Chapter 1203 – Ep.1201 Smith, a Black Company in Another World
The pipe sank down as the weight increased.
And as the coffin sank, the portrait hanging on the wall protruded ever so slightly.
Just in case, I lifted the upper body that was hanging on the coffin, but fortunately, the coffin, once sunken, did not rise again.
“Ugh!”
I fully raised my body and grabbed Nuit’s hanging back and lifted it up, but the coffin still remained slightly dented.
After gently putting Nuit down on the floor, who was squeaking in pain but not resisting even though he was my owner, I headed to the wall to check the protruding portrait.
“…”
A portrait that stretches from floor to ceiling.
It is quite excessive, if not excessive, but considering that it is a portrait of the emperor, the conqueror of the Continent, I tried groping and pushing the huge frame of a size that was understandable, but the portrait did not budge, just like when I first tried to move the coffin with force. Br〉
‘Weight… Probably not.’
My eyes naturally turned to the remaining portraits and coffins.
“Ingrim.”
“Why are you doing that?”
She was meticulously carrying out the one task she was told to do, but when I called her, she stopped what she was doing and looked back.
“Stop for a moment and come this way.”
When I gestured, she engraved a simple sign on the spot where she was currently standing and came to my side.
“Check if there is any hidden space around this portrait.”
“Hmm.”
Ingrim, who was standing next to him, closed his eyes and a familiar glow of light began to creep around him. When some time has passed.
“There is no empty space.”
“Are you sure?”
“That’s what I feel. If you don’t trust it, check again later when the children you sent up come back.”
“… “I understand first.”
After sending Ingrim back, I walked up to Nuit, who was sitting on the floor and staring blankly at her, and lifted her up.
“Master… ?”
“Shh.”
When I put my hands in both armpits and lifted it up, it calmly drooped down like a cat, shaking its body every time I took a step.
“Lord, master?”
“It’s not like that.”
When I laid him down on the coffin, he opened his eyes in surprise, but I just ignored him and climbed on top of the coffin he was lying on with both feet.
Grrr.
“Huh?”
“Whoa…”
Just like before, when the coffin was slightly lowered, the portrait hanging on the wall popped forward ever so slightly.
Seeing that my prediction was not wrong, I breathed a sigh of relief and lifted Nuitl, who was blinking blankly, back to the coffin on the other side, laid her down and climbed on top of her.
Grrr.
The coffin goes down again and the portrait pops forward.
So I repeated the series and stood on the fourth and final coffin.
With the same sound, the coffin went down, and the portrait stuck on the wall moved. The moment when the last portrait pops forward and once again all the portraits form a perfect plane.
Kugugung──!!
The entire cavity began to tremble loudly, the ground trembled precariously as if an earthquake had occurred, and dust and debris began to fall like crazy from the ceiling.
“Lord, master?”
“Stay still.”
Nuit gave me an uneasy look at the ground and ceiling, which were shaking uneasily as if they would collapse at any moment, but I lightly ignored them and called Ingrim in with a wave of my hand.
Kugugung──!!
“Hi!!”
“Don’t stick around because it makes me feel dirty.”
I left the two redundant scenes filming scenes together and looked around.
Let’s go!!
I could see the moment the sound became a little harsher.
The cavity, which is too empty to be a place to store the coffins of past emperors, begins to rotate step by step from the outer edge, as if turning a cube.
“Lord, master?! Something seems wrong?!”
“It definitely doesn’t seem like a good phenomenon.”
Ground and walls. And as the empty space began to gradually shrink every time the ceiling rotated like a piece at a certain width, even Ingrim, following Nuit, turned to me and said that it would not be a good idea to get out of this place.
But unfortunately, their wish could not be fulfilled.
This is because the entrance we came down from went towards the ceiling and at some point disappeared.
“Now, wait! Dying like this?! “Isn’t this the end?”
Nuit, who was trembling while holding onto Ingrim’s waist, still continued to rotate even though about half of her cavity was gone, and as she slowly narrowed towards me, she started yelling, holding on to the crotch of my pants.
“Ingrim.”
“What?!”
They say that when your life is in danger, your true nature comes out.
When her life was in danger, fearing that she might be the leader of a group of men secretly operating underground, Nuit, with her old temper, got hit on the top of her head by Ingrim’s fist and blinded her.
“My dear.”
Ingrim, who roughly threw the unconscious Nuit into the coffin, slowly gathered his strength and hid me behind him, as if he would destroy this space if necessary.
Of course, it wasn’t a very meaningful action since she was much taller, but my hand was naturally stroking her head as it was an action that was truly comparable to that of someone whose true nature came out right away.
“It’ll be okay.”
“… “I will try to save you at least if possible.”
Although it was temporary, I felt a little more at ease because her words had the same power as her poems.
“The children who went up probably also noticed what had happened and came back. But if it breaks down from above, you might get crushed below, so you’re just stamping your feet.”
“It’s okay if you don’t explain.”
“Uhm. Just in case, stay away a little.”
The once empty cavity was now closed off with a dead-end wall, except for the space around the coffins lined up in a row. And finally, at that moment, even the space that was left at the foot of the coffin rotated and became a dead wall.
Kugugung──!!
The sharp sound changed again to a dull mechanical sound.
The revolving door that seemed to swallow us narrowed, as if it were a lie, it jumped over the coffin we were standing on and moved to the wall where the portrait was hung.
And as if someone was teasing me, every time the wall where the portrait was hung rotated, the portrait gradually began to move away.
“Indeed.”
Ingrim shook his head once as if he noticed something, as he watched the portrait gradually getting farther away with the tendency to expand the space as it narrowed, and I, who had been anxious on the inside, sighed in relief and placed my chin on the top of Ingrim’s head.
“… Can I take it off?”
“No. “I just touch it.”
“I see.”
To calm my mind and body, I gently touched Ingrim’s chest as I looked at the portrait moving away. Each time my touch increased, something hard began to get caught on my finger through the thin fabric, but Ingrim didn’t show much.
“There was a reason we couldn’t find an empty space.”
“It looks like that.”
A portrait that seems to be endlessly receding, perhaps trying to expand the space that has disappeared.
I’m not sure what the principle is because I have no knowledge of architecture, but as I answered Ingrim, I felt like I knew roughly what the principle was and why not only her, but also Ardel and Lihina couldn’t find the hidden space.
The secret passages encountered so far were completed and hidden so that they could not be revealed, so if only they had been able to find them by spreading their spirit.
In the current case, as we have seen, it is normally a tightly closed space, but when the gimmick is activated, the existing space shrinks and the existing walls that are put together like a puzzle move using the reduced space to create a new space.
“I think it’s all over.”
“I see.”
As the dangerous floor and ceiling calmed down, the loud sound completely stopped.
I roughly placed the unconscious Nuit on my shoulder and came out of the coffin.
“Let’s go.”
“I will take the lead.”
“Please.”
With her Ingrim at her vanguard, I moved forward slowly, keeping my distance from her. And that was when I arrived in front of the wall where there was nothing but portraits hanging.
“This portrait is the only one that sticks out.”
“Press it.”
There is a portrait that tells anyone that they are suspicious.
It felt like there was a high probability that it would return to its original state, but I looked around and didn’t see anything special, so I decided to press it for now.
Once you know the gimmick, if you go back to the way it was, this time you can do it with Ardel and Rihina, who are above.
“Press.”
Ingrim applied a little force, and the portrait that was sticking out was gently pushed back in, like a lamb returning to its original position.
Kugugung──!!
Then, as expected, the space began to change once again.
“I think I really need to be careful this time.”
“… “Maybe so.”
The problem was that the space did not return to its original state, but that the space that had expanded starting with the pipe we had been standing on a moment ago began to rotate and shrink again.
But fortunately, what we feared did not happen.
The space, which had been shrinking as if it would completely crush us, gradually decreased in speed when it shrunk to about half, and soon stopped.
Grrrrm!
Then this time, the space we were standing on began to rotate to the right.
“Be careful.”
“… Thank you.”
I almost lost my balance and fell, but fortunately Ingrim, who was standing in front of me, caught me and I avoided falling.
“It’s over there.”
“… ?”
On the still rotating floor, Ingrim’s hand pointed in a certain direction. As I moved my eyes in that direction, I was able to discover a staircase leading down that was just big enough for one person.
“It’s over.”
“…”
In my experience, it feels like I’ve rotated enough times.
Although I still felt slightly dizzy, I walked down the newly created stairs with Ingrim’s help.
So, relying on the pure white flame created by Ingrim, I reached the end of the stairs.
“I think I won.”
“Yes.”
A broken and disorganized space filled with traces of some kind of experiment welcomed us.
