136 – Arcius – 1
After finishing our trip with Agnes, the two of us returned to the academy.
I reached a level where I didn’t mind attending the academy anymore, but I didn’t necessarily want to stop going.
Now you only have two years to attend the academy.
You can just hang out at a level that won’t get you expelled.
“Uhm….”
Actually, I am now in my second year, but I can’t get used to my current life.
It felt like something was going to happen at any moment.
That’s because my first year life was full of accidents.
Even if you just list the big events, it starts from the entrance ceremony, the Winter Castle, the death of Professor Akdin, Bishop Ifelsio Raid, and the descent of the Demon King.
… You really did all sorts of things.
I can’t believe this happened in just one year.
For others, it is a collection of things that may or may not happen once in a lifetime.
It is inevitable since you are possessed by a novel, but after going through something like this, it seems even more strange that nothing happened.
“What are you thinking about?”
Boom!
Someone’s hand passes through my hair. And a familiar voice.
Reached the highest level and was never caught behind.
If I hadn’t sensed someone’s presence until I got this close….
“I think it would be a waste to use short-distance teleportation to get closer.”
“If you had known that, wouldn’t you have welcomed me?”
Aksi suddenly pops out from behind.
She took a seat next to me, licking her lips with regret.
“No matter how much it is a dragon, the mana required for teleportation will not be small. “Aren’t you using it too much just because your mana has increased recently?”
“Do I have to listen to you nagging me when I’m using my own mana?”
There is a pout in the voice. Although she herself may deny it, having seen her for almost a year, I can understand to some extent.
Aksi is mad at me now.
I’m the one who stabbed her in the back, but I don’t know why she’s upset, but I guess that’s not what’s important to her right now.
I thought for a moment and then opened my mouth.
“What I promised a while ago. Do you remember?”
“What did you promise?”
“I was planning to visit your rare.”
“Ah, that.”
Aksi, who had been answering indifferently, thought about what I said once again and opened her eyes wide.
“Rare, rare? Are you going to take my rare? Really?”
“Because I promised. “I wanted to stop by at some point.”
“He, he. Class. Okay, what about class? No matter how much I use teleportation, since it’s a long distance, I have to spend a day recovering my mana, right?”
Aksi is embarrassed and spouts gibberish. I said without any hesitation.
“You can just skip class.”
“You’re skipping class?”
I am only a student at the academy in name and have no reason to take classes.
Staying here is also for Agnes and Rebecca.
So, skipping a few classes will not cause any problems.
I had already decided to go out and have fun after getting out of the appropriate range.
“Uh, uh….”
Akshi rolled her eyes, as if she didn’t know that I would go so far as to skip class.
At this point, you’ve probably forgotten why you’re upset.
“Okay, let’s go!”
Aksi shouts loudly and jumps up from her seat.
I glanced at her and stood up with her and held out her hand.
To teleport together, part of the body must be in contact with the caster.
Akshi hesitated for a moment, then grabbed her hand and kissed her mouth.
The language of dragons, not of humans.
Originally, the words were unintelligible, but half of my blood is dragon, so it’s not strange that I understand.
Now that I think about it, I have to go see my mother sometime too.
While thinking about such random thoughts, I close my eyes and when I open them, my body has moved.
What you see in front of you is lush greenery.
And only when you raise your head and look up, you can see only the huge trees with leaves.
And between the bushes and trees.
At most, there is one hole large enough for one person to enter.
It is hidden so well that the average person can never find it, but it cannot avoid my eyes.
“Is this place?”
The mana faintly flowing out through the hole is difficult to pass by.
I looked around the hole. It’s a hole so large that it doesn’t seem easy for an adult male to fit into. There’s an Aksy rare in here.
“Can I come in? “It seems difficult to enter into the morphology of dragons.”
“Of course I can’t go in. “It’s almost like bragging that it’s rare to get into that huge body in the first place.”
Aksi looked to the side and answered as if he was no longer surprised.
The dragons that are told in stories usually brag about being rare.
When I’m with Aksi, my general knowledge about dragons keeps breaking down.
No, maybe common sense is wrong.
“And so is this hole. “You can’t just enter like this.”
As Akshi extends her hand towards her hole, her mana flows into the hole.
Kung, Kugung.
With a loud noise, the inside of the wall where the hole was shakes. The leaves fell to the ground and at the same time the bushes blocking the hole scattered.
As the bushes disperse, what appears is a fairly large passage.
It’s still not big enough for a dragon to fit in, but it’s still quite large compared to the previous hole.
“It only opens when I infuse it with my mana. “I can’t find an ordinary case.”
“I found it.”
“Do you think of yourself as ordinary?”
I stopped playing around when I saw Aksi’s expression of genuine disgust.
“Let’s go in quickly.”
“… ….”
To change the atmosphere, I quickly passed through the passage with Aksi.
She glanced at me but entered the rare room without saying a word.
The inside of the rare was just as I heard from Aksi. Half-broken marble pillars littered the floor, and unknown patterns were drawn on the ceiling.
And in the center of the temple, in the only place where there was a hole where sunlight could shine, there was a statue of a god with his entire upper body broken.
Because her upper body was destroyed, it is unknown what she looked like, but judging by her remaining lower body, she appears to be a statue of a goddess.
Bassuk.
It’s been so long that when I reach out to the statue, dust falls little by little.
I took her hand away from her statue and looked at Aksi.
“… ….”
She slowly looked around the inside of the temple with her eyes filled with sorrow.
Every time the gaze moves, Aksi’s expression becomes more and more stiff.
I knew when she looked like that.
When discussing the past that has already passed.
When he comforted me by telling me not to worry, and when he talked about his rare and dismissed all stories about the past.
And now. Until the moment when he faced his past.
Aksi still has the same expression.
‘It would be better to leave it alone for now.’
I was curious as to why I tried so hard to distance myself from the past, but I didn’t bother to ask now.
If it was a sensitive story, I wouldn’t have wanted to tell it right away, and I didn’t want to know it at the risk of hurting Aksi’s feelings.
I just think she will say it herself when the time comes.
Jump and jump.
I left Aksi alone and looked closely at the inside of her rare.
She wasn’t particularly trying to take wealth or elixirs.
It’s not that the Duke of Philasia doesn’t have money, and since he escaped the time limit and became the highest level, he no longer needed the elixir.
Well, at best it could be given as a gift to Agnes or others.
“This….”
As I looked inside the lair, I realized that there were more locked rooms than I thought.
Clearly, the fact that the lock works even after several hundred years has passed means that a fairly good device was used even at the time.
Among them, there is one room that stands out in particular. It was a room closed with a rusty iron door, but an unknown energy flowed from inside.
Is this the unknown energy she was talking about?
An unknown energy lingering inside the rare.
Aksi said that that energy was what made this place a rare place.
But when I actually meet her, I don’t think she’s the type of person who would like me.
It is not bright enough to be compared to divine power, and has a different texture from mana.
Rather, it would be better to call it gloomy.
I suddenly became curious as to what was in this room that was giving off this energy.
I carefully raised my mana after confirming that Aksy was not moving at all.
Since there is no key that fits the iron door, you have no choice but to make it yourself using mana.
Of course, it is not easy to turn mana into a key that fits this iron door, but Deron’s body, which has reached the highest level, makes it possible.
After collecting an amount that Aksi could not notice, he concentrated his mind.
The type you want to fix is a key to an iron door.
After checking the hole where the key would be inserted, I slowly inserted the fixed form.
After mana slowly enters the hole, its shape gradually takes shape.
Crash.
It becomes a key and unlocks the lock.
When she heard the sound of the lock being unlocked, the corner of her mouth lifted.
Since I don’t have much to do with mana, I feel comfortable consuming mana in this way.
Squeak.
When I pull the door lightly, the iron door opens, dragging on the floor.
And then, the sight inside the room came into view.
Skeletons in a pose with their hands facing forward. The sunlight shining diagonally down the small hole enters my eyes.
Before this place became rare, it was called a temple. So are these someone’s believers?
Then, their god is….
“Aksi?”
The one in front, receiving prayers from believers, was the elaborately carved statue of the goddess Acsius.