Chapter 580 The Keeper
[Eon's POV: ]
"Whaaaaaa—hahaha~."
-Shwaaaaaa...!
"I see the surface! Get ready!"
"How can you even see anything at all in this kind of darkness?! I can't even see you, master?!"
"I have a skill. Anyway, we will hit the ground in ten seconds. Nine, eight..."
"Hahaha! Thanks for this darling~!"
She was having fun with this free falling and we had been falling for the last twenty seconds so this pit surely was deep.
And, if it wasn't for this light protecting us, not only would we have been crushed by the dense energies saturating this hole, the speed at which we were falling would have been enough to make even a spark of dust as deadly as a bullet.
But thankfully we had this protection, so as we almost reached the end, and as a light became visible to them, they prepared spells and covered their body to protect themselves from this fall... which didn't even last for a second and the spells vanished.
"It won't work! But don't worry!"
(: Shield)
(: Reinforcement)
(: Feather falling)
Mana was the least useful in this place. It couldn't possibly handle the pressure of other denser energies in this atmosphere.
But Solnova was effective. So by the time we had almost reached the ground, our speed which was absurdly fast, closed down, and a blue cube covered the three of us.
'Zoe was already down there with Queen Fio.'
She got the hang of this falling speed and found it fun so she increased her speed herself and glided ahead of us after telling me.
She rarely was excited like this and since this little free fall made her happy, I didn't mind it either.
The light was becoming brighter as we got closer and just after it became the brightest, we experienced the falling impact.
-Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiii...!
-Dhum!
"Hehe, hello everyone~!"
Thankfully, we were safe. The fall was strong and difficult even with my spells but, we survived it.
"Easy there."
And Rein was too excited during the fall so when she was on the ground, she experienced the aftereffects and almost lost her balance.
"Thanks."
She was almost about to fall down with her spinning head, but thankfully I caught her.
"Haaaa! I'm not doing this again!"
But Miss Moon was in a bad state after that fall. Not physically but the shock she suffered definitely caused some psychological distress.
She had fallen to the ground and was breathing roughly, but, I knew she was fine so I didn't have to worry about her.
"Hehe... hehe..."
And though her head was spinning still, she was laughing, so we knew she was fine too.
"Don't do those kinds of acrobatics in the air from the next time."
"From the next time?!"
Rein was still laughing slowly but my words almost gave a heart attack to Miss Moon.
"No, I mean if we ever have to do this kind of free fall again. You don't have to do it again if you don't want to... or at least if the situation isn't too dire."
We will defiantly have to do this kind of free fall again multiple times in the future but, I at least knew they won't be as dangerous as jumping into this hole.
'This was dangerous, and if not for Queen Fio's protection and my Solnova spells, us normal humans or even someone like Rein couldn't handle this fall.'
But we were here, and before us... was a man-made interior. A very unique and attractive looking one at that. n0velUSB.c0m
The ground below us was sold marble, while the place that we had fallen to was a kind of open area before an entrance to some kind of hallway.
And the hallway that we were seeing before us was a fine area with unique carvings, patterns, and small paintings.
It was a place entirely carved into this ground and the ceiling was illuminated by words. More specifically...
"Runes."
This was the place I was looking for. This was the place grandma mentioned in one of her stories. This was the place that housed a treasure that one couldn't find anywhere else.
"Let's go."
Rein was back to her senses and Eva was back on her feet.
We were ready, and hopefully, the following path was going to be a little better than this fall.
{ "I suggest Moon stay at the back with me. Master Axion and Lady Reinelle should take the lead and lord queen should be in the middle. This formation would be pretty effective." }
Her suggestion was good, certainly, but, if we considered this place an ancient ruin or even a dungeon filled with traps and enemies, this positioning would only be sixty percent effective.
"Rein, Zoe. Beta three. Celes, theta four."
"Yes. Branwen, thirty-three N two."
"Alright~!"
[{ Taking positions. Releasing advanced reconnaissance team. }]
The position would be a triangle with Rein in the front, Queen Fio and Miss Moon in the center, and Zoe and me at the back.
Celes will check the area and the presence of traps, and Branwen will be aerial support.
Rein will be ready to summon Clover if we have to engage in some prolonged fight, and I will ready Lucy if things get too difficult.
"Isn't this..."
Miss Moon had a confused expression but Rein immediately answered her query.
"Too much? Yes. That's how he does things every time."
Miss Moon didn't know most of the things, especially how we engage in difficult confrontations.
We had trained for hours, days, and even weeks sometimes to just prepare for a certain kind of situation. And though the chances that we will encounter any dangers in this place were very uncertain, we couldn't let our guards down even for a moment.
"Alright. Let's-"
[{ Master... there is only this one path here and it ends in a giant room that you should see. }]
We were just about to advance but Celes spoke up, and she seemed to be a little worried about something.
"Wait, everyone."
[{ "Show me Celes." }]
I stopped and closed my eyes as Celes shared the visions from multiple clones that were currently examining the area at the end of this path.
And, though I didn't expect this, this place was bigger than I thought.
'A humongous room where one such as us would feel lowly. Structures that contained a hint of advanced technology from the old times. Writing that the current world would not be able to recognize, and...'
A simple-looking pyramidal crystal floating in the hands of a giant statue resembling a bird person, something that actually held power beyond one's understanding, something that I was here for, and something... that would be very difficult to obtain, well, it would be near impossible.
"Damn..."
This humongous room that I was seeing right now contained three giant golems of that time, and they were highly advanced ones, almost as good as the ones in the academy, but even if we somehow deal with them, there were two mechanical arrays so powerful those golems would seem like nothing at all before them.
'But still... what worried me was neither of those two things.'
"There's a [{(Keeper)}] here."
"What?!"
"What the hell is that now?"
"Ummm... what are we going to do now, big brother?"
A being that though created artificially by the people, powers, and higher powers of that time, possessed strength great enough to stand against an adult divine beast.
And, truthfully, they were no ordinary machines.
They possessed intelligence surpassing human understanding, strengths that no strong person could ever imagine, and in some cases, they were also blessed by multiple gods or possessed their stigmas, granting them the title of the mightiest mechanical masterpieces, the 'Keepers'.
They had cores similar to what master and I created, the things that actually birthed the most perfect artificial intelligence but, nothing I have created so far was blessed, which meant they were the actual most perfect artificial life forms that existed till this day.
And just being in the presence of one such phenomenal being was enough to kill the common humans.
So, if we were up against something like that...
'It's better to just give up.'
And by giving up, I meant giving up on a direct frontal confrontation.
"Forget the battle formations. Just... follow me."
I had a feeling the people that put things like them here definitely did that for a reason and, master did tell me this story and revealed to me the existence of this miraculous wonder so, there had to be some kind of a connection between these two.
{ "I have been waiting, descendants of the (White flames of life)." }
And as soon as we passed through that long corridor and stepped into the vast, humongous room before us, the voice that greeted us confirmed my suspicions.
{ "It is our honor to greet you." }
The Keeper was a ginormous humanoid with long arms and legs, a wide body, and in place of the head, it had a single round mechanical display that represented its facial expression in a pixel-like form.
And, the name this voice just spoke of, this creature that was probably tens of times bigger than us used to address us, also enlightened me about many other things that could be related to this place, this being, as well as the precious treasure floating up there...
