Proofreader: Xemul
“Anyway, there’s nothing here.”
The group proceeded with caution, but there were no signs of life in the cave, despite the fact that it was once the home of orcs.
The place where they would normally cook food, the place to lock up the villagers brought from the village they had attacked, the place to store food… They couldn’t find any places like that.
They found a few spaces that looked vaguely like they might have been used as rooms, but there was nothing left in them, and they could not even guess what the purpose of those rooms might have been.
“It’s spotless. Maybe the cleaning was overdone?”
When Lapis, who was walking behind, said something like that to Dia, who was walking in front, Dia turned away with a blank look on her face and started clumsily whistling a strange tune. Smiling wryly, Loren wondered if she had any better way to deflect the question. But there was another thing weighing on his mind: the thing that had made the supposedly emotionless golem back down.
There must have been something at the end of the cave that not only triggered fear in the golem, which normally would not be frightened but also made it abandon its forward movement and move backward. But not only Loren, even Lapis, Dia, and Gula, had yet to sense such a powerful presence here.
“I wonder what was here? Is it gone already?”
With her hands folded behind her head, Gula, who was walking around with a manner that showed no hint of caution, said to no one in particular. Loren thought that if something with such a powerful presence was on the move, it should have left some traces, but they hadn’t been able to sense any such traces at all.
“Maybe that thing was very good at handling its power and presence?”
“I’m afraid so. I don’t think I can compete with it.”
A being that unnecessarily exerted intimidation over its surroundings was frightening, but a being that could exert intimidation when necessary and then move on without being noticed by its surroundings would be even more so, according to Nim. She said that this proved that the being had both a very high level of intelligence and ability, and Loren agreed.
The group slowly moved deeper into the cave as they talked, but after some distance, Loren felt a tug on his shoulder and looked down at his right shoulder. He could not see Nig at its usual place on his shoulder, but he saw instead a white thread attached to it. Looking at the end of the thread, he could see Nig with its a black body stuck to the cave wall.
Wondering what was going on, Loren walked up to the wall where the spider was, a spider thread still attached to his shoulder, and stopped when he smelled a sweet smell coming from the wall, albeit only slightly.
“Loren?”
Seeing Loren suddenly walking towards a wall then stopped, a quizzical Lapis asked. But she immediately noticed the gaze he directed towards the wall and, raising a hand to get the others’ attention, she slowly approached the wall herself and brought her face close to the rocky surface.
“What’s wrong?”
“Something smells… bad.”
As Loren wondered if Lapis could smell that, Gula approached the wall just as Lapis did, and when he thought her nose twitched lightly, she suddenly frowned, covered her mouth and quickly moved away from the wall. That sudden reaction made him wonder if she had been exposed to poison, but Gula’s subsequent words made his mind go blank for a moment.
“I can feel Luxuria’s presence!”
What came to Loren’s blank mind was the image of a macho man with a split chin and a big smile on his face, his glistening skin exposed without reserve and his crotch covered by a poor excuse of a piece of cloth. He unconsciously took a step backward, but his legs failed to keep his weight and he almost fell on his back. But was supported by Dia, who was nearby, and Lapis, who had been standing behind Loren before he knew it. Perhaps Lapis had immediately tried to hide behind Loren upon hearing Luxuria’s name, but when she saw that Loren was about to fall on his back, she had hurriedly supported him. He thought to himself ‘I’m not your shelter’, but he guessed he should be thankful for her in this case.
As Loren somehow managed to regain his posture, he saw Nim looking like she had no idea what was going on, and Gula still staring at the wall. The Evil God covered her mouth with her hand and carefully brought her face close to the wall, closely examining the rock surface for a while. Eventually, she looked away and toward Loren and the others.
“This wall is probably created by >. I don’t know who did it… but I don’t think it’s him…”
Someone who had the presence of the Evil God of Lust, but was not Luxeria, and also used magic. Loren knew of only one person who met all these conditions.
But if that person had been here, Loren was afraid that they had been a step too late.
Even thought it was a long shot, it was not impossible for the Evil God of Lust, who would be leading a group of muscle-bound adventurers in the city of Kapha right now, had somehow created a wall here. But in that case, they would have to consider eliminating Luxeria, the true Evil God of Lust, in earnest. Either way, an investigation was necessary.
“Can you move that stone wall?”
“I can just > it… Ah, but if the magic she used was as strong as mine, it might be a bit of a pain.”
The person Loren and Gula were thinking about was a dark elf named Noel, who followed a man named Magna, a black swordsman who had a history with Loren and his companions.
Loren’s party had previously explored a ruin where Evil Gods had been created. There, they had encountered Noel, who had been reborn as an Evil God of Lust by a device that created Evil Gods like Gula and her kins. At that time, they parted without much of an encounter, but since Noel had also gained power as an Evil God of Lust, it was not surprising that she would have the same powers and dispositions as Luxuria.
“Try to. We have to look into this.”
“Ya’ right. Give me some time, will ya?”
As Gula approached the stone wall, Nig, who had been attached to said wall, hauled itself back to Loren’s right shoulder by the thread it had spit out. Loren patted the spider on the back, who sensed the presence of something they had failed to notice and told him about it.
“Loren, it has become very attached to you.”
“It seems so… But I wonder why?”
“People who are liked by insects and animals are not bad. Loren is a good child after all.”
Nim smiled and pat Loren’s back. Embarrassed, he scratched his cheek with his index finger.
In the meantime, Gula, who had been examining the stone wall, stepped away after a while and pointed her right palm at it.
“>.”
As she chanted the spell, the surface of the stone wall glowed dimly for a moment. As the light faded, what had been a solid stone wall lost its shape and dissolved into thin air. At the same time, an entrance that had not been there appeared, and Loren and the others had to turn their faces away, cover their mouths with their hands and hold their breath because of the sweet smell that leaked out from the other side of the entrance.
“My God, who honors knowledge, protect us from the forces of evil. >.”
Lapis hurriedly chanted, and everyone’s resistance to magic was increased. If not for that, Loren and Nim might have been hit by the sweet smell and fallen under the control of the power of lust. The smell was that strong.
Loren, who was holding his breath so much that tears leaked out, wiped his eyes and looked beyond the entrance that Gula had opened. On the floor there was what appeared to be a magic circle drawn by purple light, and in the center of it was a stone statue of what appeared to be a woman.
“What is this…?”
Nim asked, mouth still covered by a hand, and Loren wondered how to reply.
Being a silver ranked adventurer, she must have known about Evil Gods, but it was difficult to say that Evil Gods existed right here. But then, it would be very difficult to explain that thing without talking about the Evil God of Lust.
As Loren wondered what to do, Gula spoke on his behalf.
“This is a form of magic that affects the mind.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“That’s because it’s not an honest art. I think you have to be a bit of a crazy outcast like me to know it.”
Loren wondered if anyone would call themselves crazy, but Nim stared at Gula and muttered ‘I see’ as if she was satisfied for some reason. Wondering what about Gula’s appearance that was so convincing, Loren stared at the Evil God, who seemed to have been expecting some more difficult questions and was disappointed that none came, and found something that somehow made sense to him.
“She’s not dressed like a normal magician.”
A magician’s basic attire was a robe and a staff. However, Gula was not dressed in the manner one would associate with the word ‘magician’, and her clothes were very revealing. If you were told that she was an outcast, you would accept that she could not be a normal magician with such an attire.
“I know I said so myself, but it hurts to hear you agree like that…”
“For now, let’s leave Gula’s unusual appearance alone.”
Leaving Gula slump-shouldered, Lapis pointed to the formula on the other side of the entrance.
“I think it’s better to destroy that, isn’t it? Maybe this is the reason why the orcs were so active.”
“Maybe so, but… how do we get rid of it?”
Loren wondered if Gua was going to use > again, but Lapis pointed to the female statue enshrined in the center of the formula.
“If we destroy it, the formula will not be able to sustain itself.”
“It won’t go out of control, will it?”
Destroying the key element of a controlled object woud certainly cause the whole system to go out of order and collapse. And with its control gone, the controlled object might go wild. That was what Loren wanted to confirm, but Lapis tilted her head and said.
“I can’t decipher the formation.”
If it were an ordinary magic circle, Lapis would have been able to decipher it. But what they had here was a circle made by the power of an Evil God, a formation that she did not know, and she said that it wouldn’t be strange if something unexpected happened.
Even though Loren was disheartened by her words, they couldn’t just leave that magic circle here. So he raised his greatswords, thinking that no matter what the statue in the center of the magic circle was made of, it would surely be broken by his sword.