The dark energy coming from the chasm is heavy enough that I feel like I was suffocating from it. This was a really intense dark energy I have seen in my entire life. Even the darkness of the forest where the mermaid does not even compare to the darkness enveloping this place. It was a very dangerous place indeed."The Darkness in this place is quite revolting and headache-inducing. Is there some way to destroy this portal? Even my Purify ability can"t help on this one. Any ideas Kazuma?" Miya asked.
"I don"t know any info in closing portals nor I have any idea what to do," and I took a glance at Catmod.
Catmodis adjusting his monocle while staring at the chasm. He seemed to be deep in thought at the moment.
"Should we explore this place a bit?" I suggested to Miya.
...
Since Catmod is under concentration mode, we decided to just leave him alone for a while and decided to explore the place. Since the cavern is wide, we split up with Miya. During that time, the seed emerges and decided to annoy me.
"Now Kazuma, since you are now alone, we can now find the treasure I am saying you will find!"
"Aren"t you greedy enough Lil"Blue? We don"t even know if there is a treasure here. Are you really sure that the treasure you are speaking can help me? I don"t really need something that is useless to me like pirate treasure."
"Don"t be a pessimist, kid. Let"s go find it before anyone else."
Due to that, I was forced to turn the stones over and go under small pa.s.sages and look for the source of the treasure.
"Are you even sure that the treasure is really here? This is so troublesome," I muttered.
"Have patience, we are almost there."
I don"t really know why I am looking for this particular treasure but I really hope my efforts will not end up in vain as most treasure hunters do. After crawling and scaling a few pa.s.sages, I managed to arrive... on a dead end. I facepalmed myself and sighed. All my efforts are just wasted just like that.
"This is just a f*cking dead end. Are you sure you are leading me to the treasure or you are just a bad navigator that has no sense of direction? Where is this treasure you are saying that is around here?"
The seed grunted before it reb.u.t.ted my claims.
"Kid, you are so annoying you know that? We are still not at the very heart of the location that I am talking about. I know that you also want the treasure but don"t be too hasty. Chill a little bit, kid."
"Indeed I would be hasty! We only have a time limit of 30 minutes here and I already wasted at least 10 minutes in reaching this dead-end! I am wasting too much time just to arrive in this boring place doing some treasure hunt that I am not even sure if legit or not!"
"You don"t trust me, kid? I am more reliable than you if it comes to a piece of accurate information! Trust me on this one, you won"t regret it once we find what we are looking for."
Since the seed keeps on insisting, I decided to just continue. There is no harm anyway except that there is a time limit.
"Then? What to do next? This is just a dead-end, I can"t continue onwards except if I backtrack."
"Oh no kid, have you forgotten the games you have played before you become a magician? All those RPGish games or whatever games it was? Aren"t you very familiar with the term "hidden pa.s.sage" at all?"
Hidden pa.s.sages? Indeed, I played games with those kinds of mechanics and since they are hidden pa.s.sages, they also hold important items and most of the time, treasures. But is there really a hidden pa.s.sage here? It looks normal to me.
I touch the rocky wall and felt it"s surface. Nothing out of the ordinary except for being dusty and a bit rough in the edges...wait... dusty? I turn to face the dusty wall and noticed a slit on the side of the wall. Is this something normal? Of course not, walls of caves do not form something like that unless it is indeed a door disguised as a door. I am getting more suspicious on this wall I am touching so I decided to push this wall. It won"t move but I can hear a creaking sound. Pus.h.i.+ng a wall made of stone doesn"t sound like that.
"Holy... is this the hidden door you are talking about?" I traced the slit and realized that the wall has a vertical rectangular shaped slit which made me suspicious on this very wall. I stretched my arms and legs a bit because I know I lacked the strength to push around doors like this. After cracking a bit, I pulled up the sleeves of my clothes and started to push the wall.
CREAK CREAK CREAK
Dust started to fall on the slit which is a sign that this wall is moving. But since I am not a muscleman and I have almost close to zero physical capability, I can"t push it. I can use telekinesis but the wall is beyond the size I can handle at the moment so that would be crashed-out of my options. In the end, I have to rely on my brute force to push this wall forward which I doubt I will be able to move at all.
"Need some help? I can enhance your physical capabilities temporarily," the seed offered.
"And use some of the memories I acc.u.mulated? No thanks, I am saving them to unlock the Mana Circuits I have in my body or for emergency situations. This is not an emergency situation and I don"t need to unlock any mana circuit yet so, the answer is no," I said.
"No no, kid. You misunderstand my kind intentions. I am offering this service for free to you. As long as the treasure that I am talking about is secured, then it will be good enough for me as a payment!"
"Haiss, no wonder this is free. It"s because there is a treasure, you greedy bast*rd. You just wanted me to secure it. Alright, I accept, can"t hurt to have some free stuff once in a while as long as I don"t have to pay anything. I will beat you in my consciousness if you ever scam me on this."
"Don"t worry, there will be no payment as long as you secured the treasure. This is just a small thing, as long as the treasure is secured!"
I sighed on this guy, no sense of shame indeed.
When the transaction is done, I felt my whole body is surging with a strange power that made me feel like everything feels light and it is making me a bit uncomfortable. Is this the power of a person that is able to carry anything with ease in one hand or is this the power to punch and destroy a wall without any effort? Wait, punching the wall is out of the question unless the wall is too weak already that it would crumble in one punch. There is no way I can destroy a wall with a bare fist, even if I used all of my strength.
I didn"t waste my time and pushed the wall. The difference was indeed different from my former strength and my new strength. Earlier, I can barely make the wall move, but when strength is growing inside me, I can easily push this wall without any trouble, piece of cake. Still, this door is in need of grease even though it"s made of rock. It can be hardly moved.
Pus.h.i.+ng it open, I managed to reveal a secret room that appeared to be a room of some kind. I can"t see it too clearly but I clearly see that this place is man-made because it is impossible for a cave to shape like this without any kind of ragged edges of rocks. These walls are a bit polished like I came out of Minecraft.
When I entered the secret room, it was revealed that the place is full of books. I crouched and grab one of those books and found out that those books are all in arcane language. I can tell this place is somewhat strange and what made me surprised is that this place is not infected by the darkness at all. The darkness still maintained out of the vicinity in this place. Does that mean, this treasure that the seed is talking about the reason why the darkness can"t spread fully?
The seed once again grab my attention. "Kid, the treasure I am talking about is in this corner of the stack books with the cover of red at the very top!"
I looked at the area where the seed said to be containing a stack book with red cover and soon spotted what seems to be the stack. I am antic.i.p.ating but I also remained neutral on it.
"What is next?"
" Go behind it, the treasure should be located in there!"
Behind? I looked behind the stacked books and instead of a treasure chest, I saw another pile of stack books above a shelf that looks like it is broken.
"Another messy stack of books? Where is the treasure?! Don"t tell me I have to dig it up?"
"Of course you need to. How can you call it a treasure hunt if it is not buried? This time though is a treasure under the pile of books.
"Indeed! Dig those books out!"
I kneel and started grabbing the books one by one and stacked them properly. After picking up a few books, I noticed that there was a clothing left behind under the pile of books. When I found nothing, I decided to just continue to pull out the books. Then, something brown falls into the floor. When I looked, I realized what it was which I found weird.
"A shoe? And a worn-out version of mine. My shoes are still clean so this is impossible to be mine especially since these shoes undergo special workshops that wouldn"t get easily worn out. Then I realized what is going on. A cloth next is a shoe and now I decided to look another and found the thing under the books. Seeing the corpse, I cursed out.
"F*CK, THIS IS NOT A TREASURE! This is just a skeleton of a dead person!"