Episode 125 – Aged Food (1/2)

Episode 125 – Aged Food

Previously:

While writing a letter to her fiance, Nelaira thinks about the events that led to her current predicament She re staircase clih the reen valley filled ildlife and ruins of a village They decide to take one day off to recuperate Nelaira uses her day off to explore the ruins and finds a diary hidden inside a pillar While picking herbs Luki finds a patch of land where a large quantity of ash is buried under the soil He finds it suspicious but his coree

“Let’s say that someone indeed buried the remains of a pyre here in the last 20 years The question is, ould so the ashes of a pyre?”

Aurel Iphis sighed, deciding that the sooner they started playing along, the sooner they would finish with this ridiculous conversation “The only reason why someone would bother to bury the ashes would be either to hide them or because it was a part of some sort of ritual”

“Or perhaps the ash was an eyesore?” The archeologist of the group gruht,” Nelaira nodded “Let’s set the ritual aside for now Why would so traces of their pyre? Perhaps what they did wasn’t right and proper, and they didn’t want others to find out about it?” Luki’s eyes glistened

The archeologist with a ht that it would be better for the environ more ideas to the mix “Perhaps there was someone on their trail, and they wanted to wipe off all traces that they were there?”

“Any other ideas?” Nelaira glanced over the group, but this tiht So then, since the ashes were allegedly buried in the last 20 years, that would mean that either Zor’s expedition buried it or there are survivors in the forbidden zone”

Luki nodded his head like a cluckling pecking rice

Nelaira continued: “Personally, I think the pyre was used to burn the bodies of our fallen co dead bodies around would be impractical”

Luki interrupted: “But weren’t causalities caused by the Tainted? Since this place is untainted, the encountered Tainted would have attacked them before they reached this place I doubt Zor Arite would carry tainted bodies up thethe remainder of his squad”

Silence descended onto the clearing

“I still believe it thethis place and buried the ashes because they were unsightly” The archeologist broke the silence

He was ignored once again

“Perhaps they encountered the tainted on their way up and hid inside the passage through the mountain? The tainted comrades were in bad shape but not dead yet, so he had no choice but to carry the them towards an untainted place?” The redhead offered

“Tainted comrades are a liability, not only would they slon the exploration but they would also potentially infect e Rule 5, Tainted comrades are to voluntarily leave the squad and abort the ave Luki a strict look “So, what you are suggesting is that either Zor’s expedition did so ritual, burned the evidence of so they shouldn’t have done, or that there are survivors in the forbidden zone?”

Everyone sucked in a cold breath

After disregarding the possibility of Zor Arite doing soht, frank and unyielding character), of the re two possibilities, the more likely one…

…could it be?

Could there really be survivors in the forbidden zone?

There had always been a possibility that the people in the Lands Under the shi+eld weren’t the only survivors of the Mage Wars However, since there had never been any evidence to support otherwise, the Purge were more inclined to believe that there weren’t any survivors

The forbidden zone was a place of death, a dangerous land not to be ventured into lightly And everyone that had survived the calais Arite, should be eternally grateful for the existence of the shi+eld of Aegis and the safe haven under it

If it turned out that long-term survival inside the forbidden zone was possible, that would change the public ie of the forbidden zone froerous land of hidden treasure Adventurers would be lining up to go into the forbidden zone, drea it rich

Saying that strict control of entry and exit was for the safety of everyone would no longer be as effective Thus, the Arites and the Purge had been fighting against this change of viewpoint for centuries, e and related personnel were allowed out, so that any treasure found would belong to the Arite fa the Arite family for years, but since only the Arite family could control the shi+eld to allow entry and exit, and since there was no possibility of living in the dangerous lands outside, all other families could do was to suck it up and pay heavy fees if they wanted to take their own expeditions out and keep the found loot

“Or it could just be a fire dragon” Nelaira shrugged “Personally, I wouldn’t go around talking about survivors without concrete evidence if I were you, Luki”

The tense silence had lasted for several ain broken by Nelaira’s callittered as she pulled out a small leather-bound book

Everyone was so thrilled about the little leather-bound diary, hoping to find soot about Luki’s ashes Even Luki, while not quite forgetting about theued by the small diary Perhaps there would be soist of the group spent the re the contents of the diary to coe of the ancients wasn’t largely different fronificant difference lay in the writing systeh a combination of letters, but instead, they had a unique symbol for each word Due to this, they had a countless number of different runes, which made it difficult for the populace to learn how to read and write

After the Lands Under the shi+eld were established, to make it easier to educate the commoners, the nobles came up with letters that represented different sounds and started writing out words how they were pronounced Naturally, this caused the revolution of education and brought significant gains to the develop the diary into the neriting syste the sentence structure to be easier to understand, everyone else resu

Nelaira continued her exploration for the rele building in the village All that was left were several buildings on the outskirts

She entered the ruined building, carefully watching her steps and sensing every crevice and rock, just like always She spread her Morph into the ground also, in case the ground was unstable and shouldn’t be walked on or if there was a hidden compartment in the floor where ancients loved to stash their secrets

Yet, this time, her exploration didn’t proceed as usual

Her breath caught in her throat and her footsteps paused

For she felt that the land underneath her feet…

…was hollow

Underneath this seely ordinary house, there was a cave, or perhaps a basement?