∗ ∗ ∗
That was how we’d handily gotten the rights to Asyl and everything else associated with it, but...
“There were barely any usable houses after all.”
“Meow...” Cath smacked my head in a disappointed manner. “Don’t assume you can take the easy way out,” she seemed to be saying.
“Woof. Woof woof woof, woof? Woof woof. (But Milord, there was one sound stone building, so won’t that be enough for the time being? We can start there and focus our efforts on building new residences.)” Mataza gave his pragmatic opinion.
“You’ve got a point. That building probably used to be a chapel. But the Church of Astral’s not popular in this country, and it especially wasn’t popular decades ago. That said, the Sect of Forneus has only been around for ten years or so...so what religion was it for?”
I was a little curious about that. We were going to use it regardless of what denomination it had belonged to, so it didn’t really matter, but it’d be a bit annoying if someone complained about it later. Midrogue’s city council had transferred the rights over, so we could shoot down any complaints, but I knew very well that power struggles were truly tiresome affairs. If simple legal matters could be dealt with on their own, I wouldn’t have been expelled from my homeland.
“Woof woof, wa-woof, woof woof. Wheem? (We’ve prioritized demolishing and disassembling other houses first, so we haven’t yet investigated the inside of that building at length. Shall we have a look?)” asked Liber.
Taking a glance around the village again, I saw that most of the ten or so wooden houses had been destroyed or disassembled. That was a weight off my shoulders. About all that was left was the stone well and what looked to be a chapel. Seeing it this way, I noticed that this area was pretty wide open.
This is in the middle of a forest, but someone developed the area a long time ago and built a village. Although, since it’s been abandoned for so long, there’s plant overgrowth here and there. We’ll probably need to prune it all, but our group’s used to that kind of thing. It shouldn’t take that long.
I nodded to Liber and told her, “Yeah. Let’s ask the others to take care of the weeds and shrubs while we go make sure that building is safe.”
✦ ✦ ✦
∗ ∗ ∗
“It’s pretty messy inside. There aren’t any obvious signs of deterioration, so we’ll definitely be able to use it. We’ll have to clean up first, though...”
The chapel was in the middle of the village and had a belfry, furnished with a bell, sticking up out of its base. It was fairly large for such a small village, but it hardly compared with the size of even the residential housing in Midrogue. It seemed that this had always been a small village.
A quick examination indicated that the nave stretched out from the entrance and led to the main altar in the back. Light streamed in from above, likely from the belfry seen outside. It seemed to serve as a window to let light in as well.
There were also sun fade marks on the floor where I assumed pews had once been placed. Unfortunately, either they hadn’t withstood the test of time, or the villagers had removed them when they left. There was nothing there but debris.
“It’s still standing, but it’s not completely unscathed either. Even so, it’d be a waste to demolish it. If we thoroughly check out wherever it’s falling apart and reinforce those spots, we should be able to use it.”
“Woof, woof woof. (Milord, you can’t possibly expect us to be able to restore a building such as this.)” Mataza said.
“We’ll just make some temporary repairs. You guys should be able to handle that. Although, it might still be hazardous, so I’ll put together a magic circle for reinforcing it too.”
This was a technique made accessible to me through <Magifacture> skills. Methods of magically strengthening and reinforcing physical matter were commonplace enough, but the degree of enhancement varied by skill level and plain old experience. I’d only just learned the skill, so mine wasn’t very impressive, but I did still have <Magifacture 2>. I could fix it up with some reinforcement about once a month so that it wouldn’t collapse. That would still be a lot of effort, so I’d want to call in a real carpenter eventually, but I was afraid of bringing in an outsider before we were familiar with the area around our base. I’d just have to keep hanging in there until then.
While I was thinking about this, Liber, who was roving all around checking out different spots, howled.
“Wo-Woof! (Ah, Master! There are stairs here!)”
✦ ✦ ✦
∗ ∗ ∗
We descended the stairway into darkness.
✦ ✦ ✦
It went down much deeper than I’d expected, which seemed unusual for the basement of a building this size. It’s not unheard of, but...does it really need to be this deep? That was what it felt like.
“Oh, we’re nearly there.” Seeing the last step, I signaled for Mataza and Liber following behind me to halt. They had said they wanted to go ahead of me, but Cath and I could react better to surprise attacks, so they let us take the lead. Meanwhile, Cath rode on my shoulders as usual. I almost wanted to tell her to walk on her own legs, but it wasn’t like she was there all the time, so it was hard to grumble about it. Besides, I felt better having her there right now. Even if something that I couldn’t deal with popped out, Cath could drive it back with her magic. That would be relying on her too much, though, so I was still on high alert.
“Doesn’t look like there’s anything dangerous.”
I had been illuminating the way with a magic tool I’d procured in the city, commonly called a <Torch>. Thanks to that, I’d been able to see enough of the way forward while going down the stairs. But when we reached the basement, the whole interior was dimly lit, revealing its outline.
It was a fairly spacious room, so I couldn’t see all the way to the walls, but I could tell the overall structure. It was a wide, rectangular room which seemed to be a little larger than the chapel’s prayer hall up above. The layout seemed very similar too... Was that because it was part of the same building? It was hard to say. If the basement was just meant for storing supplies, the layout wouldn’t have needed to be so similar. But just like it was above, there was a nave and an altar in the back. Compared to the altar above, something felt a little different about this one. It was almost sinister.
There was some kind of statue enshrined atop the altar.
“What is this?” I absentmindedly reached out to it. I should’ve learned my lesson about being cautious in these situations by now. But if I were the kind of person who could stop and think before acting, my present circumstances would be much different.
I carelessly stretched out my arm...
Snag!
...and something grabbed it.
I pulled my arm back in an instant. Mataza cried out, seeming to sense that something was off. “Woof! (Milord!)”
Surprisingly, Cath hadn’t reacted to the hand grabbing my arm. “Meow?” She tilted her head.
Why? I didn’t understand. And then suddenly, there was a voice in my ear.
“Would you not move that?”
I turned around in surprise to see a peculiar person standing there. When had they gotten there?
No, this was whoever had grabbed my arm, stretching their hand out from behind me. When I yanked my arm away, the person’s hand let go.
Or rather, it just appeared to let go. While it had been grabbing me, there hadn’t been any physical sensation. I’d only seen the hand come into sight and had interpreted it that way, despite there being no contact.
“Who are you?” I gripped the handle of my sword, about to draw it from its place at my hip.
“Hold on a second!” they said in a hurry. “I don’t intend to harm you—any of you. Actually, are those two beastmen? No, they seem more primal than that. Are they kobolds?”
I hadn’t said anything about them, so how did they know all that? I was on even higher alert.
“Just what are you? What are you doing here? Are you...a beastman?”
They certainly looked like a beastman, specifically of the sheep persuasion. Their facial features didn’t look much different from those of normal folk, but the giant curly horns on their head clearly indicated that they were a different species.
There was also something strange about their garb. They wore a pure white, fluttering tunic. There wasn’t a single blemish on it, which was very unusual since we had gotten pretty grimy after walking all the way here.