Chapter Seven

"We shall."

Brilliant spots of sunset hung on their backs, and Kyle took a step forward. His badge was nowhere near his hand and his robe shook along with the wind. The other two glanced at each other and entered shortly after.

"Whoa…"

Carrind's eyes were wide open, just as with her mouth. Beside her, the brawny man's eyelids also expanded.

Stepping inside the rather big building, the sight that entered their eyes was to be remembered. Tiny holes covered the upper half of the small tower, ventilating the structure and allowing light to enter. The ceiling itself was taller than the trees, granting access for the rays of the evening to enter.

Dark orange illuminated the whole place, giving it an ethereal and dream-like layer. Staircases that reached the roof circled the room from corners to corners, and furniture that seemed unaffected by time.

Although the wide size, there were no rooms inside the now ethereal structure. Instead, the stone benches were laid to face a direction, to a part where the ground was lifted. Rather than a house, it would be more fitting to call this place an establishment of some sort.

When Carrind and Nore were flabbergasted, Kyle scanned the building for anything he could lay his hands into. He was appreciative of the view, but he had seen other things that could compare to this beauty—perhaps this was why he was more collected compared to the other visitors.

But upon finding nothing he was trying to search, He wrinkled his eyebrows and said while tapping his pocket.

"I do not see any resemblance to a tomb from this place."

Nore woke up due to Kyle's words and tried to snap Carrind back to real-life—coughing loudly. Her shoulder jumped, and she wobbled forward. Upon realizing what she had just done, she wiped her eyes and acted as if nothing happened.

By the time all of this was done, Nore had finished surveying the huge room. His eyelashes fluttered, and he spoke absentmindedly.

"You're right, there are no signs of this place being dedicated for the dead at all."

Staircases that reach the roof, stone benches that faced a stage, anyone could tell that this doesn't have any relation to a tomb. Kyle glanced to the walls separating them from the forest. It wasn't decorated with anything except for the strange patterns.

"Our ancestor really loves their lines, don't they?" he commented.

They looked around at the bottom floor for a while, but couldn't find anything noteworthy. There was nothing abnormal about the platform, and the benches were just furniture made out of stone. After a while, the sun finally took its shine away from the surface.

"Heeeey, did any of you find something sellable?"

Carrind was sitting on the rear-end of the seats. After running here and there for a while, she was unsurprisingly tired and chose to rest for a while. Her voice echoed throughout the room, reaching Nore and Kyle's ear.

"Nah, nothing looks valuable except the building itself!" Nore replied.

He was standing on the middle of the podium, once again holding that trusty torch of him. Even though it was unlikely for nightcrawlers to enter the building, he was paranoid enough to carry the source of light everywhere.

Kyle, on the other hand, was outside the hole they entered from. He was observing the tall building with a torch on his hand, furrowing his eyebrows now and then. Carrind's voice was like mist in his brain, they managed to reach him but were dispersed as soon as they touched him.

At this moment, the engineer's mind was filled with thoughts regarding the structure. After finding no source of new information on the first floor, he went outside to get a breath of fresh air. But he got lost in thought after remembering about the building's unique characteristics.

"Distracting people away from here? But how is that even possible…"

To be honest, he wasn't interested in the contents of the square tower anymore. Tombs were usually filled with treasures and knowledge for the taking. These fortunes served as proof of the owner's existence and were placed at tombs to prevent anyone else from staining them. But alas, they served as the opposite instead—becoming a treasure trove for everyone to explore.

And now that this building had practically be proven to not be a tomb, the only thing preventing him from leaving this place is the fact that he hasn't cracked the secret of this establishment yet.

"Kyle."

"…"

"Kyle?"

"…"

"Hellooo…?!" losing her patience, Carrind waved her hands in front of the person lost in thoughts. This proved to be effective as Kyle shuddered slightly, and clicked his tongue.

"What?"

"Don't glare at me like that! We're about to climb the stairs, we thought that it would be best for you to come with us."

She walked inside the building and pointed to Nore, already a quarter way up to the ceiling.

The journey to the top would be a tough one, proven by how Nore has started to sweat after a short while. Using his energy would ease the ride, but the robustly-built man believed that saving them would be wise in this situation.

Kyle squinted his eyes before walking past Carrind, entering the building. He was dismayed on the aspect of traveling with the rude woman, but decided to climb the stairs he would have climbed sooner or later.

Ignoring the adolescent girl, he started to tread through the staircase. It was made out of stones, and the edge was covered by handrails, protecting the climber from unwanted situations. And unlike Nore, he started to circulate energy in his body from the start.

Not only was the young man confident in his energy reserve, years of training has trained this genius in controlling them with minimum effort and waste. He was sure that climbing the stairway using energy is more efficient than him having to tire his body early on.

With two spots of light shining on different parts of the stone stairs, they made their way up to the ceiling. Unlike the bottom area, the patterns that were present were replaced with other strange patterns.

"These symbols…"

"Ancient Antisian, or are they?"

Halfway through the stairs, the two youths stopped to study the new symbols carved on the wall. Unlike those incoherent lines, these symbols were repetitive and looked like they represented something.

Their speed of progress slowed significantly once these ancient symbols appeared. Both of them knew nothing of the language, but they observed them nevertheless—one for clues of knowledge and one for clues of treasure.

"What do they even mean?" Kyle pondered as he traced the symbol using his hand.

"Location of treasures, I hope."

Hearing that answer, he felt as if a vein at his forehead was about to burst. Since they entered this building, this girl beside him had continuously talked about treasures and such—much to his annoyance.

Noticing Kyle's expression, Carrind crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

"What's wrong with treasure? If you didn't remember, our organization is dirt-poor. We are relying only on donations and our President's skills alone to fund our activities. Extra income is always welcome at our doorsteps."

"I know, so shut your mouth and stop talking."

"Why?!"

"You're too noisy," Kyle touched his ears as he kept his eyes to the unknown symbols.

Clicking her tongue, Carrind muttered something under her breath and shut her mouths. This time, both of them are studying the language without much noise.

Up the stairs, Nore was starting to get tired. He climbed all the way from the bottom without using a grain of his energy, which he kind of regretted currently. Temptations of circulating his energy came, but his pride wouldn't allow it after going this far.

With his left hand on the railway, he kept climbing up while panting. He had also tried to study the strange symbols but gave up shortly after. Deciphering languages wasn't his forte, after all.

He took a peek down the stairs and saw his teammates far behind him. The husky man then decided to take a rest on the stair, in an attempt to relieve his fatigue.

Sighing, he enjoyed the night's breeze and sat down, feeling the cold stone on his bottom. It felt so comfortable that he unknowingly let out a moan.

"God, that was exhausting," panting, he opened his backpack and took sips of water from the bottle. Enjoying the refreshing taste, he closed his eyes while lifting his head.

'Both of them are behind me by a lot, I wonder how long I would be able to rest here.'

At this moment, he opened his eyes and gazed at the ceiling. He didn't notice anything weird at first, but he soon frowned and squinted his eyes.

'What is that?' Merely squinting his eyes didn't work, so he used his Authority to amplify his vision. His pupils contracted and expanded continuously, trying to focus on the ceiling. His sight was now unhindered by the dark, and the once blurry image became clear at once.

He glared at a corner at the ceiling and shouted downstairs.

"Hey! I've found something here!"

Both of them lifted their heads to look at Nore, but the muscular man kept his eyes on the roof without looking back.

"There's an extra floor up there!"

"…!"

On the end of the staircase, was a ladder that led to another space. Hearing that, Kyle exercised his energy to reach maximum speed and rushed to Nore.

"Hey! Wait for me!"

Behind, the adolescent girl also rushed up, but she was slower than Kyle by some degrees. Looking at the approaching duo, Nore stood up and massaged his eyes. He filled his body with energy as well and rushed to the ceiling.

After a while, the brown-haired girl arrived at the ladder—where Kyle and Nore stood. Looking back at Carrind, Nore nodded and looked back at Kyle.

At his stare, Kyle nodded.

Without any words exchanged, Nore climbed up the ladder to the attic. Behind him were the two youths.

They arrived in a small space with a door on its edge. The muscular man stopped outside the door and gestured something to Carrind.

Without any delay, she stepped forward and put her ears against the door.

"…something is buzzing continuously inside, but it sounds ominous…"

Nodding, Nore grabbed something in the shape of a ball from his backpack and threw it to Carrind. It looked like a mechanical tennis ball but with three small holes on one side. A glance was all it took for Kyle to determine it as an artifact.

After throwing that ball to Carrind, he fumbled around with his backpack before pulling a small wooden stick out of it. The rod looked mechanical as well with stripes on the sides. This was surely also another artifact.

The genius on the other hand only tightened his gloves and took out his badge. He is always ready for combat since the beginning, his body itself is also hiding even more weapons.

Judging that all of them were ready, the muscular man pulled Carrind back and stood in front of the door. His torch was in his left hand, and the stick was being held by the other hand.

At this moment, the stick on his hand suddenly expanded. Its small frame suddenly turned into a hilt, and a sharp blade extended from its end. With Nore's signal, he opened the door swiftly and rolled forward. But…

"Whoa…treasure?"

Instead of facing a threat, they were faced with a room filled with countless rays of blue light.