Chapter 116 - Manpower with Labor (2)

The Forgotten Temple gave a feeling of entering a post-apocalyptic world.

Stone buildings that must have been beautiful and majestic in the past.

Now cracked and collapsed, revealing bare skeletons, with lush vines hiding such devastation instead of torn-off finishes.

Even magic trees peeking through cracks in the building stones created complex shadows, giving an eerie impression.

Forgotten Temple.

Truly, no name could be more fitting.

A place forgotten by people, returned from the world of civilization to nature.

And in that place, returned to nature and freed from civilization's touch, traces of magic, which could be called the pinnacle of civilization, remained intact.

"It's really here..."

"They've searched everywhere," Leaf's voice was tense, a gulp lingering in the back of her throat.

In contrast, Rei showed fighting spirit, cracking her knuckles.

While the two simply stopped at realizing enemies were present, the veterans were different.

"If we enter like this, we'll be caught in the barrier."

"Is it possible to dismantle?"

"Seems it'll take a long time."

It was possible, but complex.

A high-level barrier that even Mea, who now freely used Devil Magic, said would take a long time.

This was undoubtedly the work of Abyss Worshippers.

Explorers stumbled upon it by chance?

Low possibility.

Immediately after hearing Mea's rough analysis, I decided.

"We'll ignore it and pass through."

"That's... Ah."

Lana nodded in belated understanding.

Yes.

This barrier only activated at the boundary.

If we didn't touch it, no signal would be transmitted.

There were barriers that affected space itself, but that would be burdensome for them to set up too.

Whether that constraint was money or resources.

So we just needed to not touch it.

And I was someone who could do that.

Blink is ready.

It didn’t have a cooldown, but it still costs something.

Pop-pop—

It took only the time to blink twice for the barrier someone had painstakingly installed to lose its value.

§

There was an old saying.

To hide a tree, hide it in a forest.

Perhaps where we were going now followed that exact principle.

Hiding ruins within ruins.

Pretending to be dead ruins on the outside, while hiding the real thing underneath.

This must be what they meant by it being darkest under the lamp.

And indeed, even after entering the ruins, we hadn't felt the presence of the second ruins hidden somewhere here—Cordelia's legacy.

"Is it really here?"

"If the interpretation is correct."

We took careful steps forward with vigilance at maximum.

We continue our search, being careful even of footsteps, with magic bullets loaded ready to fire at any moment.

"It's quite spacious."

"This is about medium size."

"This is?"

This was essentially our team's first proper ruins.

There was the floating island ruins Bong-sik found, the Sky Altar storing power, but that was almost like just adding a spoonful to the meal Bong-sik had prepared.

"They didn't leave a single trace."

Rei complained, twitching her nose.

From the moment we entered the barrier, we each tried to use our tracking abilities to follow the prior visitors' trail.

Lana searched for traces left on the ground based on accumulated experience and Quarter-Dwarf touch.

Mea combined basic Devil Magic person-finding with her specialty shadow-based Devil Magic.

Leaf called Aerial and asked to find places where wind flow differed.

Rei, as we could see now, tried using beast-folk's superior senses and instincts.

Though instincts were almost neutralized by the Abyss' unique mana field that thickened as one went deeper, Rei's five senses were still the sharpest among us.

But Rei's complaint was that no matter how much she twitched her nose, there wasn't a single scent.

"Did they use some kind of deodorizing artifact?"

"That's a possibility. If they used an artifact that hides traces, 'Vanished Footsteps,' this would make sense."

"That can't hide mana though."

"Hmm... maybe they used the Cloak of Oblivion..."

Lana approached by considering all possibilities and eliminating them one by one.

Knowing a lot led to deeper thinking for Lana.

I didn't know about that stuff and just went with my gut, the opposite of Rei's method.

They say if your head is bad, your body suffers.

Why does it sound like I'm talking about Rei?

"Roman, you're thinking weird thoughts again."

What's this?

Aren’t her beast instincts supposed to be blocked?

At Rei's sharp accusation, I quickly changed the subject, "No, well... I think I found something?"

It was a careless remark made on the spur of the moment, but the moment I said it as if by a lie, something was caught.

My spatial sense, scanning the space itself with Axis, detected an anomaly.

"Huh? Really?"

You're so simple, Rei-Rei.

Rei's face, immediately brightening and approaching, had completely washed away the vague unpleasantness I felt just moments ago.

"Yeah. Really."

But, there are more people than I expected?

"They're not people! They're homunculi!"

Crash—!!

Lana shouted while smashing a bizarre wooden humanoid puppet rushing at her with her shield.

The human-like shapes I had sensed.

Their true identity wasn't real people but homunculi, similar to humans.

One of alchemy's secret aspirations in pursuit of a perfect human.

An artificial life form born from the desire to attain enlightenment and reach omniscience.

That was precisely what homunculi were.

Just as alchemists researching towards the goal of the Philosopher's Stone, which enabled the free transformation of matter, haven't yet surpassed the realm of creating new alloys or special materials.

Those who inscribed the completion of homunculi as alchemy's ultimate goal had also stopped somewhere between golem and human.

Closer to human than golem, but still far too lacking to be called human—an ambiguous existence.

That was exactly what homunculi were.

"But aren't those wooden puppets?"

"Looks like bio-alchemy. Alchemy that creates combinations of living things."

Isn't that essentially beyond alchemy?

“Alchemy was the technique of making gold, right?”

"No, Roman. If you trace back the meaning of alchemy, it means 'to create'."

"It's also called God's creation technique."

"Yes, as Mea said. So alchemy isn't just the technique of making gold, but rather a creative art trying to shape something like God created the world. It's commonly known as alchemy because making gold became famous."

I see.

Wow! My knowledge has increased!

Boom—! Crack!

"So they grafted trees to complete the homunculi?"

"Right? Magic trees that use mana as an energy source for biological activities and light emission seem like they could be quite helpful in completing homunculi."

"Exactly. That's why the Naturalis branch is uniquely friendly with the Satores branch."

Leaf, who loved explaining, sang out words excitedly while Mea added a word or two on the side like garnish.

Hmm, it would be perfect to give Leaf a fan and Mea a drum.

With Leaf as the singer and Mea as the accompanist, that kind of feeling.

Thud! Crash!

"The Satores branch aspires to create homunculi. They're bound to be close to Naturalis, which specializes in bio-alchemy. In contrast, they're somewhat distant from Teacher's Elixiristae. Though both pursue human perfection, their approaches are polar opposites. Teacher's side aims for self-perfection through medicine, while Satores tries to create perfect humans externally."

Is it because her voice is nice?

Or because her tone is so gentle?

It's like a fairy tale reading ASMR.

Still, it was quite interesting to listen to.

Not just because my knowledge increased, but also because humans were social creatures, so this kind of political talk was also entertaining.

By the way, at this rate, isn't Leaf almost an alchemist rather than a Spirit Summoner?

Even though Costin was her teacher, Leaf knew the relationship chart between Golden Intellect branches and alchemy characteristics by heart.

Mea, though she had suffered periodic memory loss, that was limited to memories; her knowledge itself was maintained, so she showed off her erudition while smoothly continuing the story.

"The sound keeps getting muffled. Rei~ Can you finish quickly?"

"If! You! Want! That! Help! Me!"

Whoosh—!

Rei's fist, filled with resentment, shattered an approaching homunculus, creating a rough gust of wind.

Feeling like I should make some excuse, I opened my mouth, "We can't help it. There might be attackers, so we need to guard the rear."

"That's correct logic. Excellent situational judgment as a leader. However, wasn't it somewhat overkill for all three of you to take rear guard?"

Unlike her polite words, her tone, much lower than usual, suggested the existence of suppressed frustration.

Ah, is she a little angry?

I should soothe her.

"This is all because we trust Lana and Rei... Just a moment."

I felt as if something was tugging at the Axis-spread mana web for spatial detection like a spider.

It's not human.

Mana interference...

We've been detected.

We were the first to sense the other's presence.

But they were the first to pinpoint our location.