189 – Pyramid (2)
“A corpse.”
No matter how far into the pyramid, the party found a corpse with only bones left in one corner.
“Since there is no sand, it rots and only bones remain? Then the characteristics of the golden land have nothing to do with the pyramids?”
“There are also minerals that heal the wounds you brought, so it could be that all the rocks that had the characteristics of this desert turned into sand and turned into the current desert.”
“… … Uh, I remember seeing this form.”
At that time, unlike the two who were looking at the corpse, Monia, who was bored and checked the style of the decorations remaining in the building or the carvings engraved on the walls, suddenly said that.
“What are you talking about?”
“uh? But it’s strange. Chester, are you sure the kingdom is in the northern direction?”
“yes? right.”
“By the way, the style you see here is what I saw in statues and paintings imported from the continent southwest of the kingdom.”
“… … .”
Chester recalled the night sky and the stars he had seen every night. When I thought of the guiding star that pointed me in the direction, the kingdom was clearly in the north.
“To be more specific, the kingdom will be in the northwest.”
“It makes sense if the kingdom is in the northeast, but isn’t it strange?”
“Isn’t it possible that the style has become similar as a result of cultural exchanges from continent to continent?”
Urgo said.
“I have seen several times that art and cultural styles become similar between continents that are close in distance.”
“Is that so? But I have never seen this type of art in the desert.”
“I’ve never seen anything coming from outside the desert. … … I don’t even know what the difference is between forms and forms.”
“I don’t know either. Just listen and pretend you understand.”
Fully aware of how talkative Monia was in her field of interest, Chester poked Urgo in the side and pressured him to stop talking.
“Only this pyramid is straight away… … Are there restrictions on the use of forms? Something special that can only be used in buildings related to royalty… … .”
“Monia, let’s go. You can move while thinking slowly.”
“Ah, yes.”
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A place of terrifying monsters, deadly traps and ancient mysteries!
However, the pyramid actually entered was different than expected.
I couldn’t see any traps, no monsters, and wondered if there was anything mysterious. If I say that this pyramid itself is mysterious, I have no choice but to agree.
However, it was clear that something was there.
“There are more and more corpses.”
“Yeah.”
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Little by little, the amount of human corpses caught in the snow began to increase.
And.
“… … This?”
“It is a giant snake.”
At the end of the passage, I confirmed that a snake as thick as a human body was hanging limp at the end of its tail.
“Is he dead?”
“It hasn’t rotted yet. Judging by the smell, it looks like it will rot soon, but it looks like it has only been dead for a few days.”
“Well. … … In other words, is there something ahead of me that can kill the giant snake?”
With Chester’s words, the party took out their weapons and started to move in earnest, vigilantly.
Continue moving along the corpse of the snake.
“Look, there are no scars anywhere else. But when you die, doesn’t that mean you cut off your hair like we did when hunting snakes?”
“… … Isn’t there a giant inside?”
Monia, who was moving while avoiding the marks of the snake that had lost its head, swallowed dry saliva and said,
“A giant.”
“A giant would be better. It’s easy to know where to aim.”
“right.”
Chester and Urgo laughed hahahaha. If it’s a giant, its vitals will be similar to those of humans, so it’ll be easy to deal with. It was better if it was a male giant.
“You just have to aim for the crotch.”
“Since he is a giant, the bigger he is, the more painful it must be.”
“… … .”
For a moment, Monia imagined Chester and Urgo clinging to the giant’s crotch and attacking them with machetes and axes. It was a sight I didn’t really want to see.
“It is a staircase.”
“… … Are you heading down? Does it lead to the basement rather than the top of the pyramid?”
After following the snake’s corpse, they found a staircase, but surprisingly, contrary to the party’s expectations, the stairs were heading down the pyramid, not up.
“… … Shall we go for a while?”
“Well. But the passages are all blocked by snakes.”
“I think I can crawl through that gap on the top left.”
“When it comes out, it’s a problem… … Well, if that doesn’t work, I’ll have to move forward while slowly tearing off the snake’s body.”
Chester, tying a rope to his shovel, found an area where no gold was spent. If the gold inside was the same as the pyramid, it would be indestructible, so it was right to aim for the part where the gold was not used.
Knock!
Drive the shovel deep into the wall, then tie the rope in threes, making sure it’s secure.
“I go first. If I can pass through it, the two of you will be able to pass easily.”
“yes. Oh, and move with your backpack in front. I can’t move because of the backpack, and if there’s something dangerous in front of me, the backpack will be my shield.”
“I get it.”
Starting with Urgo, the three climbed onto the corpse of the snake and slowly descended.
As Chester had taught him, Urgo held his pack in front of him and crawled carefully, pushing it away.
I was worried about tearing the hem or skin because I was moving the snake’s scales in the opposite direction, but I couldn’t stop once I started.
Forward, forward, keep crawling.
Following Urgo was Ant, Rex, and then Monia. In case something dangerous could come out from behind, I sent the three first and put them in the middle, and Chester followed behind.
It was a frustratingly narrow passageway for Urgo, so he had to whine and crawl, but for Chester and Monia, it was a decent width. Especially for Monia, there was plenty of room left except for the chest and hips.
“… … ok… … .”
However, that was also the first time. The further you go in, the narrower the aisle becomes. Urgo pressed the snake skin with force and forcibly opened the passage and opened the road, but it was unknown how long this would last.
‘It’s dark. My heart is stuffy!’
As Monia crawled through the narrow aisle, she gritted her teeth at the darkness where she couldn’t even see Rex’s back in front of her.
Elsewhere, there were lanterns that only glowed without flames, but the lanterns on this stairway were all dark, probably because the snakes were rampaging and broke them all.
“Yeah, it’s okay.”
Chester, who was following behind, put his hand between Monia’s legs as Monia let out a sound from the pressure, her chest pressed against the snakeskin pushing up again.
“Chester?”
“I’ll open it, so crawl, okay?”
When Chester pushed hard against the snakeskin, Monia, who felt a little more comfortable, thanked her and crawled forward.
I hear Chester struggling to crawl behind me.
It was dark and I lost my sense of time, but I guess I crawled through the aisles for an hour to an hour and a half.
The party, who had struggled to crawl through a street that would have taken an instant if they had walked normally, managed to get out of the stairway and out into a wide area.
“Aww! air!”
“Live! I thought I was going to die!”
“… … Let’s rest a little.”
Released from the pressure, darkness, and fear of being closed, the three cheered and sat down.
Chester was better off, but Urgo and Monia gasped as if exhausted.
“rice. Let’s eat.”
“Wait, the scales chafed my skin. Let’s settle this first.”
Blood was oozing from the scraped skin.
After taking out the boon from the top and rubbing it on the wound to heal it, the three of them started eating.
“Then you came downstairs. What do you think?”
“What do you think is missing?”
“yes? I’m having fun.”
“That’s it. But what’s the fun?”
“Didn’t you both notice?”
Monia looked at Chester and Urgo and looked at them, saying, ‘Oh, these pitiful souls who have no eyes to see and no sensitivity, and are twisted.’
Then, he quickly began to draw the engravings he had seen so far on the wall.
“Most of them look like they were carved out of something, and the scale of the pieces is so large that it is difficult to recognize them, but if you scale them down, take out the ones carved with graffiti, and match the order with the symbols pointed out by the pieces… … .”
Monia’s hand moves quickly.
He had stripped everything out of that complicated, esoteric, and artistically stylized sculpture and narrowed it down to what Chester and Urgo could see.
“It’s not just a piece. Someone was trying to tell a story. As proof, that piece wasn’t carved when the pyramid was built. Who engraved it after that?”
“How do you know?”
“When I looked at the surface of the sculpture, I noticed that the degree of wear was different between the wall and the sculpture. It was a subtle difference.”
Someone left a piece. Someone after the pyramid was created.
“Why?”
Monia continued.
“This pyramid removes external influences so that things inside can be maintained for a long time. And in the case of a statue carved out of stone, if it is well preserved, it will retain its shape even after thousands of years. If it is not in the form of a statue, but a picture carved on a wall, it will last longer even if preservation is more sloppy.”
In other words, someone wanted to use the characteristics of the pyramid to leave ‘something’ for hundreds or thousands of years into the distant future.
“This is the first picture.”
Monia said so and showed her what she had drawn. It was said to be as brief as possible, but as if the artist’s soul wriggling inside cried out, a picture of a pretty and complex shape was drawn.
“What is it about?”
“At first, I thought that the discovery of gold was emphasizing the shape of the sun by carving it, but if you think carefully, the sun is inside the gold, right? So, I found ‘gold that can hold the sun’. This is the first part of the piece.”
Gold that can contain the sun. The moment they heard it, Chester and Urgo realized what the golden energy film flowing on the pyramid’s surface was.
It was the power of the sun, a gracious existence that shined brightly and illuminated the world.