The place where Bella and I made contact wasn’t too far from the casino; it was a forest.
It was also a place I remembered. Outside the casino building, there were areas you couldn’t enter deeply in the game, and although the forest wasn’t fully realized, at least the direction of where we were after leaving the casino matched what I remembered.
“So close….”
Alice said while turning back.
From the perspective of the world I lived in, there was quite a tall building that seemed to pierce the sky. It was the casino and the hotel building stretching above it. Of course, it wasn’t quite skyscraper level that you could list among the world’s best, but when you saw it up close, you had to tilt your head back just to see the top.
And that gorgeous building was illuminated by the bright, flashy lights from below.
Even from this forest, you could see it.
It was a vibrant place, almost unbelievably lush and thick, making it hard to believe it was so hard to develop the area around it.
In a way, this was a great location choice. A fallen city hidden in the forest? Isn’t that something out of a novel?
“Did you arrive on time?”
Bella was a little off the path leading from the forest’s entrance.
There were hardly any people wandering around in the woods at this hour, so it seemed like there was no real issue even with her shining a light around.
Bella was wearing the fox mask we saw earlier along with a form-fitting leather suit. Her demeanor exuded confidence, but her outfit seemed to suggest she was extremely wary of revealing her true identity.
Well, Lucas, Bella, and even the Emperor had shown quite a disrespectful attitude in front of him, but in reality, they would never stray from the plans laid out by the Emperor.
In her left hand, Bella held a small bag. It wasn’t very big. If I had to guess, it was about the size of a handbag. The style was just a shabby leather bag.
That must belong to Verati. I remembered Verati carrying a bag like that while searching for relics in the game.
Inside, there was likely one of the artifacts from the Papal State.
“Hm.”
Bella made an utterance as she looked around us.
Bella was quite capable. Truthfully, you could say she had already reached the pinnacle of her existing talents.
But even so, it would be impossible to conquer a dungeon built in ancient times on her own.
“Impressive.”
Bella said with a smile, still wearing her mask. Claire and Leo had already seen Bella’s appearance once.
The voice sounded different.
To me, and from Alice’s perspective, Bella was just Bella itself, but… I wonder how she looked to others?
Leo might not notice, but Claire was pretty observant.
However, Claire’s expression didn’t seem particularly surprised from the brief glance she stole.
“Two daughters of the Emperor and two heirs from loyal houses. I’ve heard they’re quite skilled.”
“That’s right. Both of them are exceptionally talented. I guarantee that, as a fellow Crown Princess.”
As Alice took a step forward and said that, Bella shrugged her shoulders.
It was a strangely condescending attitude.
Bella was a character I found difficult to grasp. She was only mentioned in passing in the main storyline, with just a few illustrations and some dubbed lines in flashback scenes. Even saying she had a personality similar to Claire doesn’t mean she was exactly the same as the Claire in the main story.
Moreover, the aura of the original Claire had already been significantly diluted in my mind. After all, I had a nearby version of Claire that was immensely diligent for the past two months.
Still, thinking about the personality I had seen over the last ten years…
That attitude was an act.
Bella always played around in front of us without her mask. Sometimes she would pull annoying pranks or tease us.
“Well, if the next Emperor of the Empire says so, I’ll have to follow suit.”
“…….”
Upon Bella’s words, Alice glared at her.
Leo gulped. In the original story, Leo’s attitude would shift to being much closer to Alice from this point on, but due to that ‘next Emperor’ line, it seemed that change would take quite a while.
“Have you found the location?”
“Having three Crown Princesses sticking around, if we can’t figure it out, it would be a hit to the Empire’s prestige.”
However, Bella’s subsequent words were not so reassuring.
“Though, for now, it doesn’t seem like not finding it is going to affect the Empire’s prestige either.”
“Not finding it? What do you mean by that?”
“It seems we grabbed it a bit too quickly. Verati didn’t know the exact location of the ruins. She just guessed based on the Papal State’s records and sneaked in.”
“……Then, how many of those female-like humans are infiltrating the Empire?”
“Probably quite a few. Being that the land is vast is also an issue.”
Saying this, Bella pulled out a piece of paper from the bag in her hand and handed it to Alice. While Alice looked a bit hesitant, she accepted the piece of paper Bella offered without saying much.
Technically, it looked more like a map than a note.
“It’s a rough map of the area.”
It wasn’t made solely for military purposes. The area around here was quite wide and complicated. Northwood certainly didn’t want tourists getting lost, so it was a distributed map made similarly to a theme park guide.
Compared to the theme park maps I remembered, it didn’t have much color or mascots drawn on it.
The simple map described the commercial district formed around the casino and the forest surrounding it.
And there were several ‘X’ marks in intervals throughout the surrounding forest.
“Sorry about Verati.”
Bella said with a tone that seemed to mock Verati.
“It seems like the knight from the Papal State really was incompetent. How did it take her all that effort to pinpoint the location only at the very end?”
“…….”
We all had no choice but to agree with Bella’s remark.
*
The artifacts responded to each other. They weren’t just devices with different abilities; they were part of a larger mechanism.
In the original story, the functionality of these artifacts was never revealed. If we were to think of the series as a different world, you might say that divine power was imbued in it, allowing the impossible wishes to be granted… or something like that would be expressed. However, the narrative about these artifacts had become tiresome, as players started to grumble about it maintaining continuity even with several world changes throughout the series.
Nevertheless, most players surmised, “They’ll definitely revive the dead heroines with those artifacts.”
That said, I had no intention of giving up on reviving the heroines. If this were a game, I might have just enjoyed it, thinking I couldn’t stop it anyway, but this wasn’t a game; it was reality.
“Honestly, I think I understand why Verati couldn’t find it.”
Bella said with an irritated expression.
It had been nearly three hours of wandering through the forest before we finally found the entrance.
In the first place, we had never truly seen what an artifact was, so even if someone said it would shine brighter nearby, we wouldn’t know how bright that shine would actually be.
Only when we got near the dungeon entrance did the light become weakly stronger.
So what that meant was that the artifacts didn’t actually shine as their default state; it seemed they had been shining since we arrived because they were judging that ‘another artifact was nearby.’
“……Has Charlotte’s side not finished the dungeon yet?”
Alice muttered, sounding worried.
“……”
Certainly, at this pace, they’d be too exhausted to fight properly if we went in.
I let out a small sigh.
Again.
*
“…….”
As I half snatched the artifact from Bella’s hands and confidently headed to the dungeon entrance, the kids all had blank expressions on their faces.
There was hardly a path, as I moved through the tall trees.
But still, I had advanced for less than 30 minutes.
…Though for me, it felt like I had taken nearly eight hours.
Even turning back time to navigate around, searching from the starting point was incredibly difficult. At least I knew the direction of the buildings, so I found it sooner than last time, but it didn’t make that much difference.
Thus, I had gone back in time several times to find it so that everyone around me could accept it.
Every time I found the dungeon, the expressions of my party changed from ‘That’s to be expected’ to shock.
And this time, they almost looked speechless.
“……”
Alice’s gaze at me became more meaningful, but I didn’t feel the need to say anything further.
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