One bullet after another took out multiple golems, each of them turning into rubble, then into dust. Ena was quite perplexed by his sudden gunfire. It was the first time she had seen him shoot out that many bullets; it was a surprise that he didn't use them during their fight with Kilian.
If he did, it would've been quite useful, not that it would change the outcome of the battle, but it would've been lovely if she knew beforehand.
Releasing the trigger, the relentless barrage of bullets stopped, taking out at least ten golems in that single shot.
However, despite its aggressive nature, the overall power of the gun was heavily reduced.
But that was to be expected—it was obvious there was going to be a limitation to it, seeing as the fire rate was unbelievable.
A gun that produces the same amount of firepower as before while retaining its speed would not just have been excessively dangerous and lethal, but it would also have been unfair.
For Haruo to have such a great treasure, it was only natural for Ena to envy him of it. While he had received a god-blessed weapon, she, on the contrary, only had hidden blades and two large daggers given to her by Kilian to rely on.
While Ena was envying his M-13, Haruo, on the other hand, was busy with the golems. Summoning a blade in his other hand, he dropped down from the statue's palm to fight more properly.
With a swing of his blade, he slashed through multiple golems apart, as if they were butter instead.
Amidst his blade work, he made sure to keep his other hand busy by shooting distant golems. During his slaughter, a large shadow overcast his body. Taking a look, he saw a golem about to attack him; nonetheless, he wasn't worried.
Not even a second after he spotted the golem, it was turned to rubble seconds before it could attack.
Ena had joined him in his assault.
"Can't even check your back?" Her tone was set with arrogance.
"That's not the case…"
Placing more weight on his feet, Haruo stopped to point his gun toward Ena. Seeing this sudden action, Ena raised her blades forward to protect herself.
With no hesitation, Haruo pulled the trigger. Ena's widened eyes slowly moved to her right, seeing a golem's head completely gone.
"Believe it or not, that was the same golem. They can regenerate."
"??? Why would you do that!? Do you think that's funny!?"
"Kinda."
Despite his words, not a single ounce of amusement was hinted at in his expression. Seeing his expression, she found it odd that it was more irritating than being made fun of directly.
"If you're going to say that, at least show a bit of amusement!"
In unison with her words, the ground began to quake once more. The careful interior was slowly shifting into a different design. Conversely, Haruo realized it wasn't just the design that was changing, but the entire room itself. Simultaneously, the once destroyed golems began to regenerate and attacked both of them with even greater power than before.
And just like with the arrows, the golems were adapting to their strength.
Heads turned to the statue as it steadily rose into the ceiling with the artifact. Ena tried to rush toward it, but was interrupted by one of the golems, making her return to her original position.
Within just minutes, the golems were almost as powerful as they were with the whole room scaling exponentially more than when they first entered.
"Are all tombs this frustrating?"
"… Not entirely."
Ahead of them were dozens of golems, some of which were still damaged but were slowly regenerating—not to mention more were spawning in as they did. All of that while the artifact was gradually ascending the room. It was obvious that if it were to ascend completely, they would have no way to retrieve it again.
The entire place was in chaos, and they fell victim to it. If they truly wanted the artifact, they would need to fight for it.
Blood crawled down Ena's lip as she bit it in frustration. Calming her mind, she prepared herself as she glared at the ever-growing golems ahead, rushing towards them. Their time was limited, and they both knew.
Ena took the first action. Sending herself toward the mob of stone figures and threw one of her emperor blades at the golem's chest. She charged her fist, throwing it exactly at the thrown blade's handle, driving it into its stone body.
With the absence of its core, the golem collapsed into pieces of stone at her feet.
Now in complete rhythm, she slid her feet, allowing her to twist her whole body to the incoming golem, using the other emperor blade to its arms apart, followed by stabbing it into its chest.
With widened eyes, she noticed that the core wasn't in the center like it usually was.
Her slight hesitation had cost her, giving an opening to the regenerated golem to attack. What came after wasn't damage, but loads of dust scattered all over her as the golem disintegrated right in front of her.
Luckily, Haruo had stepped in just in time to intervene, finishing the animated figure.
For a slight moment, he slowed down and muttered:
"They're adapting."
After saying what needed to be said, he returned to the horde as quickly as he could.
Now knowing why the golems weren't collapsing like they used to, they had been adapting properly with their cores, either changing locations in the body or growing smaller.
Clicking her tongue, she produced multiple projectiles out of blood and sent them flying towards multiple golems. Some collapsed, while most remained
The blood she used remained on the ground. Seeing the tiny puddles of blood, she controlled each of them to sprout many spikes, stabbing one golem after another, and to those who persisted, she gathered all of them into a single large sphere, using it like a whip to cut many of them in half.
Using inertia, Ena scattered the whip and formed them into projectiles once more.
Haruo, on the other hand, used his own blade and drove it into a golem's head, before clawing another golem in the back of its head and using it to hammer the blade further.
Observing his surroundings, Haruo grabbed his blade and placed it inside his mana storage before grabbing one of Ena's projectiles to propel himself forward. With the M-13 in his other hand, more bullets flew out and hit many golems.
Fatigue was slowly catching up to him as cold sweat poured down his face.
As he was shooting, an unknown wall appeared, causing Haruo to dismount the projectile. Clenching his jaw, he fought while eyeing his surroundings and realized that the ground was rising into walls. The terrain itself was transforming.
Passing Haruo, Ena created a lasso made of blood and threw it at a nearby golem. Dragging one to herself. The golem, as it got close, got kicked by Ena, sending it flying, but she didn't let it end there. She pulled the lasso one more time and kicked it again.
Kick after kick, she toyed with the golem two more times before spinning it around and using the golem to collapse the others before slamming it down to large group of golems.
Viewing the far artifact slowly ascend, an overwhelming feeling of distress washed over them. At best, they had a few minutes left before it completely disappeared from the room. Wasting such a valuable artifact.
They wouldn't allow that.
With their time running out, they both gazed at each other and nodded.
On his hand, Haruo slid the slide of the M-13 once again, disabling its rapid fire function. Now with it disabled, he placed both of his hands on the grip, concentrating all of his strength on the handle.
And only when his hands bled did he decide to pull the trigger.
A powerful blast of energy was shot forward at the mob, its energy radiating and killing any golem that even got near its energy.
After the blast was extinguished, a path was open for them to run on.
Now with a clear pathway, they focused all their energy on their legs, sprinting with all their might toward the crying statue. Although they had cleared a path for themselves, it wasn't long until it was overflowing with many stone figures.
Their stone hands clawed through their skin, tearing some flesh that came with it and allowing blood to flow down their injuries. Yet, they had no plans of backing out, for if they did so, their efforts would only go to waste.
So, they conditioned their minds to one thing only:
To retrieve the artifact.
So they endured, endured their relentlessness, and while they were relentless, so were they.
"ENA!"
Although she only heard her name, she already knew what he was implying. Without any more words, she grabbed his wrist and launched Haruo toward the artifact.
He soared through the tomb, his coat flying alongside him as he got closer to the artifact.
Stretching his hand for the sphere, but it wasn't enough. His trajectory was making him lean away from the artifact.
Ena's face fell as he saw him off-course. However, that didn't stop Haruo whatsoever.
To his side, Haruo opened his mana storage. And with one swift motion, he dragged it toward the artifact, completely devouring it within his mana storage.
With the artifact gone, the tomb began to crumble. All of the golems disintegrated almost immediately, and the crying statue cracked slightly as the ground below them disappeared. Both fell into the dark pit, not knowing where it would lead them.
"SERIOUSLY, WE JUST TOOK A BREAK!!"
Ena cried out, her voice echoing against the stone walls, not wanting to stay any longer than she had.
Usually, Haruo would've told her to be quiet or to shut up, but in all honesty, he felt the same. He was slowly growing tired of this never-ending tomb where he had to keep moving and fighting. He only hoped that before his patience ran thin, they would get out. For this was the first time in his life that he wanted something for himself.
With the air whistling as they fell, they heard gears turning all around them. That was when their feet touched the floor.
Both were utterly perplexed. Neither of them had noticed what had happened nor how it had happened. Even though they were falling in a flat position, they somehow felt the ground below them. Especially at that speed they were falling, even if they weren't injured, they should have noticed when they landed.
Everywhere around them was complete darkness, not a single light source to be found.
Concluding that there was no light to use nor sticks for it, Haruo raised his M-13.
Right after raising it, a bright white light illuminated the area, giving them vision within the darkness. There, he saw tall, dull, grey walls with complex runes scattered throughout the flat surface. This time, however, it wasn't just runic scripts that covered the walls, but drawings as well.
"Great, more corridors, just what I needed to see."
"More text?"
"Haru, from the bottom of my heart, I don't give a shit about that text. I'm more curious about how many features that fucking gun has more than anything."
"Is it really necessary for you to swear?"
"Is it really!? Your gun has two modes, an AI, a database, can use MANA bullets, and has a built-in FLASHLIGHT! It's even ridiculously powerful, too!"
Haruo could only roll his eyes at her over-exaggeration, for she was complaining about something so trivial. They had experienced multiple events in the past 24 hours. One being the fight with Kilian, traveling to another world, and randomly entering a mechanical tomb.
Don't even get him started on how they found a legendary artifact within a mechanical tomb, which was completely unheard of until now.
And yet, the thing she was most focused on was his firearm, his own gun.
"I really don't get you."
"Wow… Okay, sure, whatever you say."
Ignoring Ena, Haruo analyzed the large script.
Dozens of drawings are scattered all around the stone walls, but what caught his attention the most was the five drawings formed in a pentagon formation, surrounding which looks to be a singular drawing depicted as a demon.
The five drawings varied in design; one was a sun, the second a double X, the third a candle, the fourth a crown, and the fifth a lemniscate sign.
Lying next to the symbols were short, simple runic, unlike the rest of them.
"Oscar…"
Responding instantly to his call, Oscar got to work and spread the blue light out like he had done the last time.
[Translating…]
[Translation complete!]
[Glory to Nalon, Symbol of the sun.
Honor to Leila, Symbol of the helix.
Respect to Liuna, Symbol of the candle.
Hail to Hein, Symbol of the crown.
Wisdom to Loren. Symbol of understanding.
Pain to the anguished one. Sergio.]
They were honorifics, titles for six different people. Each of them represents a symbol of some sort, but for what?
"Are these people gods or something?"
"… Master told me about them once. He said never to believe them."
Amidst the symbols were tiny drawings of many people watching the five symbols, but from his point of view, it wasn't just watching; they were worshipping them.
Although, despite receiving all this information, neither Haruo nor Ena cared about it at all. They didn't need to know about the secrets of the world, since that wasn't their goal anyway.
If anything, they wanted to know what price they could fetch by selling this information. That was their only view on the inscriptions.
They weren't adventurers like in those novels. They were just people trying to find a living for themselves.
Yet, even though they didn't need or want it, they were quite curious about what happened during that time.
"You know, if artifacts were originally in the 3rd period, why didn't they just use their devices to store all their data?"
"The devices you're talking about were also artifacts."
"Still…"
"But I do get your point, however, every single piece of data we had on the 3rd period was nearly erased, even the digital world wasn't spared. If all had been erased, the 3rd period would never have existed in history until they found tombs.
Be grateful they left some history in these drawings."
Having felt they overstayed their welcome, they decided to explore a bit, in hopes they would find their exit.
Although they had been traveling for hours, they had yet to find another source of light. Turn after turn, they met the same darkness and tall walls as before. There was no end to it.
"This is so boring… I'm surprised your gun hasn't shut down yet after all this time."
"Oscar, how long have we been in this tomb for?"
[4 Hours and 23 Minutes, sire]
"Oh, so you're just ignoring me now?"
"By this time, the test had already started. We're late."
"OH, RIGHT! The test, I forgot about that, who cares about that anyway?"
"That's the only way we can get a job in the kingdom, by the way."
"Yeah, boo hoo, I still don't care."
Another hour had passed, and they were still walking. At that point, Ena started to believe they were running in circles. Not only was it boring, but it was also infuriating. Until…
At the end of the corridor was light. Foreign light is different from theirs. Hope rose from Ena as she sprinted toward it. With each footstep she took grew louder and louder, a feeling of liberation washing over her.
That feeling would slowly be replaced as she realized she hadn't escaped; instead, she was in another large room.
She laughed to herself quietly, throwing her hair forward as she messily scratched her scalp. Haruo followed suit and witnessed the scale of the entire room. It was at least ten times larger than the last room they've been to. Observing further, it was noticeable that the color palette had changed completely, from dark blue to greyish white.
Similarly, it still had a dome-shaped structure and a statue at the very center. However, it wasn't just a single statue like the last time. Instead, it was five different statues, formed in a pentagon formation exactly as the drawings they had seen.
Sun, Helix, candle, crown, and lemniscate.
Five different people, their faces blurred with the sole exception of their eyes.
It was strange that their faces were not carved, unlike the statue from earlier. But they realized that the statue corresponding to the sun was also blurred.
Why was there a need to blur the sun's face if the other statue wasn't? All was too confusing, but he didn't want to dwell on useless thoughts forever. After all, he just wanted to get out as soon as possible.
That wasn't the only thing that caught Haruo's eye, but also the fact that every statue was pointing in different directions, some were pointing in the same direction, while the rest were pointing in different directions.
Letting out a soft sigh, Haruo investigated the room further. There were five passageways, along with each one, atop it was a marking that corresponded with a symbol.
"If the walls weren't indestructible, I would've destroyed this whole tomb already…"
"If you're tired, just go sit down, you're not the only one suffering here."
"Easy for you to say! You spent the majority of your life sleeping in sleeping bags or on grass! I've only been doing this for two months! And there isn't even a sleeping bag or a patch of grass anywhere!"
"Exactly why I didn't want to bring you along in the first place."
"Ouch… Way to ruin the mood for me even more, Haru… You're so heartless."
With each word she spoke, the more intolerable she became. Haruo even wondered if the reason why he's so tired was Ena, instead of the tomb itself.
In their discussion, they felt tiny vibrations in the ground. Knowing what that meant, they instantly became alerted and glared at the room around them. Nevertheless, the room hadn't changed one bit. All was the same all throughout.
All except the statues themselves.
The direction they had once been pointing at had shifted.