9 Dead End

Being the leader of the expedition, Catherine naturally initiated the meeting:

"I'm not even sure where to begin, we were sent here initially to find whatever we could about this place and now it appears it's fully populated. Furthermore, we can assume the people living here do not take kindly to strangers considering the fate of the other teams. Honestly, I'm not sure how to proceed or if we're even equipped to handle such a situation. Therefore, I'd like to hear everyone's opinion on the matter."

After she finished, the room became as quiet as a cemetery. Apart from Joshua, everyone was looking at each other with a grave expression. Joshua was just sitting in a thinking position with his eyes closed.

Eric was the first to answer:

"Lady Catherine, I think we should head back. We already accomplished our mission. His Majesty was mostly interested in ancient weaponry for the upcoming war and we can actually provide those by giving him the location of the laboratory we found in the forest. It's one thing to explore ancient ruins, but there is no way we can take on an entire city."

Lydia frowned hearing this and said: "What about the other teams? Will we just abandon them?"

"It's not like I want to give up on them but who knows where they are. This place is bigger than our own capital. We could be discovered at any moment once we proceed further and once that happened, we'd be screwed."

"I agree with Eric," Cynthia said, "The main issue that prevented us from entering, the seal in our head, was removed by Lady Catherine, thanks to Lord Joshua's research. Therefore, we're currently the only people able to cross the barrier safely. However, if we head back to the surface, Lady Catherine could start erasing the seal from the entire population of Cestor. Hell, we would easily win the war if that's the case since everyone in the country would just start growing more powerful naturally. In a few years, Cestor would be filled with powerhouses. Then we could always come back here, with a strong force."

"I'm not sure if giving that power to everyone is a good idea," Lydia replied, "The Lippi clan still has a lot of enemies."

"Well, we could start by removing it from the clan then. Lady Catherine will see afterward if it's safe to remove from other people as well."

Finally, Boris sent out his thoughts to everyone.

"Cynthia, if we come back here with a large force, the people here would probably consider it a declaration of war."

"True, but they captured the others, they're clearly hostile."

"I'm not so sure, as far as we know, they've only protected their borders so far. I believe what you and Eric are suggesting is sound. We could probably head back and report a successful mission. However, we also have a bigger foe to consider."

"You mean that crow?" Eric asked.

"Indeed, Cynthia is right, with the seal removed, our country should produce strong soldiers without difficulty. I do, therefore, not fear for the upcoming war. However, if the legends are true, that bird is linked to the founder of this city. I don't think we should pack up and leave without at least doing some sort of scouting."

Catherine had listened to everyone's opinion so far, but she was surprised to see the person the most interested in the old civilization remain quiet. He seemed deeply focused on his thoughts.

"Joshua, what do you think? You were hoping to find a large source of energy stones in order to evolve your soul world. However, I don't think this will be easy, it's safe to assume the map you found in the lab is outdated, and those stone deposits have long been mined."

###

Joshua opened his eyes and looked at the party. Everyone seemed to be waiting for his response. Looking at them, he couldn't help but laugh.

"You guys remind me of an old movie I saw, it involved a medieval knight and his squire being sent to the end of the 20th century by a wizard. They were so out of place it made for a great comedy, and we're pretty much in a similar situation."

"Oh really, what's so funny?" Catherine asked, bracing herself for Joshua's antics.

"Simple… Have you looked at your attire? You're all dressed like a bunch of medieval heroes about to enter the lair of a dragon, especially Boris."

Boris, who was indeed wearing a full plate suit of armor was looking really out of place in this modern-looking living room.

Catherine nodded and replied: "I see what you mean, just by looking at our clothes, anyone could tell we don't belong here."

"That's just the beginning of our problems. There is a language barrier. Sure, Catherine and I can use Luna to translate Easan, that is, assuming the language hasn't changed too much from the century-old version we found in the ruins, however, the rest of you can only use Luna while you're near Catherine. If you're out of range and someone talks to you, you'll be helpless."

The Luna Rune Network was still in a prototype phase, data transfer was possible between client and server runes, but once the client was out of range, the data could no longer be consulted. Developing a system that could remotely download information in a client user's brain was extremely complicated since the data would have to be transferred to the subject's brain safely, it was pointless if the subject would gain a tumor in the process. Something like this couldn't be done the 'quick and dirty' way.

He continued: "Furthermore, even if we enter the place successfully and ignore the language issue, for now, we completely lack information about the area. Hell, we don't even know what kind of currency they're using and we don't have any of it. Without any funds, we won't get far."

The Lippi family was wealthy, but they obviously didn't prepare any riches for the expedition. Otherwise, even with a lack of local currency, they could have found a way to sell jewelry or other valuables.

Joshua concluded by saying: "Those are just the basic issues to avoid being detected within five minutes. There are a lot more of course but if we can't even solve those, we're going nowhere."

"You sound like you think we should head back for now," Catherine replied, a bit disappointed.

"Are you kidding? I wanna explore every last corner of this freaking city! I'm just pointing out the most obvious issues doing so," he told her, sighing.

The room went silent again for a while until Lydia asked:

"Lord Joshua, this is probably very naïve, but thanks to Luna, you're able to manifest a lot of complex objects out of your soul world. If we get our hands on some local currency, could you potentially make more?"

"Hmm, it's not a 'bad' idea in theory," Joshua stated, "However, it's probably too risky. There is a range limit on materialized objects. If we buy items and the money disappears as soon as I leave, we're going to attract attention fairly soon. It's also possible stores are equipped with a 'materialized money detector' in order to avoid scams. For the same reason, I won't make clothing for you, people. While the prospect of all you suddenly become naked due to me being out of range or unable to maintain a summoned object sounds like a wonderful gag, it would cause us a myriad of trouble."

A vague smile appeared on Lydia's face while Catherine facepalmed, the rest just gave Joshua some big eyes.

"Why don't we keep it simple, to begin with?" Boris suggested, "We can search the nearby farms for some local clothes. And while I don't like stealing, we could even find a bit of money?"

"That's actually a sound idea," Joshua replied. "We should start with this place and see what we turn up."

Everyone agreed, stood up and began exploring the house. Joshua looked at the television post for a moment but decided to explore the rest of the area first before he became addicted to a local soap opera. Since he had already checked the ground floor, he climbed upstairs. Cynthia was there as well, he saw her exiting what appeared to be a bathroom and open the next door. Joshua opened another one and found a two-person bedroom, which he assumed was where the owners slept as several photographs of them were present. The room was well furnished and Joshua headed for the closet, hoping to find some clothes.

Of course, nothing ever goes normally when Joshua's involved. When he opened the door, two corpses fell out of the closet. He let out a 'Whaaa!' and instinctively took a step back, more surprised than scared. He recognized the owers from the photograph, but his attention was quickly moved away from the bodies to a large transparent bag located in the closet. It was full of banknotes.

Not sure whether he should laugh or cry, he called the others to come over.