Chapter 198 - The Sunken Church and the Church of Light (Part Two)
The church doors swung open on their own. After exchanging a look with Marmie, I stepped inside. The space was wide and open, but unlike the exterior, the interior didn't seem to be made of light particles; it was constructed like any normal building.
There was no sign of monsters.
My footsteps echoed on the wooden floor, kicking up dust that had settled over a long time. It was clear no one had visited this place for ages. While the exterior of the sunken church was stone, the interior—the beams, the pillars—was mostly made of wood.
A massive stained-glass window dominated the front wall, pouring light onto a plaster statue of a goddess on the altar below. The statue appeared to be modeled after Racshell, but it was missing its head, and a sense of unease washed over me.
Light also streamed in from the smaller windows on either side, the same glow as the swarms of fireflies I had seen outside.
As I took in the scene, the doors closed on their own behind us. I didn't need to check if they would open again. Whatever had lured us in had no intention of letting us return to the lake shore.
"Do you think this is a dungeon?"
If it was a dungeon, I could treat this like a haunted house attraction—designed to startle explorers, creating an opening for monsters to attack. In that case, we just needed to find the area guardian's room and escape. But if this was a paranormal phenomenon, we'd have to search without any clues, with no guarantee of success. It was possible the church's only purpose was to trap us and curse us to death.
The only clue we had was the ghost story Marmie had told. There had to be a secret room in this church.
"…I do not know. But…"
She pointed at the floor. A set of fresh footprints led toward the goddess statue on the altar.
I watched as she began to follow them. She stopped and turned back to me.
"…W-Why aren't you coming with me?"
"Ah, right…"
I nodded and fell in step behind her.
The footprints ended at the altar, where a wooden lectern stood on a dais beside the goddess statue. As we circled it, I spotted drag marks on the floor. The owner of the footprints had likely moved the altar.
And then, they had vanished. The fact that the altar was back in its original position suggested someone else had moved it back afterward. That someone was almost certainly the source of all this, but with no way to know their identity, our only option was to retrace the steps of the person who left the footprints.
I placed my hands on the dais and pushed. It didn't even budge.
"…"
Marmie just stared at me in silence. I could feel her doubt in my physical strength piercing right through me.
"Just wait."
I took a deep breath and pushed the altar with all my might. Still, it didn't move an inch.
"…"
"…"
Not a word was exchanged, but I could almost hear the sound of our trust shattering.
"…Let's move the things on top."
Marmie said, clambering onto the dais. She shoved the lectern, sending it crashing to the floor. Then, before I could say a word, she pushed the goddess statue.
"Ah…"
The statue teetered for a moment before toppling over. It shattered with a deafening crash.
"You're going to get cursed!"
It was just a stone statue, but because it was modeled after Racshell, my heart pounded. I rushed to try and fix it, but only the torso was intact; the rest was broken beyond repair.
"…It is fine. Since that statue is of Lady Racshell, she will forgive you if you apologize to her directly, Mash."
"I'm the one who has to apologize?"
Marmie nodded emphatically and jumped down from the dais. I let out a sigh of resignation, took another deep breath, and pushed the base again. This time, it moved with a grating screech across the floor.
A door was revealed in the floor where the dais had been. Was it a storage room? Or the hidden chamber where the villagers who shared the village's fate were said to have hidden? Did it lead underground? No, the church we were in was an illusion on the water's surface. Should I call it the floor below?
Questions flooded my mind, but the only way to get answers was to open this door. There was a recessed handle for lifting it and a keyhole next to it. I paused, wondering about traps, but Marmie unceremoniously grabbed the handle.
"…Hnngh!"
"W-Wait!"
Before I could stop her, she yanked the door with all her strength, but it didn't budge.
"…It is locked."
It seemed she was the type to not think too deeply about anything that wasn't magic. I'd have to remember not to let her take the lead when we explored from now on. She scowled and pulled on the handle again and again, but the door remained shut.
"If it's a lock, this should work."
I took the magic key I'd used to get into Mizuki's room from my storage. Racshell had given it to me, saying it could open any door. We probably could have found the real key by searching the sacristy or the lectern drawers, but that felt like too much trouble.
She took the key and examined it curiously. Then, she hesitantly inserted it into the keyhole and turned. A soft click echoed in the quiet church.
Opening the door revealed a staircase, along with a cloud of musty air. It seemed to go down quite a way, but the darkness was too thick to see the bottom.
"Do you think it leads to the sunken church?"
Marmie raised her wand, and a small light appeared at its tip.
"…Light Magic: Illuminare."
It looked like the firefly light from outside, but it was much brighter. I could now see a warehouse-like room at the bottom of the stairs, but nothing beyond that.
"You have a spell that convenient?"
"…It is not convenient. It consumes mana, and I cannot use other magic while it is active."
"Does that mean while you're using this magic, I have to fight alone?"
Fighting without her magic was unthinkable. I pulled a torch from my storage and used fire magic to light it.
"Should we go down…?"
She nodded, then gripped my torch-holding arm tightly. It seemed her courage didn't extend to being the first one down the stairs. We began our careful descent.
At the bottom of the stairs was a stone chamber. There were no corpses of the villagers who had stayed behind. Nearly a thousand years had passed since that incident; even if there had been remains, they would have long since turned to dust.
The air was thick with the smell of dust and mold. At the far end of the room stood an old stone sarcophagus. The sight of it brought back memories of Akizuki Uta's tomb in the Nielen church. She had died a hundred years ago, yet I recalled her strangely lifelike face in death. That reminded me—the miracles the church performed were powered by a Crystal Core. What happened to the one that was supposed to be in this church?
"…Mash, the sarcophagus lid is askew."
Marmie tugged on my arm. The torchlight wavered, making the sarcophagus's shadow dance. It looked unnervingly like a living creature.
"You want to check inside?"
She nodded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. I wanted to tell her to do it herself, but of course, I couldn't say that out loud. I handed her the torch and placed my hands on the heavy stone lid. It was carved from a single slab of rock, too heavy to lift. I put my weight into it, trying to slide it sideways.
It refused to move. I focused my will and pushed harder, and finally, the lid began to shift. I meant to stop when there was enough of a gap to see inside, but I had put too much force into it and couldn't stop its momentum. The lid slid completely off, crashed to the floor, and shattered.
A thick cloud of dust instantly filled the room, blinding us for a moment. I choked, inhaling some of it, and heard Marmie coughing nearby.
"Are you all right?"
"…I am fine… cough."
We waited for the dust to settle, and Marmie moved to stand beside me. Together, we peered into the sarcophagus and gasped.
Three young men were crammed inside, lying as if they had been pushed in.
"Hah!"
I instinctively recoiled, stumbling backward. Marmie, however, didn't move.
"…The uniform of a House Starunion knight. The missing garrison soldiers."
"A-Are they alive?"
They didn't go missing today. And they'd been stuffed into a stone coffin. I knew their chances of survival were slim, but I had to ask.
"…They have a pulse."
"Really?"
Hearing her words, I reached out and checked another knight's wrist, confirming his pulse. They were unconscious, but I couldn't see any external injuries. We hauled the three men out of the sarcophagus and laid them on the floor. I tried pouring a healing potion down their throats, but they didn't respond.
"I want to wake them up… If only Maira were here…"
We really shouldn't have come alone. I couldn't possibly carry them all out by myself. I needed them to walk out of here on their own two feet.
"…I know a way to wake them."
She murmured as I mulled over our options.
"You do?"
She nodded in response to my question and then, without warning, raised her wand. Thinking she had some kind of spell for it, I watched as she brought it down on one of the soldiers. A sharp smack echoed through the chamber.
"…It did not work. I will try again."
"Wait, stop hitting him!"
I hurriedly stopped her as she prepared to strike the soldier again.
"…But we cannot stay in this place forever."
"You're right, but just give me a minute. Let me think if there's a better way."
As I was trying to calm her down, I heard a groan. One of the soldiers was regaining consciousness.
"Are you okay?"
I helped him sit up. He grimaced and shook his head several times.
"Where… is this?"
He clutched his head, his confused gaze sweeping the room. When his eyes landed on Marmie, he tried to scramble to his feet, only to stumble and fall.
"L-Lady Marmie!"
He managed to get up and salute her. There was no doubt; he was one of the missing soldiers. As I helped him calm down, the other two soon woke up as well.
"My body feels fine, my lady. But my face hurts."
I looked at the soldier's face and saw a distinct, wand-shaped welt already forming.
"It might be the curse of those who died with the village…"
I couldn't tell him the truth, so I just made something up. I hoped it was convincing enough. According to his memory, he had been on watch when he noticed the lake glowing. He should have called the other soldiers to investigate, but for some reason, he went to the lake alone. He had no memory of what happened after that. The other two told a similar story. I briefly explained to them how we had gotten here.
"To think you came all this way for us…"
Their eyes shone as they looked at Marmie. I decided it was best to keep quiet about how she'd tried to wake them up.
Now that we'd confirmed they were safe, we had no more business in this church. We decided to return to the fort. If we had to investigate and resolve the cause of this strange phenomenon ourselves, we could always call Fam and the others tomorrow and come back. We left the stone chamber and climbed the stairs.
Thank you for reading. To those who have liked, bookmarked, and rated this story, your support is a great encouragement. Thank you for pointing out typos. It's a great help.