How long has it been?
“Ah!”
With a gasp of surprise, a stone structure began to rise from the water where the waterfall was pouring down.
Apparently, the structure itself had a pressure detection device, so when the waterfall disappeared, the gears would turn and the structure would rise. I didn’t know the details of how it worked.
“…So that’s how it was. If it was buried underground, there’s no way it could have been found with detection magic. Even if it was found, it would have just looked like a rock.”
Minerva muttered in a small voice. The concept of detection magic is similar to scanning the surface of an object, so it would be impossible to find a structure buried in the ground.
Moreover, the massive waterfall would have thoroughly blocked the discovery of the structure. In this world, magic was by no means omnipotent.
The person next to me was using it almost omnipotently, but that was an exception.
“Really, in a place like this…”
Minerva had a look of almost being spellbound.
When I waved my hands in front of her, and there was no reaction, I lightly tapped her forehead. With the crystal scroll so close, I thought this much was acceptable.
“…Huh?”
“Shall we go in, Minerva? Are you really just going to stand there when the crystal scroll is right below us?”
“Of course not, child. No, let’s hurry in.”
I shouted as I followed behind Minerva, who was hastily moving her feet.
“Watch out for traps, Minerva!”
The moment Minerva stepped onto the structure, ignoring my warning—
Kwa-chiik!
A spike shot up right next to her and shattered against her defense barrier. Hearing that vicious sound, Minerva seemed to regain her senses and looked around.
Some dungeons are filled only with monsters, but there are also dungeons with absolutely cruel traps like that.
The rune dungeon where the rock centipedes were was a place filled with monsters, while this crystal scroll dungeon had traps and map structures that took the place of monsters.
But.
“Can we just keep going, child?”
Before the overwhelming power, mere traps were no problem at all.
It was the final registered episode.
‘It’s nice having Minerva here.’
I leisurely followed behind Minerva while checking out my surroundings.
As long as I pointed out the trap locations, all I needed to do was let Minerva take care of them. This was surprisingly enjoyable.
Since this was one long trap dungeon, there was only one path to follow. I didn’t even need to lead the way. The real labyrinth-like dungeons would come later.
“If you step in the middle, arrows will shoot from the left. Be careful.”
“I understand.”
Minerva walked boldly ahead, casually destroying the traps that were abundantly laid out here, traps that had been thoroughly designed with the malice of modders from the Darkest Light Mod.
For example, moments ago, when Minerva received my warning, she collapsed the nearby ground, triggering a trap that would shoot about ten arrows if step on the switch. In vanilla, only three would have flown out.
Or like now, seven pendulums made of axe blades were swinging back and forth on a thin straight bridge, with a trap that shot arrows if stepped on.
In the game, there’s a part where you have to run non-stop from start to finish in a short timing, but Minerva just smashed the pendulums and demolished the wall loaded with arrows.
“Do we have to go further, child?”
“We’re almost there. Just a few more to go.”
It took a while to clear even in the game, and considering the scale had gotten much larger when transitioning into reality, spending a few hours here wouldn’t be strange.
But thanks to Minerva, we arrived at the place with only the final trap in less than an hour. It felt less like traversing a trap-filled dungeon and more like taking a stroll inside a building.
‘If there were enemies in the dungeon, it probably would have been the same.’
Unless it was a formidable boss or a mid-boss, there was no way they could withstand the magic Minerva unleashed. Any random mob would have been swept away by a casual spell.
Now there were hardly a few traps left. Once we cleaned them up and walked a bit further, a wide-open plaza appeared, covered in water up to our ankles.
The overall size was similar to the training ground of the Silver Dawn Knights, and the walls were stacked with neatly cut bricks unlike the piles of stones we had seen so far.
Aside from the water covering the floor, it was empty. I pointed to a large door located opposite the corridor we had come through.
“Alright. Do you see that door? Behind it is where the crystal scroll is.”
“Ah, finally…”
“Wait a minute. You can’t go yet.”
I stopped Minerva, whose eyes were glistening with tears as she tried to walk towards it. From over the wall right behind us, the sound of something loading, clack clack, could be heard.
“What’s going on, child? Is there still something to do?”
Minerva looked at me with an urgent expression.
“Yes. There’s one last trap back there that needs to be dealt with.”
Before I could finish speaking, I heard a thwooom sound. Something was fired.
Minerva seemed to understand that sound as the furrows of her brow deepened.
KWA-ANG!
A sound echoed that shook the entire area. The ground trembled slightly.
The cannon fire didn’t stop at just one. It was a thunderous sound, as if splitting a mountain, echoing a total of seven more times in succession. Only after that did silence finally settle in.
“…That must be it.”
“That’s right.”
The silence was short-lived. Again, the clack clack echoed. In that brief moment, did Minerva figure out the nature of the traps using detection magic? She spoke in an irritated tone.
“That’s a little too grand to be called a trap.”
I couldn’t help but agree with her.
Yeah. Just calling it a trap doesn’t do it justice.
It was a massive cannon where all the procedures needed to fire it were completely automated, the ammunition was automatically replenished, and it could even track targets automatically within seconds.
The fact that every procedure was automated, the ammunition was infinite, and the targets were tracked automatically was already astonishing, but it didn’t just fire once; it fired four times in a row!
In a game that sets most technology scales in a medieval context, I wondered if it was really right to slap ‘over-technology’ onto something like that as a trap, but what could I do since the developers of the Brightest Darkness series had done it?
By the way, in the Darkest Light Mod, there’s another cannon with the exact same specifications right next to it. That’s why a total of eight sounds of something crashing into the back wall could be heard.
“Is it enough to just deal with that trap, child?”
“Before that, I have one more request.”
I looked around. The sound of something crashing as if splitting a mountain echoed behind us once again.
“Minerva, can you manipulate the cannonfire? It should be possible if you create a human figure.”
“To manipulate the fire? Hmm… Just a moment.”
Minerva waved her staff. A mana sphere floated in the air. She waited for a moment, then, confirming that the cannon wasn’t aiming at it, she waved her staff again.
The mana sphere changed shape. It became a human figure. Hair sprouted, clothes were worn, arms and legs grew, and each part changed to a human-like color.
At least on the outside, it looked just like a perfect human—Minerva herself.
The mana-formed Minerva held a staff in one hand and wandered leisurely around.
KWA-ANG!
However, not long after, she was smashed by a cannonball the size of a person. The human form made of mana turned blue and scattered into the air.
“It worked.”
“Indeed. It did.”
Thankfully, I didn’t need to resort to a backup plan. If that method hadn’t worked, one of us would have had to physically lead the cannonball.
Of course, with teleportation, I wouldn’t have to roll and dodge with the timing of the cannonball flying in like in the game.
“What should we do now?”
“Do you see the wall over there? It should be a different color from the surrounding walls.”
Minerva nodded as she looked at the place my finger was pointing at. Most walls were a mix of black and brown, but that one was closer to gray.
“Please create a duplicate of the figure you just made in front of it.”
She tapped her staff lightly on the ground. Blue mana gathered in front of the wall I pointed at, changing colors and taking on a human figure. This time, however, it didn’t look like Minerva.
It was the form of Ceres, before her breast growth with the enhancement potion, with hardly any curves.
No matter how fake the shape made of mana was, it seemed getting smashed in her own appearance left her feeling quite displeased.
“….”
The mana form of Ceres didn’t last even a few seconds before being hit by a rapidly flying cannonball and completely destroyed. The shattered Ceres turned blue like before and scattered away.
The cannonball didn’t seem satisfied with just demolishing a human shape made of mana. KWA-ANG! A huge metal piece collided with the wall I pointed out. The impact made the wall sway and shake.
“One more time, please.”
Immediately, the form of Ceres appeared again, and once again, she was blasted away.
But this time, it was the wall behind that also crumbled. The first impact had narrowly been endured, but the second impact couldn’t hold up. The wall that met the metal piece collapsed with a loud noise.
“Child, that is…”
Minerva’s face showed slight surprise as she saw the space that appeared behind the collapsed wall. This was the puzzle to utilize that trap.
As always in the Brightest Darkness series, if you don’t pay attention to the fact that the color of the wall is completely different, there are no hints to figure it out, so many end up screaming about how to open that door only to get blasted by a cannonball.
Even if they know, getting the position right to break that wall is pretty crucial, meaning they’d usually die a lot during the clearing process.
“This is what it takes to open that door.”
I said nonchalantly.
“Just three more to go.”
“Is it done yet?”
“Yes. It’s finished.”
I looked contentedly at the pair of demolished quad-cannons. It felt refreshing. There was no way to destroy them in the game, but now things were different.
‘…Though I feel like Minerva could have just broken the wall.’
Since there was no chance for such a situation to occur in the game, it hadn’t occurred to me until just now. The thought only came to mind after the mana-generated Ceres had been shattered six times and the cannons were destroyed.
Minerva and I placed the jewels we had collected from behind the crumbling wall into the slot on the door. Then, just like we had done thousands of times before, we started piecing together the puzzle in order.
In the game, because of that damned cannon, I would place one, then dash away, come back to place another, and repeat that again.
But there was no need for that now, so we could leisurely solve the puzzle.
“This is the last one.”
As I pushed the green jewel diagonally to the left, the door began to tremble and slowly creak open. Minerva looked up at the door, which was starting to open, with an almost spellbound expression.
“Is it… all done, child…?”
“Yes. There it is. Can’t you see it, Minerva?”
I pointed to a square structure that looked like an altar, with a chest placed on top of it. Minerva’s body trembled upon seeing the chest.
The tremors didn’t stop even after we arrived in front of the chest. No, it felt like they were getting worse. At one point, she nearly stumbled from tripping over her own feet, and I had to catch her.
“This… is the crystal scroll…”
A murmur escaped her lips. The chest, as a tool for storing the ‘crystal’ scroll, was decorated with all sorts of jewels. It was about the size of my torso and showed no sign of any locks.
Aside from being more ornate, it nearly matched the chest from the game.
“Truly… it was…”
Minerva shivered to the point that I felt sad for her.
‘That kind of reaction isn’t entirely surprising…’
Information gleaned from talking to her original NPC, Arcana.
Despite having overwhelming talent that allowed her to master all kinds of magic, ironically, it was that same overwhelming talent that caused her to lose interest in life, and that was the Eternal Magician.
She had learned all the magic she could. Now she simply flipped through the spellbooks she had memorized hundreds of years ago or randomly fiddled with various spells.
Even though she had been doing the same thing for hundreds of years, all the wizards of the Empire were just as excited watching her do that ‘same thing’. For Minerva, it was no different from decaying alive.
During over a hundred years of merely surviving by improving magic out of a sense of duty, she had come across the crystal scroll, which had been said to be practical long ago.
It was an opportunity for learning that came once in a lifetime, so it was no wonder she couldn’t keep her eyes from it.
‘Seeing it in person makes it even more extreme.’
Honestly, when I heard Arcana’s words in the game, I had taken it somewhat lightly.
Even though it was wrapped in all sorts of archaic phrases, it ultimately meant she was bored of living due to having learned everything she could.
But for Minerva, it seemed to be a much more serious matter than I had imagined. I felt she would definitely ask me about the locations of other scrolls later.
Without a doubt, if someone were to ask me where the remaining ancient scrolls were and offer to sell themselves in return, she might happily spread her legs.
‘Not that I’d want that, though.’
“Ah…”
Minerva, with trembling hands, opened the chest.
