Chapter 2327: Desert Tomb

Chapter 2327: Chapter 2327: Desert Tomb

Although Miss Nate and Miss Mister both have experience going to that ruin, it was still the latter who led the way. As they set off, the three did not talk. Shard felt the atmosphere was a bit awkward as he walked, worried that if they continued in silence, someone might fall behind without knowing. Thus, he proactively asked:

"Miss Mister, since time is tight, how about I carry Miss Nate, and then we each use our power to speed up towards the destination? Walking like this is too slow."

"This desert has many interesting effects."

The barefoot lady replied in a relaxed tone:

"Besides the confusion of space and time, there’s an absolute rule here: don’t rush. The rule is simple; the more you rush, the more you will faint quickly under the sun, and the faster you rush towards the destination, the farther away it becomes. Simply put, running might take longer than walking."

"Hmm... there’s no rule like ’calm mind, naturally cool’ here, right?"

Shard hesitated as he asked, and the lady naturally smiled and shook her head.

Shard intended to bring Miss Nate into the conversation, so he asked the Lady Knight who was half a step behind him:

"How are you feeling now?"

"Feeling alright, I can manage."

The voice inside the helmet sounded a bit muffled. Shard couldn’t imagine how stuffy she was inside, but the benefit was effectively avoiding direct sunlight on the skin.

"Can you tell what breed this cat is... well, it’s not my cat."

Finding nothing else to say, Shard asked. The Lady Knight glanced at the kitten with a flaming tail from inside her helmet:

"Sorry, I can’t tell what kind of cat it is. But it’s definitely of noble birth; even Her Majesty’s palace cats aren’t as beautiful."

Shard immediately smiled; he loved when people praised Mia. As for the silly cat, who barely understood the language of the Sixth Era, let alone this era’s language, it continued gazing at the desert scenery, ignoring the conversation about it.

So he asked Miss Mister again:

"Do you know what breed this cat is?"

[Are you really just finding something to say?]

"She" spoke in a light voice that seemed to bring the coolness of night, without even turning to look at Mia:

"I’m not skilled at identifying cats... of course, I admit this cat is indeed quite beautiful."

In Iluna’s first "Dice Story Collection," Mia held the title of [Beautiful Cat], which is telling of this cat’s exceptional charm.

Seeing that the deity was unwilling to answer, Shard continued walking in the scorching desert while holding the cat. The cat struggled symbolically, and Shard reached out to touch the flame on Mia’s tail.

The flame’s temperature wasn’t high; even making direct contact with Shard’s fingers only gave a slight tingling sensation.

"Meow~"

The cat struggled again, and Shard guessed it wanted to walk on the sand itself. But time was precious, and Shard couldn’t be sure what lay beneath the strange desert sands, so he wouldn’t let Mia follow along with its little legs.

With Miss Nate nearby, Shard couldn’t discuss many things with Miss Mister. So, on the subsequent journey, he chatted with Miss Nate about her life experiences as a knight.

Though the Lady Knight wasn’t talkative, she didn’t shy away from Shard’s questions.

Her life so far was as standard as Shard imagined. Born into an ordinary knight’s family, she aspired to become a witch from a young age. Upon discovering she couldn’t awaken, she continued swordsmanship training. After her father sacrificed himself resisting foreign enemies, she inherited the knight title.

Her small kingdom itself had only one city, so she often went to the royal palace as a child to play or read with the current queen, who used to be the princess.

Though not close friends, at least they grew up together. Hence, Nate was willing to undertake such a dangerous task, partly due to her father’s teachings of "loyalty," and partly because she wished to help her friend.

The burning sand was scorching, but once the conversation started, time seemed to pass especially quickly.

After the three climbed another dune, they finally saw a building in the distance amidst the heat-distorted desert scenery.

"We’re here."

Miss Mister said softly, and Miss Nate ceased speaking and looked ahead:

"Mr. Hamilton, please prepare to put on your armor."

Shard didn’t attempt to find out just how large the repulsion range of the tomb ruins was for those not wearing armor, so he immediately stopped. He took out the golden cube, tossed it twice, and then restored it to a massive golden chest.

The chest stood on the sandy ground, glittering in the scorching sunlight. One had to admit that when the chest’s four sides slowly opened outward, revealing the lion-shaped armor inside, its golden appearance was quite impressive.

"Meow~"

Mia let out a cry, and Shard looked at it worriedly, noticing that the flame on its tail seemed to be getting larger:

"Is this really okay?"

[Yes, it’s fine.]

With Miss Nate’s help, Shard soon donned the golden armor. The heat inside the armor far exceeded Shard’s expectations, and he was glad he hadn’t put it on when he first set off.

The golden armor appeared to shine in the sunlight, and Shard felt its heat absorption capacity seemed to be much stronger than that of ordinary metal.

Fortunately, the destination was not far away, and with Mia perched on the armor’s shoulder, the three continued forward. Before long, they saw the full view of the ruins.

As Miss Nate described, it was a chapel-style aboveground tomb, and in front of the tomb stood a knight statue.

The armored knight had one hand resting on a longsword piercing the ground beneath his feet and the other hand raised as if waving forward, while his helmet was placed at his feet. As for the statue, which showed no signs of erosion by wind and sand, the church behind it was more magnificent than Shard had expected.

From the front, although quite dilapidated, there were at least no signs of collapse.

If one didn’t have to wear armor to approach here, the living conditions of this tomb would actually be better than those of the Sun Shrine... Of course, the premise is that a source of contaminated water can also be found here.

Until the three of them approached the statue, Miss Mister still wasn’t wearing armor, while Miss Nate seemed unaware of this fact. Also considering this, Shard remembered that Mia also came under the statue without being repelled, but then realized it was just a cat, and cats can’t wear armor.

The knight statue did not move or speak as the three approached, standing eternally unchanged under the blazing sun, gazing upon the unchanging scenery.

There was no inscription around the statue, so the three bypassed it and approached the chapel tomb behind. The tightly closed door was already one-quarter buried under the golden sand, and Miss Nate tried pushing a few times:

"Locked."

"Let me."

The lady knight stepped back, and the gentleman knight stepped forward. With a gauntlet on the door, Shard frowned slightly, and the cat and both Miss Nate and Miss Mister heard a series of click-click sounds coming from inside the door.

But that wasn’t all; subsequently, the entire outer wall of the dilapidated church surfaced with a base formation formed by dots and curved lines. However, the influence of this peculiar desert on the ritual rune lock was too severe, and it was finally completely broken under the effect of the Key of the Door.

Shard tried pushing the door, discovering it still wouldn’t budge. Carefully, he used the gauntlet to lift the cat off his shoulder and handed it to Miss Nate.

The clueless lady knight accepted the cat, with its tail burning with flames, only to see Shard flex his arms, causing the armor to make a clattering sound.

He stood before the door, bending slightly forward, his hands pressing on the two doors. With effort from his legs, leaving two marks on the sand, the tomb’s door finally made a screeching sound, and Shard pushed it open just enough for one person to enter.

"No need to open it completely, getting sand inside wouldn’t be good either."

Shard said, extending a hand towards Miss Nate. The agile cat immediately jumped from Miss Nate onto the gauntlet of the golden armor, then sprang onto Shard’s shoulder, and Shard was the first to enter the chapel tomb.

The temperature inside the church was even lower than in the Sun Shrine, and Shard took a few deep breaths, savoring the rare coolness, while Miss Nate also took off her helmet, her gray-white hair sticking to her face, the sweat on her face showing a similarly relaxed expression.

Barefoot Miss Mister walked in last, observing the interior space with them:

"It’s truly solemn."

This place was quite similar to the "Saint Perry Cemetery" that Shard once visited in Randall Valley, with rows of neatly arranged benches in a fully enclosed interior space. On the walls were faded murals, and at the deepest part of the church, where the pulpit should be, stood a raised rectangular stone coffin.

Though the church’s interior couldn’t receive sunlight from outside, it wasn’t completely dark. Soft white light spilled over the surface of the coffin from above, and although this glimmer was not enough for lighting, the sacred feeling subconsciously made both Shard and Miss Nate slow down their steps.

The area was not very large, and after a few steps forward, the three stood in front of the coffin. Shard took out the Compass Fragment given to him by Old Lady Sianod, and indeed, the light point on it pointed directly to the coffin before them, suggesting their objective this time lay within the coffin.

But they weren’t hasty to open the coffin, as the substantial text cast on the lid warned of the consequences of opening it.

The script was quite ancient, certainly not from the Fifth Era. Miss Nate naturally couldn’t understand it, so Shard, holding the cat, tilted his head and began translating. After carefully reading it through twice, he turned around, surprised, looking at the knight statue standing outside the church.

Specifically, the text on the coffin recounted an ancient hero story. And that hero is still present here, not within the coffin, but outside the church.