“It’s empty!”
“Next one, next one!”

It had become already a rather familiar sight by now, the mercenaries rushing into a room, complaining about the mountains of dust and then flooding outside again only to enter the next room and repeat the whole thing. And yet, we were still in the very first corridor, even after we had repeated this well over a dozen times already.

“It’s empty!”
“Of course it is. Bah! Next!”

And once more, the dust-covered mercenaries rushed into the next room…

“But there really isn’t anything at all here, is there?” I muttered.
“What are you expecting? Some super secret storage room that they conveniently forgot to clear out?”
“... Maybe?”
“Would be nice.”

Taddick glared into the room they were searching, not even hiding anymore that he wasn’t going to take a single step inside. Which was a little enviable…

“Whoever made use of this place made sure to clear out everything. Not expecting to find a whole lot anymore. At least, nothing valuable.”
“So, they might have left behind things that aren’t as valuable?”
“Possible. But let’s be honest. If we could find this place in a matter of a few days, then other people could as well. And if there was anything valuable left behind, then they would’ve run off with it long ago.”

That was… probably quite likely. The fort had been abandoned for over two hundred years. That was more than enough time for people to plunder whatever might have been left here. And there definitely were people here after it was abandoned. Those dead bandits pretty much proved that. And even the townsfolk had been here, like that craftsman…’s son.

“Mm… Mr Taddick, wouldn’t it be possible that the people who looted this place might have used it as a hideout and left things of their own?”
“Sure might have. Let’s hope it’s not food that has already gained sentience from being left to rot for so long in the dust.”

Let’s hope not. That’d be more than a little freaky and I’d like to eat dinner without worrying whether my food would jump from the plate any second…

“More likely than that would be some other… unlikable stuff.”
“Nn? Unlikable stuff?”
“Contraband. Illegal goods. The things people don’t want others to find. Things bandits, thieves, smugglers and the like really like to hide but also stuff they can’t exactly carry around so easily. This place would be a good place to hide stuff like that. But more than that, keep in mind that the fort belonged to the country.”
“Nn?”

Why did the country matter now?

“This place was built for a reason and it was kept off the records for a reason. It’s far too vast for a mere escape tunnel, if you ask me. And this area at least, even if you ignore all the dust, is clearly not a living area. This is a storage space.”
“Ahh…”

The country used this for something they didn’t want others to find.

“But, then… Why would they even sell the fort?”
“Maybe they forgot? Maybe they don’t even know about this? Or they don’t care because they already cleaned up everything. You’d have to ask them.”

If the king knew about this… I couldn’t imagine it being something he didn’t want us to find. That’d be contradictory. On the other hand, if he didn’t… Well, either way, it wouldn’t be something that he personally did so…

“Leader! It’s empty.”
“Then stop dallying and get to the next one. We don’t have all day!”

With familiar motions, the men moved to the next set of doors, opening one door and then the other, confirming they were empty at first sight.

“Yumi, stop daydreaming and do your job.”
“Ah, yes.”

Holding my breath, I followed the men inside to take a look. Just like with every other room, there were no abnormalities in the mana, so I quickly made my way outside again.

“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Gee, how boring.”

While I could understand the sentiment, it wasn’t something I could change.

“Taddick.”
“Yes.”
“Returning to our discussion… If the country made use of this, what do you think it was used for?”
“Ha! No idea. Why would anyone need so many storage rooms hidden away? If these were cells it’d be one thing but these are just old regular rooms.”
“I see…”

Then again, I didn’t have an idea,,,,

“Actually… Let me take that back.”
“Nn?”
“There’s something I can think of.”
“Oh?”
“Food storage.”
“Food… storage?”

All of these rooms?

“It nearly slipped my mind but this is a fort, built for border defense. If it would come under siege, the amount of food stored away would be critical for their survival. After all, the longer they can hold out, the higher the chance for reinforcements. And since this place is underground, it’s quite cool making it quite good for storage.”
“A siege… That would have been possible, huh?”
“I’m not as well-versed in history as the captain but it wouldn’t surprise me. I mean, even nowadays, Krohmea, Aldreigh and Lafria don’t always look eye to eye.”
“Huh? They don’t?”

I thought they had a rather amicable relationship.

“Of course not. They’re different countries. Different laws, different values, different languages, different people. What’s normal in Lafria might be scorned in Aldreigh and ridiculed in Krohmea. That’s how life is.”
“...”
“Well, enough about that. That’s a topic that’s more suited to the captain than me. Point being, the fort existed for a reason here. It’s a fort, after all. So this place being a food storage is quite likely, I’d say. Although, it’d be really boring if it was.”
“I don’t think the point of it was being interesting…”

But a food storage… Now that he said it, it did make sense. Since it was cool underground, you’d be able to keep certain types of food for quite a long time here. There was no need for magic tools, either. Hell, if you used a magic tool, you could have built a freezer in here… They might have done that, actually.

“It’s empty!”
“And to the next one.”

For the umpteenth time, we left one room and entered the next one…

Just when would this end?

---

“Okay, everyone, it’s time to take a break!”
“”“Ooooohhhh!”””

A whole hour later, we were finally given a break. I slumped to the ground, the cold wall in my back.

It had been just one empty room after another, each and everyone filled with dust and nothing else. Nothing. Else. Not even the tiniest thing. The whole place had been swiped clean. Well, except for… Surprise! The dust.

But now, we had finally reached the end of the corridor.

“I am really glad this is over… Seriously…”
“It’s been a little exhausting…”

Karen, who sat down next to me, frowned as she watched the mercenaries happily sitting down and getting rest as well.

“I would have never thought that going into empty rooms could be so draining.”
“Nn… Neither did I.”

Halfway through, we more or less lost most of our tension, but that didn’t mean it had been gone entirely. We still checked every nook and cranny and since Karen and I were the only two people with mana sight in our group, we had to check carefully as well. But there had been absolutely nothing…

“Haaa… How many rooms did we even check in the end?”
“I don’t know… I didn’t keep count…”

Neither did I. But there was someone who surely had.

“Nn… Sanna.”
“Huh?! Wha— What is it, Miss Yumi?!”
“How many rooms did we search?”
“Eh? Uhh…”

Surprised by my sudden question, Sanna immediately checked on her mad and began to count… Now I felt bad for asking.

“Thrity-eight!”
“Thirty-eight?”
“Y— Yes? Is there something wrong?”
“No, it’s just…It’s a bit of an odd number.”

I would have understood if it was forty… Or thirty-six, since that would have been three dozen. But thirty-eight was right in between that…

“Miss Sanna, would it be all right for us to see the map?”
“Ah? Of, of course! Here you go.”
“Thank you.”

Sanna handed Karen the map she had drawn. It was a very simple map but drawn with straight, clear lines. Even to me, it seemed like this was made with a practiced hand.

“Nn… Let’s see…”

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything interesting to see. The rooms were all the same size, spaced at even intervals. Nothing out of ordinary…

“Miss Sanna, are you sure that every room is the same size?”
“Ye, yes! I walked along each wall to make sure it was the same number of steps. And, and I counted them for the space between each door, too!”
“That’s quite amazing.”
“Huh?”
“Thank you for letting us take a look. Here you go.”

Karen returned the map to the momentarily stunned Sanna.

“Nn, but it doesn’t look like there’s anything hidden in this corridor either… Makes me wonder why they stopped at that number.”
“Maybe they simply didn’t need more? Or they were restricted by the length of the corridor.”
“Nn… Possibly.”

Could be anything… Oh well, it wasn’t overly important anyway. Not like we could ask the architect from back then. Actually, considering the life spans of some races and some people, maybe the architect was actually still alive… But I wouldn’t go out of my way to find out, to be honest.

“Whatever… Let’s just take a rest for now.”

I leaned towards Karen, resting my head on her shoulder. Closing my eyes, I let my consciousness drift off for a little, listening to the merry mercenaries all the while.

After a few minutes, Taddick once more called out to everyone.

“Now that everyone has caught their breath, we’ll make our way back. Up with you all. Back in formation.”

If he had waited for another minute, I might have actually fallen asleep… maybe it was good I didn’t.

“Back, huh… I wonder what the others found.”

One of them had to find something, right? After all, Ria had noticed mana being used somewhere down here. Unless, it had been a false alarm, of course. Though, I couldn’t imagine that being the case with Ria.

But I haven’t seen anything out of ordinary in the entire time we were here. The mana’s quiet as could be.

Well, we were going to find out if someone found something soon enough. Karen and I took our positions in the formation once more and our whole group marched back. This time, we didn’t make any big stops. We had left all doors open so the mercenaries only briefly glanced inside as we walked past them. It took us a whole hour to get through this place, yet, the way back only took a few minutes at most. It felt a little weird, to be honest. But either way, we made our way back into the hall where Korwen had sent us off from.

“Nn? We’re not the first ones back,” I mumbled to myself.
“Mh? Oh, Taddick. You returned as well?”
“Fenna, huh… You’re already done, too?”
“Yes. It didn’t take us long. There were only a few rooms in there. But, say, Taddick… What in the Spirits’ name did you guys do? You look like you jumped into a mountain of flour.”
“...”

A mountain of flour… was quite appropriate.

“The dust… was amazing.”
“... My condolences.”
“... Thanks.”

Judging from how Fenna and her group looked, it didn’t seem like they had it as bad as us. Though, there was still enough dust on them that you could return to the words, to be honest. 

“So, found anything of interest?”
“Not really. A few empty rooms. Apart from dust and rock pebbles, nothing.”
“So the same as us.”
“Whoever cleaned up here was very thorough.”

In other words, we still had nothing. Great. But maybe the other two groups had something to share… But…

“Nn… I wonder how long it’ll take for the captain and the vice-captain to come back…”
“They should come back soon. It’s been nearly an hour and a half now,” answered Karen.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Huh…”

Although the whole search had been quite boring, it had still taken considerable time, hadn’t it? Then again, it would have taken even longer if the mercenaries weren’t so trained in this.

Right at that moment, one of the doors to the hall opened and a group of people entered.

“What, you’re all already back? You didn’t skip your work, did you?”
“We didn’t, Captain.”

Korwen, who was leading the returning group, smiled wryly at Fenna’s reply.

“Would’ve been surprised if you did. So? Did you already finish your areas?”
“We did. There was nothing to find there.”
“I see. Taddick? How about you?”
“Same for us. Nothing but tons of dust.”

Taddick shrugged with his shoulders

“I see. Guess we’ll have to wait for Merim to come back then.”

Wait… That sounded like…

“Captain, there was nothing there either?”
“Do I look like I found something?”

Korwen spread his arms wide, showing how he had literally nothing to show.

“You look like you fell into a mountain of flour.”
“Well, now, aren’t we cheeky today, Taddick.”
“Those were Fenna’s words.”
“Eh?!”
“Oh? Fenna, you’re really raring to get more work, aren’t you?”
“I said that to Taddick’s group, not yours, Captain!”

Seeing Fenna panic, Korwen started laughing.

“Well, admittedly, we all look like we’d desperately need a bath after this. Just where did all that dust even come from?”

Wasn’t it because nobody had been here for so long? Though, dust had to come from somewhere…

“Anyway, Fenna, Taddick, tell me in detail what you… Oh? Look who’s the last one to come.”

The final group returned right then, with Merim and Wendl… Uhh…

“Merim, what in the blazes happened to you guys?”
“... We found a tunnel.”
“... I see… How did that lead to… this?”

Korwen looked at Merim from top to bottom, with an amazed look. After all, the entire group was… black.

“It’s black sand.”
“... I can see that. But how did that lead to you being covered in it? I’d like it if you don’t start playing human torch underground.”
“Because some! Some idiot! Piled up all that stuff in a room! To the brim! And when we opened the door it all spilled out!”

He broke. Merim broke.

“I see. Well… Calm down for now and give me your report.”
“Haa… Sure…”

With a tired expression, Merim began recounting the escapades they had to go through in their area. Meanwhile, I turned to Karen, wanting to ask a question.

“Hey, Sis. What is black sand?”
“Mm… If I recall correctly, it’s sand that burns if you light it.”
“Sand that burns?”
“Yes. I’m not very familiar with it either, though.”
“Huh…”

Sand that burns. Honestly, that reminded me of black powder

Well, it might actually be black powder… Mm… The captain is busy with listening to Merim… looks like Merim’s mostly ranting about his horrible experience now. Ria is dozing off… Who else might know about… Huh?

As I was looking around, I saw some movement in the corner of my eye. I turned around in a hurry, just in time to spot a small creature paddling through the room into a hole in the wall. The whole thing went by so fast I wasn’t quite sure if it had been a hallucination or if something had really been there… After all, whatever it had been, it had looked like a hedgehog. A hedgehog with spikes in all the colours of the rainbow.

“Yumi?”
“Sis, did you see that just now?”
”See what?”
“That… I don’t know. The hedgehog.”
“... Hedgehog?”

Karen tilted her head, clearly not understanding what I was trying. As I was confused and wondering what to say, I remembered that there was something more important to do first.

“Captain.”
“Mm? Yumi, just wait a moment.”
“Captain, I saw something going into the wall.”
“... What?”

The moment the words left my mouth, everyone’s eyes turned to me. While I had gotten used to being looked at a little more, it was still uncomfortable when it happened so suddenly.

“What did you see?”
“Err, a hedgehog.”
“... A hedgehog?”
“... A small critter with spikes on his back. Just, they were in all kinds of colours.”
“.. A small critter… with spikes… Where did you see it?”
“Over there.”

I pointed at the hole in the wall.

“Someone give me a lamp.”

Oh, right, there was a slight lack of light here.

“Okay, here, you say?”
“Nn.”

Korwen, with a lamp in hand, crouched down next to the hole and peered inside, moving the lamp so its light shone inside it.

“Can’t see anything… Yumi, do you have a mana crystal with you?”
“Eh? Uhhh…”
“I have some, Mr Captain.”
“Karen, huh. Give me one.”
“Here.”
“Thank you.”

Before I could even check my pouch, Karen had already handed one to Korwen. He put the mana crystal right in front of the hole and then stepped back, staring at the hole all the while.

“Captain? Err, what’s going on?”

While I was the one who had spotted the creature, I really didn’t know what he was even trying to do right now. It seemed to me that he had an idea as to what the creature had been, after all.

“Well, watch and learn. If your eyes haven’t gone bad, this might be a little interesting.”
“Nn?”

He said it’d be interesting but… Why the mana crystal?

“Shh, quiet now.”

Korwen raised his hand and everyone in the room immediately held their breaths, staring at the hole. There was… a sound. Barely audible, but it was there. And it was coming from the hole. Then, a few seconds later, a small, brown snout with a black nose peeked through the hole, sniffing the surroundings. After it sniffed around for a while, the creature stepped out of the hole, approaching the mana crystal.

It really is a hedgehog!

A hedgehog with crystalline spikes in all the colours of a rainbow. It was… actually quite adorable. It sniffed the mana crystal with its nose, then grabbed it with its small claws, turning it around.

“A rainbow hoggy. That’s not something I expected to find here.”
“A… rainbow hoggy? Is that a monster?”

They kind of reminded me of those monsters we had seen in the Academy in Lafria. Weren’t those called hoggies, too?

“No, they’re magic beasts. They live underground and eat magic-infused rocks. Thinking about it, we should have expected some of these, huh…”

Apparently, they were different…

We continued to watch on as the rainbow hoggy turned the mana crystal around and around. The heck was it doing? Just as I wondered that, it stopped and… bit the crystal.

“Huh?”

I was shocked. How couldn’t I? The small creature… had taken a bite out of the crystal. And now it was chewing it. You could hear the sounds of the crystal being crushed.

“That’s… some terrifying jaw strength.”
“There are stories of people losing fingers and other things to them so be careful. Biting through a bone is nothing to them.”
“I mean, they just crushed that crystal…”

A bone really was nothing to that. Not like I had any. Even more of a reason not to get caught between those teeth.

“So, err, what now, Captain?”
“Well… Karen, give me another crystal.”
“Yes, Mr Captain.”

While the rainbow hoggy was eating the mana crystal, Korwen took another one and held it out on his hand to the rainbow hoggy.

“Captain, is that safe?”
“Don’t worry. Look.”

The rainbow hoggy had just finished its latest snack, before it already turned to Korwen, sniffing with its nose. It slowly paddled over to his hand, then sniffed his hand and carefully hit his fingers with its claws a few times.

“Oh, there, there.”

Maybe having been satisfied with hitting Korwen’s hand,  the small creature climbed on top of his hand and grabbed the mana crystal. Though I say that it climbed on his hand, the rainbow hoggy was too big actually to fit on his hand entirely. But it was still half on top of his hand and was now snacking on the second mana crystal.

“See, it’s all good. Rainbow hoggies are very docile creatures. As long as you don’t hurt them, they’re very peaceful.”
“I… I see…”

Watching the small creature as it sat half on Korwen’s hand… It was cute. As long as you ignored the terrifying sounds of the crystal being crushed.

“There’s a good little hoggy.”

With his free hand, Korwen scratched the side of the small creature. I felt a little jealous. The creature was docile and cute, after all.

“Want to try, too?”
“Nn.”
“Go ahead. But don’t touch the crystals on its back.”
“Nn. Like this?”

Cautiously, I poked the hoggy’s side and scratched it a little. Its fur was smooth, much to my surprise. And it felt quite good.

“Yes. Like that is fine.”
“Nn.”

This was… addicting. The smooth texture of its fur felt good and seeing it eat like that was adorable. Unfortunately, it had finished its meal now and was climbing down from Korwen’s hand.

“Ah.”
“Guess it’s full now.”

The rainbow hoggy, having filled its belly, returned to the hole and disappeared from our sight.

“Well, to think we’d have rainbow hoggies down here… Ria, could they be the ones that you caught?”
“Mm…”

Did he mean regarding the mana fluctuation that Ria saw?

“It’s not… impossible…”
“That doesn’t sound like you believe it is, though.”
“It’s not… impossible… but unlikely…”
“I see. Either way, we’ll have to think about what we’re going to do about them…”

Do about them?

“Captain, what do you mean?”
“Rainbow hoggies might be docile but they eat mana-infused stones. Just think about it. Why do you think they live here of all places?”
“... Because of the fort?”
“Yes. It was constructed by earth magicians, therefore there is a lot of mana in the stone around here. The rainbow hoggies probably eat that. While it doesn’t look like they caused much damage yet, if we just leave them be, they’re going to turn the whole fort into rubble given enough time.”
“I see…”

That’d be a problem… but…

“On the other hand, they’re easy to keep, so maybe I’ll have Ria help make a cage for them. Then we can keep them here in the fort.”
“Eh? Is that fine?”
“Sure is. So those idiots over there who looked all disappointed a moment ago, you can stop grinning to yourself now.”

The idiots… I turned around and saw several of the mercenaries averting their gazes. Ahhh… Well… Cute things were cute. 

“Seriously, you all are way too true to your desires. As long as someone cares for them I don’t mind that much.”
“””Ohhh! Captain’s the best!”””

And now they cheered for him.

“Just where did I go wrong that I get praised for allowing them to keep a pet but not for other things actually related to our job?”
“So you say, Captain, but you clearly enjoyed yourself there, too.”
“Merim. I think I have a firestone with me. I always wondered whether a person could survive being covered in black sand and then being lit up. Care to test it for me?”
“I’d like it if you didn’t kill me off that easily, Captain.”

Was nice to have known you, Merim. We’d miss you, probably.

“Anyway, we’ll decide what to do exactly at a later time. We’ll need to find out how many of them are here, too. And how extensive the damage is. We might need to hire quite a few Earth magicians for this… Just thinking about it is making my head hurt. But first, we’ll need to find the source of that mana Ria sensed earlier. If it’s not the rainbow hoggies…”

Korwen turned towards Merim, a wry smile on his lips.

“Then it’s probably down the only path where it wasn’t only empty rooms.”
“So, Merim actually found something?”
“Mm, well, he was still in the middle of his report… Merim.”

We all turned to Merim, who was scratching his head now.

“Ahh… We found some old supplies, black sand and some other things. We didn’t even get through half the rooms so there’s probably a lot more but… The most notable stuff we found were… old tools.”
“What kinds of tools?”
“... Torture tools.”

... Eh?