Chapter 10: Exploring Underground Ruins
“Waaah! Cécile fell too, is she okay?”
Seeing Cécile’s figure disappear as well, Ling asked frantically.
However, Elus shook her head and said, “She should be fine. This seems to be an entrance to ancient ruins… and below, there should be a teleportation device.”
“Then, should we jump down too?”
“No, that’s too dangerous. These ruins should have other entrances. Let’s search for them.”
Elus’s expression was calm and rational, as if she wasn’t worried about anything at all.
However, as if guessing her thoughts, Mi Xue Zhou asked,
“Elus, is it okay?”
“What’s okay?”
“Lonis, never mind Princess Cécile, her strength is very strong, but that little fox… she’s always been very weak.”
“Hmph, of course it’s okay. She’s just a little fox. If she gets broken, we can just buy a new one.”
…
Although Elus said it so bluntly, only she knew…
Her mood was already completely off. This was because the ruins activating was something she had never expected.
But, she couldn’t panic.
She couldn’t lose her reason just because she was worried that the idiotic maid might be caught by a tentacle monster, might be hurt by a trap, or might be crying in fear.
The situation in these underground ruins was unknown. Perhaps they were filled with danger, or perhaps they contained unknown matters.
And she needed to rescue Lonis smoothly while protecting everyone’s safety.
“Bai Ye, did you find an entrance?”
“Found it. According to the root’s detection, at an entrance 60 meters ahead of us, there’s a tunnel leading down.”
“Mm, everyone be careful, let’s advance together.”
Led by Elus, the group walked towards the entrance of the ruins.
—————
…
“Cécile?!”
Seeing the beautiful silver-haired girl, Lonis instinctively started, wanting to cry out.
But her mouth… was directly covered by the princess!
“Shhh, Your Highness the Hero. Be quiet…”
“Wuwu?”
“When I came over, I found many monsters that are sensitive to noise. If you scream loudly, it will attract their attention.”
Cécile pointed into the distance, indicating that this place was not safe.
Then she released her hand covering Lonis’s mouth and tried to take her to a safe place… but such an intimate gesture made Lonis blush a little.
Because besides Elus and her classmates, she hadn’t had such close contact with any other girl.
“Princess Cécile, where is this…”
“Mm, Your Highness the Hero probably doesn’t know yet, do you? This seems to be the ruins of the Apocalypse Independent Kingdom, and we accidentally triggered something while camping…”
…
Through Cécile’s explanation, Lonis learned what had happened while she was asleep.
While she was happy that everyone was fine, Lonis also felt a bit ashamed of her own actions… Why were her nerves so insensitive!
Not only did she fall asleep on Elus’s back, but she also rolled out like that, only waking up vaguely after falling to the bottom.
It was really… too embarrassing?
However, since Elus wasn’t here, Lonis was able to gather enough courage to ask Cécile,
“Princess Cécile, where are we going next?”
“Mm, when I came over, I saw a place that looked like a command center. There seemed to be some information there.”
“Eh?”
“Your Highness the Hero, please follow me~~ However, these weapons…”
“Ah, I’ll put them away.”
…
…
As Lonis advanced with Cécile, she also saw some monsters hidden in these ruins.
They held weapons and looked very much like humans.
But unlike the Demon Race in Lonis’s memory, they were monsters composed of flesh and machinery… Muscle parts formed the joints, and metal parts formed the skin and weapons.
This allowed these monsters to maintain the agility of ordinary creatures while being hard to damage.
“Your Highness, you said that the Apocalypse Independent Kingdom was destroyed nearly a thousand years ago. Do these monsters also live near a thousand years old?”
“Mm, however… they seem to have been activated because of our arrival.”
“Eh?”
“Because if they were as good as new, they would have attacked us long ago! Now their structures are a bit aged, and their alert range is not as good as before.”
“That’s true…”
Lonis remembered that she had been talking to herself in the library, but in the end, no terrifying monsters had been attracted.
“But we still need to be careful, because there might be other monsters in these underground ruins?”
“Mm-hmm!”
…
…
Partnering with Cécile was a completely different experience from acting with Elus.
When walking with Elus, Lonis was always met with sarcastic remarks. Even if she had something she didn’t understand and wanted to ask, Elus would call her an idiot.
But Cécile was unreserved, and very gently and patiently told Lonis all the information she knew.
“Lonis, be careful at the fork ahead, go to the right.”
“Oh… Then, what’s on the left?”
Seeing Cécile’s cautious expression, Lonis became curious.
“Mm… On the left, there’s a whole warehouse with tens of thousands of corpses.”
“What?!”
“I went down to investigate when I got here. I found that those corpses had been dead for nearly a thousand years.”
“Wuwu… Isn’t that very scary?!”
“Hehe~ They’ve already turned into skeletons, so it doesn’t matter. However, I found some very important clues on these corpses?”
“Important clues?”
“Mm, the bones of those corpses have rope marks, which means they didn’t die in the warehouse. It’s more like they died somewhere else and were transported there…”
…
…
Thus, Lonis followed Cécile’s footsteps and arrived at a tightly closed iron door.
Compared to the stone doors she had passed earlier, this iron door looked much more complex and advanced… Even with the passage of time, it showed no signs of rust.
It was difficult to push open, but Cécile took out her long sword from her waist and cleanly broke the iron door’s chains.
“Cécile?!”
“Mm, don’t worry, I’ve confirmed that this area is no longer powered.”
“Eh?”
“So it won’t trigger any alarms or anything… Miss Fox, come in with me.”
…
…
Thus, Lonis followed Cécile’s steps and entered a place that looked very much like a command room.
On the consoles here, there were densely packed buttons of all kinds… red, green, and blue. There were dozens of meters indicating various indices.
This scene inexplicably reminded Lonis of an airport terminal for takeoff.
However, this control console was already covered in dust, and most of the instruments were completely aged and unusable.
“Princess Cécile, what is this place…”
“Mm, I don’t know what this place is for. Miss Fox, let’s search together and see if we can find any useful clues?”
With a faint smile at Lonis, the silver-haired princess and Lonis began their search together.
