The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary

Proofreader: Xemul

Loren offered a silent prayer, and no one called out to him.

After a while, as the other three continued to watch, he crouched down beside Mills' corpse and began to examine it. Removing a metal tag from the body he tossed it to Ivy, who caught it and immediately tucked it into her pocket.

If possible, Loren would also like to retrieve the Adventurers' Guild registration cards of Mills' former companions, but he had no idea where they were. And if they had been swallowed by the swarm of insects as Mills had mentioned, it was unlikely that he would ever find them.

"Can I ask you to take care of the matter?"

Loren asked Ivy, and she nodded in response.

"I'll handle the case of Mills and his party."

"Thanks. I'd like to bury him, but…"

If there is a patch of soil, Loren would like to bury Mills, but they were within a ruin. There were only stone walls and stone floors, so there was no place to bury Mills' corpse.

He had thought that leaving it as it was might not be a bad idea, but then Mills' corpse would be taken over by the ghosts that might be floating around the area and become an undead. Or perhaps the swarm of insects on the other side would swarm in and feed on it if they could open the door at any point.

Unable to bear such thoughts, Loren tried to think of something that could be done, but he could not come up with a good idea. As he was about to give up, Lapis stood beside Mills' corpse and said.

"If it is the burial of the dead, leave it to the priests of the God of Knowledge."

"Can I ask for your help?"

"No need to. It is my job."

She was not lying in any way, but for some reason, Loren could not shake off his lingering uneasiness. However, there was no one else to entrust this task to in this situation, and Loren took one step away from Mills' corpse as if to tell Lapis that he would leave the matter in her hands.

Seeing this, Lapis stood in front of Mills' corpse, closed her eyes, placed her left palm on her chest, and turned her right palm toward Mills.

"O soul of Mills, who has fallen on this earth! Return to the wheel of samsara and await your next birth. In the name of Kukuru, the God of Knowledge, may your path be illuminated so that you will not be led astray."

No sound or light was emitted, but Loren could see that the atmosphere surrounding Mills' body became somehow clearer after Lapis' prayer. Loren thought this was an excellent ending compared to a mercenary's death, where no one would have even cared, not to mention receiving a priest's final blessing. He would have been left on the battlefield and become beasts' food, or wander around as an undead.

"It is unlikely that he will turn into an undead, but… What do we do with this body?"

Lowering her hands and opening her eyes, Lapis asked. Loren thought for a moment before opening his mouth.

"Can we burn it?"

The body couldn't be transported. They were still inside a ruin, and although it might sound bad to say, they did not have the luxury to carry something as bulky and heavy as a corpse around. They could carry bones or ash, but in the current situation where even their safe return to above ground was still uncertain, Loren wondered if it would be possible to burn the corpse down to ashes right here and now.

The question was whether they had the power to do so, but Ivy modestly raised her hand and offered to do something about it.

"You can?"

"Leave it to me. I am still one of the beings called Evil Gods. I'm not good at fighting now that I'm in this body, but I'm a bit of a magician."

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Ivy said and stood in front of Mills' body, exchanging places with Lapis.

"Build a spire of red flame, >."

As soon as the incantation ended, a heat so intense that one could not help but turn one's face away from it appeared. A pillar of crimson flame, large enough to connect the floor and the ceiling, enveloped Mills' body in an instant.

The power was substantial, and by the time Loren held up his hand and braved the heat and light of the flames to witness the results of the magic Ivy had exercised, Mills' body had already disappeared into the flames. And as the pillar of flame was gone, there was nothing left, not even smell or ashes. Only the scorched ceiling, floor, and walls left traces that seemed to indicate that magic had been exercised there.

"Impressive."

"Power-wise only. As you can see, it's a difficult magic to aim, so it's not easy to use."

"So, where do we go from here?"

As the series of events came to an end, Loren looked toward the depth of the ruin as he heard Gula inquiring. The place they had jumped into was a stone corridor, and the path led in deeper. But from Loren's position, he could not tell what laid ahead.

"We'll keep going. We can't go back anyway. Besides…"

Loren pointed with his thumb at the entrance they had come in through. Gula looked over and saw that although the entrance was securely closed, she could hear the occasional sound of something banging on the wall from the other side, indicating that a horde of zombies and insects was waiting on the other side of the wall to chase after them.

"We don't know how long that door can be kept closed, either."

Mills had been able to activate the mechanism by coincidence. The possibility that the door could be opened again by accident, while the insects and zombies were beating their bodies against the wall, could not be dismissed.

"And it's deep inside, isn't it? The device that Ivy used?"

"Yes, that's right."

The device made by the Ancient Kingdom that Ivy had used to change from the body of an Evil God to her current body, which was Loren's goal, was supposed to be placed deep inside the ruin. Shayna still had not made a decision whether to use it or not, but Loren had a feeling that she would like to check the actual device first.

"Then we have no other choice. Let's go."

"Understood. Let me lead the way. I know this place well, after all. There are still traps for intruders, for one thing."

Ivy stopped Loren, who was about to walk away, and took the lead. Gula and Lapis followed, with Loren falling at the end of the line again.

Unlike the ruins Loren and his party had previously explored, the walls of this one did not shine, and there were no light sources, making it impossible to have visibility. However, due to the fact that no one in their group was in need of a light source, no one lit a lamp, so they proceeded through the ruin in complete darkness.

And under Ivy's guidance, they knew exactly where to go. It was as if she knew in advance where everything was, the order in which to move through the corridors, and how to open the doors.

She also knew the locations of traps to repel intruders before they were activated and took steps to prevent them from being activated, allowing the others to walk easily through without any noticeable trouble.

"It's only natural, since we have someone involved with the ruin leading us."

"That's the kind of cheating that would no doubt draw boos from other explorers if they heard it."

"Don't you know much about any of the ruins, Gula?"

"How could I possibly know anything about them?"

As Gula confidently stated such a pathetic thing, Lapis shrugged in exasperation and Loren smiled wryly.

Ivy, who was leading the way, also giggled, but then her footsteps came to a halt. She signaled for the others, who were alerted and wondering what was going on, to stop, then moved a little further down the corridor alone. After a while, she slowly walked back to the others, who had been waiting for her.

"What's up?"

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"We have a visitor."

Ivy's short answer to the question was more than enough to startle Loren and the others.

"Is there another entrance?"

If the 'visitor' had come through the entrance on the sewer side, it would not be surprising if there were some kind of traces. If they had entered without being discovered, they must have been very skillful.

And if there was another entrance, Loren and his group were fools to have entered through the sewers.

To Loren, who asked which of the two cases it was, Ivy replied.

"There are, but they're either collapsed or unusable."

Loren, who had almost felt like a fool by Ivy's simple admission of the existence of other entrances, managed to regain his composure when he heard that those entrances were no longer in use.

"What do you mean?"

"There are several entrances leading down from the original above-ground facility. I have confirmed that all of the entrances were destroyed when the aboveground facilities were lost."

Ivy said that when she was rebuilding her own body, if she was interrupted during the operation, it could be fatal, so she had made a thorough investigation beforehand. As a result, she confirmed that the only entrance that could be used was the one on the sewer side, and that all other entrances were unusable.

"What do you mean by unusable?"

"This is a ruin of the Ancient Kingdom."

Ivy answered Lapis' question in a hushed voice.

"It is a facility that you can transport into by using certain equipment and tools. The reality is, most of those equipment and tools were lost or destroyed in the chaos that followed the fall of the Ancient Kingdom, so I don't believe there are any that can be used today."

Ivy's words made Loren and Lapis look at each other.

Ivy seemed to think that there was no one in the modern world who handled tools and equipment from the Ancient Kingdom period, but Loren, Lapis and Gula did have some idea about someone who could handle such things without any issue.

Unable to suppress the 'No way' that was welling up inside him, Loren involuntarily tightened his grip on the hilt of his greatsword.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

"Yes, me too."

Lapis and Loren nodded at each other.

Ivy, unaware of the situation, tilted her head at the atmosphere, and Gula was beginning to exude blood lust.

"So our destination is just beyond that, isn't it?"

Loren pointed to the corner where Ivy had just gone to find out what was going on, and she nodded.

"Take a turn and go a little further. The room where the device is located is at the end of the hall."

"All right, then, everybody, get ready for battle. Whatever is in there, prepare for the worst."

In response to Loren's instruction, Lapis' eyes turned stern, and Gula began to crack her knuckles while grinding her teeth.

Not knowing what was going on with Loren and the two suddenly becoming menacing, Ivy was bewildered. However, she was seized with the feeling that whatever was ahead was going to give them a bad time.