Chapter 101

Chapter 101. Two-Person Exploration

The papyrus with the map drawn on it had become an entirely different object from before we entered the ruin.

The front side remained as it was, with the terrain drawn on it, but the back side, which showed the interior of the ruin, now had the entire, incredibly complex internal structure drawn in.

“Now I know why they searched so hard for the map. Count Chaifri must have known the map’s secret.”

Since he could not find the map, he must have intended to force his way through with the royal family’s power.

Fortunately, the map also showed the maze where the princess and I had fallen.

“But memorizing it seems impossible.”

Instead of putting the map back into the pouch, I turned toward the princess.

The princess, who had regained consciousness at some point, was looking at me.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. You saved me, did you not, Young Master Alex?”

The princess asked me calmly.

Just like when she had charged at the monsters a little while ago, the princess was still showing a composure completely unlike her age.

“I happened to be beside you.”

“Thank you.”

I answered with a vague attempt at modesty, but the princess did not skip expressing her gratitude.

Even though the two of us had been left alone in a dark passage, the princess did not seem afraid.

However, she had a slightly gloomy expression.

“Was this my fault again?”

It seemed the princess was thinking back to what had just happened.

“I think I should have stayed still. I stepped forward for no reason and put you in danger too, Young Master Alex.”

At her words, I ended up laughing softly. I knew who had taught her, so where did she think she was lying?

“If the same thing happened again, would you stay still?”

“…….”

As expected, the princess could not answer my question.

Moreover, it was hard to say that falling here was the princess’s fault.

“Originally, there should have been no danger to you or me, Princess.”

“……Pardon?”

I explained what had happened when we fell through the trap.

“There was a noble who blocked us from going up with his ability?”

At my words, the princess’s eyes widened.

“Before that, there was also a knight who tried to kill me.”

She seemed unable to believe it.

“Surely my brothers…….”

“Well, it may have been excessive loyalty from their subordinates. Or they may have hinted at something like an order.”

This was probably the first time the princess had been directly threatened with death.

The entrance ceremony hall explosion had become something that never happened.

Faced with an experience she had never gone through before, the princess did not know what to do.

She was pretending to be an adult in a way that did not match her age, but the princess was still only a ten-year-old girl.

Because she was intelligent and had been properly educated by Katrine and the Queen, it did not show, but she still had not had proper experience.

‘She will learn reality from now on.’

Perhaps this was how people became stained little by little.

The princess’s restless thoughts seemed to keep branching out until she arrived at another worry.

“If that is true, Katrine is in danger!”

“Katrine should be fine. She probably did not see them deliberately make us fall. If they think you died, Princess, Katrine should actually be safe.”

I shook my head at the princess’s words. In any case, their target was the princess. Not everyone had been involved, and they had not been exposed either, so there was no reason to pointlessly kill Katrine.

However, what the princess was trying to say was something entirely different.

“More importantly, Katrine will search for me!”

Ah, I had not thought of that.

If Katrine moved alone in order to search for the princess, then of course even Katrine would be in danger.

I looked up. Perhaps the trap had restored itself, because the ceiling was blocked.

If not for the remains of the maggot monsters scattered around us, it would have been difficult to believe that we had fallen from above.

Even for Katrine’s sake, we had to hurry.

“Can you move?”

At my words, the princess rose.

“The passage is…… incredibly complicated. Is this a maze?”

As I examined the map, I nodded at the princess’s words.

“I do not think finding the exit will be difficult.”

The princess looked at me with puzzled eyes.

“Um…… what is that paper you are holding?”

I had been wondering why she had not asked.

“It is a map of this place, the ruin.”

“Pardon?”

It seemed I had surprised the princess several times in a short span today.

“How did you have a map of the ruin?”

“I was stranded here in the sealed grounds for a week during field training, was I not? At the time, while searching, I found it near the corpse of a knight. I did not know what it was for, but it turned out to be a map related to this ruin.”

“Ah. That knight was a knight of House Chaifri.”

I mixed a little truth into the lie, and the princess believed me.

As expected, the princess was still an innocent girl unstained by the world.

“It really is fortunate that I am with you, Young Master Alex.”

Mm. Was she unstained, or was it because she trusted me?

Unfortunately, since I had already become dirty, I did not feel the slightest prick of conscience.

“I checked, and there does not seem to be a path that leads directly up to where we fell.”

I showed the princess the map.

The inside of the ruin drawn on the map was made up of several floors.

The floor where the princess and I had fallen was the top floor, and the place where we were standing now was the lowest floor.

When I located the trap we had fallen through and confirmed our position in the maze, fortunately, we were not far from the destination, the heart of the ruin.

If we had not had the map, we would have wandered endlessly through this lower maze and died, but with the map, it seemed we could reach the center of the ruin first.

“If we want to meet the others, it seems we will either have to reach the center of the ruin and wait for them there, or meet them on the way back.”

The princess, who had been carefully examining the map, nodded. Even when she looked at the map, it did not contradict what I had said.

“Then let us rest for a moment and depart.”

“We can go right away.”

“No. Both you and I need to recover our strength, Princess.”

To be honest, I was still fine, but the princess was clearly exhausted.

We had been moving continuously, and on top of that, there had been a short but fierce battle and even a fall.

She had not noticed it because of tension and worry, but the princess needed to rest now.

She tried to argue with my words, but soon realized that she was tired.

She leaned against the wall and steadied her breathing.

However, I sat down on the floor and advised the princess.

“If you want to recover your strength, you need to rest properly.”

At my words, the princess carefully sat down on the floor.

I closed my eyes first and began circulating mana.

I felt the princess’s breathing slow down. It seemed she was moving her mana just like me.

As expected, she was a good princess who did as she was told.

Fortunately, I did not sense anything approaching.

After about ten minutes passed like that, I steadied my breathing and opened my eyes.

The princess still had her eyes closed. Her breathing remained slow, and I heard a small murmur come from her mouth.

I infused mana into my ears and listened.

“Mother, it is all right. I can do this. Katrine, Aunt Katrine, wait for me.”

She was talking in her sleep.

I did not know what kind of dream she was having, but even if only through sleep talk, she was showing her true self.

“I am scared. But it is all right.”

As expected, the princess was not bold. She was enduring.

The sight of the girl sitting against the wall of the dark passage, quietly talking in her sleep, would have made anyone pity her.

I rose and struck the wall with my sword.

Clang. Clang.

“It is time to move.”

I did think the princess looked a little pitiful, but only that much.

I did not know whether my personality had become barren, but I had too many problems of my own to worry about the princess.

“Ah…….”

The princess was startled and looked at me.

She soon came to her senses.

Perhaps realizing that she had fallen asleep, her face turned red.

The princess also rose.

After checking the map once more, I began walking. The princess followed behind me.

‘First, I fell beneath a tomb with Katrine, and this time, it is with the princess. For a coincidence, this feels strangely similar.’

At the thought that suddenly came to mind, I laughed inwardly and continued walking.

The maze was truly complicated.

The maze floor occupied half of the ruin interior map drawn on the back of the papyrus.

There were many forks, and even if one walked while following one wall, it was designed so that the exit would not appear.

On top of that, it was impossible to escape simply by walking.

“Here. This stone is strange.”

I pushed hard against the stone embedded in the wall that the princess pointed at.

Only by using mana and applying several times the strength of an ordinary person did the stone barely move.

Rumble.

When the stone moved, the opposite wall sank down. A new passage had been created.

There was a hidden path in a dead end like this.

If it had not been marked in a different color on the map, even I would not have found it easily.

The maze was not only complicated, but also full of traps.

“Stop! It is a trap ahead!”

The princess blinked with her foot frozen in midair.

I caught the princess and carefully pulled her back.

The traps were marked in a different color on the map, but it was difficult to tell exactly what kind of traps they were.

I broke a stone embedded in the wall and threw it hard at the floor the princess had been about to step on.

Clang!

The stone bounced off the floor.

Shwing!

A giant scythe shot out from the wall and then slid back in.

The princess flinched. If I had not stopped her, her body would surely have been cut apart by that scythe.

Both to calm the startled princess and because I meant it, I cursed the people who had made the ruin.

“I have no idea why they made a maze and traps like this. If they wanted to hide something impressive, they could have simply made a sturdy vault.”

I had only spoken without thinking much, but the princess answered my words.

“They say it was a fashion during the Old Empire era. I heard it was a way to show off one’s wealth and power.”

Good heavens. I had thought there would be some proper reason, but in the end, it was rich people bragging.

In other words, the maze was like watches, bags, and cars from my previous life?

After hearing this unexpected hidden history, I became even more curious about the royal library.

In the study at the ducal mansion and in other places as well, I could hardly find any stories about the Old Empire.

It was historical erasure on the level of burning books and burying scholars or the Cultural Revolution, yet it seemed some materials still remained in the royal library.

In any case, thanks to the map, we were able to avoid the traps.

However, there was something even the map did not show.

“Roll forward!”

At my words, the princess threw herself forward, and at that moment, a maggot monster burst through the wall.

“Die!”

I swung my sword with all my strength.

It was a maggot large enough to swallow a person in one bite, but it was split in half by the sword rippling with a haze.

The monsters were not shown on the map.

Since they were monsters that would not have existed when this ruin was originally made, we had to stay tense at all times, and when they first appeared, it had been quite dangerous.

Still, fortunately, there were not many of them. It seemed not many monsters had come down this far.

After finding our way through the maze, avoiding traps, and dealing with monsters like that, we were able to reach the central area of the ruin.