Underground Ruins (1)
Many things had happened along the way, but after going around in circles, they ultimately returned to their original destination.
The underground ruins of the Forgotten Age.
One section of the rocky cliff had split apart as if misaligned, creating a large opening. At first glance, the terrain looked precarious. Yet countless people were calmly entering and leaving the entrance.
"So they said the ground has been reinforced."
There was no way the Religious Alliance would neglect safety management. Since they had thoroughly carried out internal construction work, an accident was unlikely unless something truly extraordinary happened.
Duran urged them on.
"Follow me quickly. It will take quite some time to look around inside."
"Yeees."
Claire hurried along behind Duran, who walked ahead. Their appearance resembled that of a grandfather and granddaughter.
Woojin quietly moved along as if tagging along with them. Before long, the entrance was right in front of them.
As they stepped inside…
A corridor made of pale gray bricks soon came into view. It was a sloping passage leading underground. Workers were busily moving up and down the stairs, carrying crates of supplies.
"Materials for the excavation, perhaps."
Woojin casually glanced sideways at the workers' crates.
However, they were filled with somewhat unexpected items.
Clusters of green grapes with a delicious sheen.
Seeing them, Woojin tilted his head slightly.
"…What? A special meal?"
He had once heard that sailors in the medieval era carried large amounts of lemons and limes aboard their ships to prevent scurvy…
Could those grapes be for a similar purpose?
While he was making that guess, Claire, who stood nearby, also seemed puzzled.
"Master, what are those grapes used for?"
"It seems another troublesome puzzle has appeared."
"Huh… a puzzle?"
When Claire asked to confirm, Duran nodded and added an explanation.
"These underground ruins are filled with all kinds of secrets and traps. Enough to make you sick of them. Because of that, research on the ruins keeps getting delayed."
Places like ruins or royal tombs typically contained many defensive measures designed to stop grave robbers.
But even considering that…
The ruins of the Forgotten Age were particularly excessive. As if they were puzzle boxes created by a madman obsessed with riddles.
While listening to the explanation, Woojin asked a question.
"Do we absolutely have to solve those puzzles? Couldn't we just smash the locks by force?"
"It's not as easy as it sounds."
Humans of the ancient empire possessed extremely powerful magic. Spells and artifacts far more advanced than those of today.
Since the puzzles in ancient ruins originated from such old magic…
If they were recklessly destroyed, an irreversible disaster might occur.
"If you're really unlucky, the entire ruin could collapse or even explode."
"Surely they wouldn't go that far."
These traps were meant to catch grave robbers.
If the whole ruin were destroyed because of them, it would be like burning down an entire house just to catch a flea.
The loss would far outweigh the gain.
But Duran answered seriously.
"There have been cases."
There had actually been incidents where ruins collapsed and excavation teams were buried underground.
That was why researching the ruins of the Forgotten Age was an extremely difficult and dangerous task.
Hearing that story raised another question in Woojin's mind.
"Tower Master, I'm sorry for bothering you again, but may I ask one more question?"
"Questions are a good habit. Go ahead."
There were still plenty of stairs left, and they had nothing else to do until they reached the ruins.
At those words, Woojin asked without hesitation.
"Why is the Religious Alliance focusing so much on this, even postponing the third expedition? If researching ancient ruins is this difficult and dangerous, wouldn't it be better to simply give up?"
The Religious Alliance was obsessing over ancient ruins.
Because of that, the schedule for the planned third expedition kept being delayed.
Why does the Religious Alliance prioritize ruin research over the expedition?
Duran answered the question.
"Have you ever heard of the 'Gate of Another World'?"
"Yes. I've heard of it occasionally."
The Gate of Another World.
Woojin had first read about it while studying the Records of the Demonic Realm.
There was once a kingdom in the north.
A powerful nation that stood out so much that it was difficult to find anything to compare it to.
But as generations passed, its national power declined, and it lost all its major territories, eventually being pushed to the frontier.
To reclaim its lost glory, it needed strength.
After much deliberation, the king turned his attention to the ancient ruins of the north.
The ruins of the Forgotten Age.
Within them was a massive crack.
A crack tightly sealed shut like a stubborn clam.
According to legend, it was a kind of door.
"The Gate of Another World."
Beyond that door lay unimaginable power and the ultimate truth governing all things.
Believing this, the king poured astronomical sums of money into researching the ruins.
But when the door finally opened, what appeared was the disaster everyone already knows.
"The Demonic Realm."
Things from beyond the door arrived in the present world.
The war that began then still continues to this day.
…Here, a question arises.
"Have you ever thought something about it was strange?"
"Well… I'm not sure."
It was a story he had heard many times before.
What could possibly be strange about it now?
The Tower Master raised a point.
"How did they know that the crack in those underground ruins was a 'door' leading to another world… when no one had ever opened it?"
"…That's true."
Now that he thought about it, it was strange.
Excavating ancient ruins was dangerous, difficult, and required enormous amounts of money and time.
Until the northern king stepped in, proper research had never really been conducted.
Yet the Gate of Another World had been a legend passed down since ancient times.
In fact, the king had become interested in researching the ruins because of that very legend.
A clearly unnatural situation.
To explain it, the mages proposed a hypothesis.
"The Forgotten Age—the era erased from history… the Gate of Another World must have opened once before during that time."
The Gate had already been opened once.
That was why the legend existed.
The mages speculated this, and from that hypothesis they deduced another possibility.
"There must be a way to close the Gate."
Humanity of the ancient era must have somehow driven back the Demonic Realm and sealed the Gate of Another World.
During that process, the ancient empire collapsed, and the most brilliant magic and artifacts were lost.
An entire age was forgotten.
In the aftermath, terrified humans began seeking gods.
Whether their desperate prayers were answered or not, heavenly gods granted them power born from faith.
Thus began the Age of Divinity.
Just when that new era had finally reached a period of stability…
The Demonic Realm descended upon the world once again.
Therefore, what humanity must do is clear.
"Purify the Core of the Rift and reclaim the old territories. Then research the ancient ruins there to discover how to close the Gate."
Just as the northern king had opened the Gate through ruin research,
the Religious Alliance was investigating newly discovered ruins in order to find a clue to end the war.
Duran suddenly looked ahead.
"…While I was giving you a history lesson, we've already arrived. This is the central area of the ruins."
Duran pointed forward.
Following his fingertip, Woojin shifted his gaze and saw a remarkable sight.
A wide plaza beneath a dome-shaped ceiling.
Strange characters and images were carved across every wall, and between the stone pillars supporting the ceiling stood structures resembling altars.
Centered around the altar, multiple paths stretched out in every direction.
Corridors divided like a maze. Hundreds of people were busily moving back and forth along those routes like ants.
You could practically call it an underground city.
Woojin looked around the surroundings with quiet amazement. Claire, standing beside him, also seemed deeply impressed.
"Wow, this is even more incredible than I imagined! Where should we start?"
"Well…"
If they let their guard down, it felt like they could easily get lost. It was hard to even guess where they should begin.
While they were discussing it—
"How about following that fellow?"
Duran casually joined the conversation and nodded his chin toward a worker walking ahead.
It was the same worker Woojin had noticed earlier—the one carrying a crate full of green grapes.
Though he hadn't shown it outwardly, it seemed Duran had been quite curious about what those grapes were used for.
Woojin and Claire were just as curious, so they quickly nodded.
"I'm fine with that."
"Me too."
"Then let's follow him."
The three of them quietly followed behind the worker.
After some time passed, Woojin's group was able to step into a small stone chamber.
Workers busily set down crates of fruit in one corner of the room.
A middle-aged male mage was personally checking the boxes.
The mage glanced over toward them… and upon noticing Duran, hurriedly showed proper respect.
"Oh! The Tower Master has come personally."
"I was actually planning to come and give you a report," the mage added nervously.
Duran waved his hand dismissively as if telling him not to worry about it.
"That's enough with the formalities, Fabian. What are these grapes used for?"
"Please come this way."
The mage called Fabian guided the Tower Master deeper into the chamber.
Woojin and Claire quietly followed behind them.
What they discovered next…
Was a table carved from marble-white stone.
A large table. A basket. And inside the basket, a cluster of grapes.
All of them were sculptures carved from the same rock.
Was it carved from a single stone?
The table, basket, and grapes were firmly connected together so they couldn't be separated—one single sculpture.
On the wall nearby hung an old plaque.
Fabian read the inscription aloud.
"It says: Prepare a feast for the heroes. Fill the basket…"
Duran checked the basket and responded.
"So that's why you brought fruit."
"Yes. Since there's a grape sculpture inside the basket, we believed it might be a clue."
If the condition written on the plaque was fulfilled, the secret hidden within the ruins might appear.
For that reason, Fabian had ordered various fruits to be brought.
"Go ahead and try it."
"Understood."
Fabian personally brought over a crate of grapes, took them out one by one, and began stacking them neatly in the basket.
It seemed he intended to fill it entirely with grapes first.
He piled them up until the basket was almost overflowing…
But nothing particularly changed.
Duran clicked his tongue.
"Looks like it was pointless."
"Indeed. Should we try mixing in other fruits?"
"It's probably not that simple."
This wasn't something that could be solved by brute-forcing attempts.
Duran thought for a moment before speaking.
"I recall there being a mural depicting a fruit basket somewhere in the ruins. Perhaps we simply need to arrange the fruits in the basket exactly like that."
"I see! I'll try it immediately."
Fabian hurried toward the exit to check.
But before he could leave, Woojin muttered something.
"Doesn't the basket look strange?"
"You're right. The shape is a little unusual."
Claire, standing beside him, agreed.
It was indeed a rather uncommon design.
Heptagon… no, octagon.
Looking from above, the basket was octagonal.
The edges were sharply defined with no curves, each face directly opposing another. Even the base looked perfectly flat, as if measured with a ruler.
It resembled the shape of an MMA fighting arena—the octagon.
Maybe this was the clue.
Prepare a feast for the heroes. Fill the basket.
Woojin pondered the sentence for a moment…
Then suddenly thought of something he wanted to try.
"Claire. Could you cast a mirror-reflection spell on the inner sides of this basket sculpture?"
"That's easy."
Mirror Reflection.
A spell that makes the surface of an object reflect like a mirror.
Claire readily complied and cast the spell on the inner surfaces of the basket.
Eight reflective surfaces now shone like mirrors.
Four pairs of mirrors faced one another.
The grape sculpture at the center reflected in the mirrors, and those reflections bounced again into the mirrors opposite them…
The grapes multiplied infinitely in reflection, creating a dizzying number of images inside the basket.
Fill the basket.
Could there possibly be more grapes than this?
Rumble—
A grinding sound echoed, like old gears turning.
The wall split open, revealing a hidden door.
Claire gasped in amazement.
"Wooow! You solved it in one try?! I never knew you had such talent!"
"Experience from escape rooms doesn't disappear."
It seemed like things were finally about to get interesting again.
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