Chapter 108 – Headhunters (6)
Green lawns surround the road paved with white stones. Birds sit on the branches and sing, and rabbits and squirrels eat in corners. The most eye-catching thing in the beautiful natural scenery is the white temple located in the center.
The temple surrounded by the lake was accessible only by a bridge placed in the middle. The ornate decorations and antique patterns harmonized well, giving it a subtle look that seemed like a palace of the gods.
We were speechless at the wonderful scenery. As we stared blankly at the temple, the guide elf spoke to us quietly.
“Uh, uh… Now, as you promised, me…”
“Huh? Uh… No. You haven’t found the guys who ran away yet, have you? So shut up for a second.”
Belita sighed and turned her attention back to her temple. The temple was so beautiful. It was incomparable to the lord’s castle in Kalita.
After a while, we came to our senses and walked slowly towards the temple. When we crossed the bridge over the pond, the ‘ㅅ’-shaped temple entrance greeted us.
“Hoe…”
“And…”
Seris and Kara looked at the statue erected in front of the entrance and exclaimed.
It is a statue modeled after a knight in full plate armor holding a sword.
‘Looking at the pointy ears, it looks like an elf…’
Then, is this the temple of the elves?
“This… The runaway elves are not the problem. Let’s split in half and take a look around here. I’m going to scream when I find the elves.”
“What about those elves?”
I pointed to the elves we captured.
“We could tie it to one place and have Andrew and Joey keep an eye on it. The elf named Ariel… Will you keep her?”
I alternately looked at Ariel being held by me and the spirits following me floating in the distance. If Ariel is chained up, the spirits will try to free her. It’s better to hold onto it even if it’s a little cumbersome.
When I agreed, we split into three teams. Belita and Patrick moved to the left, Seris and Kara moved to the right.
* * *
“Eutcha! There isn’t… Here.”
After opening the door with difficulty, Celis shrugged her shoulders as if she had struggled in vain. I patted her on the shoulder.
“I’ve looked all this way, but since I haven’t seen anyone, it seems like they haven’t been to the temple.”
When I first arrived at the temple, I used the ‘Wolf’s Pact’ to scan the surroundings. At the time, I couldn’t feel anything with my sense of smell and hearing. However, unless it was a strong smell or sound, it could have been buried by the smell or sound coming from the forest, so I went around looking for the elf myself.
Even after walking around for 30 minutes, the elf couldn’t see a single hair. Ariel’s expression gradually brightened. I pinched Ariel’s cheek and twisted it
“Evil! What are you doing?!”
“I must have told you to shut up if you didn’t want to be followed. Won’t you shut up?”
“You pinched!”
“Aren’t you shutting up?”
“…A coward.”
Ariel glared at me, trembling at her absurdity.
Whatever.
You shouldn’t have been caught if you twisted it.
He punched Ariel in the back of the head. Her spirits wept loudly and Ariel widened her eyes.
“Human, you really…”
He brought the dagger closer.
“What am I?”
“…A coward.”
“Did you tell me to shut up?”
“…”
Finally, Ariel shuts up her loud mouth. I was going to tell Sister Ceris to go to the next room,
“…?”
The two of them were looking at me with wow-like faces.
“What’s the matter?”
“That’s the first time I’ve seen Yooseong act so rough…”
“That’s right, he’s a Kamp who catches people and holds meat parties. If you treat me kindly, that’s weird.”
“What, what?! Don’t be ridiculous! Why are we eating disgusting humans?!”
“Shut up.”
Shit. I hit the back of the head once more. Ariel looked very disgruntled, but her mouth was tightly shut.
“Anyway, if you don’t like it, I’ll refrain from doing it in front of you guys.”
At my words, Celis wiggled her fingers.
“No, there is no need to restrain yourself. I was a bit surprised because it was just an unexpected appearance… It’s not bad in its own way, it seems like it’s okay to do it to me in bed sometimes… Yoosung? Kara? Let’s go together!”
Leaving Seris behind, Kara and I arrived at her room at the end of the hallway. This door was a much thicker swinging door than the other rooms, and Kara seemed unable to open it alone. When I asked Celis, she walked to the door muttering something to herself.
“I really only need it sometimes…”
Then she put her hands on either side of the door and drew in her breath. As I pushed with force, the door moved inward little by little.
Kiik-
The door was fully opened, revealing a room. She patted her on the shoulder as she patted her arm, and went inside her.
“I don’t think there’s anything special here either… What is that?”
The interior of the room at the end of the hallway was different from the other rooms. While other rooms usually had people’s tools such as beds, shelves, and dishes, this room was empty without a single piece of furniture.
Except for the arched pillars attached to the wall visible from the front of the door. Scribbled letters were written on top of the pillar.
“What is this?”
I was staring at it, but Kara suddenly said excitedly.
“Brother, this is a secret door! It’s a secret room! The secret room where the treasure is hidden!”
“Secret room?”
“Huh! It’s from Sieghart’s adventure story! Look, even if it looks blocked like this, if you jump in with all your might, you can get in? Look. Like this…”
Tap, jump, thump!
“Ugh.”
Cara ran into her arched pillar and slammed her face first into the wall and fell backwards. Kara, who had fallen, did not get up for a while.
“…”
“…”
“…”
Me, Celis, and even Ariel looked at each other with pitiful looks. Kara covered her face with her palm. Seeing her ears turn red, she seems to know that she’s sold out.
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
“It hurts…”
* * *
“Hmm, my thoughts are the same as Kara’s. It doesn’t just look like decoration.”
Patrick looked at the arch and stroked his chin.
“Then the problem is how to open the door… You said you searched the room and found nothing?”
“Yes. I looked around to see if there was a lever or something, but there was none.”
Yooseong looked around the room and answered. In the first place, there was nothing in the room, but I searched meticulously, even writing down the ‘Wolf’s Oath’. Still, he couldn’t find anything related to that suspicious pillar.
“Hmm… Then there are three things I can think of. Either it’s really a decoration, or the device that opens the entrance is somewhere other than here, or that unknown letter is the answer. Personally, I think the last assumption makes the most sense.”
Patrick looked at the arched pillar and tapped his forearm with his index finger. He asked the meteor back to Ariel.
“You really don’t know?”
“Because I don’t know. How many times are you asking?”
He said as if he wasn’t tired of Ariel. Yuseong also looked at the pillar again and fell into trouble. Ariel rolled her eyes at him and smiled inwardly.
‘Stupid people. There’s no such thing as treasure.’
She knew what that pillar was. Because the spirits of the forest told me.
‘The entrance to the basement of the temple.’
Other than that, nothing special. The treasure room that humans think is just an illusion.
Also, even if there is a real treasure there, there is no way humans can go down there. The spirits said that the door will open only if you solve the riddle written on the pillar. Of course, it is impossible to open or break it by force.
‘There’s no way stupid people could read that. I can’t read either.’
The writing on the pillar is said to be a language that only the royal family among elves speak. That’s why even the spirits of the forest can’t read it. The riddle also changes every day at midnight, so it is useless to memorize the answer.
‘Whoa whoop.’
Thinking of the people who will go back after struggling in vain, I feel sick already…
“What blessing does a general want most to receive during a war? What is this?”
‘?!’
Ariel froze at the meteor’s murmur. As she examined his face, she saw that his pupils were focused precisely on the letters on the pillars.
‘Speak, nonsense… You read the writings of ancient elven royalty? A human? How?!’
Whether Ariel freaked out or not, the meteor’s murmur continued.
“Is it a mystery? Blessed… A general in a war… Well… Surrender?”
Cuckoo Palace.
The sound of something collapsing came from the wall inside the pillar. Soon, a crack opened in the wall, and the wall blocking them rose upward, revealing a staircase leading down to the basement.
“…Hey, what did you do?”
“Uh… I was just muttering to myself. Could it be that the keywords matched?”
After that, the two men talked about something, but Ariel didn’t hear it. I just stared at the meteor as if I couldn’t understand it.
“What? What’s the matter?”
Hearing the noise, Belita came running. After that, she entered the room in the order of Kara and Seris.
“The door going down is open.”
“What? What happened?”
“I’ll explain that as we go down. Rather, Seris…”
Meteor’s gaze turned to the bundle Seris was carrying. It’s because her bundle is much bigger and bigger than Belita or Kara’s. Sensing her meteoric gaze, Seris raised the corners of her mouth as much as she could.
“Yoosung, we are rich now. You can buy a real house, not a monthly rent!”
Patrick had said that the temple they are in now is impossible for the elves to make today, and that it was probably built 500 years ago during the heyday of the elves.
That said, everything in the temple is a 500-year-old antique.
Even though it is an antique, it is in good condition. It was clear that the price would go out quite a bit, so while Meteor and Patrick were looking at the pillar and thinking about it, the three of them went around to pick up bowls and pottery.
They should be divided into 6 equal parts, but Seris, Kara, and Yuseong are like family anyway. In that case, they would receive half the price of selling the antique, and that money would be enough to buy a house.
As the dream of owning a home looms in front of her eyes, Ceris couldn’t contain her oozing laughter. She loosened the corners of her mouth and the corners of her eyes, and she smiled.
“Yeah, I get it. Put it down there for now.”
“…Yes?”
“Don’t make that face. You can go downstairs and pick it up again.”
“Ah, I see.”
Three people put down the bundle. Yuseong and her party went down the stairs to the basement.
While going down, Seris hummed her and asked Yooseong, ‘Wouldn’t it be better to have a kitchen garden?’, ‘A two-story house would be nice too? In fact, it was close to a self-talk that didn’t need an answer.
‘Would it be that good?’
I thought there were no complaints about the house, so I took it off my spending priority. Yooseong felt a little sorry for her.
“I’m all down… But it’s dark.”
Unlike the stairs where I could see the front, the basement was so black that I couldn’t see an inch ahead. Yuseong used the pendant she received from Orr. Afterwards, Belita and Patrick also used it, and it became bright enough to move forward without any problems.
“You both received it.”
“I gave it to you as a gift the other day. By the way, there are pictures drawn on the walls.”
There were scratched paintings on the white walls. An elf wearing a crown and other elves kneeling. There were several pictures in a row, such as an elf wearing a crown commanding the front of the soldiers.
“What is this?”
As if Belita was curious, she stroked the painting. Yoosung crossed his arms behind him and said what he guessed.
“Looking at it, it doesn’t have much meaning, and it seems like it was drawn like a myth? Or it could be a record of the history of the ancient elven kingdom.”
Ariel’s eyes widened at the story of an ancient elven kingdom.
‘That’s our ancestor…’
She tried to get her picture into her head somehow. However, she was a hostage of Yuseong, and when he gave her strength, she had no choice but to be dragged helplessly.
“Wait a minute! Just a little bit. A little bit!”
“Okay, follow me quietly. Otherwise… Huh? Kara Why?”
“Brother over there.”
Kara pointed in front of her. There was someone wearing full plate armor sitting where her finger pointed.
Everyone in the party stopped moving. Yuseong looked at Patrick and nodded his head and opened his mouth.
“Are you sleeping?”
No answer.
“Can I go over there?”
Likewise no answer.
Yuseong put his hand on his waist and slowly approached. His armor did not move until he reached his side, and Yuseong carefully reached out and tore off his helmet.
Inside the armor was a pure white bone.
“…It looks like he was an elf 500 years ago. It looks exactly like the armor of the statue I saw at the entrance.”
“Why are you dying here? There doesn’t seem to be any dried blood marks.”
“Yeah I don’t know. Let’s go at once.”
Yuseong and his party moved forward again. It wasn’t long before I was confronted with a more shocking sight than before.
“What is this again…”
There are bones in armor lying all over the corridor, and bloodstains are hardened next to the skeletons with scratches on the armor.
At the end of the corridor, a light purple curtain shone.
