"Be careful. It's a bit strange path now."
Mom was taking the lead as the two of us walked on this strange narrow path.
It had many curves and turns and strange divided paths. But we were fine as we followed her.
The underground passage of Hiraani. It was used for many things, but there was a place that was very important.
The room of treasures. It was the place where most of the very important items were stored.
Not many knew about this place, and fewer actually knew what it housed.
It was a treasury comparable to the treasure vaults of many powerful kingdoms from what I had heard.
And this strangely secured place was proof of it…
'There's a pool?' Rein asked as she looked in the other direction with her eyes.
It was dark, but she could see that pool full of murky green water. But she didn't look closely.
'Yup. A pool full of hungry, flesh-eating fishes.'
Her eyes widened as she looked back at me with surprise. But it wasn't that big as we had seen many things like this one on our path in the last half hour we were walking on it.
From traps full of hungry, carnivorous plants, to magic traps, classic traps where one would be holed by the sudden arrows coming out of the walls or squished by the walls with pointed metal on both ends.
There were many magic traps, too. And many tamed monsters of (Red) to (Green) rank guarding some spots.
The monsters weren't aggressive before her, but they certainly showed strange reactions to the two of us.
It was a naturally conflicting reaction that contradicted their duty and their natural attraction toward us.
It was fine, though. We were with her, and they didn't leave their place.
So, we walked through this complicated labyrinth of traps and finally, after a while, we reached an open area with a biiiiiig gate and many caves on the walls around us.
The caves looked strange and empty normally, but Rein and I could tell there were high-level monsters trapped with strong spells in there.
They were as strong as the stronger (Blue) rank monsters. Which was definitely… a lot of security.
But that wasn't all either.
'Three eyes.'
============
[Neo Guardians] ★ ★ ☆
—> Artificial golems made from the cores of (Purple) ranked golem cores. A good artifact.
—> They have been made with great care and by the hands of at least a master dwarf.
—> The craftsmanship is good, there are signs of Bwud's techniques but not exactly like them.
—> They are somewhat good guardians and both of them could use elemental magic of at least (tier-3).
—> Well, the guardians aside… that door is interesting.
—> It's interesting. Complicated. Complex. And most importantly, the creator of that door inscribed the [[( Pruthdva )]] rune on it. It's good.
============
There were two armored knight-like stone statues by the two sides of the gate.
They looked like any fictional treasure guardians which would start moving when they sense the intruders and these two were the same.
They looked amazing too. Especially the way their armor was created with such details.
They were fascinating and so was this whole place…
"Who would have thought there's something like this just under this auction house…?"
She was surprised as she looked around with a surprise-filled voice.
"Huhu. You haven't been to the 12/12th street, Elle?"
That was one of the rare laughs from mom that came just because she succeeded in surprising me with something.
It was natural, but her words weren't.
"That place actually exists?" I had to ask it. We were talking about a market of magical items, after all.
It was a rumored place that was somewhere under this empire, and only a few special people could visit it.
From all the books I had read about the empire, I had only ever read bits of information about that place.
And many of them were mystical and unclear. I did doubt that it was a real place, but it was only created around a hundred or two hundred years ago, so I didn't know much about it.
Most of the knowledge I had was far older, and I was still learning about the recent stuff. So this was a good piece of information.
"That's a different thing than this amazing place. If just the outside, door, and guardians are this much extravagant, I can't even imagine what's past those doors."
She didn't address mom as anything while saying that, something she had been doing for a while now.
She didn't call her countess, lady, or anything formal like that. She didn't even call her mother like mom had told her many times to do.
Rein was shy about that for now, but mom knew she would become comfortable with time.
So, she just smiled for now and walked forward after giving her a warm smile.
She stood before the gate, took out a strange brown metallic card, and placed it on the surface of the gate.
-Ooooooooong.
A brown light came out of the card and mechanic patterns of the same color started appearing on the gate.
The reaction stopped only when the strange patterns had covered the whole gate and illuminated the strange runic pattern on top of it.
That was the rune and after it was activated, she stored back the card as the giant gates started opening with a powerful sound.
-Creeeeeek…
"Come on." Mom waved her hand as she walked inside the dark room, and we followed behind her with excited hearts.
It would be fun to see this treasure room. It would be my second one ever, but the first one was a special case so it can't be included.
'And we would need a dragon layer full of treasures to compare our tower treasury.'
It was a magnificent place, incomparable to anything, so this was going to be a special experience.
Treasure boxes, chests full of cool shiny things, cool artifacts, important things just lying around the room, actually important things stored inside special cases, things like that were my primary thoughts after hearing the name 'treasure room' but, as I had thought, it was different.
"Welcome… to Hiraani's room of treasures."
It was a place similar to a warehouse or item storage area with a systematic arrangement of the items.
"Different from what you thought, right? Huhu, it used to look like those usual treasure rooms, but it was difficult to find the items we needed according to the auction event and everything.
Storing things like this makes it far easier to find them among the innumerable things.
Go around. Find things that suit you. But we only have around twenty minutes, and Elle can have only one item while Eon gets three. Choose carefully and quickly~."
Mom and my deal was forty-five percent of the profit from my items, as well as one item for every certain amount of profit she gained.
One item to both of us was a gift from her for our hellish labor.
Two more I could get were from the profits. And we didn't have to think deeply about what we wanted the most.
As per Sarah's advice, we quickly ran towards the skill stone area.
It was on the very back and, just like the other ones, there were big shelves filled with skill stones of different shapes, colors, and sizes.
This was a special area as there weren't as many skill stones as the other artifacts, books, perfectly preserved herbs, and other things.
There were skills from (Red) to even (Purple) rank… a sight we couldn't see in many places.
This place was great so…
"Good luck~!"
"You too, darling!" And she ran after saying that.
She even called out Branwen, and he knew the situation, so he flew up and started looking through the skills and things.
We only had a little time, so we had to find the things best for us in this enormous place.
She had to find one thing that would stand out among the countless things present in this place while I had to find three.
It was going to be a difficult task, so I called out Celes too and she divided into tens of clones.
[[ Do not worry, master! I'm gonna find the best thing for you~! ]]
She left in the search of the best things on the other side, towards the artifacts, and other things.
I was enough for these shelves full of cool-looking stones, crystals, and stuff containing skills.
'Lady Sarah said to look towards that side…'
I walked toward the end of the shelves and took a turn. The place that I ended up in was full of skill stones that were either too small or too big.
It was unique and these skills themselves were unique, too.
The skill rank was irrelevant in this place, as the skills were rare and from beings that couldn't be found by just anyone.
'(Red blizzard), (Icy flames), (Soundwave wasp), (Talisman paper dummies)... wait, what?'
I was looking through the skills, but my eyes went back to a small cylinder.
"She has this…?"
It wasn't just any skill. It was the thing that I was looking for.
"Damn!"
I calmed my heart and hurriedly looked through the remaining skill stones.
There were pretty amazing skills here that could play a big role in the destruction of this empire. I understood the reason for that great security from just these powerful destructive skills.
Some skill stones were even as big as huge boulders, but among them all…
============
[Talisman paper dummies] ★ ★ ★
—> A skill that can automatically recreate the enchantments that the possessor has a total understanding about.
—> It is an (Indigo) ranked unique skill seldom found in (Purple) ranked creatures (Natural shamans).
—> It is a skill of nature and only someone with a high affinity with nature and affinity with many natural attributes could use it.
—> The skill usage consumes a great amount of energy from the possessor. But the required energy is not specific.
—> The used energy would define the strength of the skill output. Higher grade energy would increase the strength of the skill.
—> The created dummies of enchantment could be used as the user likes. But how much of these encashments one could materialize at a time depends on the mental strength of the individual.
—> Get it. This one's it. Dumbass…
============
Yup. The usual cursing aside, this one must be the one she talked about.
It was a rare skill and had the versatility that I was looking for.
It was a skill that could create effects like many skills in this place.
'Hell, I could even use basic runes more easily with this.'
And the skill stone was uniquely smaller than many of the small crystals here.
Anyway… it was a good skill, so I picked it up, ran forward, and stopped before a biiiiiig skill stone that was like a boulder and stored it in my white crack.
It was a skill called [Flashlight], a strong (Purple) ranked skill unique to the rare creature (Red-yellow kangaroo).
It was a good skill and would be very good for Chry.
So that was it from the skills and I hurriedly used some movement skills and magic to go to the place where Celes had found the perfect thing for me.
Well, she could feel soul energy and Solnova probably better than me, so there was a great possibility that the thing she would find would be related to them. And I was right.
[[ It's perfect, right~? ]]
"Couldn't be more perfect… thanks Celes. You're legen—dary!"
This really was perfect.
