Hitsugi no Maou

The sky is blue everywhere, infinitely wide.

The meadow, where Dust and Ash walk, was fast and young grass was numb and beginning to wither.

Windless earth. Slowly scorched by the white, shining sun, Coffin.

While going through the landscape with the smell of doom, Dust first explained to Ash once again the situation in which Coffin and Snoba were placed.

Beginning with Lucina, the princess of the Kingdom of Coffin, and her explanation as the figure of Yuk, the general of the Snoba army, she spoke briefly, but on the basis of the main points, until she was in the story of the movements of the two nations so far and about God...... Rayakels the Demon King and Hilnor the Brave.

Ash listened even silently to the content of the story. There were some hard points to believe, but there is no room for doubt about Ash, who came from a foreign country at best.

I just tried to understand the facts.

Eventually, as the stone altar approached his eyes, Ash finally opened his mouth to the dust on his shoulder with a bundled rope as he looked back at the shadows of the animals coming after him.

"That stone altar was made by Dust."

"Oh. I blocked the entrance and exit at the altar after I found the stone room in Rayakels that was buried underground. At the time I was still the belly of the king, so I had the architect of the royal castle slack the stone. When you enter the stone room, remove some of the stone, drain the rope and go down."

"Under the altar, you do have... an inscription of Rayakels, don't you? And... example, artifacts."

"As I said before, relics do not strike humans without darkness. Especially with me. I have a pact with my subordinate... there's no danger if you stay by my side."

When he reached the altar, Dust lowered the rope onto the stone and began to fix it.

When did you repair it, all the stone that blew up when you killed the three adventurers has been put back in place.

Two hooks on the tip of the rope, a dust penetrating deep between the stone and the ground, then approaches an empty hole in the center of the altar and starts removing the stone using a knife.

The stone had subtle grooves and irregularities (diapers) on the sides, which combined to secure it like a key.

Throw a rope into the widened hole and the dust will make a gesture toward Ash.

"I'm going down first, grab the ladder and follow me. There's sand on the bottom, but if you fall badly, you'll break your neck."

"Wow, okay..."

To the dust going down the rope, take a deep breath, get in the mood, and then continue.

When I put my foot on the ladder and half into the hole, my eyes met the shadows around the altar.

Dogs, deer, rats, even mites who can fly through the sky, stand still on the ground and stare at Ash.

"... see you later"

With a small grin, Ash waved one hand at the shadows. Keep going, descend underground so you can take every step of the way.

The hole is deeper and darker than expected. The tip of the rope has heavier iron balls on it, which, although somewhat less shaky, gives Ash the feeling of a fluttering, unreliable rope that makes her heart beat.

Dust raised his voice from the bottom to Ash, who desperately grabbed the rope and descended.

"Try to tease your arms on the ladder and get off! Make sure one arm is always on the ladder! That way it won't fall!

"Ah!"

"What's up!?

Ash dared to say, "Nothing! It's okay!" he exclaimed.

As I slowly descended the rope so as not to look down, I shook my face to the left and right, which became so hot.

My hipster turns up when I tease her on the ladder. It doesn't have to be. If the dust looks up, you might see the back of the cloth.

I should have picked a tighter outfit.

With silence and regret, I still prioritize my life and go down the hole to the bottom.

Eventually, the dust grabbed Ash's hips from behind, who was desperately down the rope.

Looking back for a moment, he is held back and lowered to the ground. We're at the bottom.

As Dust said, underfoot is a sandbox, fluffy. From the range illuminated by light from overhead if you look around, black darkness can stand in and you can't even grasp the size of the space.

Phew, Ash felt the chills on her sensation of a long bone hand looming from the dark tip, grabbing a strand of the dust coat.

"I'm fine. Relics don't recognize you as an enemy."

"Wow... I know..."

"Just give me a minute. Prepare the lights."

Quick to say, the dust gave in to the sandbox and began to poke his hands in the crumbs.

In front of the neck tilting ash, the dust eventually grabs the metal out of the sand and pulls it up using its entire body.

It was a hunk of jewellery, which appeared as it drew the sand from the Zaza, and was caught in a frame of metal as thin and large as it appeared.

Clearly shimmering polyhedral, Ash unwittingly holds her mouth and raises her admiration.

"Wow! What is this, a treasure?

"It's a gem named 'The Fallen Star'. It is regarded as too brilliant and unproductive, and it is placed in a low position among the jewels of Coffin… the ancients loved this as a practical product"

A dust lifts the sand at your feet with shoes, creating a foundation, and letting the jewel planks lie in the light.

Then light was sucked into the countless faces of the gem, reflected internally, and splashed around in dozens of beams of light.

Unexpectedly putting an ash in front of him on his ass, the dust adjusts the foundation to change the angle of light.

Eventually, one of the light muscles reflected at the tip of the surrounding darkness and ran through the hole. Seen, there are many similar plates of jewellery installed around the walls and on the ground, and the light that hits them is repeatedly reflecting towards the back of the cave.

Ash opened her mouth pompously to the vision that was illuminated by the blistering light.

"... is it gemstone lighting? Awesome technology...... rather than computational power"

"This is also by Rayakels. However, since it is a device that assumes sunlight and lamp light in cloudy weather, it may be a little too bright now that the sky is clear. Either way, we're moving on. If you leave it, you can peek inside your hipster."

"Oh, it's a joke," Dust waved flickering before Ash peeled his eyes off.

I was finding out. Ash, who was foreseen to have been afraid, turns to him as he grabs his hipster.

"Sukebe..."

"Just think about it and you'll see. In a situation where the light source is only overhead, I can't easily see your feet with backlight. It's not because of me, it's because of your lack of wisdom."

"Oh, I already know! I'm glad I can't see! So what do we do now?

"Um, there's an inscription of Rayakels right there and an artifact"

Ash held his mouth down so much that he became quiet.

Dust grabs her hand like that and starts walking first.

The sand on which the shoes tread quickly turned smooth rocky skin, and the footsteps sounded once higher.

The caves are large and the ceilings are high. The space surrounded by leaded rocks was subtly curved at the tip, as if it were in a giant snake's body.

... Eventually, I saw something unusual at the end of the cave. Ash stops perfectly and pulls the dust's hand.

Dust has been releasing his voice, looking forward.

"It's okay, he says"

"But dust, you know, that..."

Believe me.

Ash still stopped his leg for a while, but eventually when the dust slowly looked back, he would never, ever move on with his leg.

From the end of the cave, gradually the whole picture of something different began to peek, and the trembling Ash finally reached the deepest part of the hole.

A vast underground space full of light. On the front is a stone tablet carved with ancient lettering, like a tree, with countless incompetent bones and dry blood marks creeping up on the ground.

And behind them, though not as good as the god of Snoba... there were relics, close in size to it.

The long bone hand that Ash once saw grows surprisingly on the body surface, as if it were a beard of an artifact… it was just part of the body.

White bones. Huge chunks of death, presumably combined and fused by human bones.

How can I put this? A frightening white bone just overlaps and hugs each other, constituting the shape of a giant person. The joints that are not supposed to connect fit into each other like keys and keyholes, and dozens of skeletons are configured as one institution.

As seen by exotic legends, the Golem. It was a magic doll made of bone.

Ash looks up at the artifact's head, made of human skull alone.

A skull tucked away as if it were a grape lid. A large blue-white flame was burning in the orbital part of the face they constituted.

It was the exact same flame that the corpses of the animals that Dust manipulated were hosting.