Above the statue loomed a bright sun-like object that radiated throughout the whole room. Naturally, it caught the eye of both Haruo and Ena.
"Is that…"
"It's an artifact."
Below the artifact stood the statue, its clothing styled in a Greek-like fashion, but that wasn't the noticeable part about it. The statue was enormous; in fact, it occupied the majority of the room's space.
Although it was huge, it wasn't at a height where they would struggle to climb, but due to their current condition, it would've been risky to do so.
Right now, exhaustion was their biggest problem; for all they knew, they could collapse due to lack of energy. And even though Ena had healed Haruo's left eye, there was another injury that she had yet to heal.
The injury he got when he turned a corner was still present, still lying on his shoulder. The mark was evident, and the pain was excruciating.
Fortunately for him, Ena managed to find the mana leakage to that injury as well, but because of her exhaustion, the physical wound was left on its own, leaving Haruo to endure. Now, his left arm was completely limited.
Ena grunted, trying to relax her ever-so-aching muscles.
"That's it? We completed the tomb already?"
"That's not something for you to say after looking so dead."
Right about now, Ena would've rebutted, but decided against it… For now, at least.
"… How's your arm?"
Haruo didn't bother to reply; instead, he dragged her to a nearby wall and then proceeded to place her down to rest. For how he did it? He wasn't so gentle, for he, too, lacked the strength to do so.
"OW!? Can you not make this worse as it is!?"
Her sudden burst came back to her, giving Ena a sharp pain in her forehead. Seeing her pitiful appearance, a sigh escaped his lips before sitting right beside her.
"It's not like I did it on purpose."
"You would've done the same thing even if you weren't injured!"
"Let's talk about something more productive. Going back and forth like this feels too tiring."
"Yeah? And what are we supposed to talk about?"
"That the artifact over there might not even be real."
"WHAT!? THEN WHAT WAS THE—Cough! Cough!"
"Listen first, the artifact up there is real, I'm certain. However, it might not be the one the tomb is actually protecting. In rare cases, it might be a decoy used to divert raiders from the real one. Using the decoy as the scapegoat.
If I'm correct, the real one must be extremely valuable."
"And how did you manage to figure that one out, huh???"
"It's a guess, but after experiencing the corridor earlier, it feels quite unnecessary if the tomb was just going to send us here right away. It felt kinda lacking."
"Okay… Fine… Let's go with that, but can we rest first?"
Taking in a deep breath, Haruo forced himself to stand up and walk towards the statue. Circling the statue, he found many inscriptions lying on the base. Both are still clear and polished, unlike the ones from the corridor.
Having learned from his earlier mistakes, he distanced himself from the runes and inspected them carefully, close by.
Just as he was inspecting, a blue light shimmered on his side before he took something out of it—it was his mana storage. Quickly, he pulled out the M-13 and placed it close to himself.
Haruo took one last look at the carvings before mumbling something quietly:
"Oscar."
Without another word, even more blue lights appeared, but this time, it wasn't from his mana storage; instead, it was the Monarch - 13. The blue light formed itself into a flat plane. Resembling that of a screen, and in that screen, was a flat horizontal line in the middle.
[Yes, sire?]
A new voice broke the silence, a more refined voice than Haruo's or Ena's. It also came from the M-13.
"Installment update."
[All installments have been completed, approximately two hours ago… Total time taken to download installments…]
Word after word, the line would change into zigzags.
[Calculating…]
The once line quickly transformed into something circular, moving indefinitely like a loading screen.
[Calculations complete… Installments took exactly: 4 months, 26 days, 55 minutes, and 2 seconds.]
"Engage Override."
[Feature currently locked.]
"Search database for anyone named: 'Kilian Weber'"
"…"
No response, Oscar didn't respond, and instead returned to its original state. Haruo was only met with a single white line, no motion, no changes, just blank. Patiently, he waited, anticipation slowly rising, but minutes had passed, and yet Oscar was still to respond.
[…]
More than ten passed since then, in Haruo's entire lifetime of using Oscar, not only has he never taken this long, but he also hasn't replied. Usually, in times like this, Oscar would tell him the process failed and would retry; even then, that was a rare sight.
As he was about to lose hope, a ding came out of the screen. Uneasiness showed on Haruo's face as he turned to see what it was… A mail?
Glancing down at the mail, Haruo's whole world turned as he saw the sender.
"Date of creation?"
[March 21, J - 4023, 12:00 am]
Haruo's eyes dimmed slightly, his mind blank as he stared at the mail.
[Would you like to view Seiji Chiharu's letter?]
"… Open—"
"What up with you? You've been standing still for the past 10 minutes. What, did you find something interesting or something?"
Her voice shattered his expression almost instantly, his once dull expression reverting to its original calmness. Ena, who had been resting, managed to retrieve most of her strength back—but there was still some fatigue left in her eyes.
As curious as she is, she wondered what got Haruo so dazed. Moving in closer to inspect what it was. It was a blue screen.
"??? Mind explaining what that is, or do you just want me to guess?"
Seeing the M-13 in his hand, an atrocious idea came into her mind. But she didn't dare to believe it, cause it was a gun. What purpose is there to a gun other than to shoot? It couldn't possibly be connected.
"It's an AI feature built in the M-13."
Listening to his explanation, Ena's face was completely dumbfounded. A gun that had its own AI? That was completely unheard of!
"Ha… In times like these, by how you and that waste-of-space talk about him, it just makes it seem like he was a lunatic. Who even adds AI to a gun?"
"Ena… You're not completely far off from that statement."
She rolled her eyes with a quiet scoff before placing her hand on Haruo's shoulder. With her now rested, she could finally heal his wound with no problem. Steadily, Haruo felt his shoulder getting lighter, and soon, he was able to move it without any restrictions.
"Other than that, how come whenever you get damaged, your coat remains completely fine?"
"I have a request for you. For one hour, can you stay silent? You ask too many questions."
"I DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING!"
"So in your logic, I am?"
In addition to his recovery, it seemed like Ena had regained her annoyance. He sighed to himself before pulling his shoulder away from Ena's hand. With a commanding voice, he told Oscar to scan the runes of the base. Without wasting a second, the blue screen dispersed and integrated itself within the runes, analyzing them before returning to its original state.
[Translating…]
[Translation complete:]
[GLORY TO NALON! THE SYMBOL OF THE SUN!]
"… Save to database."
[Saved to database!]
"Oh wow, first an AI and now a whole database? What else can it make you fly?"
"If it's space you're worried about, then don't worry about it; the amount of information this can store is much larger than you think."
"That doesn't even connect to what I said?"
By this time, he truly missed his younger brother, but not just for closure, but also because he helped keep Ena mostly busy. And now he has to not only tolerate her, but to keep her in check at all times. This makes him wonder how he was even able to keep up with someone like her back when he was still a butler.
Now he fully realized just how annoying Ena was. Well, of course, he didn't express it, fearing it might cause her to react even more if he did.
Noticing he was all still again. She hoped that they would go to the artifact by now, but she grew tired of waiting for him. Her patience ran thin, and she decided to just climb up to the artifact alone.
Although it was a tall statue, she managed to climb it without breaking a single sweat.
Ena, now at the palm of the statue, was finally face-to-face with the artifact. Its glowing light is almost hypnotizing, but also surprisingly immaculate. Yet, despite her continuous staring, not once had she been blinded
To her, the sphere in front of her was no different from the sun, if not better.
Entranced by the artifact, her hand couldn't sit still and began to reach for it. Haruo, who had just climbed up, saw the scene, stretching her hands to grab it greedily. Furrowing his eyes, he quickly intervened.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Rationality seemed to come back after Haruo had stopped her. She pulled her hand back, allowing Haruo to let her go.
"…"
"Oscar…"
Calling out Oscar's name, a blue light came out of the M-13 and into the artifact. The blue light hummed slightly, as both waited for Oscar's review. After two whole minutes, the blue came in front of both of them.
[Analysis complete.]
[Name: Consuming Star.
Description: Far away, there was a star that consumed others for its own shine.
For many years, the star ate hungrily, using the space around it to fuel itself. Sometimes, even eating nearby stars. Its greed was endless, and it ate more to satisfy itself.
Soon, during its meal, the star saw a black hole in the far distance. Blinded by its hunger, its appetite grew and moved from its fixed state in hopes to devour the black hole. That was the very day the star gained a consciousness of its own.
Because of its uniqueness, it caught the eye of one of the five symbols, the glorified Nalon.
Fascinated by the star, he traversed through endless space, going through multiple planes of dimension, wanting to make it his own. And the star, sensing his presence, decided to flee. And for countless days, they chased each other through the cosmos until finally, Nalon caught up with it.
Slowly, he forged the star into his own, compressing and turning it into his most prized Artifact.
Now in his possession, he made the consuming celestial body not just a weapon, but a tool used to progress humanity in its evolution as well. Ever since its forge, there has never been an area in Galeris that was unlit.
One of the five tools used to banish the anguished one.
Date of creation: C - 5647
Current state: Dormant.
Rank: SS / Legendary.]
Their eyes darted in the rank section, their faces turning pale as they saw the true value of the artifact. It was almost as if their souls had left their bodies. Throughout their entire expedition within the tomb, this was the most surprising thing they had seen.
"Holy…"
Ena's whole body shivered as she processed the ranking. And almost instantly, she burst into enthusiasm.
"A L-LEGENDARY ARTIFACT!? ARE YOU SURE THIS IS STILL A DECOY!?"
Haruo stayed silent, his eyes flaring up to their max as he contemplated. The reason for this reaction was that throughout the entire history of mankind, there has never been an A-grade in mechanical tombs before, let alone an SS-grade.
Unconsciously, he bit his lip, evaluating the current situation. For something so valuable to be near the portal like this, it was a mystery that Kilian hadn't found it yet. But what if he had? What if he did find it and decided to leave it here?
Was it for them? Was it for someone else? Or was he waiting for something?
His mind stirred with many questions and situations, all because he saw the rank. At first, he thought Oscar had made a mistake, but Haruo disregarded that idea instantly.
In a moment where he should have been happy, he had only received panic instead.
"…"
"Hey! HEY!"
Seemingly lost in thought, Haruo heard a voice that cracked his focus.
"Why are you so silent!? WE HAVE A LITERAL LEGENDARY ARTIFACT!"
Having no clear answer for his questions, Haruo decided to linger on it for now and focused on the moment they were currently in.
"…There's still a chance for it to be a decoy."
"If that's the case, just how valuable is the real thing to make them sacrifice an SS-grade artifact!?"
The room that had been still as of now began to quake; along with it, large gears could be heard turning all around the room. The whole room was rotating, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and even the statue fell victim to its rotation.
Additionally, at the edges of the room, 7-foot humanoid-like creatures were constantly phasing into the room through the walls. Soon, both of them realize that the creatures in front of them weren't creatures at all, but instead, they were golems.
"Just what triggered this!? We didn't even touch the artifact!?"
More golems began pouring into the room, rushing toward the duo in an assault.
Ena didn't think twice to summon her emperor blades and prepared for the attack. Meanwhile, Haruo, despite knowing the situation, decided not to equip his blade and only gripped his gun tighter.
Pointing his M-13 at one of the golems, he pulled the trigger and shot a piercing bullet at its solar plexus.
"Their cores are at the very center of their body."
"How do you know?"
"It's the easiest spot to place the core in."
One golem managed to reach the palm, surprising Ena before she sliced it in half, before kicking its body down to its siblings.
"Rather than just standing still, can you help me!?"
After nonsense after nonsense, she grew almost tired from it, but compared to what Kilian had said to her when they first got here? It was lukewarm.
"Oscar, is it safe to use it now?"
[Certainly sire! Feature one has been completely restored; it is completely safe to use!]
Grasping the stop slide of the gun, he slid it, not backwards, but forward instead, before releasing it. Having slid it forward, the appearance of the gun remained unchanged, but without minding what it looked like.
Haruo pointed the M-13 at one of the golems, aligning it accurately, then pulled the trigger slightly.
A barrage of bullets flew at the golem. It fell to the ground, with its body fully covered in holes.
[Successfully converted power into speed, rapid fire is now active.]