Chapter 87 - <9>
"This is truly amazing..."
Franz restlessly wandered around the great underground archive. All around him were books, books, books... and boxes filled with documents.
Faced with these books, which were of a completely different nature from those in the Royal Library, Franz completely forgot the exhaustion that Greig had subjected him to.
In the end, since arriving at the underground treasury last night, Franz had barely slept. Territorial had fired Greig up more than he had expected.
It had been a miscalculation. Even when he tried to lose on purpose, it was surprisingly difficult to lose skillfully with a tired mind, and he had been forced to play the game until dawn.
He had decided he couldn't do any research with such a sleepy head and had slept for a couple of hours, but the stone floor was harder than expected and he hadn't been able to sleep soundly. Giving up on sleep, he had gotten up early and entered the archives.
At this point, it was strange to think that he would have been better off sleeping in the grass during their journey. There were bugs and dangers, but he keenly felt that at least the ground had been softer.
Despite such trying circumstances, it had already been several hours since he had shut himself in this great archive. And yet, it was so vast that he couldn't see it all.
Franz and Greig had expected the underground treasury to be a single large space, but contrary to their expectations, it consisted of three rooms.
First was the room right inside the entrance. It was designed like an office, perhaps with the idea that writing, meetings, and document compilation could be done there. This was where Franz and Greig had been engrossed in Territorial. It was also where they had slept.
On a bookshelf in this room was a list of the items stored in the underground treasury. Even though it only recorded the locations of the stored items, it was a considerably large and thick book. And it wasn't just one or two volumes. The early ones were already yellowed, and the paper became newer as it approached modern times. Incredibly, all the stored items since the founding of Yuresla were recorded there.
On either side of that room were two large rooms. The room on the right was truly worthy of being called a treasury. Even Franz, who had only glanced inside, was left sighing in admiration.
Swords and armor covered in expensive-looking jewels, beautiful lumps of iron of unknown purpose, polished crystal-like objects, and many locked treasure chests were neatly arranged.
The number of treasures arranged in the spacious area was far too great to count.
Greig had wanted to see the crown, but it was impossible to tell where it was just by looking, and he didn't know where in the documents it was written.
After searching all over and failing to find it, Greig had apparently gotten tired of treasure hunting and was now trying on antique armor and weapons and coming to show them to Franz, which was annoying. He was, after all, still a twelve-year-old boy.
And on the opposite side of the treasury from the first room was the great archive where Franz was now. When he had Sara-chan light all the lamps in the room, it became quite bright despite being underground. This would make it easier to find what he was looking for.
In this great underground archive, countless bookshelves reaching up to the ceiling were lined up endlessly. The book at the very front was quite large and had a splendid leather binding.
When he held it in both hands and spread it open on one of the reading stands scattered around, he found it was a collection of recent newspapers, beautifully bound. Moreover, almost all the newspapers published in the Royal Capital were neatly arranged by date.
The giant books lined up were probably all made by craftsmen who had collected and bound such newspapers. They were likely used for various information gathering and then stored as reference materials.
Franz made his way through the labyrinth of bookshelves lined with various documents, Sara-chan's lamp in hand. Tactics, strategy, history, research papers on other countries, ethnology, customs, and even reports from the military and government affairs departments. His interest was endless. For Franz, it was a treasure trove.
Moreover, here, the work content of past kings, which he had never even been able to know about before, the names of their key subordinates, and confidential matters that had been dealt with secretly were recorded in surprisingly great detail.
With this, he would surely be able to find out the name of the king who had created the 'Infinite Nightmare' and the spirit user who had served that king at the time.
Franz carefully took out the various books and documents related to the royal family, which were frighteningly well-maintained and likely under the strictest management, brought them to a nearby reading stand, and slowly turned the pages.
According to Ritz, the town in the 'Infinite Nightmare' was likely the royal castle from about a thousand years ago. In that case, the materials he was looking for would be from around the years 450 to 600 of the Yuresla Kingdom Calendar. That alone was a huge amount of material. And he didn't know if Ritz's casual guess was accurate.
The average reign of a king of the Yuresla Kingdom was twenty to thirty years. Some ruled for over fifty years, while some for only a few months.
In any case, what he knew was that the king's reign was not short, he probably didn't engage in misrule, and the abdication and transfer of power to the next king were peaceful.
And a famous spirit user was by his side...
He took out one book at a time, checked it at the reading stand, returned it, and then took out the next. If he took them out all at once and mixed up the order when returning them, it would immediately become known that someone had entered here, so he was afraid of that. It was time-consuming, but it couldn't be helped.
"...A military coup. Not this one."
Franz was searching for his target by looking at the work performance and evaluation of the king at the beginning of the king's official records. He could tell from the creation of the 'Infinite Nightmare' that the king was likely meticulous, quite puritanical when it came to national affairs, and a considerable stickler for rules.
"Extravagant, lecherous, art-obsessed... not this one either."
Quickly flipping through the documents, Franz took notes with one hand. He never dreamed that helping Ritz with his work would come in handy in a place like this.
"I guess everything's an experience..."
He had no intention of thanking Ritz, but he wanted to praise himself for acquiring such a skill. Ritz, who would throw a situation into chaos with a casual bluff and then slyly push the cleanup onto someone else, and Anna, who was somewhat out of touch with the world yet had a strangely strong sense of justice and always found some kind of trouble.
He felt that at least while he was with the two of them, he absolutely had to live within the bounds of common sense.
Being with two people who were not normal, he felt that his own diligent side was growing. Was this a good thing? Or a bad thing, in its own way?
But even though he was trying to be a man of common sense, what he was doing right now was... raiding the underground treasury. Could it be that he was the most out of touch with common sense?
Franz shook his head to clear his thoughts. Everything was for his future goal. If he remembered that now, he wouldn't be able to move forward. He had to think about something else.
Just then, he thought of Anna. He wondered if anything had changed while he was away. If there had been any developments, what should he do? He might not be of any help even if he was there, but if there was anything he could do to help, he wanted to.
As he was thinking that, he picked up the umpteenth book and noticed a strange texture he had never felt before. Something was stuck in the book.
Timidly, he opened the part of the book where something was stuck, and there was an envelope.
"A letter?"
When he picked it up, he could clearly see that the paper was still new. It was paper from the current era, completely different from this book.
"Why is it in a place like this?"
Had someone who came before him left it here? Muttering, he turned it over, and his breath caught at the characters there.
"...No way..."
The letter had the addressee clearly written in familiar, angular, formal characters. But the addressee was the name of a person whose name should not be written on something in this place.
"It can't be..."
Franz muttered, then took a deep breath and looked at the envelope again. But the characters there were clearly not a figment of his imagination. No matter how many times he looked, it still clearly bore the same person's name.
"This is impossible..."
With trembling fingers, he traced the written characters one by one as if to confirm them.
'To my first and last, most beloved student, Franz Lucina, from Artis Ozmand'
His master, Orphe's, real name, which he was seeing for the first time, was written there.
A letter addressed to him was sleeping in this underground treasury.
Since when?
No, how did it get here?
Confused, Franz looked at the page where the letter had been tucked. It listed the name of the king and the date he ascended the throne, the names of the Prime Minister and ministers, the key officials of the kingdom's army, and the head of the administrative officials.
The king's name was Edmond, and the Prime Minister's name was Artis Ozmand. And the king's reign was... the year 547 of the Yuresla Kingdom Calendar... 1026 years ago.
One thousand twenty-six years ago...
A chill ran down his spine. He felt cold. He couldn't understand what was happening. It was true that when he met him in the 'Infinite Nightmare,' Orphe had said he created it over a thousand years ago. But he couldn't believe it was really true.
No, he didn't want to believe it. He was the only master he had ever trusted. So he just wanted him to be a normal person and a spirit user.
Who in the world was Artis Ozmand?
If the signature left on this letter was his real name, and if it was really him, he would be old enough to have died long ago, even if he were of the Spirit Tribe. And yet, he still looked like he was only in his mid-thirties.
Was he really the same person as Orphe, the junk-loving, life-incompetent man whose only redeeming quality was his ability to handle spirits, who had been living with Franz until just six months ago?
He couldn't possibly believe so.
But the Artis he had met in the 'Infinite Nightmare' certainly had a sharp impression. Did that mean he had become... well, to put it nicely, mellow, and to put it badly, an airhead in a thousand years?
No, that didn't matter. How did this happen? Was he even human to begin with? He didn't seem to be of the Spirit Tribe.
His mind was a complete blank. But his hands mechanically turned the pages of King Edmond's official records. In the characters recorded there, Franz felt an inescapable reality. The characters written there were exactly the same as the ones on the envelope of the letter. They were characters Franz was very familiar with.
Just in case, he hurried to get the latest king's official records. The records of Edward's work were filled with Shasta's meticulous handwriting.
In other words, recording the king's official duties was the job of the successive Prime Ministers. Did that mean the writer of the letter and the Prime Minister who wrote King Edmond's official records were the same person?
No, maybe for generations, the family had inherited the name Artis Ozmand and imitated the handwriting...
He didn't know why, but that made sense. It made sense, but he didn't know the reason why.
What in the world was going on? And could someone really write characters so exactly the same?
Franz read through King Edmond's official records, picking out only the parts where the name Artis was written. He then saw that the Prime Minister had been replaced midway through.
Looking at the dates, it seemed this person named Artis Ozmand had served under King Edmond for about ten years before retiring. Just before that, the 'Infinite Nightmare' was recorded by name. Artis had presented this to King Edmond and then retired.
It seemed the truth Franz was looking for was all recorded in that book. There was no way the subsequent life of a retired Prime Minister would be written in a book about the king and the country's politics.
The only thing written was a single statement by King Edmond: 'The former Prime Minister, Artis Ozmand, was a great spirit user and returned to his hometown after retirement.'
His hometown... where could that be? Franz had never heard him talk about his hometown. No, he had never even thought to ask.
Thinking about it now, he had stubbornly refused to get to know others. Even if it was the master who had been the only one to try to understand him.
The fact that he realized such a thing meant that he himself was changing considerably. It was probably because he had been traveling with Anna, who would persistently ask questions until she got an answer, and Ritz, who would try to get him to confess by setting various traps.
If only this had happened sooner, he would have had clues to follow his master's mysterious actions...
To cool his confused head, Franz closed the book and pressed his forehead against the cold reading stand. The archive in the cavern was cool, and the heavy wooden reading stand, which had been moderately chilled, felt pleasant.
"...Other things that live for over a thousand years..."
With his forehead still on the stand, Franz muttered. Various creatures came to his mind.
"...A tree?"
That couldn't be right. Even if he was always spaced out and slow to act, he didn't actually have roots growing.
"A spirit..."
Spirits were the same and yet not the same. They were always being born somewhere and disappearing somewhere. They were 'individuals' and 'a collective.' There was no concept of one by one. In other words, things like lifespan did not exist for them.
But Orphe was definitely an individual. He was human. He was not an uncertain existence like a spirit. In the first place, if he were a spirit, Ritz wouldn't be able to see him.
"...I don't know."
Franz collapsed onto the reading stand. He was reaching his limit of handling this alone. Thinking about it by himself, with his lack of worldly knowledge, wouldn't lead to an answer.
He wanted to consult someone and ask them. Not just anyone. Ritz and Anna. And he wanted to ask the current king, Edward. About Orphe, about Artis, he wanted to confess everything.
And he wanted them to suggest some kind of solution. He didn't care how outlandish it was. Even just hearing them say, 'That's strange,' would be fine. His head was full. For two months since parting with Orphe in the 'Infinite Nightmare,' he had been thinking all by himself. He was starting to get stuck.
With a sigh, Franz lifted his head and pulled the book towards him again. For now, he had to write down the parts of King Edmond's official records where Artis was involved. He would consult the two of them after he had obtained the materials, escaped from here, and Anna, who had become a maid, had returned home.
He would read the letter from his master later. He knew that if he read it now, his confusion would only worsen.
Sara-chan, in the lamp on the desk, seemed to have been bored for a while and was curled up asleep. This was an archive, so he couldn't let her out.
"You have it easy. You probably don't have any worries."
He spoke to her and lightly tapped the lamp. Sara-chan opened her sleepy eyes just a little, then closed them again. Complaining to Sara-chan wouldn't get him anywhere; he had just done something pointless.
Shaking his head once, he picked up a pen to start working, and at that moment, the archive door was thrown open so violently it seemed it would break. Startled, his mind went completely blank.
My heart... hurts...
As Franz clutched his chest to calm his racing heart, the image of a boy who had burst into the archive as quickly as the door had been thrown open was reflected in his eyes.
"Franz! This is terrible!"
"...Could you be a little quieter..."
"This is terrible!"
Franz's complaint was easily silenced by Greig. He was in a state of considerable excitement.
"Calm down..."
Before he could finish his words, Greig had rushed over to Franz. He stood in front of him and grabbed his shoulders.
"I can't calm down! It's robbers! A gang of robbers!"
"...Huh?"
This was underground. And the only entrance was the place Greig had entered using the key he had stolen from Edward. It was impossible.
"Are you joking?"
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
Indeed, Greig's gaze was serious, and his hands gripping Franz's shoulders were strong.
"...Alright, I believe you. What's the situation?"
"How should I know? All I know is that there are a lot of them."
Right. He was asking Greig, who was not experienced enough to give accurate information when asked, 'What's the situation?'
Franz felt a chill, for a different reason than before. It seemed he was about to have another close-quarters encounter with the enemy.
And to be with this Greig again...
"How do you know they're a gang of robbers? Did you see them?"
When he asked briefly, Greig nodded and replied.
"I heard voices in the cavern. They were talking about taking the treasure from the underground treasury, taking it to the port, and selling it in another country. When I peeked, there were men there. It wasn't just a few. I think there were over ten."
A dozen men versus the novice combat duo of Franz and Greig... a decided disadvantage.
"Are they still far away?"
He checked the feel of the Flame Arrow he had brought just in case, through his clothes.
"...They're pretty close."
"...Huh?"
Wait, my mental preparation... he panicked in his mind, but he didn't let it show on his face or in his voice. Oblivious to Franz's feelings, Greig thought for a moment before looking up.
"They might be here any second."
"..."
As he was left speechless, Greig pouted.
"It can't be helped. I hurried too. But I couldn't let them find me, could I?!"
"...Alright. Let's hide for now."
Muttering softly, Franz began to blow out the lights in the archive.
"We're hiding?!"
"Yes."
After blowing out a few, the archive became considerably dark. He piled up the boxes of unprocessed documents that had been in the corner on the desk to create a place where the two of them could hide.
"We're not going to fight?"
To the clearly displeased Greig, who was openly showing his anger, he looked at him calmly.
"We'll hide and watch. The enemy is after the treasure in the treasury, right? So they probably won't even glance at a box in the corner of the archive."
After blowing out the last light, the only light illuminating this archive was now Sara-chan's lamp.
"Coward!"
Greig complained, his face flushed.
"...What is?"
"Hiding and running away!"
This part of him was completely childish. He wanted him to understand the reality of the situation rather than his pride.
"Greig, the enemy doesn't have a map of this underground area. We probably have the advantage since we have one."
"...Yeah."
"Once the enemy starts carrying out the goods, you'll rush back to the royal palace and call the Military Police."
"We won't make it in time!"
Greig turned away, still pouting. He was such a child. ...Well, he was only twelve, so it couldn't be helped.
"We'll make it. They should be able to easily track down the enemy, who will be lost in the cavern. At that time, I'll follow them and keep watch."
After simulating Franz's proposal in his head, Greig looked up.
"Even if you follow them, if they come later, they won't know where you are, Franz."
"I'll carve arrows along the path I take. They can follow those."
With an exaggerated sigh, Greig seemed to be convinced and looked up at Franz. It couldn't be helped that he was so reluctant.
"I see... It's passive, but with just the two of us, it's the only way."
"If you understand, then please hide for now."
He urged Greig, and the two of them huddled in the corner of the dark archive, behind a stack of boxes. He covered Sara-chan's lamp with a cloth from Franz's bag. The room instantly became dark.
For a moment, the thought, 'If they're selling to another country, the documents recording the king's official duties would sell for a high price,' crossed Franz's mind, but it was already too late. A few minutes after they had hidden, before their eyes could even adjust to the darkness, the men appeared.
They roughly threw open the archive door and entered. Peeking from behind the bookshelf, he saw about ten men. They were rummaging through the nearest book. The area around that entrance, if he remembered correctly, was where the detailed documents for carrying out national events and celebrations were.
"Tch... nothin' interesting..."
One of the men muttered.
"Don't handle it so roughly. Even stuff like this might fetch a price in another country, you know."
"Yeah, yeah."
So they plan to sell the books too... Franz sighed at his own foolishness. He had heard from Ritz before. The most valuable thing you could sell to another country was information.
"Hey, come look at this!"
A companion of the men peeked out from outside the archive.
"This is the treasury over here. It's amazing, a mountain of treasure!"
"Is that so? Then let's start with that."
The men filed out. It seemed they had split into two groups. In that case, the total number was double this... twenty.
It was a good thing they hadn't tried to fight them. Franz was one thing, but if something happened to Greig, he would be at a loss to explain to the king and the crown prince. Greig was the only heir to the crown prince, who had lost his wife.
As the door was slammed shut again and the men left, Greig complained.
"Is this okay? They're gonna steal it, the treasure!"
"Shh! You're too loud."
"But Franz, that belongs to this country. It's this country's treasure. We can't let a band of thieves have it!"
"...I know."
It was surprising. That Greig didn't treat this treasure as the royal family's property. He probably had a slight awareness of being a prince.
"If you know, then let me go!"
"No."
Franz was at a loss as to how to persuade Greig, who was getting restless and couldn't contain his eagerness.
"Just no."
"Don't treat me like a child, like my grandmother does."
To Greig, who was gradually getting seriously angry, Franz was at his wit's end.
"Greig is the only son and a prince. If something happens, I can't take responsibility."
Forced to say his true feelings, Greig flinched for a moment.
"If you die, the country will fall. It doesn't matter if you die as an individual, but if the country falls, it will be troublesome in various ways."
"..."
Knowing his own position, Greig fell silent. Had he gone too far? But this was the truth for Franz, so it couldn't be helped. But Greig, in the next moment, said something outrageous.
"...You wouldn't care if I died, would you, Franz?"
"...Huh?"
He was so taken aback he was at a loss for words. What was he saying?
"You wouldn't be sad, would you, Franz? You're not much of a friend."
That wasn't what he meant, but it seemed he had been misunderstood. When he said it didn't matter if he died as an individual, he meant in the sense of a citizen, not about him personally.
"Hmph, I see what you're thinking, Franz. In that case, if I'm gone, my father can just remarry and have another child."
He sighed at the childish words.
"...You're such a child."
"So what if I'm a child!"
His head hurt. It was true that the crown prince was still young. It would be good for him to remarry, and the possibility of Greig having siblings was high. But that wasn't the issue.
"Anyway, I'm going."
Greig rushed out, driven by emotion. There was no time to stop him.
"Don't!"
Franz also rushed out and grabbed Greig's arm. In terms of height, Franz was several inches taller. But Greig had strength.
"I said I'm going!"
"Wait!"
"I can't just abandon the treasure!"
As the two of them scuffled, the area outside the door became noisy. Thinking they had been noticed, Franz instinctively took out his Flame Arrow and aimed it at the door.
Cold sweat trickled down his forehead.
But what he heard were the shouts of the men.
"Enemies! It's the Military Police!"
At those words coming from beyond the door, he and Greig exchanged glances. No one had gone to call them yet, so how did they know about the robbers' intrusion?
"Anyway... we're saved."
For now, at least, they had avoided the fate of dying unknown in the underground treasury, just the two of them, Greig and himself.
With a deep breath, Franz lowered the Flame Arrow he had been holding in his hand.