Desert Temple - 5

"What's this... I can't make any sense of it at all."

Coil examines the inscribed part of the stone tablet from various angles but can't decipher the characters.

"Yet there are no noticeable scratches on the other parts—almost as if they were deliberately erased."

I study it carefully as well.

Some areas show color changes or carvings, indicating something significant, and they're arranged in a regular pattern.

It's likely some kind of text, but it's still hard to grasp exactly what it is.

"Take a look at this. Something's written here using the same material as the patterns on the wall."

Coil speaks from beside me, peering over my shoulder. As Coil points out, upon closer inspection, the markings appear faintly made of the same material as the wall.

It really does look like the same substance. If we channel magical energy through it, we might be able to make the pattern glow and read the characters.

I quickly place my hand on an arbitrary spot on the stone tablet and channel mana through it in various patterns. Previously, when I channeled mana using a healing crystal, the pattern had glowed.

But no matter how I tried, the pattern remained dark.

"What's going on? Maybe we need something else..."

Puzzled and unsure, I'm suddenly called by Coil.

"Hey, Taro. Come over here. There's a strange-looking depression with some meaning behind it."

When I went around to the back of the stone slab, I could clearly see a sphere-shaped depression that looked easy to grasp.

I checked for any signs of a trap, but found nothing unusual. Next, I tried channeling mana into it.

I felt the mana flow from the center of my body, down my arm, and into the sphere. The faces of Liruka and Gram, who had been staring at the stone slab, grew brighter as they were illuminated by the glowing pattern. It seemed to have worked.

Who knows what's actually written here—hopefully it's in characters we can actually read...!

"Hey, I managed to make it glow, but I have no idea what it says. It's kind of hard to tell..."

Coil grumbled.

What was written there was nothing short of astonishing. Well, the text itself merely described the method to open the hidden door in this room, but the characters were written in hiragana!

I was now certain. The hero who lived 400 years ago had come here. And it was this hero who created this mechanism.

Why did they make something like this?

To protect the people around them? Or perhaps to hide treasure or wealth behind here? I couldn't tell.

The writing system in this world resembles the hiragana and kanji from the world they came from, but it isn't pure hiragana.

If written this way using hiragana, the people of this world wouldn't be able to read it.

That means he might have had something he wanted to hide from the people of this world ahead. Or perhaps he wanted to convey something to those from his original world by leaving it in hiragana...

Though surprised by the hiragana characters, I realized they contained information related to the hero. My heart swelled with anticipation. I decided to immediately try following the clue and flow magic essence onto the wall.

"Hey, Taro. Can you read these characters?"

"Yeah, these are the characters from the country where I used to live. It looks like channeling magic essence through these symbols will open the wall."

"Then let's get started right away."

Rilka and the others scattered to different walls.

Following the order depicted on the stone tablet, they channeled magic essence into the embedded gemstones on each wall.

The magic essence slowly seeped into the walls, causing the engraved patterns to rise up in vivid blue hues.

Eventually, the ceiling and the side walls merged, and patterns spread across the entire room.

Though it was unclear exactly what they depicted, the artwork was beautiful—evidently portraying aspects of daily life from that era, perhaps sacred objects of faith, blending fragility with strength in a striking way.

Gradually, the wall deep within the stone tablet began to vibrate, slowly shifting to reveal a path.

At last, the traces of the hero who once lived here could finally be examined.

I had been thrilled at the thought, but it quickly turned to shock and alertness.

The text had been hidden. That meant this door had been sealed—sealed because something dangerous had needed to be locked away.

The door opened, and no one could move.

"!?"

What flew into view before me was the face of a dragon from a fairy tale.

"W-what in the world is this!?"

Coil choked out the words, barely able to speak.

No one could answer. Naturally. No one had ever seen or heard of something like this before.

The dragon's face before them was two to three meters tall, eyes closed—whether asleep or still alive was impossible to tell.

"Is it a dragon?"

For a while, everyone was frozen in place, unable to look away, but as the face remained motionless, the tension slowly began to ease.

They drew their weapons, remained on guard, and continued observing step by step.

Beyond the open door lay a surprisingly large space, its size indistinct since no light reached the room.

There was nothing about how such a structure had been built that they could comprehend.

As they moved deeper into the room and continued their observation, the figure resembled a lizard more than a dragon. The lizard's body was covered in the same strange patterns they had seen earlier, which connected to the designs etched into the floor.

The lizard's body was large in proportion to its head, with magical stones affixed all over it—some arranged in orderly patterns, others scattered irregularly.

"Is it a magical beast?"

"I don't know. I've never seen anything like this before."

"I've been an information broker for years, and I've never seen anything like it either."

It clearly possesses characteristics of a fiendish creature, yet it doesn't seem alive. Still, its appearance is undeniably abnormal.

"For now, it should be fine, right? It doesn't seem like it's going to move..."

"Yeah, looks harmless enough."

Though it's unsettling, they begin searching the room, splitting up. The space is unusually large, but otherwise identical to the rooms they've seen before.

Strange patterns were drawn all over the walls, and then there was that lizard-like creature—whether alive or not was uncertain—plus one more...

"Could this be the remains of the hero from 400 years ago that Mr. Tarou was searching for? I never thought it could actually exist..."

Graam, showing interest, looked at the rusted small shield placed in the center of the room.

It was placed on a simple pedestal, a tiny shield that seemed meant to be strapped to the arm. The shield was rusted and looked completely unusable. Strange patterns, made from the same material as those drawn on the wall, were etched onto its surface—but some parts were chipped away, melted, and had pooled into the pedestal.

“Could this be liquid crystal?”

Coil remarked, staring at the melted material. Everyone froze, exchanging startled glances.

"Indeed, if this is liquid crystal, it might be able to transfer mana. I never knew it could be used this way. But if people 400 years ago knew about liquid crystal, why hasn't this method been passed down to us?"

Gram voiced his doubt.