Pioneering the Apocalyptic World - Chapter 99
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Chapter 34: What was hidden
While everyone was eating snacks, I was told to take a rest, so I used Zephyr as a cushion and stared blankly at Uru and Regulus’s search. In addition, I also gave Zephyr boar meat as food. If happens that he could only eat human meat, he would have gone straight to the dispose course, but since he’s happily eating it, there shouldn’t be a problem.
If you are hiding something inside a church, I thought that the foot of the altar would be the standard place to hide, but unfortunately it doesn’t exist anymore. So they decided to search for it in the central aisle and in the broken chairs lined up on the left and right. Uru said, “Isn’t it faster to break it?”, but it seemed like it would be a big problem if what we are searching got crushed, so I asked her to endure it.
That said, the church isn’t that big, so they were able to excavate the stairs to the basement in no time. The place was in the third row from the back of the chair on the right… Why was it in that position?
“… What is in there…”
I took out a lantern and asked Regulus to hold it, and in the dusty, damp air with no ventilation, we slowly walked down the stairs with Uru in the lead. Zephyr was also quietly following behind us.
The stairs end after about 30 steps, and a slightly open underground space spreads out in front of us. The area is about half the size of a tennis court. And I thought that an underground maze search would be added to our task list, but it seemed that there was no need for it, and I was relieved. My hand is hurting… My LP is continuously decreasing…
The walls are just ordinary stone bricks piled up, and nothing particularly suspicious can be seen. However.
“Uru, Regulus, that part of the floor is probably a trap, so don’t step on it.”
“Fumu?”
“O-Ou…”
It was common pattern for walls and floors to act as switches and trigger traps when pressed. When I warned, Uru looked at it strangely, and Regulus nodded timidly.
The only remaining suspicious thing is the stone at the end of this basement… It’s made of granite, maybe it’s an altar that looks the same as the above-ground part. However, unlike the one from above, there is a round depression in the center, and a number of thin lines run radially around it. It’s already completely dry, but the color is reddish black… Well, I don’t have to guess what it is…
And then, when I saw the thing that was in that depression … I gasped.
“………… A God sealing stone.”
God sealing stone.
As the name suggests, it is a stone that have a god sealed in.
…… T-That was dangerous……!
If the miasma erosion had been completed, I might not have been able to release the god from there…!
Even though it was late, cold sweat started pouring down.
It’s located right below where Zephyrus was crouched, Zephyrus must have been assigned the role of a guardian so that the god wouldn’t be released.
“Fumu. In that case…… Does that mean that the wind god will be released if we manage to do something about that?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
…… Well, Its content is not necessarily the god of the wind, but since this whole area is the domain of the god of the wind, I think it is almost certain that’s the god of the wind.
However, to a God sealing stone be in such a place… Is it a coincidence or is it God’s guidance? Well, I have to release it first, let’s thinking about it after.
“Wait, Rion.”
“Uru?”
Uru stopped me as I stepped forward to the altar. But it’s for a reason that I can agree.
“There may be other traps. I’ll go pick it.”
“… Hmm, please do.”
Certainly, if it’s a place where a god is sealed, there’s the possibility that there are other traps, perhaps deadly ones.
I was so exalted that I almost became careless. I gotta be careful.
Well, I don’t think it’s a good idea to send Uru to a place where I might die, but… There’s no option besides go and pick it up, in that case sending our strongest person, Uru is the best choice.
Just in case, Regulus, Zephyr and I withdraw to the front of the basement, in the front of the stairs, and Uru advances to the back alone.
When I thought she was going straight, she changed course diagonally and jumped, so there must have been other traps. While nervous, we carefully watched Uru’s movements.
And after reaching the altar, she went around the side instead of the front and stretched out her hand to the God sealing stone.
“…n.”
Uru slightly raised her voice the moment she grasped the God sealing stone.
“Uru!?”
“… No problem, Its just hurts a little.”
It must have been the last trap. I didn’t know what it was, but it didn’t seem strong enough to break through Uru’s defense. …… It might just be that Uru’s defensive power is absurd as always.
While Regulus and I took a deep breath, Uru returned on the same path with the same movement.
“Here.”
“…… Thank you.”
Uru handed the stone to me, and the stone that should have been light felt heavy in my hands.
I wanted to investigate it in detail immediately, but I couldn’t do it in this dark basement. I take a deep breath to suppress my heartbeat, which gradually gets faster due to tension, and go out to above-ground.
“It just looks like a black, round stone to me… It’s incredible that Rion can tell from that distance.”
Regulus, who was looking at me when I was spinning the God sealing stone in my hand, praised me, but I only laughed vaguely and kept it muddy.
… It’s because I saw it in the game, as expected I can’t say that.
There was a possibility that I was wrong and I just mistake it for another item, but when I got my hands on it, it was properly displayed as [God sealing stone], so that possibility disappeared. I would be too embarrassed if I made that mistake, I’m so glad.
“I have a question.”
“Yeah?”
“Why the God was sealed instead of disposed?”
“… I wonder why?”
Uru asks me such a thing, but there’s no way I can know that.
The only thing I can think of is that even if the culprit could seal a god, it couldn’t kill it directly. That’s why the culprit tried to kill the god by using miasma to gradually reduce Its power, I guess…?
“I see… By the way, do you know how to release it?”
“I’m looking into that now.”
She doesn’t seem like she’s convinced, but I can’t say anything about things that I don’t know the answer. Did she understand that part, she asked another question.
The God sealing stone is not just a black round stone. This is a kind of magic stone… A stone that contains the power of sealing.
In that case, I need to just convert the energy of the God sealing stone into another power. All I have to do is create an item using this magic stone as a material with a Miko’s creation skill.
In the game, it was random which item was created using it as material. So I was looking into what to make from this God sealing stone, though.
…… Now that I think about it, there’s no need to be bound by recipes.
However, due to the nature of this stone, it seems that recovery items cannot be made. Hmm… I wonder if I can transfer it to this empty magic stone.
“Creation Making, [Magic Stone of Spelllock]”
Spelllock is magic that seals magic. Zephyrus’ magic was troublesome, so I wonder if it would have been a little easier with this? That idea came to my mind.
Holding the God sealing stone and a Magic Stone in my left hand, I activated the skill with the image of using the power from the God sealing stone instead of using my own MP.
??Glows
“Wawa!?”
“”!?””
The God sealing stone emitted light and floated up. The spherical surface swells from the inside like the pieces of a puzzle, then slides out.
And when about half of it fell out, a bright light was emitted.
When the light subsided.
“… Haa… I finally got out…”
A new figure appeared on the spot.
But that figure wasn’t the boy in his early teens that we had imagined.
“… E-Earth God-sama?”
It looked like a woman in her mid-twenties.