Chapter 3: An End to an Exploration

Chapter 3:
An End to an Exploration

 

“DON’T YOU THINK there’s something strange about this cave?” Lapis suddenly said.

Loren took his eyes off the path for a split second. He glanced at Lapis over his shoulder. He had been jogging a while, yet the cave went on and on.

“I’m sure you’ve brought us a considerable distance from where we encountered the goblins, but the end of this cave is nowhere in sight.”

Exactly. Even weighted down by his passenger, jogging for such a span of time should have brought them quite a long way. They had passed a few branches and rooms, each room stuffed with various junk the goblins had probably gathered. The last one of these had been quite a while ago, and since, it had been nothing but corridors.

But they didn’t seem any closer to the innermost depths. Furthermore, the cave seemed to maintain a set width, its passages carrying on endlessly.

“I was sure the goblins had just picked out a random natural cave as their nest, but this is abnormal,” said Lapis. “Something is clearly wrong.”

“Seriously. How far does this damn cave go?”

If Loren ran into a dead end, he intended to retrace his steps and take an alternative route, but it was like every path he chose had no ending. If the cave had been made by natural means, the paths should have constricted over time, even if only a little; but no matter how far he went, he was met with passages of the same consistent width.

Sure, the ground and walls and ceiling all looked to be unrefined rock, but he was beginning to wonder if, somehow, it was manmade.

“Should we turn back?” he proposed. A practical dread was creeping up on him—that they were getting too far in. However, they essentially had a single straight path back, which would force them to pass through the room with the remains of Saerfé’s party.

Loren didn’t want to think of what was going on in there now, but he had no doubt the goblins were still gathered. He couldn’t see himself secretly slipping by. Which would mean having to fight off a small army of goblins with Lapis on his back.

“Let’s hope there’s an exit on the other side,” he said.

“If there is one, Mr. Loren, I’d say you’re incredibly lucky.”

He hesitated to make a call on his own luck. Sure, the fact that he’d done nothing but fight his whole life yet had managed not to die could be considered lucky. Same went for the fact that he hadn’t received any major, crippling injuries. That said, he considered the annihilation of his company to be quite an unfortunate event, and when he had to weigh it all up and see where he ended as a whole, he simply couldn’t answer.

“For now, you’d better not put your hopes on my good fortune,” he said.

“Only if you don’t put your hopes on mine either.”

For some reason, she didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the warning. She even made it her own. He sent her another questioning glance.

“No, well, you see. When I left the country of demons, my parents made off with my eyes and my limbs and called it a restriction.”

“Oh…that does sound unfortunate.”

You had parents? Loren thought, mildly surprised. Come to think of it, demons didn’t just grow on trees. It made sense that they had to be born to parents. It was, moreover, unarguably unfortunate that those very same parents had stolen Lapis’s eyes and limbs, so much so that he had to wonder whether it was worse than what he’d endured when he lost his company.

“And when I slipped into human society as an adventurer, the party I ended up with was—well, you saw.”

“All right, I get it. You had it bad, maybe worse than I did.”

“Though they were all so terribly thoughtless and inattentive, it was quite a convenient crew for someone who wanted to hide her identity.”

“Let’s just end it here. No need to go on.” If Loren let her keep landing combos, he’d have to admit she was the unluckiest creature in the known world. I’m starting to see why demons get such a bad rap. It’s because you can say things like that without batting an eye.

“To top it all off, you remember my eyes and limbs? My parents went and hid them somewhere in human territory. I just wanted to experience the world a bit, but now I can’t go home until I find them.”

“You trying to make this a contest or something? I’m not playing your game.”

“And if I do find my poor, lonely limbs, how am I supposed to reattach them?”

“Go home. Ask your parents. End of story.”

Loren couldn’t imagine what circumstances could lead a parent to steal their daughter’s limbs and hide them in some far-off land. Moreover, a thought process that simply wrote off that dismemberment and theft as tough luck was so incomprehensible that he doubted he would ever come to understand it.

“Um, Mr. Loren?”

He was dragged out of his thought spiral by the very person who had pushed him into it. He was wary as he returned his attention to Lapis. Is she going to drop an even bigger bomb?

Then he noticed her pointing in the direction he was running toward, and he refocused.

The cave continued on as the same consistent corridor, but what Lapis noticed lay quite a bit further down—a slight glimmer. Something in the distance glowed.

“No dead end, huh?” he asked.

“A dead end wouldn’t let off light, would it?”

“Cave wouldn’t either. You think we got more goblins down there?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t sense any.”

Loren didn’t know to what degree he could trust that assessment. However, demons supposedly possessed superior physical prowess, so maybe their senses were slightly better as well. He slowed his speed, shifting to a quiet, stealthy gait.

Thanks to the light reaching out toward them, Loren recovered a certain degree of vision. “Snuff your light,” he whispered.

Lapis did so. Their surroundings dimmed until Loren could only vaguely make anything out.

“Can you stand yet?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a burden.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Lapis sounded ashamed, but Loren hadn’t gotten his hopes up, and thus, in his view, she had no reason to feel discouraged.

“I should apologize beforehand,” he said. “I might have to drop you for a bit in an emergency. Be ready.”

“I understand. You can’t draw your weapon with me on your back.”

The claustrophobic cave prevented him from using his greatsword to the best of his ability. However, he had no other weapons and would have to rely on it if it came to violence. In that case, Lapis would be in the way. As she couldn’t move properly, the drop wouldn’t be pretty. Easy to imagine, and unfortunate indeed.

“Let’s just hope I don’t have to draw,” he said, cautiously walking toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

Perhaps he had been a little too cautious—it took quite a bit of time to get there. But eventually, he reached the light source without any issue. Here, the passage finally hit a dead end, a wall with a crevice at the bottom just wide enough for a child to bend down and crawl through. The light came from the crevice.

Loren inspected it for a while and came to two conclusions. Firstly, it didn’t seem to lead outside, and secondly, his body wouldn’t fit through—though he didn’t know about Lapis.

“I might be able to just barely squeeze through it if I got down on my stomach,” Lapis agreed, “but I can’t really move at the moment. Not to mention, I have my reservations about crawling into who knows where on my own.”

Won’t her hips get stuck? Loren wondered, but he mostly agreed with what she had to say. He also didn’t feel like forcing her though there incapacitated and alone.

“Guess I’ll have to break the wall around it.” He didn’t really have a choice. Not that he had the right tools to expand the crevice. Just his sword.

But the fact of a large crack meant the surrounding wall might have lost some structural integrity. Filling his chest with that grasping hope, Loren gently sat Lapis down against the side of the tunnel a short distance away. He drew his sword.

“This is gonna be loud. You keep watch; make sure we don’t attract anything.”

Lapis nodded. “Leave it to me.”

Loren took his greatsword in a firm reverse grip and lowered the tip into the wall nearest the crack. It took a few stabs of the nearly edgeless slab of metal to chisel out a few pebbles’ worth.

His weapon was sturdy, but it would suffer quite a bit of damage if he continued using it outside of its intended function. I’ll need to get it reforged or buy a new one if we get out of here alive.

The thought didn’t stop him.

“This looks like it will take a while,” Lapis sighed.

Though the wall had weakened, it was still stone. The slow work of digging away at it with a sword yielded hardly any visible progress. Lapis was right in that regard, but any time Loren spent answering was better spent digging. He stabbed the wall again.

Luckily for them, the sound of Loren widening the crevice didn’t draw the attention of any new monsters. Had something found them, he would have had to fight while protecting an immobile ally, a horrid shackle that he expected would lead to quite an unfortunate end.

“I guess we’re lucky the wall isn’t too hard,” Lapis said.

Years had weathered the stone, and if they hadn’t, it probably wouldn’t have broken at all. It would’ve been way easier if I had the space to swing, Loren thought bitterly.

It took a long time, but eventually, he widened the crevice to the point where he could barely crawl through. After patting the small stone fragments and shavings off his sword, he replaced it on his back.

“That should about do it.”

“Nice work. And while I commend you, I must ask if you would be so kind as to pull me through from the other side.”

Despite the length of time that had passed, Lapis’s limbs didn’t seem to have regained any movement. And it wasn’t as though he could sidle through with her on his back. As she said, Loren would have to make it to the other side first, then reach back and drag her after.

“You’re real trouble, you know that?”

“My apologies.”

“Don’t sweat it. In for a penny, as they say.”

Loren pressed himself against the floor, slowly setting off on a crawl to the beyond.

Passing through wasn’t much trouble at all. Loren needed to be almost completely flat, and the sword hanging on his back proved to be a slight hindrance. But something that minorly inconvenient didn’t register as a true problem.

The tricky part came when he had to squeeze an as yet largely immobile Lapis through.

They still had to be wary of potential goblin threat, especially if they took too long, and Loren anxiously watched her wriggle and writhe from torso to pelvis, crawling like an inchworm along the floor. Once she was close enough to reach, he grabbed her arms and pulled her the rest of the way through.

“Touch of luck for both of us,” Loren concluded, seeing no sign of their pursuers yet.

He was additionally relieved that the place they ended up seemed to be outside goblin territory. The ground proved that. Crawling over it had left them covered them with dirt and dust. In that regard, Lapis’s priest vestments had taken a somewhat larger hit than Loren’s, just given the coloring. However, had they been crawling across goblin territory, they would have been smeared with such indescribable filth and foul smells that dirt would have been the least of their worries.

“Sorry for all the trouble, Mr. Loren. You’ve been a huge help.”

“Forget about it. More importantly, what does this place look like to you? I want your opinion.”

Sitting on the floor, Lapis turned her eyes to the scene beyond the crack. It differed quite a bit from the dark caves, and while not bright enough to call dazzling, the light provided a fairly good field of vision.

The ceilings rose high, and the space was vast. And it could all be made out by the faint glow of the walls and floor. This couldn’t possibly be a natural cave.

Still unable to stand, Lapis wriggled her body up against the wall and studied it so closely and for so long Loren wondered if her face would stick that way. Once her concentration broke, she cried out in amazement. “Color me surprised. This is manamen.”

“What’s that?”

“A material most often found in ruins of the ancient kingdom. Its formula is unknown, but it automatically absorbs mana from the atmosphere and converts it into light.”

Loren knew of the ancient kingdom—a nation that had flourished in times long gone. With its advanced magic technology, it had conquered over half the world, making citizens of all the people of human, demihuman, beast, and even demon-kind living in the lands it took. At least, that was what legends had to say on the matter.

Magic had been so integral to their society that everyone with status or power had been a magician. This meant a majority of the ruins found these days once belonged to those magicians. It was said that at their peak, the ancient kingdom’s cities had floated through the sky.

All in all, the kingdom’s technology far outstripped what people could now call upon. And yet, one day, the kingdom had fallen, just like that. The races they governed had separated, united, and separated again until their relationships settled into that of the current political landscape.

“If this is one of those ruins, won’t this discovery net us a fortune?” Loren definitely knew these places were hard to come by. What’s more, he had heard that items excavated from these ruins could go for more money than he’d ever seen in his life—more even than he could feasibly imagine.

“Only if the guild and the graverobbers haven’t ravaged it yet.”

“C’mon… At least let me dream.”

“More importantly, Mr. Loren, could you chip away a bit of the wall? Sure, it’s not bright, but we can still use it as a light source. Not to mention, it’s pretty valuable as an object of research.” Lapis’s eyes gleamed with expectation.

“I already chipped away plenty,” Loren grunted, motioning at the mound of rubble he’d had to break off from the other side. “Take your pick.”

“Oh, you’re right!” Without a care to the additional dirt getting on her clothes, Lapis squirmed like a worm all over again. Loren grabbed her by the back of her collar, scruffing her like a kitten, and plopped her down by the hole. He would have felt bad if her clothes were stained beyond repair. She gave him proper thanks and promptly flopped over to inspect the fragments littering the ground. There, she carefully selected several chunks of manamen and stuffed them into her pockets.

“You can keep doing what you’re doing, but if these really are ruins of the ancient kingdom, aren’t we in a rough spot?” As Loren understood it, such ruins often came hand in hand with traps, riddles, and guardians—installations meant to drive off intruders. The more important the site (before ruination), the more danger one could expect, and given what he knew of the legendary ancient kingdom, he hated to think of what dangers lurked in these halls.

“I don’t know about that,” Lapis replied doubtfully once she was satisfied with the weight in her pockets. “We lump them all together as ‘ruins,’ but it takes all sorts, you know?”

“What do you mean by that?” Loren inserted his hands under Lapis’s armpits in an attempt to get her on her feet. As he held her there, he could tell she would fall over if he relaxed his arms even a little. He sighed. Her hands can pick up pebbles, but it looks like her legs aren’t back yet.

“The genuinely dangerous ruins are probably just as dangerous as you’re imagining, but just as many are completely inconsequential.”

Still, Loren thought it risky to stay in the same place for too long. Having failed to stand Lapis up, Loren lifted her back onto his back. She remained rather passive, letting him do as he wished and clinging to him before continuing her explanation.

“Of the ancient ruins I know, the most pointless one found so far was a toilet.”

“Hah?”

“Multiple private stalls, immaculate air conditioning and lighting. Even the waste disposal and scent removal measures left nothing to be desired. Naturally, it had neither guardians nor traps. You’d be more surprised if it did.”

Well, you’d have to be a pretty far gone basket case to put traps in a toilet, thought Loren. What would you even be trying to protect? No, wait.

“Nah, I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two folks wanted to protect themselves while doing their business.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“A man’s most vulnerable when he’s doing that or holding a woman. That’s when he can’t focus. Can’t think.”

“Sounds like something a mercenary would say… But I can’t imagine the magicians of the ancient kingdom shared quite your point of view.”

Loren disagreed, but he understood these two vulnerabilities had been drilled into his head. They were the moments a mercenary was most liable to be stabbed in the back or picked off from afar with magic or arrows, and thus the moments where he needed to take the most precautions. To be fair, he didn’t expect Lapis to understand.

“Anyway, I think you get the picture,” she said. “It’s not as if every ancient kingdom ruin is dangerous. In fact, I’d say the dangerous ones are in the minority.”

What people now called ruins had originally simply been buildings used by the ancient kingdom’s citizens. Most places had no need of deadly traps and so forth. Of course, that didn’t apply to research facilities or treasure vaults, but it also made sense that such places were relatively rare.

“Then our first step’s finding out what kind of ruins these are,” Loren said.

“That sounds about right.”

“Here’s hoping it’s not the dangerous type.”

Loren made sure Lapis was stable before slowly starting on his way. He didn’t know where he was going, granted. However, upon closer inspection, the vast space and high ceilings led him to believe the room was actually part of a tremendous corridor. Then maybe following it will get us somewhere.

Of course, that meant wandering aimlessly around potentially perilous ruins, but compared to returning to a goblin-stuffed cave, this route at least left him with reason to cross his fingers.

“I’ll keep on my toes, but Lapis, you look out too.”

“I’ll do my best to detect magic and traps. And I’ll be counting on you if an enemy shows up.”

“Sure, as long as it’s something this thing can deal with.” Loren flicked the hilt of his greatsword.

In Loren’s hands, a swing of its nonsensical mass imparted just as much force as its appearance suggested. That said, it really was just an iron slab with no special features. While it had great effect against enemies vulnerable to physical destruction, faced with foes to which this did not apply—spiritual and magical bodies, for instance—it was completely powerless.

That had been more than enough power on the battlefield of man. In unknown ruins belonging to the ancient kingdom, Loren wasn’t so convinced of his usefulness.

“Worst-case scenario, we have to weigh returning to the goblin nest and forcing our way through.”

“That sounds dreadful. Let’s try to avoid it.”

Loren had slain the goblin magician, but they had no guarantee there was only one such magician to be found here. Additionally, they had both seen several larger individuals in the goblin troop that flanked their party from the entrance—presumably hobgoblins, according to Lapis, another variety of evolved form. These hobgoblins were formidable foes, incomparably stronger than standard goblins.

“I’m not sure whether you could cut through so many of them alone,” Lapis said. “Especially since I still can’t move myself.”

She said it lightly enough, but Loren heard her grim implication: that she was, as yet, still dead weight.

“Best-case scenario, we get out without meeting anyone else,” he said.

“I doubt my karma’s good enough for things to work out so nicely.”

“Same here. Even worse, I’ve got no kind of faith, so I can’t even beg for salvation.”

Even if Lapis was unluckier, Loren probably had far more bad karma. He smiled bitterly, until suddenly he stopped. He brought his right hand up to his shoulder. He meant to draw his sword. Lapis stiffened, bracing herself for the tumble.

However, Loren remained frozen, his hand on the hilt, not drawing. He lowered his stance, readying himself to move at the slightest provocation, as he glared down the corridor.

“Mr. Loren?”

“Quiet. Something’s coming.”

A considerable way down, the path turned a corner. Lapis didn’t seem to, but Loren felt something around the bend. That wouldn’t worry him anywhere else, but in these ruins, it was hard to imagine their lives weren’t about to be threatened.

“Should we run?” she proposed.

“Will it let us?”

They could always retreat. However, given they had absolutely no information about their current location, Loren was more strongly compelled to learn something than flee sight unseen. He would surely figure something out with just a glimpse of whatever was coming. I can decide whether to run or stand my ground once we get that.

His intentions made it through to Lapis. “I think I can use magic to stall it. Tell me when,” she whispered into his ear.

Just as he nodded to her, the presence rounded the corner. Loren tensed his legs, ready for whatever came his way. And come out it did; it took one good look at him.

“Hey, look what I found. It’s a scary-faced mister with a missus on his back!” it shouted.

“Huh?! What’s something like that doing in unexplored ruins? An illusion trap?”

“Well, they’re here, so what do you want me to do about it?! Ugh, you’d think an illusion would look better off!”

“Humankind. Probably. He’s giving off body heat, to say the least.”

“This is a bit too far out of the way to be lost, wouldn’t you say?”

What appeared from beyond the corner and stopped before them was a quibbling, armed adventurer party. The IDs dangling from their necks reflected a silver hue.

“You were being chased by goblins and just so happened to wander into this place? That’s some tough luck you got there, mister.”

This adventurer, a young man with a thievish flair, laughed heartily. His stubble hinted he was perhaps a little older than Loren. Additionally, he showed no reservation whatsoever as he slicked back his short, scraggly brown hair and laughed right in Loren’s face.

“They survived a party wipe, right? I don’t think their luck’s all that bad,” chimed in a warrior called Ritz, who had introduced himself as the party’s leader.

He wore standard warrior’s garb: leather armor reinforced with metal plating, along with a buckler and a longsword. They all looked old and well-used but properly maintained—perhaps the term well-seasoned was more appropriate.

The thief Ritz scoffed and turned away. Evidently, his fun had been ruined. However, the woman standing beside him—she held a bow and dressed like a hunter—pulled his ear to get his head looking straight again.

“Chuck, don’t be hateful.”

“Hey, that hurts! Goddammit, Nym! Quit tugging! What are you gonna do if it comes off?!”

“Ears that don’t listen are pointless.”

So the thief was called Chuck while the hunter was Nym. She had long blonde hair that hung artlessly and untended. Her blue eyes were stuck angrily half-open, while the ears peeking out of her hair were long and sharp, like daggers. Loren had heard of such ears but never seen the real thing. His eyes naturally gravitated toward them.

“Is this your first time seeing an elf?” asked the elderly magician who had introduced himself as Koltz. His pure-white hair was knotted at the back of his head, and he held an unornamented black staff and wore a gray robe.

All four of them were silver-rank adventurers. Silver was one up from iron and two up from copper, which was what Loren had freshly registered as. These folks could proudly call themselves veterans.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Loren said. “Sure, it’s a first, but that was rude of me.”

He didn’t mean to stare, and perhaps he had come off poorly. Much to his surprise, Koltz jovially waved off his apology.

“I can’t blame you for looking. She is a beauty, despite everything.”

“Koltz, if you want to keep your eyes in their sockets, you will keep your tongue in your mouth,” warned Nym.

Loren thought it an empty threat until she pulled a dagger from her waist. He flinched.

“I don’t have many years left, but I wouldn’t want to go through them blind,” Koltz said.

“No need to worry. I’ll be satisfied with just one of them.”

“Hey, you lot, quit screwing around in front of our guests. You’re making them feel unwelcome.”

The two went silent the moment Ritz spoke, and he turned back to Loren.

“If we had the time, I wouldn’t mind escorting you to the exit. But sorry to say, we’re on the clock. Can’t get too sidetracked. We’re competing with another party, see?”

“Expedition of the ruins found near Ain. Have you heard?” Nym asked. She really didn’t inflect much, did she?

Loren did recall Saerfé’s party discussing some ruins before they’d taken on their ill-fated quest. The better job Narron had wanted, the one they were unqualified for. So he and Lapis had found themselves in those newly discovered ruins after all.

“It’s hard to estimate the danger level of newfound ruins, but they’re usually pretty worth it if you wanna get rich quick. We took the quest first opportunity we got, only to learn someone else already had their finger in the pie,” Chuck said, sounding quite irritated.

“We’re currently up against some tough competition,” said Koltz. “See who can perform a more effective investigation and all that. Our pay depends on our results, so we’re in a bit of a hurry.”

The implication was that they wouldn’t be able to help Loren and Lapis. Loren understood and more than accepted it. There were hardly any goody-two-shoes mercenaries out there who would help someone they hardly knew, and without compensation to boot. That probably held true for adventurers as well.

Perhaps it would be different if payment could be made. Not that it mattered. Loren had not a penny to his name.

“I get it,” he said. “We don’t plan on getting between you and work. Just point us toward the direction of the exit. We’ll manage from there.”

Traveling with a party would have been their best option, given Lapis’s condition. However, these guys were on the job. Loren would rather die than beg working professionals to drop their obligations to guide him out. And anyway, it wasn’t as if he was completely helpless here.

As such, a direction would do. He expected these veterans had secured an escape route. They’d just have to worry about traps, but Lapis would take care of that, and Loren would remain at the ready to face any combat.

“Yeah, about that,” Ritz said hesitantly.

Loren’s mood plummeted. Did they want compensation for the information? Probably. Hardly anything in the world came free of charge. If that was the case, he’d have to rely on Lapis to cough up the coin.

“Honestly, we don’t know either,” said Ritz.

“Now that’s tough luck,” Loren replied, unthinking. He could barely comprehend what he was hearing. Weren’t these people veterans? Where had all their prep work gone?

“Look, don’t misunderstand, okay?” Ritz said frantically. “It’s not like we had a serious mental lapse or we didn’t make a map. It’s nothing like that.”

Oh great, did I let that skepticism show? To a stranger? Downright rude of me, Loren thought.

However, Ritz’s panicked look was a bit off. He wasn’t staring directly at Loren, but rather a little to the side.

“Lapis,” Loren warned.

“My apologies. Is there something on my face?”

“Didn’t your legs give out or something? That’s not the look of a gal who needs her comrade to carry her.”

Lapis flopped back down, properly scolded.

What face would Ritz make if he learned her true identity? Loren wondered. More importantly: “So what happened that made you lose your way?”

“We fell. Hit a pitfall trap and went down, just like that. Chuck over there failed to spot it.” Ritz glared at Chuck and clicked his tongue. The man in question hid behind Koltz, only to be kicked out into the open by Nym.

Loren did feel slight pity for the thief—his party didn’t seem any happier than Loren—but he urged Ritz to share the rest of the story.

“Lucky for us, there was no poison or spikes at the bottom, but we dropped down a whole floor and it was too high to climb back up. We’re looking for a usable way out,” Ritz explained darkly.

Loren looked up at the ceiling. It was high enough to give him plenty of space to swing his massive sword—rather, it was so high he couldn’t imagine how he would possibly reach it. He could definitely see how hard it would be to scale without proper gear.

“If we had left someone up top, sure, they could have pulled us back up. But we all fell, the lot of us.”

“Chuck fell on top of me. One day, he’ll die for that.”

“Might as well have hit the ground, if you know what I’m saying.”

Chuck’s retort drew all eyes to a certain point on Nym’s body. Upon noticing that, she drew her bow and took aim.

“Last words, out with them.”

Loren didn’t have a death wish. He skillfully looked elsewhere.

Lapis, on the other hand, wasn’t so deft. She silently pressed her face into Loren’s back and minute tremors of her swallowed laughter tickled his spine.

On a side note, hers, while modest, were pronounced enough to assert their presence, and thus beyond comparison to Nym’s.

“I’ll start with Chuck.”

“Don’t take it out on me just because I’m right!”

“Anyway, you heard how it is,” Ritz tiredly cut in. He made sure to face only Loren, blocking off the sight of Nym chasing Chuck down with her bow. “As much as I’d love to help you, our directions won’t get you to the exit.”

“Understandable.”

Life took its toll. Even a silver-rank adventurer could fall for a trap. It was more surprising to Loren that after falling from that high ceiling, not a single one of their party members had any conspicuous wounds. Even Nym, who Chuck had landed on, didn’t look hurt. Possibly she was hiding it.

“We got pretty banged up coming down,” Ritz confirmed, “though we managed somehow or another with potions. So, while we’re on that subject—”

“If you’re curious about my blessings, I have one use of healing left.” Lapis lifted her head and butted in before Ritz could even finish.

Loren didn’t quite catch her meaning, but he noticed Ritz was momentarily taken by surprise—though he quickly regained his composure.

“Only one, eh?”

“I guarantee it will do you better than a potion. I believe I’ll be able to manage another if you give me a few hours.”

Loren glanced inquisitively at her, and Lapis whispered in his ear. “They want me to tag along to make up for the potions they wasted. Probably.”

Ingesting a potion did speed up recovery to a degree. Unfortunately, its effects were neither remarkable nor swift. Compared to that, a heal blessing worked instantly; what’s more, it did a far better job than any medicine.

“Does that mean he’s gonna get rid of me and take you along?”

“Well, I, for one, can’t move. He’s going to need someone to carry me, right?” Lapis said more clearly, and she soon proved she had put some thought into it. “Their combat capability falls if one of their party members needs to haul me around. However, Mr. Loren, if you stay, you’ll have some protection, and we won’t compromise their party’s ability to fight. We all have a vested interest in teamwork. Worst case, even if they do toss us aside when we’re no longer of no use to them, it’ll be no skin off our backs.”

“Do I really look so heartless?” Ritz asked.

The question made Loren and Lapis exchange a look. They replied at nearly the same time: “Pretty much.”

“I get that I look rough around the edges, but come on…”

“No need to worry. If he said to steal the woman and leave the man behind, I would end him here,” Nym stated matter-of-factly, eliciting a wry smile from the rest of her party. It gave the impression that these exchanges were an everyday occurrence to them.

Loren found himself smiling too, despite himself, and Ritz presented his offer. “What we’re asking for is one use of the lady’s blessing at our command. In exchange, we’ll permit you to accompany us until we exit the ruins. What do you say?”

“Very well. It is a pleasure doing business with you,” Lapis accepted before Loren could get a word in.

You all right with that? Ritz’s eyes seemed to say as he glanced at Loren, but the way Loren saw it, the conditions of the bargain mainly had to do with Lapis. He didn’t think he had the right to choose for her, and as long as she accepted, he had no intention to dispute it.

“Now that that’s settled, it looks like we’re stuck together. Well, until we get out, at least,” Ritz said, holding out his left hand.

Loren looked down at it. He plastered the most affable smile he could manage on his face, gripped it back, and shook.

The party now consisted of six members, albeit only five with free range of movement.

Ritz and Chuck proceeded at the lead. Koltz the magician took center, while Nym the hunter and Lapis-laden Loren took the rearguard. As Loren essentially couldn’t use his hands, he couldn’t help feeling their rear was too vulnerable.

“Don’t worry. Trust me.” Nym patted his shoulder to reassure him.

That roasted shoulder was now wrapped in bandages. The treatment administered had been more of a stopgap measure than anything, but it had at the very least been slathered with a bit of medicine. Loren had been too worried about pursuit to treat it before, but it had concerned their new party. While they hadn’t offered a potion, they provided disinfectant, an ointment for burns, and bandages.

Thankfully, he was a little better off now. But the wound still stung on contact, not that he let it show. He endured Nym’s pats with a somewhat stiff smile.

“If it gets too painful, please tell me,” Lapis whispered in his ear.

She was supposed to be able to use two blessings a day. However, she had told Ritz she only had one left. True, Lapis had quite a lot to expend her energy on, what with her valiant attempts to move her limbs. But the reigning theory held that the mana used in magic and the power of faith used in blessings came from different reserves. In short, Lapis had neglected to report one of her uses, one which she intended to preserve. She was apparently considering using it to treat Loren.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve been taken care of.”

To be perfectly honest, Loren was pretty lukewarm on the idea of lying in negotiations. It was a separate issue if you were dealing with someone unsavory, but as long as you had reason to trust in the folks across the table, he believed both parties should be honest and upfront.

Of course, he still didn’t know if Ritz’s party deserved their trust, and that prevented him from chastising Lapis for her decision.

“You know, I can’t help but feel there’s something off about this place,” Chuck said from the lead, cautiously glancing around.

Loren always wanted as much information as he could get. He simply couldn’t let the intel of a higher-ranking adventurer slip by, and he strained his ears to pick up Chuck’s pondering.

“When you hear about supposedly unexplored ruins, you expect, you know, golems, or undead, or something not living, right?”

Chuck turned ever so slightly toward Loren. He probably wanted some sort of reaction, but Loren didn’t have the right experience to draw on. The failed goblin hunt had been his first experience as an adventurer. And his company had never been paid to delve into ruins.

While he mulled over how to respond, Chuck seemed unbothered. He continued on regardless. “Not a single one of ’em in here, is the thing.”

“You mean you haven’t encountered any enemies? That not a good thing?”

Loren didn’t know how untouched this place really was, but if it was from the era of the ancient kingdom, it had been abandoned for hundreds of years. That wasn’t a livable timeframe any being who breathed. As long as nothing outside had broken in, all they’d find would be the lifeless creatures Chuck mentioned. The absence of these made Loren want to assume they simply didn’t have any enemies to worry about, but Chuck frowned, turning his eyes ahead.

“That’s the thing. I don’t know why, but all we run into is goblins.”

“Goblins in an ancient ruin? Did they sneak in from somewhere?”

They tended to do that kind of thing. You’d find goblins crawling into any kind of crevice to gather en masse and breed. The tenacious little monsters sometimes even settled in untreated sewers of large cities. It stood to reason that if they’d found a way into a secluded place like this, there’d be a lot of them.

Chuck shook his head, his eyes grimly forward. “About that. These ruins were sealed up to the moment they were discovered—and the guys who found it had to hire magicians to break in. Meaning, the goblins couldn’t have come in through the front door.”

“Yeah, but we got in through that crack—they could’ve done the same.”

“Right, now you’re getting it. Encountering you guys made me realize these ruins have holes. Probably explains the goblins.”

“But it doesn’t explain everything,” Koltz broke in. “If the goblins just got in from the outside and started multiplying here, that still wouldn’t account for the lack of other guardians.”

“You don’t reckon whatever was protecting the place just wasted away or something?”

“If that were the case, they would leave some wreckage or remains. Maybe not if they were ghost-type undead, but that would require a particular sort of ruin.”

“Undead are already unsuited to serve as guardians, generally speaking,” Koltz explained. “The vestige of their original sentience renders it difficult to imprint complex orders upon them. In most cases, this means stationing countless low-grade undead who can only take simple orders, or placing the ruins under the command of a single powerful undead who can control the rest. In either case, it’s difficult to imagine they would vanish without a trace. Yet we’ve found no sign of anything but goblins.”

“Well, I personally hope that they just got in from that crack,” said Ritz. “We only saw goblins after the pitfall. If they’re coming through that crevice you two found, that’s our way out.”

“Well, if the place is riddled with such holes, there’s a chance those goblins are coming in from multiple.”

“Don’t wanna imagine that,” Loren muttered.

Multiple goblin hordes were the last thing he wanted. Perhaps they’d mean little to a silver-rank party, but Loren had just seen his own party annihilated by a simple goblin hunt, and he would rather not repeat the experience.

“Hold up, more goblins ahead.”

Partway down an unobstructed corridor, Ritz raised a warning. Loren was about to lower Lapis, but Nym stopped him. “No trouble. Loren, watch our back.”

“Got it.”

His hands were occupied, but he could still watch for enemies approaching from behind. As he promptly turned around, Nym swiftly nocked an arrow and unleashed it with offhanded ease and hardly any sign of taking aim. Her arrow sailed over the heads of the two vanguards and stuck in the eye of the goblin leading the pack, killing it instantly.

“Only seven. Not too many.”

“You don’t need magic for this, do you?” asked Koltz.

“No need,” Ritz confirmed. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

He readied his shield and sword and charged alone into the party of goblins rushing at them. His shield knocked the first one down, and a flash of his sword swiftly sent the second one’s head flying. He then closed in on the one he’d bashed out of formation and tore through its neck before it could stand.

In the time it took Ritz to do that, Nym’s arrows took out a second, then a third. Just like that, and in the blink of an eye, seven goblins were dead without the chance to resist.

“You’re incredible,” Loren called over to Ritz, rather impressed.

However, Ritz replied indifferently. “That’s nothing special. We’re silver, you know?” No sense of pride or accomplishment.

Maybe perfectly normal fighting just looks incredible after I saw how Saerfé’s party handled things, Loren thought.

“If four silvers had trouble with seven goblins, we’d be thrown out on the streets,” Ritz continued as if he had already lived this a thousand times before.

Now that he put it like that, Loren winced. On the contrary, that might have been rude of me.

“Didn’t mean anything by it,” he apologized.

“It’s fine. This should be a good lesson for a copper like you,” Ritz said as he got to work cutting an ear off each of the decapitated and arrow-stuck corpses.

Loren observed, wondering what exactly he was doing. Ritz stowed seven ears in a small cloth sack and held it out. This offering, of course, seemed quite useless to Loren, but there must have been some meaning to it. He looked back at Ritz.

“You came on a goblin hunt, right?” Ritz said, a little more bluntly and rapidly than usual. “Sure, you failed in the nest, but defeat any goblin, and you’ll still get paid. That’s less than pocket change to us. But you need it.”

Ah, so the proof he needed of a goblin kill was its ear. Loren didn’t love that he was only learning this now, but he took it to heart.

“You sure about that?” he asked. He hadn’t properly checked how much he would get for these ears, but Ritz handing them over was practically the same as giving Loren free money.

“You don’t need it? Then toss ’em. The reward for one goblin is five copper, if even. It’s not worth the extra trouble to carry with us.”

“Feel free to take them,” Nym chimed in, “It’s rare to see our stingy leader concede so much as a penny. You can brag to your friends.”

“Shut up. You’re supposed to show a bit of consideration for your juniors in the business.”

“What a surprise. Will pigs fly tomorrow?”

Nym had been largely expressionless up to that point, so the blatant surprise now crossing her face told Loren that Ritz had done something considerably out of character.

Ritz ultimately tossed the bag at Loren and nagged Nym in turn.

“Why not take it? We might as well accept their generosity,” Lapis said.

Without a reason to refuse, Loren hung the bag on his belt.