"That, that...I don't mean any harm."
First a pair of hands raised into the air, and then ordinary standard equipment. The player who slowly walked out of the passage then completely poked his body out of the darkness and walked under the light and shadow reflected by those magic words. A kind smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, and he wiped the sweat on his forehead with his arm, and then slowly took two steps forward under the gazes of Duan Qing and the great magician: "I just... Hahahaha, I'm just a little curious, so..."
"...Yangtze River No. 7."
His eyes lingered on the ID that was gradually revealed on the other person's head for a while, and Duan Qing interrupted the other person in a low voice: "Why are you here?"
"I, I came here with you."
After walking forward for a while again, Yangtze River No. 7 stopped a few meters away from Duan Qing and the others: "When Captain Legend of Flames confronted those unknown people, I was one of the people present. , it’s just that they thought I was dead and didn’t stab me lying on the ground.”
"...Lying corpse?"
Looking back at Aiina behind him, Duan Qing turned his eyes to the other person again: "You mean... you didn't die before?"
"That's right, that's what it means."
Finally putting down his hand, Yangtze River No. 7 pointed at his head with a smile: "Amazing, right? Even though I am not very strong, I am still very good at pretending to be dead. Not only did I deceive the enemy, but I also I deceived my teammates..."
"You guy..." Duan Qing stepped forward and lifted up the other party's collar: "Are you just watching Ayina in danger?"
"Hey, I'm not a master or anything like that. Even Legend of Flames and their entire team were beaten so badly. If I join in, I'm just cannon fodder." The face of Yangtze River No. 7, which was close at hand, was seeping. Breaking into more and more cold sweats: "And..."
"And isn't that guy not dead?" He pointed at Aiina behind Duan Qing, staring closely at his face: "We are just trying our best to protect this girl. If she really dies to someone, I don't have any good ideas at hand..."
"...After such a short period of time, your mercenary consciousness has already become so high."
After looking at each other quietly for a while, Duan Qing gradually let go of his hand: "After all, there is no official entrustment to you. Even if you are a guard, you won't get any salary...right?"
"Haha, hahahaha..." Yangtze River No. 7, who was twisting his collar, let out a few awkward laughs: "I'm really sorry, but we did do our best..."
"Okay, forget it." The follower who was protecting him gradually took two steps back, and Duan Qing, expressionless, replied in a low voice: "But... why are you here?"
"Of course it's because of curiosity, curiosity."
As if the subject of the conversation had been mentioned, Yangtze River No. 7 looked around and his expression suddenly became excited: "When I saw that... big magician appear before, I knew that your next actions would be good. , so I have been following you quietly to see if I can find any powerful relics... Wow!"
"It turns out that my choice was indeed right." He spread out his arms and kept looking at the magic words still emerging on the walls around the hall: "Look, look at this full of magic words. The pattern with a mysterious aura, and the writing that clearly belongs to the period of the ancient magic empire... So what is written on it, Your Majesty the Great Magician?"
"...It records some past events that happened a long time ago."
Looking at the face of the adventurer who suddenly came close to him, Jin, who still maintained a rocky expression, replied calmly: "You can think of it as a stone tablet used by ancient people to record history... That's it."
"Oh, really?" The excitement in Yangtze River No. 7's eyes did not dissipate even a little bit because of the other party's indifference: "How much would it be worth if these things were made public?"
"...Relative to those historians, these things are priceless treasures."
This time, the person who answered him was Duan Qing, who was standing next to him: "But for adventurers like us... their value may not be as much as that of a piece of equipment."
"Uh... Okay." So Yangtze River No. 7, who was wearing a swordsman costume, retracted his hand pointing around: "But... such a beautiful place can't be empty of anything, right? Have you searched it? Yes. Didn’t you find anything good?”
"...Why, you still want a share of the pie?"
"Those who see it have a share, and those who see it have a share...Ah no, no, that's not what I meant."
Putting away the greedy look on his face, Yangtze River No. 7 replied with a dry smile: "What I mean is... if you have found something good, then take it out and look at it together and study it. If If you haven’t started looking yet… I might be able to help!”
"Okay, okay, stop talking nonsense." Quietly looking at the great magician beside him, Duan Qing finally covered his forehead: "I know what you mean, don't lose track of me for a while... "
"We'll start right away."
Slight footsteps then appeared in the hall that echoed with a slight buzz of magic, accompanied by the figures of two players and two NPCs walking back and forth along the circular edge of the hall, belonging to Duan Qing and Jin. The low voices in the room and the shouts of Yangtze River No. 7 also echoed at the top of this low hall from time to time, completely covering up the roar of the energy storm that had not disappeared before. After roughly checking the layout and structure of the place, the four people finally returned to the center of the hall where they had started. While trying to move away the fallen rocks, they exchanged preliminary opinions with each other: "Look. It's really clean when you go up there...it's so clean that it doesn't look like it's been visited by anyone."
"We don't rule out the possibility that people from the ancient magic empire cleaned up when they first left here." Jin, who used magic to move the nearby rocks away, replied in a low voice: "And... if you want to break through the void wall around here, you can't. It’s not something ordinary people can do.”
"Are they the guys we mentioned before?" Duan Qing, who was also moving rocks, raised his head and asked, "Have they been here before?"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, who are you talking about?"
Before Jin could tell his answer, Yangtze River No. 7, who was helping on the side, hurriedly raised his head and asked, "Has this place been dug up?"
"...Since we have come to that conclusion, the possibility that someone has visited here is also very high."
Seemingly ignoring the strange player's question, Jin looked back without any change in his gaze: "They may not know how this place operates, but they must have taken away the secret information here."
"...Operation method?" Duan Qing moved the last rockfall in front of him with force, and turned around in confusion and asked: "What other operation methods are there?"
"Even the group of people who claim to be the remnants of the ancient magic empire are not actually the ones who survived a thousand years ago."
After looking around at the surrounding scene, Jin nodded with satisfaction: "Of course we, the Mages Council, are not the heirs of that brother's civilization, but... in terms of magical attainments and communication, we are better than those who can only imitate. many."
"You only need to observe the magic structure here to understand how it operates here."
He raised his hands and smacked the condensed golden elemental energy towards where he stood: "It's like..."
"That's what I did when I started those screens in the first place."
Rumble, rumble——
A slight trembling sound was accompanied by the falling rock debris, echoing from the bottom of the hall. A magic mark of the same shape then appeared on the circle at the feet of Duan Qing and others, accompanied by Jin's pressing action. On the ring floor. As if to prove the orthodox source of the input energy, the magic mark that originally shone with green light was then dyed into brilliant gold, and then like dye immersed in water, it moved around the platform at Duan Qing's feet. Spreading out bit by bit - circular marks, ring-shaped marks, marks penetrated by sword-shaped marks, marks covered by strange words... One after another strange magic marks are getting more and more... Strong tremors and flows of golden energy gradually appeared around the disc-shaped central floor around Duan Qing, and then, influenced by the energy of the golden earth element, one after another was reflected in the gaps between the dust and falling rocks. Different from the golden rune that was photographed into the air by the great magician, other magic runes outlined by the energy of the earth element were still quietly imprinted in other directions on the disc ground. Duan Qing, who was standing in one of the corners, then He also raised his foot and revealed one of the marks that he had stepped on: "This is..."
"This is probably the central magic circle."
Still holding the magic rune in his hand in the air, Jin frowned and looked at the same feet: "The one in my hand represents the activation switch, and the other ones... should also have their own functions. .”
"Then, which one is which?" Yangtze River No. 7 on the other side immediately put on an excited look: "Where should we start? Do you want to try it first...ahhhhhhh!"
"Don't act rashly. The energy filled in the magic structure is quite huge now." Looking at the figure of the adventurer who was ejected by the flowing golden light and submerged into the rubble ruins, Jin, who maintained his casting posture, reminded slowly: " With the weight shown so far... there must be many magicians controlling this magic circle, and they must also have high-level magic sources on hand."
"...Your current position is not where they placed the magic source, right?" Looking at the increasingly bright magic mark in the opponent's hand, Duan Qing's eyes slowly widened: "You want to be a battery ?"
"...What is a battery?"
"nothing."
Duan Qing sighed helplessly, and turned around to reveal the other marks behind him: "Then what are you going to do with the rest...?"
"...Of course I will solve it."
One of the two hands held in front of his chest slowly moved away, and at the same time Jin's rock-like face moved: "You guys with pitifully low magical attainments..."
"Just watch from the side."
An increasingly harsh buzzing sound then appeared in Duan Qing's ears, and the golden liquid in the underground began to flow again and spread towards the surrounding hall walls. Jin, who was trying hard to mobilize his huge magic energy, also followed. He closed his mouth tightly and lifted the second trembling magic rune from the ring-shaped magic circle. As if responding to the call of the great magician, the wall with magic symbols flowing behind the magic rune then turned into the color of pure gold. It was originally flowing on the curved wall. The unknown words also spread with the golden light, gradually revealing a corner of the ancient city of Zaraha: "...well."
"Was it originally a surveillance room?"
After murmuring these words, Duan Qing stared closely at the eerie and dark light pillar that appeared on the screen on the curved wall: "It's just right, we can monitor what they want to do here... …”
"That beam of light... does not belong to any magical energy." Jin, who raised his hands together and frowned, added: "The imbalance of energy has reached an alarming level, and the magic elements in this city are disappearing rapidly."
"What's the final result?"
"...Do you know the Diget Desert in the north?"
Without answering the other party's question directly, Jin slowly shook his head: "It is located in the north of Goron Wasteland, close to the end of the northern end of the continent... That place is what the magic element will look like after it is maximized."
"Although I haven't actually seen it, I can imagine it." Duan Qing's voice also became deeper: "The end of all things... is probably that scene?"
"It is not easy to create such a scene."
Amidst the huge buzzing sound of energy being upgraded again, the third ring-shaped magic rune belonging to the edge of the magic circle under his feet once again rose in front of Jin: "Even if the energy of the void is forcibly introduced, the magic entropy required The number is still an astonishing number. With the current level of magic on the Free Continent, except for coincidences under special circumstances, the only thing that is possible is soul sacrifice."
"..."
"Your friend named Maggie is most likely the victim of this soul sacrifice."
Looking at Duan Qing's silent expression, Jin's face gradually disappeared into the increasingly intense golden light: "That is a more ancient secret technique, a forbidden technique in the free era, because It was so intensely sacrificial in nature that not even a single record of it was left behind in the end.”
"But it's showing up now."
"No matter what happens to your friend now, the first thing we need to solve is the disaster in front of us."
Completely surrounded by the brilliant golden light gathered by huge energy, the great magician who had done his best could only leave his last reply: "Let's wait until the immediate problem is solved. Now I... "
"Need to concentrate."
clang--
The sound of the sword, which was almost inaudible compared to the hum of magic, then appeared behind the human-shaped golden light. At the same time, Duan Qing's figure suddenly appeared in that direction. With his arms raised, he then With a strong pull on the only metal chain on his body, the sword light that attacked the great magician was thrown away together with the black shadow holding the sword.
