Chapter 448 - Water Temple
In the marshlands, at the abandoned Mensch camp, some lizardmen had already given up on the search and returned to the ship. Var Agus was one of these lizardmen.
He was currently watching the others from the deck of the ship in deep thought.
“Huh?” That was when he was suddenly approached by the mushroom god’s subordinate and carrier who had previously been isolated in the bottom deck.
“What’s this?” Var Agus asked confused. A was holding onto something that was not the mushroom god, actually…. Where was the mushroom god!?!
“Wha- Where-!?” Var panicked when he realized their absence. It was then that he received a transmission.
‘Use this to find the relic’s origin’ was the transmission he received. Var Agus was utterly shocked. He looked at A’s hand and saw a round object. That thing could find what they were looking for?
The round object A was handing him had a pointy thing inside. The colors were bland at best and the overall style just wasn’t very… magical? At this very moment, the device was pointing firmly at something with little to no shakiness.
‘Do- Do we follow the pointer?’ Var Agus asked carefully. He did not know where the mushroom god got the device from but he knew he had to cherish it. He also didn’t want to sound ignorant in front of such a great god so he was careful to ask for confirmation.
Var Agus understood the goodness of their mushroom god yet, he still wanted to leave only a positive image in its mind.
‘Hm? Uh, yeah’ Ed almost forgot that compasses were foreign to the the lizardmen. Still, he responded promptly.
‘I mean, of course’ It’s just that he forgot his divinity at home thanks to answering so promptly.
Var Agus’ expression didn’t falter when faced with Ed’s slip up. As soon as he heard a positive response his face beamed into a smile. He was proud of his guesswork and happy to have a solution to their plight.
“Everyone gather around!” Var Agus shouted proudly. It was time to set sail, he needed to get the others on the ship.
The multi cannon vessel was docked at the small strip of land the previous inhabitants used as a dock. All the lizardmen boarded the ship from here stopping their futile searches and the captain, which was of course Var Agus, steered the ship into open waters. From thereon, it was just a matter of following the compass.
…Or it would be regularly, the marshlands had too many obstacles to navigate around. There would be pseudo lakes occasionally which offered a smooth sailing experience, but pseudo islands were also present. These had to be steered around.
“Is it getting foggier?” Not even an hour of following the compass later, someone noticed this peculiarity.
Var Agus didn’t say anything. He just looked down at the compass with one hand while holding the ship’s helm firmly straight. The pointer seemed to occasionally spin out of control.
“Something is wrong…” Var Agus muttered. As the fog continued to thicken, the pointer became wilder and wilder. Before it would stop to point the right direction, now it was just an infinite spinner.
A who was next to Var did not fail to catch the abnormality. To him however there wasn’t too much mystery.
‘Var, we are here’ In Ed’s mind there was only one reason why the compass would act this way… They were at their destination!
The misty fog definitely contained water mana in it. The compass which was damaged by Ed’s careless tinkering would definitely start to fail when surrounded with its target in such abundant number.
‘As long as we don’t stray and head straight, we will be there’ Ed’s transmission reached Var Agus loud and clear but he still frowned. He couldn’t steer anymore. The mist was far too thick and he could hardly even see the deck of the ship.
With that considered, Var Agus started to slow the ship.
“Kouzzo, stay at the front! Yell if you see anything!” Var commanded with a hint of worry. The only other place with fog that thick was the hydra’s lake! Were they going to face another deity?
Before Kouzzo could reply and get to the front of the deck, the questions and doubts in Var’s hearts were answered.
“Woah!” A lizardman exclaimed. The ship shook violently and the loud sound of rustling leaves could be heard all around.
“Ah!” Someone was even slapped by a branch.
“Hm? This is…” The lizardman who was slapped felt some sticky liquid on their face. They tried licking a bit off their face and tasted it for a moment.
“Juicy!” It was a fruit! Ed’s sound shroom caught the shout but there was obviously no way to understand what was said. Still, the shaking boat did have him enter an assessment frenzy.
[Water Skin Fruit Tree]
[Water Skin Fruit Juice] ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
[Water…]
Ed was overjoyed by the revelation.
‘This is it!’ Ed couldn’t contain his excitement for much longer.
There were two main reasons why he was eager to find this place. One was to understand the enemies, the other was to learn some history, the last was directly connected to the second. To find some hidden secrets!
As Ed had concluded before, their lack of reading skills likely meant they couldn’t understand any intricate puzzles they were faced with.
‘Although… That artifact they had was already strong enough…’ It was weird that lizardmen could get out with such a thing. To their credit, they weren’t really all that lacking in intellect.
‘They are just out of their field of expertise’ They didn’t have any background or knowledge about archeology. They didn’t understand any of the arts either. How could they find secrets? By pure luck?
The sight before the group was still as foggy as ever but Ed knew that wouldn’t last forever.
‘The Mensch men wouldn’t have stuck around or found this place otherwise’ That was admittedly biased, the Mensch men did seem to be there with the purpose of exploration, why wouldn’t they explore the suspicious place?
Ed just found it to be too dangerous for them to take their small boats through the thick fog.
“Kouzzo! Can you see anything?” Var Agus asked.
“NO! I- I can’t!” Kouzzo was still shell shocked from the earlier impact so his reply was a little shaky.
Var Agus was not very happy with the situation but he understood it as the will of the mushroom god and accepted the circumstances.
“This is definitely the place…” The mushroom god had said so and the atmosphere was rather off. It had to be a magical place.
The ship continued to sail forward without much aim. Var Agus was fearful of hitting anything but they had not encountered much in the past 5 minutes. Fortunately, the fog was thinning.
Nearly an hour later, the fog thinned enough to regain some basic visibility. Var Agus no longer needed a shouting Kouzzo.
“What!?” The other reason was that they found exactly where they were. They were inside a large circular current that kept them going in circles.
‘This is like a race circuit’ The river like currents were wide enough to hold a couple of boat races. The most important thing however was not the marketability of the area, but rather what was inside the circuit.
“It’s a building!” The building was not really a building. If it had to be compared to one however it was definitely a temple. The roof just seemed to be missing for some reason. On second glance, there seemed to be some debris. Did it collapse?
‘Did the Mensch really just waltz in here after all?’ Ed asked himself still doubtful. With the decay, some treasures might have revealed themselves.
“Let’s dock the ship!” Var Agus told the crew members. They all had eyes full of either excitement or eagerness.
They quickly unloaded into a blueish stone platform. The ship was firmly held down by a rope and the lizardmen were now free to explore the place.
“It’s quite big…” Someone commented with a hint of exhaustion. Searching for a clue in such a large temple like ruins would be a definite pain.
“Let’s stick together first” Var Agus was still afraid that a boss level monster would appear.
The group started climbing steps to enter and reach the center of the temple. The expedition was short since although the place was bigger than the Mensch camp, it was not ginormous.
Along the way there however Ed discovered a shocking fact.
‘This… This is a human temple!’ Ed could hardly believe it. Temple itself was obviously not made out of humans, but rather it was made by humans.
Ed discovered this thanks to finding letters of the human language. This was great for, he was just looking for copper but he ended finding gold.
‘I can read everything here then’ Ed was not expecting for things to work out so well for him. The only problem now was determining… why?
The lizardmen had a reason to make a divine figure out of a hydra but what would humans want with a hydra? Nothing good, surely.
The reasons why humans made such a decision… they were all waiting for him at the center, at the pedestal not too far off in their sight!