novelraw Chapter 97
Chapter 97
Chapter 97
In front of the problematic mine, the Mine Strike Team had arrived.
To confirm something magical, we had invited Elder Benetrang, and also brought along the well-versed Dr. Nickel.
And Leon, who had properly showcased his abilities in this battle, was with us as well.
It was because I expected them to check the true nature of the mine from a perspective different from mine.
“This is the place.”
“Yeah, a place of bitter memories.”
The very first thing Iron did after learning that his former wife had left the territory was to check this mine.
And after discovering that the mine was nothing, he realized that he had been deceived by her.
He had grown to hate even the sight of this mine and issued a direct ban on entering it, before eventually forgetting about it completely.
The only time its existence resurfaced was on the day of the assassination attempt.
Whatever he had seen in the Diary, Iron ordered that this place be guarded, and Rudick sent knights to eliminate those who tried to collapse the mine.
And after that, no one paid it any more attention.
After all, it was just an empty mine, and our territory had been far too busy to care about it.
“Soldiers?”
“Yeah. Why are there soldiers here?”
But to our surprise—
There were soldiers guarding this place.
Not many. Just three of them.
But the very fact that soldiers were stationed here was puzzling.
“Johnson!”
“Oh. But why are you here?”
“Ah, the captain ordered us to guard this place.”
“Really? Since when?”
“Well, since the assassin appeared in the territory. The three of us have been rotating guard duty here ever since.”
“Is that so?”
I hadn’t paid any attention to this mine, but Rudick seemed to have thought differently.
Furious about the assassination attempt, Rudick had insisted that someone might try to collapse this mine again someday, so he had ordered it to be guarded.
If anyone came here to bring it down, he meant to catch them and uncover who was behind it.
“It’s been a year already, hasn’t it? That man really has an odd sense of perseverance when it comes to useless things.”
It seemed Rudick had been deeply shaken when the assassin went after Iron.
“Alright. Let’s go in. Elder, let us know immediately if you sense anything. Same for you, Dr. Nickel and Leon.”
Leaving the guarding soldiers behind, we entered the mine.
This was a place I remembered.
The last time I had come here was right after my former wife had fled—so it had been about two years.
Though time had passed, I remembered it vaguely.
“But this… it’s shoddier than I thought.”
-Is this even a real mine?
Back then, I hadn’t thought much of it. But seeing it again now, it looked incredibly crude.
Of course, the entrance that was visible from outside had been made to look solid and sturdy.
But once you went in a bit, it wasn’t hard to notice that something felt off.
The tunnels had been dug and supported in a half-hearted way, ready to collapse if pushed just a little too far.
“Just a glance tells me this isn’t a mining site.”
“I agree, Lord.”
“My lord, you really didn’t know?”
If Iron had paid even a little more attention, he might have realized sooner that her goal was not mining development.
Blinded by love or not, the fact that he hadn’t suspected her even after seeing this mine was clearly Iron’s mistake.
But the disgrace of that mistake fell on me.
It was truly lamentable.
-This is responsibility without pleasure. Congratulations, master.
As I was sighing over the absurdity of it all, Dr. Nickel spoke up cautiously.
“My lord, I’ve discovered something.”
“Really? What is it?”
“Compare the floor here with the wall. Don’t you see a slight difference? I believe this tunnel has existed since long ago. The recent mining work was merely expanding that pre-existing tunnel.”
“…Is that so?”
I examined the floor and the wall carefully at his words, but I couldn’t detect much of a difference.
It was hard to tell whether he truly knew what he was talking about or if he was just spouting nonsense.
Especially since Dr. Nickel was a man who could make even nonsense sound convincing, it wasn’t easy to trust him blindly.
“Oh, he’s right. The texture of the particles on the floor exposed to air for a long time feels slightly different.”
Leon, running his hands along the wall and floor, agreed with Dr. Nickel.
If even Leon said so, then there must have been a difference.
So, they were saying this tunnel had simply been an expansion of something that already existed.
Once I thought of it that way, it made sense.
“It’s not a magical structure. Looks like something was simply here a long time ago.”
That made sense.
I’d heard the Boar Tribe’s Sacred Relic, the Golden Pig Statue, had been taken from this place.
Since Beastmen couldn’t use magic, there shouldn’t have been any magical traces left.
Perhaps some shamanism at most? Though I wasn’t sure whether the Boar Tribe even had shamans.
But even if shamanism worked differently from magic, Elder Benetrang should have sensed if such mystical power lingered here.
It seemed this was not a place imbued with magic or shamanic forces.
‘Then it’s even stranger. What on earth is… huh?’
We were almost at the end, but we hadn’t found anything worthwhile.
My doubts only grew heavier.
But when we finally reached the mine’s end, even I couldn’t hide my shock.
It was a sight completely different from what I remembered.
“…A stone chamber?”
“Oh ho, so this was here?”
“No, when I last came here, this wasn’t here at all. What the hell is this?”
I had no idea what was going on.
There had been nothing like this in my memory.
“It seems the mine was dug as a way to reach this stone chamber.”
“That does seem likely.”
“There’s no other possibility. This chamber was clearly made ages ago.”
Indeed.
Anyone could see that the stone chamber had been constructed long ago.
Naturally, that meant the mine had been dug with the purpose of reaching it.
“Then why didn’t I know about this?”
“Maybe it was hidden? Look here. You can see traces where they blocked the entrance with a dirt wall.”
“Hah, you’re right. That explains it.”
Given the tunnel’s structure, just a single dirt wall blocking the stone chamber’s entrance would have been enough to prevent me from discovering it.
The former wife and her group had used this dirt wall to hide the existence of this stone chamber.
In fact, we were able to find traces of where they had stacked the dirt wall at the chamber’s entrance.
‘Damn, such a cheap trick.’
-We got played properly.
It was a very primitive deception.
But it had been enough to fool Iron, who had been blinded by rage.
It was truly ridiculous.
“It’s not that big.”
The stone chamber wasn’t very large.
But it was built properly, with fairly straight walls.
Perhaps this was where the Boar Tribe’s Sacred Relic had been found?
Maybe this place had been like the Boar Tribe’s secret vault.
‘But then, why did the dirt wall collapse?’
Strange.
When Iron had visited this place, the dirt wall had still been there.
But now, the dirt wall was gone.
‘During the assassination incident, I heard no one even entered the mine.’
Puzzled, I tilted my head when Leon called me over.
It seemed he had noticed something unusual.
“Huh? My lord, look over there. The walls are badly scarred.”
As Leon inspected the chamber, he pointed to one side of the wall.
There were deep gouges carved into the stone wall.
And not just there.
Similar marks were scattered all across the chamber’s walls.
“This looks… like it was cut with Aura. The person must’ve been highly skilled. Judging from the traces, they used a heavy-edged weapon. Not a blunt weapon—probably an axe or a greatsword.”
“At this level, it looks like they went on a rampage, doesn’t it? The traces are everywhere.”
“Ha, whoever it was, they really were trying to die. To cause such a rampage inside a mine, even in a chamber like this… It was sheer luck the mine didn’t collapse.”
“Could it have been an attempt to bring down the mine?”
“I doubt it. If the mine collapses here, how would they escape? This is a sealed chamber.”
Judging from the marks, it hadn’t happened long ago.
So could it be that, at some point without our knowing, someone had entered the mine, broken through the dirt wall, and gone wild inside this chamber?
‘But there was no report of an intruder.’
Rudick had stationed soldiers to guard the mine continuously.
With soldiers taking shifts here, the chance of someone sneaking in unnoticed should’ve been almost zero.
‘Whoever it was, they were incredibly skilled.’
This wasn’t ordinary handiwork.
The gouges had split not only the stone walls but even the rocks behind them.
Even among the knights of our territory, only a rare few could leave such traces.
Aside from me and Leisha, perhaps Rudick, Limond, or Celine?
‘I really don’t get it.’
So what it meant was that after I last visited this place, but before the assassination incident, some unknown master knight had come, broken through the dirt wall, and rampaged inside the stone chamber.
Was that even possible?
It was absurd.
“My lord, please take a look here.”
“Hm? Did you find something?”
“Yes. First of all…”
While Leon and I were checking the gouges in the wall, Dr. Nickel had been carefully examining other parts of the chamber.
After a while, he called me over as if he had discovered something.
What he pointed to was the end of one of the gouges carved into the wall.
There were traces of something being knocked loose there.
It looked as though a hidden mechanism built inside the stone wall had been struck by Aura and broken.
“Did some lunatic take something from here?”
“I don’t know what it was, but doesn’t it seem that way?”
“Hmm.”
“And look here. Something seems to have rolled away.”
“Rolled away?”
Below the broken mechanism, in the corner of the chamber, there were faint traces across the dust—as if a small orb had rolled.
Something must have fallen from the hidden device and rolled across the floor.
One thing was clear: whatever had fallen here had already been taken.
And the one who carved those Aura scars was the same culprit.
The Hidden Mastermind and the former wife, who had taken the Boar Tribe’s Sacred Relic.
And now this stranger, who had picked something up inside the stone chamber.
This wasn’t some neighborhood restaurant—what were they doing meddling inside another lord’s territory?
“My lord. Now, be on your guard.”
“Guard against what?”
“What you’ve seen until now is nothing but trivial details. What I’m about to show you is a great discovery that could change the fate of the territory.”
“…Why are you exaggerating like that?”
I was still dazed by the unexpected situation, but Dr. Nickel scanned the chamber with an unusually grave expression.
It was as if he was about to reveal some tremendous secret.
What was even more absurd was that even Elder Benetrang, who had been silent until now, was nodding in agreement with Dr. Nickel’s words.
What grand thing were they planning to reveal?
“Look at this.”
“This is?”
“This was a strike so powerful it split the stone wall and even shattered the rock behind it. Thanks to that, fragments of broken stone fell into the chamber.”
“I see. But why is that a problem?”
“Examine these fragments closely. Don’t you feel something?”
“Hmm, yes. Something’s odd… It feels warm. Wait… could this be Mana?”
“Exactly. My lord, perhaps the mining project was not a failure after all.”
“My lord, this is Mana Stone.”
Mana Stone.
When the Great Cataclysm came, monsters appeared, and Mana Crystals could be extracted from their Heartstones.
But even before monsters appeared, magic had existed, and Mana Crystals were used to maintain magic circles.
They had been obtained through mining Mana Stones from Mana Stone mines.
And in the Ribella Peninsula, Mana Stone mines were nearly nonexistent.
“Ha, a Mana Stone mine, you say.”
If this place was truly a Mana Stone mine, then just as Dr. Nickel said, this was a discovery that could change the fate of the territory.
It was the same as striking oil in the hills behind one’s house.
“Khahaha! I knew it! How could there be divorce without hitting a jackpot? It just doesn’t make sense!”
But that sentiment didn’t last long.
Beside me, Dr. Nickel shouted incomprehensible nonsense with joy.
What the hell was he even talking about?
I was so baffled that my head cleared instantly.
-This fantasy novel world really is quite amazing.
“No, wait. This is no time to joke.”
A cavern beyond the chamber, filled with Mana Stones.
And the Hidden Mastermind, who had tried to bring it down.
This stone chamber had surely been made by the Boar Tribe, and the Hidden Mastermind must be connected to them.
That meant the Hidden Mastermind also likely knew about the existence of Mana Stones in this mine.
‘Beastmen didn’t consider Mana Stones that important, though.’
Before the Great Cataclysm, Beastmen had almost no trade with humans of the kingdom.
Since Beastmen’s shamanism didn’t require Mana Stones, they hadn’t considered them a vital resource.
‘But now, it’s different. Beastmen do trade with humans.’
-Indeed.
‘Maybe the Boar Tribe wanted to collapse the mine to keep the Mana Stone mine hidden until they could occupy it safely. Is that too far-fetched?’
One thing was certain: the Hidden Mastermind already knew that there was a Mana Stone mine in our territory.
It was a deeply troubling situation.