Chapter 21

Chapter 21. Marriage Requires Caution (1)

Moving while carrying a single torch and squeezing through the narrow crack between the rocks was an immensely exhausting and difficult task.

Thoughts kept flashing through my mind—where this would end, whether the gap would narrow until we could no longer move, whether we might end up suffocating midway through.

"Huff. Huff."

Fortunately, the harsh breathing coming from behind me helped drive back the fear creeping over me, but that did not make it any less exhausting.

"Huff. Huff. The two of them are safe, right?"

"Whew.... How much farther do we have to go?"

"...."

Through the ragged breaths, I kept hearing Adria's voice.

Adria, following behind me, was in much the same state as I was. No, with her slightly larger build, she was certainly having an even harder time than I was.

"Even the younger kid isn't groaning like that, so try to hold on a little longer."

"Hmph, you're such a little old man...."

She grumbled, but my words seemed to give her a bit more strength.

After some time passed, she seemed to have gotten somewhat used to moving through the narrow cave.

Her harsh breathing lessened, and instead, she started speaking more often.

Was she frightened?

"Does becoming a knight mean going through things like this? Seeing Sir Ugo and Bianca makes me lose confidence."

I sympathized with her wholeheartedly.

Well, in a stable country without war, like the one in my previous life, soldiers and knights might be little more than civil servants, but this world was a far more frightening place than I had expected.

In my previous life, political strife meant lawmakers grabbing one another by the collar in the assembly hall. Here, lopping off the other side's head was not enough—they would even lead an army in to kill the enemy's daughter.

But precisely because this world was like this, I needed to grow stronger all the more.

"If I hadn't learned the sword, I wouldn't even have been able to run away."

"Is that so? But Alex, you didn't have to come with me."

That was only because you had dragged me along.

"More importantly, how did you know I was learning the sword?"

"Simon.... When Young Master Simon visited our territory, the Knight Commander who came with him saw me learning the sword and told me."

Don't tell me that nonsense about "the ducal house's hidden blade" came from the Knight Commander's own mouth!

He always looked displeased whenever he saw me, and then he went to the marquess's house and spread strange rumors....

I had thought he had become a little better lately, but apparently not.

Once she got started, Adria began pouring out her own story.

"My engagement was suddenly arranged, then not long after that I had to flee to my fiancé's house, and now I'm running away like this...."

Was it because the cave was dark? Her voice gradually sank lower.

"I learned the sword because I wanted to live differently from other noble young ladies, but at this rate, I'm no different from them. No, have I become even worse?"

As she kept talking, it turned entirely into a lament.

I understood how she felt, but I had no desire to keep listening to that sort of lament. I was a bodyguard, not a counselor.

Just as I was starting to think I should shut her up—

Whoosh.

Rustle.

A faint sound came from straight ahead.

Then a light breeze stirred my hair.

The air flowing toward us was not the stale, stuffy air we had been breathing until now.

"Oh? It's wind!"

Adria noticed it at once as well.

"It must be an exit!"

Her gloomy voice brightened in an instant.

The two of us hurried our steps.

The farther forward we walked, the more strongly we could feel the fresh air.

There was still no light in sight, but the fresh air alone was enough to give us hope that this place connected to the outside.

A short while later, we were finally able to emerge from the narrow cave that had gone on without end.

I raised the torch and looked around.

"This isn't outside?"

She was right. We had not come out into the open.

But neither were we still in a cave sealed tight by rock.

The walls, floor, and ceiling were not natural stone but rectangular stone blocks fitted neatly together.

"An underground stone chamber?"

A massive iron door stood in the center of one wall, and on the altar in the middle of the chamber rested a large sarcophagus.

Adria's eyes lit up as she looked at it.

"Could this be a tomb from the days of the Old Empire?"

I did not know whether it was from the Old Empire, but seeing the sarcophagus, it certainly seemed to be a burial chamber.

Since we had to pass by it to reach the iron door anyway, I held up the torch and cautiously approached the sarcophagus.

"Are we the first ones to find it?"

Adria asked from behind me, her voice full of anticipation.

She really did not suit the image of a marquess's daughter.

Watching Adria grow excited at the sight of ruins and tombs kept reminding me of a game character from my previous life who ran around raiding tombs with a pair of pistols.

"There is no way we're the first."

I shook my head.

There was no way some fortuitous encounter like that would ever come to me.

We were merely following a path someone else had already taken. There had not even been a fork in the way, so there was no chance we were the first to arrive.

The lid of the sarcophagus had also been pushed aside.

It seemed an earlier guest had looted the tomb before us.

"So it wasn't a Hero. It was a grave robber."

Inside the sarcophagus, only scraps of clothing and fragments of bone remained.

"Wow. They really took everything."

After checking inside, Adria sounded genuinely disappointed.

"There may not have been anything to begin with. It had been buried for so long that whatever was in here probably wouldn't have been useful anyway."

Since they were ancient relics, they might have been worth money, but judging by how ruins had been neglected even during the Great War, it would have been hard to make a fortune from them.

Besides, back then, during the Great War, they might have been more trouble than they were worth....

"Why wouldn't they be useful? The weapons and armor famous as sacred relics are all things from the Old Empire. The relics used by the heroes during the Great War were like that too. Those are things no one has been able to make ever since the Old Empire collapsed."

Lost technology? Was this one of those worlds where lost technology poured out of ancient ruins?

Ugh, I need the internet.

As expected, the books in the study and the lessons I heard from the scribes alone did not give me nearly enough information.

"Ah, there's something like a keyhole here. Could there be a mechanism?"

After examining the inside of the sarcophagus more closely, Adria found a hole drilled into the bottom.

It looked like a short slit about the length of a finger, and above it was a small emblem like the one we had seen on the door and at the cave entrance.

"It looks like a sword would fit perfectly if you stabbed it in there...."

Adria inspected the hole from every angle.

"Then was the sword buried with the corpse the key? If you push the sword into the hole, the mechanism moves and a hidden treasure chest appears, right?"

She started pouring out every thought that came to mind.

"The person who came before us must have missed this hole because of the corpse and only taken the sword. Then time passed, the corpse rotted away, and that's why we were able to see the hole."

Clap. Clap. Clap. I applauded her in my heart.

Lady Adria had now advanced from Queen of Grave Robbers to master detective.

I had a mountain of objections, but instead I grabbed her by the arm and headed for the iron door.

"This is not the time for that. We need to go."

"...Okay."

Though she had been speaking brightly, Adria's hand was trembling in tiny shakes.

The sacrifices of others, everything she had been dragged into, and all that would happen from here on.

Adria was still just a teenage girl, and right now she was terrified.

But we could not stop simply because we were afraid.

Creeeak.

Fortunately, the iron door opened easily.

It did not seem to be the sort of door that was meant to open easily, but it did not stop anyone from going out from the inside.

"So this was the proper entrance. The path we took was a side route formed by split rock."

I had spoken on purpose, but no answer came back. It seemed she still had not fully regained her composure.

I decided not to pay it any mind.

Beyond the iron door, the cave continued. Fortunately, this time it was large enough that moving through it was not particularly difficult.

Unlike before, various animals were living inside the cave.

Large blind rats, moles with huge claws, insects the size of a forearm—every one of them was a creature I had never seen before.

Fortunately, there were no beasts that Adria and I could not handle, but in that cave, for the first time, I truly felt that I had come to another world.

After passing through the cave for a long time, we finally reached a place where there was light.

We lifted our heads.

Above the vertical wall of a cylindrical shaft, we could see the sky.

"It's a well."

"An abandoned well."

We immediately started climbing the well wall.

We were still children, but we possessed strength and skill greater than those of ordinary adults.

Hooking our fingers and feet into gaps between the earthen wall and the stones, we steadily climbed upward.

A short while later, we managed to make it outside safely.

We were covered in dirt, but neither of us paid it any mind as we basked in the warmth of the sunlight.

The area around the well was filled with trees.

Now and then we could make out traces of old house sites, but it seemed the village had long ago been swallowed by the forest.

"A village forgotten by the world, perhaps."

Whether it had been destroyed during the Great War or abandoned even earlier, it was surely a village no one remembered anymore.

In a place like this, no one would easily realize that an abandoned well concealed a cave leading to an ancient tomb.

"One person must have known."

But at this point, it would be difficult even to find out who, and I had no intention of trying.

Right now, we needed to rejoin the territorial forces as quickly as possible.

"If this is the forest near the fortress, then it should be Ons Forest. Since the fortress is to the east of it, I think heading northeast should do."

"Okay! Let's go quickly."

Adria answered energetically. Fortunately, she seemed to have pulled herself together.

We brushed the dirt from our bodies and began moving forward carefully.

By now, the territorial forces might already have finished dealing with the enemy and started searching for us, but we still had to be cautious.

I briefly considered hiding in the forest until the territorial forces found us, but we were completely unprepared to spend the night in the woods.

To be honest, the chance of running into the enemy was slim, so it was better to leave the forest as quickly as possible.

But, as always, probability was not to be trusted.

How had I forgotten that there were games where even a ninety-nine percent hit chance could miss every single time?

"Ho ho, this time I caught you."

At the sight of the mercenary who had suddenly appeared, I cursed the god of dice.

"I was truly surprised. To think there was a cave leading all the way here. If it weren't for my ability, I might have missed you."

Damn it, so she had tracked us with an ability? In that case, I take back the curse.

While she was talking, I looked around, but there was no way out.

Before I knew it, mercenaries had already surrounded us.

While I scanned the area, the female mercenary held a handkerchief between two fingers and waved it.

"How did you get my handkerchief...?"

At the sight of it, Adria let out a groan.

Adria's handkerchief?

Was the handkerchief the medium used for tracking? Chasing someone by means of a handkerchief—what a damned ability.

"Someone close to milady recovered it for me. Thanks to that, I was able to keep following you."

"I am not close to anyone who steals my handkerchief!"

"That can't be right. It was the one who has just become the new master of Marquess of Hierro’s House, after all."

The female mercenary spoke those unbelievable words with a smiling face.

---

The corpses of mercenaries and territorial soldiers were scattered around the fortress.

At the sight of a battlefield again after so long, the Duke frowned.

"Most of the external enemies have been dealt with. A few mercenaries escaped, and we are pursuing them now."

A knight standing beside the Duke was reporting the state of the battle.

"And belowground?"

"The Knight Commander went in personally. You should hear the outcome soon."

The Duke nodded.

Simon was nowhere to be seen. The Duke had sent him back to the manor with the soldiers.

The Duke looked toward the fortress.

By the time word spread that the enemy's main force had gone underground in pursuit of the children, everyone had already given up hope.

The Knight Commander had gone in personally, determined at least to exact proper vengeance, but it would be difficult for him to rescue the children.

The Duke had not entirely abandoned hope, but for now his thoughts were occupied by something else.

Why had they sent a force so large that it was nearly the scale of a war?

He simply could not understand why they had poured knight-class manpower into killing a single girl.

Fortunately, it did not take long for that question to be answered.

"Urgent dispatch!"

A messenger who arrived on horseback brought the answer.

"The residence of Marquess of Hierro’s House has burned down. The family has been annihilated. Count of La Palma arrived leading knights and installed the marquess's surviving illegitimate son as the new head of house!"

"So that was why they wanted Adria dead?"

The Duke frowned.

It had not been merely an attempt to stop an engagement.

They had intended to swallow the marquess's territory whole.