The Invaders of the Great Tomb

by Kugane Maruyama

  Its white walls were smooth, as if a planer had been run over them, and although it must have been some time since it was built, there were no blemishes from the elements, and no chips or cracks, either.

  At the top of a three-step marble stoop was a thick door. The door was well polished, not a spot of rust to be found. The black steel fairly gleamed.

  The amount of care that went into maintaining this building was clear.

  In other words, there definitely has to be someone here, Gringham concluded as his thief teammate advanced to carefully inspect the stairs.

  They were communicating via hand signals, since Silence was still active, and Gringham was told to stay back. He slowly retreated to avoid being caught in any area-of-effect trap there might have been.

  The thief was doing a painstakingly thorough investigation. Gringham was getting a little impatient, but that couldn’t be helped.

  A person’s soul resided in their flesh, and when that flesh began to rot and fall off, they would be called to be with the gods. Thus, the dead went straight to the graveyard—and were generally interred in the earth—but the cases of some nobles and other privileged people were slightly different.

  If corpses were buried immediately, checking whether they had really decomposed or not required digging them back up. So in order to get visible proof that the corpses had rotted, they were left out to rest for a time. But no one wanted a corpse lying around in their house.

  So the graveyard’s mausoleum would be chosen as the venue for the resting. Once the corpse began to rot, a priest witness would judge that the person’s soul had no doubt been called to be with the gods.

  The mausoleum’s common use space was generally for this purpose. The spacious room would have a number of rock slabs, and the corpses would be placed there to rest. The sight of a number of partially rotted corpses seems terrible, but in this world, it was completely natural.

  Still, when it came to the very wealthy and influential, such as great nobles, things were different again. Instead of a common use space, they would be laid out in their family mausoleum. The mausoleums powerful people owned became seen as symbols of their power, since they would wait there for the gods’ call.

  It was not uncommon in the least for the buildings to be furnished and decorated with treasures. In other words, for a grave robber, a wealthy person’s mausoleum was the same as a vault full of riches. For that reason, the buildings were often fitted with dangerous traps to keep raiders away.

  Hence, the extra precautions in investigating this tomb—it was so luxurious.

  Just as the thief had finished inspecting the stairs and was about to move on to the door, the sounds in the area suddenly returned.

  Their Silence spells had worn off. Well, it was good timing for it. The thief noiselessly approached the door and resumed his close examination. Finally, he placed something like a cup against the door to listen for any noises on the other side.

  After a few seconds, he shook his head a few times at the others.

  That meant, Nothing there.

  The thief himself cocked his head a couple times in doubt.

  It was strange that the door wasn’t even locked, but if there was nothing left for him to discover, then the rest was up to the vanguard.

  When Gringham stepped forward, the thief, having oiled the door, put his hand to it. Right behind the thief was a warrior with a shield.

  Gringham abruptly gave the door a shove, and it slowly cracked open. Whether thanks to the thief’s oil or the methodical care of whoever was looking after this place, the door fell away fairly smoothly for its weight.

  The warrior standing by next to Gringham moved between him and the entrance to defend against any sudden ambush or trap.

  But the door opened all the way up without spewing any arrows or other projectiles, and a gaping darkness appeared before Heavy Masher.

  “Continual Light.”

  An arcane caster’s staff glowed with magical light. It was possible to control the level of brightness to some extent, so the caster brought the mausoleum’s interior into view. With another cast of the spell, the warrior’s weapon also began to shine.

  Illuminated by the two lights, the place could have been mistaken for a room in a noble or even royal mansion.

  In the center was a white stone coffin that could have doubled as the altar in a shrine. It was over eight feet long and covered in carvings that were elaborate without being gaudy. In each of the room’s four corners stood a white statue clad in armor and outfitted with a sword and shield.

  And then—

  “Hmm. Does anyone know what that crest might be?”

  “Nope, no idea.”

  A flag with a crest embroidered on it in gold thread that Gringham had never seen before hung on the wall. If a caster and thief who had memorized most noble family crests (even those from other countries) didn’t recognize it, he figured the conclusion was valid that it wasn’t a kingdom noble’s crest.

  “Maybe it’s the crest of a noble from before the kingdom was established?”

  “Thou believest it’s from over two hundred years ago?”

  Many countries had been destroyed by the evil spirits two hundred years ago, and in fact there were quite a few countries in the area that had a history of more than that. The kingdom, the sacred kingdom, the council state, and the empire had all been established in the past two hundred years.

  “If that were the case, what would that have to be made out of to survive so beautifully after all these years with nary a blemish?”

  “It’s probably protected with preservation magic, don’t you think? Or maybe there’s a spell that repairs it.”

  “But, leader, how about you knock off that weird way of talking? We’re the only ones here, you know.”

  “Hmm…” Gringham’s eyebrows bent to a dangerous angle, but then he broke into a smile. “Agh, I’m bone-tired! All this thee and thou hogwash. What kinda lunkhead talks like that!”

  “Nice work, but like he said, when it’s just us, we really don’t mind if you talk normal.”

  “Nah, I shouldn’t. Talkin’ all formal-like makes you sound like a worker people can rely on. You know it’s my policy to talk that way for work ’cause it’s a pain to switch gears!”

  Gringham responded to his teammates’ wry smiles with one of his own.

  He was the third son of a farmer in the kingdom.

  Everyone knows that splitting up land among heirs forever is foolish because the shares get smaller and smaller to the point where barely anything can be harvested, and the family’s power withers. That’s why the eldest son inherits the estate. The second son has the option to stay on to assist, but the third son is just in the way. For that reason, it wasn’t rare for third sons to head to the city to earn a living.

  Gringham had been blessed with both physical ability and friends, so he was able to make a success of himself, but because he’d been born a peasant—and the backup of the backup to maintain the household at that—he’d received zero education. He couldn’t read or write, and he didn’t know anything about manners or etiquette.

  Certainly what was prioritized in workers wasn’t education but perfection in request fulfillment, but for the leader of a team, that alone obviously wouldn’t cut it.

  He’d studied desperately but didn’t have as much aptitude in that realm as with physical ability, so he’d ended up in a fairly shabby state. The only reason no one had usurped his position as leader was that his teammates all valued him for everything besides his education level. He’d started in with the strange way of talking in order to not embarrass them.

  He wanted requesters to think, This guy talks funny because it makes his team stand out.

  He probably still got teased for it, but that was better than having someone think, Well, he’s just a not terribly bright farmer who became a team leader, so we can’t expect much more than this.

  “Very well, break time is over! In we go, men!” />
  No one had any objections to Gringham’s declaration, so they began to move.

  First, the thief went inside to make a careful search.

  The remaining members jammed some thick iron rods in the door so that even if some trigger was tripped it wouldn’t shut on them. Then they closed it more than halfway so the light wouldn’t leak outside. While the thief performed his careful examination of the interior, Gringham and the others kept a vigilant watch outside. They’d had no choice but to use light, so someone might have seen them.

  Gringham was on his belly keeping an eye on their surroundings when the thief inside, having reached the flag, was taking a focused look at its bottom edge. Finally, he held out a hand, as though he’d steeled his resolve, and touched it, then withdrew in a hurry.

  “Okay, no problems that I can see. You guys can come in.” Watching Gringham and the others enter over his shoulder, he pointed up at the flag. “This’ll probably fetch a good price. It’s woven with precious metal threads.”

  “Whaaaat?! Precious metal?! Who would hang something like that up in a place like this?!”

  The entire party gasped in shock. Then they all hurried to the flag and took turns touching it. The coolness they felt really was metal.

  From the way it sparkled, the thief’s assessment was probably correct. Estimating the weight from its size and then adding the artistic value would make it worth quite a lot.

  “This is a win for the requester. Though we can’t say he’s recuperated the cost of hiring us—no, all four teams—there must be a pile of treasure just waiting for us here.”

  “Should we take it right now?”

  Gringham answered the thief’s question. “This will be rather unwieldy. And probably heavy, as well. Let’s recover it later. Any objections?”

  “No. It would definitely be hard to do our job if we were carrying this. Regarding the results of my inspection: no traps and no hidden doors.”

  “…Very well. I’m counting on thee.” Gringham turned to the arcane caster—a wizard—who cast a spell as if taking the cue.

  “Detect Magic… Can’t sense any magic tricks. Of course, that doesn’t count anything they might be hiding with stealth magic.”

  “…Then I guess there’s nothing left to investigate. Shall we head to the main building?”

  Everyone’s eyes gathered on the sarcophagus in the middle of the room.

  The thief took his time giving it a thorough once-over before announcing there were no traps.

  Gringham and the warrior nodded at each other and began sliding the stone cover off. It was fairly large, so they figured it would be heavy, but it was far lighter than expected, to the point where when they put some muscle into it they nearly lost their balance.

  Once the lid was off, light reflected from inside—innumerable brilliant sparkles.

  Gold, silver, gems of various colors, all kinds of accessories giving off countless polished gleams. Over a hundred gold coins were scattered in between.

  The flag had given Gringham a hunch, but this sight made him grin from ear to ear in spite of himself. The thief, after making careful observations, reached inside and pulled out one of the myriad sparkles—a golden necklace.

  And it was a gorgeous piece. It looked like a simple gold necklace, but the chain was ornamented with minute carvings.

  “A hundred gold would be a cheap estimate… Depending on where you took it, you could get a hundred and fifty.”

  Everyone reacted differently to the thief’s appraisal. One person whistled, another smirked. The one thing they all had in common was the flames of delight and greed dancing in their eyes.

  “We get half, so at the very least this is fifty additional gold pieces. Ten per person? That’s a marvelous bonus.”

  “This…these ruins might be a mountain of treasure.”

  “Wow. This is ridiculously amazing.”

  “It really is. But what a waste to put all this treasure out here. I’ll find a good use for it.” At that, the wizard plucked a ring set with a huge ruby out of the pile and kissed the jewel.

  “It’s ginormous!”

  The priest scooped some of the gold coins into his hands and let them spill back out.

  The bright clinking of coin on coin echoed throughout the room.

  “I’ve never seen gold pieces like this before. I wonder what era, what country they’re from…?”

  The thief put a scratch in one using a knife and smiled in admiration. “These are quality coins. They’re double the weight of the trade currency, and if you consider them works of art, you might be able to even get a little more.”

  “This is…heh…heh-heh-heh.”

  A couple more members joined in as if they couldn’t hold back the laughter. Even their share of this alone was no joke.

  “Men, let us save our prayers for afterward. Let us recover these items as quickly as possible and head to the main building! If we’re late, our share will decrease!”

  “All right!” A spirited response to Gringham’s call rang out. It was full of excitement and enthusiasm.

  4

  The huge warrior statues, so lifelike they seemed liable to move at any moment, guarded the large mausoleum in the center of the ruins like knights protecting their king. Hekkeran, at one of their feet, was watching one of the four smaller mausoleums.

  After a little while, he caught sight of five figures rushing out of it like the wind. He confirmed to a neurotic degree that nothing seemed off as they sprinted, trying to stay out of sight, and that there was no one in the area watching them. A few seconds later, seeing there were no issues as they approached, he let out a small sigh of relief.

  He stepped out from the shadow of the huge statue and gave the sign. Gringham, running at the head of the line, caught it immediately and jogged over to him.

  “Gringham, took you long enough.”

  “My apologies. We seem to have kept you waiting.”

  “It’s not as if we decided on a meeting time, so it’s no problem. More importantly, let’s get out of here and decide what to do next.”

  Hekkeran ducked down and began leading them while keeping an eye on their surroundings.

  As soon as they had started walking, Gringham asked, “I must know. Didst thy team discover any riches?”

  Hearing his voice full of excitement he couldn’t quite contain, Hekkeran remembered his own team a few minutes before and grinned. “Quite a bit! We’re thrilled. And the old man said the same thing.”

  “Thy team as well, then? Coming here was the right decision.”

  “Sure was. We’ll have to thank the great man buried here.”

  “Indeed. Still, after discovering so much, we must be prepared for the possibility that the main building contains nothing.”

  “Oh, I bet there’s more.”

  “Well, then… How much would you wager?”

  “Now you’re talking. We’ll find more treasure in the tomb and I’ll win some off you! Awesome. The only problem is that it seems like we’ll both bet in the same direction…”

  The pair didn’t say anything, but the corners of their mouths curled up sharply.

  “Without a doubt. I have a question for thee, however. What is that?”

  Gringham was eyeing something that could have been called a stone monument standing at the base of one of the huge statues’ feet.

  “That?”

  Hekkeran filled him in on the results of the investigation without stopping, explaining how no one from the other three teams who had already arrived knew what the writing said. Everyone had sort of been hoping someone on Gringham’s team would know.

  “It looks like a stone monument, and it’s got some kind of writing carved in it.”

  “What dost thou mean by ‘some kind of writing’? That’s awfully vague.”

  “We don’t know what language it is. It’s not the kingdom’s language or the empire’s. And apparently, it’s not one of the ancient languages from this area, either
. It might not even be human. The only thing we can make out is the number two-point-zero.”

  “A number? Common sense says that would be the year this place was built, but it’s too low.”

  “Arché was saying maybe it’s the key to the riddle of these ruins, but…well, maybe we should remember it for later just in case.”

  “Hmm, yes. Let’s.”

  They passed by the statues and went up a long, shallowly inclined, white stone staircase, and the entrance to the central mausoleum loomed before their eyes.

  “Smells of dead people.”

  “Yeah, sure does. I’ve smelled this many times in the fog on the Katze Plain,” Hekkeran agreed with Gringham’s murmur.

  What hung in the air mingling with the cold wasn’t the putrefying kind of stench that triggered nausea but a smell peculiar to graveyards—and undead.

  The tomb may have been tidy, but there were definitely undead inside.

  The party was ready, and when they entered, they found themselves in an open hall. To each side were too many slabs of rock to count, and on the opposite side was a staircase leading down. The door at the bottom was wide open. The air coming from inside was terribly frigid.

  “This way.”

  With Hekkeran acting as their guide, Gringham and his team began descending the stairs.

  At the bottom, straight in front of them, was a door to a burial chamber. There didn’t appear to be any other doors.

  And there were all the others—Hekkeran’s team, Foresight; Elya’s team, Tenbu; and Palpatra’s team were all gathered in a space smaller than the mausoleum but still plenty spacious at the top of the stairs.

  “Okay, what should we do now? The plan was to split up and gather info on the interior, but does anyone have any other ideas after exploring the smaller mausoleums?” After Hekkeran spoke, he surveyed the group.

  It didn’t seem like anyone had come up with any new proposals. Was it ambition or just the light making their eyes glitter? He didn’t know, but they sparkled for certain. The excitement on their faces said they were ready to dive right into this tomb.

  “Then I have an idea. My team will check around the outside to search for hidden doors.”