Chapter 16 (1/2)

“Hey Lapis. Sorry to interrupt your good mood.”

As he watched Ritz clumsily climb up the ladder, he called Lapis, who was standing next to him with a big smile on her face, as calmly as he could.

Lapis, who was in a good mood being able to explore Ancient Kingdom ruins, turned her smiling face toward Loren.

“Once we climb up there, wouldn’t they tell us to go home?”

Unlike Lapis, who was too excited at the rare opportunity, Loren was calm the whole time.

Lapis froze at Loren’s words.

“Ritz and the others know the way back because they fell down to this floor, right? If we go up, it means they know the way back from there.”

All they had to do now was see if taking them further so they could use Lapis’ divine arts once, was worth it.

If Loren was in their shoes, it would be easier if he told them that they were lucky to get out and to go home, even it meant not being able to use divine arts.

Loren thought that veteran adventurers would come to a similar conclusion, but apparently Lapis hadn’t thought that far ahead, as was still frozen on the spot.

“What should I do. This is unexpected.”

“I guess you have your moments as well.”

“I was too excited by the fact that I could explore the ruins… But we really must go to the upper floor. There’s really nothing down here.”

Loren turned his gaze from Lapis, who looked troubled, to Ritz, who was still climbing the ladder.

To Loren, having Ritz tell him the way back and getting out of there wasn’t a problem.

To adventurers like Ritz and his party or to someone who acted out of intellectual curiosity like Lapis, the ruins might be a fun place to be, but to Loren it was just a dangerous place that he could care less about.

But seeing Lapis this dispirited, he felt like he wanted to grant her wish despite the dangers he might have to face.

“Is there like, anything we have to offer?”

“Other than divine arts? That’s a difficult question. If I told them I could use magic as well, I would look too suspicious.”

“Anything like knowledge or skills?”

“If I can find out what kind of ruin this is, I’ll have a pretty good idea of what these ruins look like.”

The information that Lapis just said was very useful, even to someone like Loren who didn’t know anything about exploring ruins.

He thought that it was more efficient if they had a basic idea of what the insides looked like than to walk around with no idea.

“That’s impressive, but how would you know?”

As Ritz barely managed to climb to the top, Quartz started to climb up, but because of his robe and his old age, he was even slower than Ritz.

As Loren asked Lapis, he saw Nim’s face become frustrated at how slow the two before her were, and at how long they were making her wait.

“Loren, do you know what the adventurer guild looks like inside?”

“I’m not too sure, but there’s the floor with the front desk and a place where you can eat, right? There’s also the archives and the guild master’s room… Something like that?”

Loren, who hadn’t been an adventurer for long, didn’t know too well about the building so he told her what he saw and heard about, and Lapis nodded.

“The details don’t matter, but buildings like the adventurer’s guild look like each other no matter where it is located. Apparently, it’s so that employees could adapt faster whenever they move around to different locations, but the same thing can be said for ruins as well.”

Loren saw Quartz, who was halfway up, miss a rung and fall back down.

Since it was quite a long fall, Loren was worried that he may have hurt himself, but he immediately stood back up, rubbing his butt. But he let out a groan as Nim, who was even more frustrated now, kicked him down.

Although Loren knew she wasn’t being serious, and Quartz knew that as well, he couldn’t help but see it as abuse, so he averted his eyes.

“People in the Ancient Kingdom built things functionally and efficiently, so most of the time buildings are built similarly.”

“Any exceptions?”

“There always exceptions. Apparently, that stayed the same from ancient times, and there are weirdly built ruins every now and then.”

Lapis crossed her arms, annoyed.

Although slightly unreliable, Loren thought that the fact that Lapis was a priest of the Knowledge god who used divine arts as well as being quite knowledgeable about ruins was good enough of a reason for Ritz to tell them they could stay.

Loren concluded that if he told Ritz what Lapis just told him before Ritz tells them to go home, there was a high possibility that they could stay. As he decided that he would make the effort for Lapis, who still looked frustrated, Quartz gripped the edge of the hole and froze.

“This is bad!”

As soon as he yelled, Jack jumped over Quartz and back down the hole.

Ritz followed right after him, and shouted as he descended.

“Goblins!”