hope of conversation at all, isn't it?”
“It's a shame for a warrior as great as that giant to fall so meaninglessly, without any comrades or family to witness it. If there's anyone related to him, it's the honorable thing to do to tell them the story.”
“If it doesn't work out, we just beat them up. What's there to worry about?”
“…”
Franka was so dumbfounded she could only open and close her mouth like a goldfish.
Franka knew all about the Lennart Ducal House.
The most powerful family in the Empire, and the greatest martial family on the continent.
Though they had declined from their former glory after being implicated in a rebellion, they once boasted a prestige that rivaled the Imperial Family.
Franka's own Aglaia family was a prestigious and wealthy house, one of the top families in the western federation, but in terms of external prestige, they couldn't hold a candle to the Lennart Ducal House.
So she had naturally assumed these people would be extremely “noble-like.”
‘…Their dignity and grace are just external attachments or appearances! At their core, they're just a bunch of sword-swingers!!’
To be precise, with the burden of being a ducal house lifted from their shoulders, they had actually reverted to the original Lennart ways, but that didn't matter to Franka.
She simply despaired that there wasn't a single “person of common sense” to take her side.
She had thought Adelaide was the most sensible and gentle of the Tin Knight's party, but in the time she hadn't seen her, it seemed she had evolved in a strange direction, her power and mentality both flying off the charts.
How long was it after Adelaide shouted?
Thump!
With a roar that shook the ground, something flew from the distance in a parabolic arc.
No, it leaped.
Thud.
A soft landing, belying the height from which it had fallen.
The party held their breath as they looked at the figure that had landed in front of Adelaide.
It was a tiger with silver fur and black stripes.
The kind of tiger that would make an artist frantically wield their brush to capture its image, and a hunter's eyes burn with the desire to obtain its pelt.
The tiger's two blue, glowing eyes stared directly at Adelaide.
《—You said you defeated Amaryllis in a duel?》
The language was fluent. So much so that despite coming from a tiger's mouth, one could feel its deep intellect and composure.
To be precise, however, it wasn't that the language itself was from the surface world; rather, it was more that the “will” itself was being conveyed through the words, making it understandable.
Adelaide nodded.
“Yes.”
《He has already fallen. In the distant past. For a lie, it is far too clumsy.》
“I don't know anything about that.”
Instead of chattering on about heavenly conspiracies or the eight sacred treasures, Adelaide gave a simple and clear answer.
“That mighty giant. The warrior who desired a duel, not a massacre. He identified himself as Amaryllis, one of the great king's eight generals. Therefore, I believe he was Amaryllis.”
It was an explanation that was no explanation at all.
But Adelaide's demeanor was endlessly confident and righteous.
《…Very well. I shall hear your story.》
As the tiger murmured this, its form twisted bizarrely for a moment.
From a four-legged form to one that stood on two feet.
The fur on its body vanished, replaced by curly silver hair.
The tiger became a young man with blue eyes and silver hair, with a somewhat gaunt and sickly appearance.
His gaze swept over Franka, and then the members of the Lennart bloodline.
《…One who has learned the science created by our great king. And you, who were personally crafted by our great king. In a sense, I suppose you could be called compatriots.》