(CLYDE ASTLEY POV)

We started moving after getting up and leaving the building. Edna was too exhausted after using her transformation for so long so she turned back to a little dragon. She was lying on top of my head. She slept with no care in the world as if there was nothing that could threaten her.

It was the same endless rows of buildings that we encountered like yesterday. This entire district might be about the same size as two of the five cities from our kingdom.

‘I wonder what scratched me last night.’

There was a slash on my neck this morning.

The cut wasn’t that deep. Although it was bleeding a bit. Even my makeshift pillow was stained with blood.

Anyways, we continued our journey through the dark cave. Along the way, we found a lot of rare gems and stones that could be sold in our kingdom. This place was a treasure trove for people from the modern age.

A single stone can go for 10 gold and increase to 100 gold if a noble was that eager to have one of these. Anything considered ancient was valuable to them.

It was a shame that they weigh 40kg each. We couldn’t store so much inside our rings. We still need the other space for food and water.

“I assume that if we reveal the fact that we discovered the United Empire ruins to the public then millions of people will flock towards this cave in competition over who gets all the resources.”

I casually spoke to Charlotte. She had been quiet since a while ago. She’d usually order me around to do stuff for her but now she just walked silently in a daze.

“Hm? O-Oh. I thought that far ahead at least. I hope all of you will keep this place a secret.”

“Naturally. Why would we let others know of this place filled with treasure?” Damian said with a big grin as he cleaned a gem with his sleeves.

“Once I officially become queen then I will restore this empire to its former glory.”

“Is that even possible?”

“It might take a few decades. I hope to restore at least 20% of the United Empire before passing it onto my children when I die. Many people will take advantage of–“

Charlotte suddenly stopped.

“What’s wrong?”

Charlotte shakenly pointed upwards.

I followed her finger.

“We’re here…?”

It was a giant skyscraper that appeared in the distance. There was at most over twenty connected buildings on the same property.

“It took us only 3 days… I was right to let us tread on this path.”

Charlotte broke into a run, leaving us behind.

Damian was still in a daze as he looked at the ‘Four Royal Palaces’. We followed after Charlotte soon after.

◇◇◇

CREAK

It took Damian , Edna and me just to open the giant front door out of the many others. The fences were destroyed so we easily got towards the main palace. I had no other words to describe this place other than majestic.

No building on earth could compare to this skyscraper. How deep underground were we that we couldn’t even see the top of the largest tower? Total darkness covered the top of the Palace.

Charlotte walked around as if she was familiar with the palace.

It was kind of dark so Edna had to illuminate the torches hanging on the hallway walls. There were things hanging on the walls that may have been portraits. Not all paintings last hundreds of years anyway, especially the kind from olden times.

It felt like we had been walking for hours around this place.

“Princess, are you sure you’re going the right way? Surely, this palace wasn’t designed as modern palaces.”

Damian conveyed his thoughts.

“I’m sure it’s this way. We just have to follow this hallway.”

How did people get around this place back then? Did they have hover boards or something?

My knees were already weak and my arms were heavy. The fatigue accumulates faster without my mana core. I was basically a normal 14 year old boy.

We walked for an entire hour further. I knew because I had been counting the seconds out of boredom.

“There! A bridge!”

“Huh?”

Charlotte ran towards the bridge she mentioned. It was the kind of bridge that connected buildings to each other.

“That is indeed the place.”

Edna stretched and yawned.

“Truly!?”

Charlotte was hopping up and down like a little child. We had to wait to cross since Damian was inspecting if the bridge was safe to cross.

“Yes. Even after hundreds of years, the artifacts haven’t lost their mana.”

Damian came back a few minutes afterwards. He was gone for a long time since the bridge stretched an entire 500m.

This empire went a little overboard with the definition of big.

Charlotte basically ran across the concrete bridge, leaving us behind again. If her expectations were betrayed then I wonder what kind of expression she would make.

Thud—!

When she tried opening the door, the door unhinged and fell to the ground with a loud crash. The fragments of wood scattered as it broke apart.

It was strange that only the Magic tower door was made of wood while anything else built around here was made from an unknown material harder than steel.

What we saw when stepping into the tower was darkness ,obviously. Edna flew around to find torches and lit them up. The entire building then brightened. I expected it to look like a mess…

“Whoa…”

There was a plethora of books scattered around and set up in piles on the floor.

“This place managed to survive since there’s a type of spatial element that kept everything as it was during the disaster.”

Edna spoke from on top of my head. So that was why all the books and shelves stayed upright. Even the potions and cauldrons were neatly lined up.

Charlotte immediately started looking around.

“I’ll look for anything related to core restoration.”

I said before diving into the books as well. Everything was covered in dust which caused me to cough so violently.

Nonetheless, I had to find a way to restore my core. This place could be called the real treasure trove for wizards. They said that this tower belonged to the person that was the Great Sage’s disciple.

She was the second person to be able to cast God Rank Magic. If I could find her magic spells book that had all her knowledge and the meaning of magic, then even that could help me with improving as a mage.

I was told time and time again by Undine to use my potential to its fullest. I shouldn’t waste my talent when I could become a powerful mage in the future. But that comes after I found a way to restore my core.

There might even be a few spells our kingdom or the entire continent for that matter, hadn’t heard of before.

I kept digging through the stacks of books that had uninteresting information written down. Since the books’ covers were covered in dust, I had to wipe away the dust to see the titles. It’d take forever to find something good in here.

THUD

When I heard a thud from behind me, I looked over. Princess Charlotte sat there on her knees with a dazed expression.

“I-I can’t find it… Dammit!”

She punched the floor in frustration.

“H-Hey, maybe we have to look more carefully?”

She shook her head as she gritted her teeth.

“They wouldn’t put something as valuable as a blueprint for an [Divine Elixir] underneath these books…”

“Maybe we should head down to the alchemy lab?”

Damian gave his thoughts. He was standing next to a stairwell going down.

Charlotte gasped.

“Of course! Something like that wouldn’t be put up here for all eyes to see!”

She regained new vigour and ran towards the stairs. She urged us on to follow.

‘The greater your expectations, the greater the disappointment.’

I wanted to say that to her but I couldn’t. I could only keep those thoughts inside my head as I saw Charlotte happily skipping down the stairs.

◇◇◇

“It smells horrible…”

Even if time-space magic had been used on the mage tower, the inside of the lab still reeked of chemicals and body parts.

What kind of crazy experiments did they do back then? Many kinds of glass containers had strange eyes, brains and genitals inside of them.

Charlotte didn’t seem to notice this monstrosity as she ran towards the offices at the back of the lab. Even Damian had a disgusted expression on his face.

“These alchemists are fucking weird. Who does this shit?”

He threw a small deformed body he was holding away.

They do things like this on Earth too though. I remembered in biology class how we dissected a frog to see how its body worked. We’d also visit real labs and see the experiments they do on Earth.

At this point, I wasn’t surprised anymore that the two worlds shared some similarities.

We walked down a long hallway after entering another door. Only the path that we walked was lighted up. I could barely see what was up against the walls. Judging by the dark outlines, I could assume that there really were things lining the walls.

Edna was still flying around, finding torches like usual.

We entered another door which had a sign saying ‘Apothecary Laboratory’. There was no doubt that we could find something in here.

Only when all the torches were lit were we able to see all the documents in the chamber.

“Why is this place a mess? These crazy alchemists.”

Trash was strewn everywhere we looked. But at least the place smelled better than the first room we entered.

As I looked at the scrolls and labels, I noticed they were written in an unknown language.

“What the hell is this scribbling?” I threw the paper down.

“Princess, can you understand this?”

Damian asked as he showed Charlotte a piece of paper.

“-------”

She started talking in a different language as she looked at the paper. Her eyes then opened wide then she grabbed the paper Damian was holding.

“What’s wrong? It’s sounded like you were summoning demons.”

“It’s…”

Her hands trembled.

“It’s here…”

“Huh?”

“The blueprint… we found it… The legend was real.“

I sighed in relief. So it was true after all. Now all we need to do is get this back to the kingdom in peace.

“Guys!”

Edna suddenly came flying in the room.

“Where were you?”

“You have to see this!”

She pulled my hair and started flapping her wings.

“What’s going on?”

I followed her through the hallway again. Charlotte and Damian also came after us with curious expressions.

When we came back the way we came, I heard low grunts from several directions.

“Look!”

Edna fired a fireball to a torch, lighting it ablaze.

–Kiiiieeeee!!!

“Uwaaah!?”

I reflectively fell on my butt when I saw the thing Edna showed us.

“Kyaaa!”

Charlotte also stepped back and then her back hit something behind her.

I then saw a hand touch her shoulder.

“KYAAAAH!!!!”

She ran into my arms and stuck her head inside my robe.

“What…”

I looked at both the figures against the walls.

“This is…”

Damian was the only one not affected. Fuck, I screamed like a little girl earlier.

“Humans…”

I awkwardly got up and dusted off my clothes.

The creature, whatever it was now, was human. Its eyes were gone and its body was covered in black slime. All I could say was that such a disfigured creature shouldn’t live on this planet.

–Koooo!

It kept gnashing its jaws and reaching out to us.

We then turned towards other one on the opposite side. I took the torch and looked at the being.

It was lodged into the wall with strange black rods. Its breathing was distorted.

Its body was exactly the same as that strange man I kept dreaming about…