Chapter 784 – 90 Days – In the Land Where the Old Gods Sleep
“The weather is nice today, so there’s no problem going down, but the people behind you…”
“They are so high-ranking that it would be blasphemous for me to introduce them to them, so you had better not pay any attention to them.”
“Oh, I understand! Sir Leonie, please come down!”
The driver who greeted me urgently quickly got out of the way of the road he was blocking.
“Surprisingly, there are knights guarding the crater?”
“Oh, sometimes strange people crawl into the crater. Sometimes they are demons, orcs who have lost their temper, and sometimes witches and wizards appear.”
After explaining calmly, Leonie headed first to the stairs that lead down to the center of the crater.
The princess followed behind him and naturally took Hedone’s hand.
“I understand that the crater in the Magica Kingdom was definitely created by Emperor Jupiter. Could that have been the reason for this place as well?”
“Well, to be honest, I don’t think that’s true, Hedone.”
“Is there a reason?”
Leonie nodded without a second of hesitation. She was going down the stairs very carefully.
“Even if it wasn’t Emperor Jupiter, if someone like that appeared and created this crater, it’s only natural that a story would come down, right?”
“You thought it wasn’t made by the emperor because no such story was ever passed down?”
“Oh, all I can say is that there has been this huge crater for a very long time, and there is a huge river flowing along the center of it.”
Leonie pointed with her finger to a river flowing coolly through the center of the crater.
“If I’m not mistaken, it feels quite artificial.”
“Well, I heard this place has been like this for a long time.”
It’s just because it’s been like that since ancient times. Unlike Leonie, who dismissed this as a natural appearance in some sense, the princess’s expression was serious.
‘I don’t know who did this and for what purpose. It certainly wouldn’t be easy to create a crater.’
When asked if there was any sense of evil intent, of course there was no such thing. There didn’t seem to be any problems with the river passing through the center of the huge crater.
“Anyway… The stairs end here. As the princess can see from here, there is just a dirty, wide plain.”
Leonie spread his hands wide and pointed to a land that was so vast that it felt a bit like an empty plain.
“It would be nice to call this a huge basin. But Princess Heojeop? Isn’t it a little strange?”
“Miss Hedone still calls me that.”
Rather than feeling bitter, the princess simply burst out laughing and looked at the stairs she had come down, and then at the slope of the huge crater.
“It’s definitely strange. I would say it makes quite a bit of sense.”
“Huh? What? Why is it strange? It’s good for a couple to think alike, but don’t keep it to yourself.”
At Leonie’s words, the princess carefully looked around the crater.
“Isn’t this a fairly large piece of land? The slope doesn’t really matter when it comes to growing organisms.”
“As Princess Heojeop said, as long as it is not a rocky mountain, living things will grow roots wherever they can.”
It was only then that Leonie noticed the shape of the crater, which was devoid of anything, including large trees, except for the moderately growing weeds.
“Now that I think about it, it is true. It grows abundantly along the Holympus Mountains.”
“Yes, just as Miss Leonie thought. It is quite strange that not a single proper plant or tree is growing on such a huge land.”
“And isn’t this crater a terrain that any ordinary noble would drool over, wanting to somehow make it his fiefdom?”
Hedone, who spoke, pointed to a very steep slope and then to a wide plain.
“There is a lot of land that can be used as farmland. It will take quite a long time to move the materials needed for construction, but this land can be said to be a perfect natural fortress that can withstand that.”
“Just by building a castle wall along the slope of the crater, you will be able to gain a huge advantage in the water battle. This is something that can be done with the wealth and power of the Aubert family, the powerful family in the south.”
“That’s true. Even from a knight’s perspective, this is a great place to build a huge castle.”
Leonie, who until now had thought this was such an obvious thing, began to question it for the first time in her life.
“Even if my father said so, did our ancestors not think of building a castle here? It has been known to be like this for a very long time.”
“There must be a reason why no one lives in this seemingly perfect land, and the end is the influx of monsters.”
Hedone could reason no further. In her eyes, this land looked very fertile, and it felt strange that she had not laid down a foundation.
“I guess…”
Only the princess could know the truth.
She looked around with a very serious expression and slowly walked towards the curved ground.
“Oh, hey! Princess! There’s no need to dig into the ground with both hands like that…”
“Both of you look at this.”
The princess coolly dug out the dirt with her hands and pointed to something she quickly found.
“What is this? It’s a pillar? Why is it a pillar?”
“There is no way that people would just leave such a desirable piece of land alone. It can be said that people actually made an effort to live here.”
“Huh, then what do you mean. I tried so hard, but in the end I couldn’t survive at all?”
“That’s right, Miss Leonie. I wanted to live in this land, but the Aubert family knows better than anyone else that no one can live there.”
The princess firmly grasped the dirt with both hands and headed towards the cool, gurgling river.
“It’s a land that even has a river flowing through it. This land is so fertile that it would be foolish not to do farming.”
“It is just as the princess said. Even without digging into the soil with both hands, I can see structures that could not have been formed naturally remaining like ruins.”
“What… I didn’t know until now, but it’s definitely true. This is a pillar, right? This is the floor! No matter how you look at it, that’s a roof?”
Leone, realizing that there was a great secret in the scenery he took for granted, touched his chin with his hand.
“I know that our ancestors were not fools and tried to live here. But do you know why?”
“It’s not for nothing that this place is called the land where the old gods sleep.”
The princess put her hand into the river to wash the dirt off her hand and turned her head to the south.
“Miss Leonie, this river flows and eventually heads to Eze Village, right?”
“Ugh, I know that if you go further down past Eze Village, it leads to a huge sea that separates the land where the southerners live and the land where we live.”
“Isn’t the situation in Ezu Village the same as here?”
“Oh? Wait!”
Leonie, with a surprised expression, nods her head.
“Yes! That’s right! It’s the same as here! Ezu village can’t do proper farming, so they can’t even grow wheat, right?”
“Yes, the situation in Ezu Village is a little better than here, so we can plant so-called bad crops. This is probably possible because the poison rising in this land is at least diluted by the river water.”
The princess slowly approached the river and looked south, where Ezu Village was located.
“It is just as the princess said. The further down the river I go, the more I see an environment that can be called nature.”
“Then this land… Isn’t it incredibly dangerous? It’s a place so toxic that even plants can’t grow properly!”
“There must be a reason why they say the old gods are asleep.”
Having unlocked the secrets of her Ezu village and the secrets of her crater, the princess moves her feet while looking around her surroundings very carefully.
“People never create legends and fairy tales for no reason. Even if they are creations created purely for entertainment, they inevitably reflect the times.”
After calmly looking around her surroundings, the princess arrived at a land that was a little more blatantly lower than other places.
“I think there was a bigger building here than I thought, princess? There aren’t any pillars, but look at this.”
Leonie kicked a rectangular stone deeply embedded in the ground with her foot.
“These stones are carved by craftsmen and laid on the floor.”
“Isn’t there just one or two stones like that?”
At Hedone’s words, the princess nodded her head, and suddenly she started tapping her foot here and there.
After acting like that for a while, the princess felt the hardness of her toes and jumped in place several times on the ground with a different texture. Then she suddenly lowered her body and started digging.
“Ah, no matter what, it’s the princess… Should she go upstairs and get a shovel?”
“It’s okay. Just leave it alone, Leonie.”
“Still, I can’t let the princess get dirt all over her body like that.”
“Do you think the princess cares about that? She will never dig up the dirt with her own two hands until she is satisfied.”
Leonie looked at Hedone, who had a proud expression on her face that she knew him well, with an expression of astonishment.
“Your Majesty the Emperor is also a fool.”
“Oh, suddenly? For what reason did you say that?”
“I worked hard to put that curse and all, but in the end, I couldn’t do anything about Hedone’s love, right? I think I underestimated love too much.”
Feeling good about her unexpected compliment, Hedoné slightly raised the corners of her mouth and smiled.
“Right now, at this very moment, my head is still screaming that she is not the princess…”
“You two! Come here quickly!”
Hedoné smiled and moved her feet at the cries of the princess covered in her dirt.
“What is this… It’s a huge stone?”
“I think it was originally used as a door. But that’s not the point.”
With a proud expression on her face, the princess grabbed the two huge figures with both hands.
“Now, sleep, wait! We really need to call someone for this—”
“Huh…!!! Ha! Look! Miss Leonie! There are stairs going down, right?”
The princess lifted the door deeply buried in the ground and lightly threw it aside, smiling brightly as she pointed to the stairs leading down to the deep basement.
“Should we be surprised by the fact that there are stairs or by the princess’s strength…”
Leonie looked genuinely dumbfounded, but she couldn’t help but be excited about going underground and exploring an unexpected place.
