“You seem to get things done fairly well, too. I withdraw my statement from before and apologize from the bottom of my heart. Also, it has been decided that I will join this time’s exploration as well. Please feel be relieved with a feeling of having gained a reliable a.s.set that will keep you safe.” (Katharina)

The exploration of the yet unknown historic ruins, which was discovered by dous.h.i.+ in the Demon Forest, began, but before that Katharina, whose partic.i.p.ation I requested, apologized to Ina’s group for her previous abusive remarks.

Once hearing her speech, I have ended up thinking that it would be better if she said it in a bit more gentle manner, however she is probably unable to say it in any other way than this.

Even so, it looked like Ina’s group has accepted just the aspect of apologizing more or less.

“Somehow I’m feeling depressed.” (Katharina)

“It’s because Ina-chan is a serious type. For me people like you are quite interesting and I’m fond of them.” (Luise)

“I don’t particularly mind either way since you will become combat potential.” (Erwin)

From the point of view of the serious Ina, Katharina’s remarks had some unforgivable parts.

Given that she apologized for the time being, Ina seems to still be in a condition, where she can’t smoothly interact with Katharina.

Luise apparently found some interesting parts in the person called Katharina.

Bearing in mind the matter of the previous underground ruins exploration, Erw seems to have no problem with her, if she is useful in the battle.

Since he has declared her as type difficult to deal with albeit her being a beauty, he didn’t care either way as she isn’t an object of romantic interest for him.

“Wend-sama, will Frilly be added as comrade, too?” (Wilma)

“It’s just this time for now.” (Wendelin)

Wilma called Katharina, who’s wearing a leather dress with frills attached albeit being an adventurer, with the nickname 『Frilly』.

Even though it has the appearance of a dress, the used leather is loot of a dragon. Since the cape* is knitted with soft, downy hair, which was extracted from a young dragon, it was an item close to being the best in regards to defence, however from Wilma’s point of view it seems to be a strange item. (* There was earlier some discussion about the kingdom’s restriction on “mantles.” I don’t believe the author means the full body types but rather the ones hanging on your back, so I will use “cape” instead.)

She is doubtlessly an elite adventurer given that she has obtained personal armour of that level within merely one year after she became an adventurer, but based on the opinion of the dry Wilma, who puts maximum priority on efficiency, she regards Katharina as an irregular existence.

“Frilly, that’s nice since it can be used easily.”

“This girl has a more wicked tongue that me&h.e.l.lip;” (Katharina)

Katharina appears to be aware of her own arrogant tone.

Her face cramped up due to Wilma’s remark.

She doesn’t get angry since Wilma’s appearance seems to her as awfully small and lovely. This means that she is very understanding in regards to that aspect.

“Wilma-san, it’s no good to call a person, who will go on a exploration with us from now on, 『Frilly』.” (Elise)

“Yes, Elise-sama.” (Wilma)

“Let me introduce myself properly. I’m called Katharina Linda von Waigel.” (Katharina)

“It’s a pleasure. I’m called Elise Katharina von Hohenheim.” (Elise)

And, the one, even such Wilma is no match for, Elise, who is my future first wife.

She has been born with an appearance of beauty and kindness befitting her nickname 『Saint of Hohenheim』, but at the same time she possesses will power befitting a daughter of a prestigious n.o.ble household of the central government.

As expected, even Katharina greeted her politely.

Elise has also greeted her politely without caring about her past remarks at all.

After all the difference between a daughter of a former n.o.ble household, which ended up collapsing once, and a real n.o.ble daughter appeared.

Elise’s conduct of not pursuing the past remarks at all will in fact become a large pressure.

In n.o.ble society it has a feeling of 『With this you owe me one』, huh?

As Katharina apparently noticed that as well, she has toned down her usual demeanour quite a bit.

However, in the capital there are many n.o.ble daughter-like people, in a reversed meaning. Katharina might be a lot better if compared to that lot.

“Well then, now that you have exchanged those greetings, we will enter the ruins.” (Burkhart)

“Indeed! I wasn’t able to sleep overly much yesterday due to antic.i.p.ating the event of a new ruins exploration!” (Armstrong)

We decide to enter the ruins at once as Burkhart-san is urging us on, but dous.h.i.+, who is the other adult having a monitoring role, seemed to look forward to the ruins exploration very much.

However, I have ended up thinking You were unable to sleep due to the excitement? and Honestly, 『Are you a child!?』

“I will transfer us near the ruins then.” (Wendelin)

Since it’s not like it was me who discovered the historic ruins, it was first necessary to transfer to a place close-by so everyone can walk there.

Because we considerably thinned out this place in the last few days, monsters almost didn’t appear along the way. Even so, that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any at all.

However, given that their numbers were low, all of them were killed by Luise with her energy-conserving magic combat style hand-to-hand techniques.

“Although we still haven’t entered the ruins, we cannot afford for our magicians to run out of mana.”

“Sorry, Luise.”

“It’s alright since their numbers are low. Undoubtedly it’s because dous.h.i.+ hunted a large amount of them.” (Luise)

“It’s as Luise-jou says! I don’t know what we will encounter within the ruins, therefore save your mana as much as possible!” (Armstrong)

After about an hour we have arrived at the entrance of the historic ruins by dous.h.i.+’s lead.

The location is distant from a city, which has an adventurer’s guild branch, but it wasn’t too far in either.

The entrance is awfully small. Moreover it has been covered by a large amount of thickly-growing southern fern and such. I admire dous.h.i.+ for having discovered it properly.

“Since I felt like p.i.s.sing by chance, I considered to do it here!” (Armstrong)

“Haa, is that so&h.e.l.lip;?” (Wendelin)

In other words, he found it by accident.

Everyone except dous.h.i.+ should be feeling the loss of admiration within their minds.

“So? Who will open this entrance?” (Erwin)

The door attached to the entrance is closed. Erw ask who’s going to open it.

“Check that it has no trap before that.” (Armstrong)

Dous.h.i.+ is right. We don’t want the door to explode with a bang at the moment it is touched.

It was necessary to check whether a trap exists or not.

“It’s my turn then, right?” (Burkhart)

Burkhart-san quickly comes in front and investigates the door by using the spell 『Trap Detection』.

As might be expected from a former elite adventurer. Being able to use such types of magic is amazing, I think.

“It doesn’t look like there’s a trap. However, this is troublesome&h.e.l.lip;” (Burkhart)

“Troublesome?”

“Yea, have a look at this lock.” (Burkhart)

Burkhart-san pointed at the lock installed at the door.

It doesn’t seem to require a key, but it has four dials attached, which can change the digits from 0 to 9.

The easiest understandable way of describing it would be a numerical bicycle lock.

“Will it do something like 『Booo~~~oom!』, if the numbers are wrong?”

“I can’t identify a trap of that sort. I guess you have just to match the numbers normally.” (Burkhart)

Since it’s only useful for stalling, you can simply call it an unpleasant snare.

Probably the person, who set the lock on this door, has quite the bad character.

“There’s also the option of blowing it away!” (Armstrong)

“I don’t know whether there’s something beyond it. It’s out of question to blow away the door.” (Burkhart)

If we blow away the door and discover something dangerous inside, it might become a situation, where it would be indispensable to seal it with the door at that time.

If the door was broken with an explosion, it would become difficult for it to work as seal.

“There’s no other choice but to test it out one by one, I guess.”

“Is there some penalty, if we make an error?”

“I wasn’t able to detect such trap. In the first place, the efficiency of such highly complex trap is low.” (Burkhart)

Something like a trap, where something happens each time you make a single error on the dial, was realistically impossible due to the problems of costs for the installation.

Besides, the majority of the historic ruins from the era of the Ancient Magic Civilization seems to have a strong tendency to plant time-intensive traps inside.

On that subject, I recall that the previous traps like 『Forced Transfer Magic Circle』 and 『Deadly Inversion Regulation』 existed inside.

“Eh~~~~! Each dial, one by one?”

Turning it from 0000 to 9999 one by one, we will identify the unlocking combination of the door. (T/N: It’s only 6561 combinations, not that much in other words :p)

It’s a very plain, unpleasant and time-consuming work.

“Um~~~~m.” (Wendelin)

Once I make eye contact with everyone else, all of them look away.

Since even Elise was like that, probably no one wanted to do it.

Of course, I’m reluctant as well.

“Leave it to the newcomer in such case?” (Erwin)

Because of Erw’s statement, all eyes turn towards Katharina.

“Isn’t that a cruel argument!? We should fairly decide it by drawing lots!” (Katharina)

Naturally Katharina disliked the task, but on the other hand she provided a nice idea.

Certainly, no one should be able to complain afterwards with the method of deciding it fairly with drawn lots.

“Wend-sama, let’s decide it with janken.” (Wilma)

Wilma offers janken as way to settle it while pulling my robe.

Janken didn’t exist in this world, however once I taught it to Wilma, during a suddenly opened-up time slot before, she was very pleased with it.

Since then it has reached the point that Wilma suggests to settle it with janken whenever there’s something to be decided.

Given that the outcome can be attained easily without preparing anything in particular, even Ina’s group has been mostly partic.i.p.ating in janken nowadays.

To decide it with coin toss or drawn lots at such moments is good in this world as it doesn’t take any time.

“Eh~~~~! Janken!” (Erwin)

The sole exception seems to be Erw, who’s unhappy to decide it with janken.

The reason is that Erw is weak at janken to a frightening degree.

Or rather, I’ve never been beaten in janken by Erw.

Being defeated by Wilma often, I witnessed him having his snacks and such stolen by her.

“Erw is greedy. He tries to rip off snacks from Wilma.” (Ina)

However, as result of him losing every time going by what Ina says, Erw had his snack taken away in reverse.

“Anyway, time is precious. Janken it is.”

“Can’t help it. Even I likely won’t lose since there’s a newcomer her too&h.e.l.lip;” (Erwin)

Approving of it reluctantly, Erw also began the janken to decide the person, who will turn the dials.

“9995! 9996! It ain’t opening!” (Erwin)

After around 2 hours since then, Erw, who lost in janken after all, earnestly and single-mindedly rotated the number-styled dials, which was attached to the door.

Furthermore, the remaining members, except the one on watch, are having a break in the meanwhile.

Since one’s body won’t keep up, if it’s tensed for two hours, we enjoyed the sweets and tea, provided by Elise, with the exception of the one guarding.

“This chocolate pastry is delicious with its moderate sweetness.” (Katharina)

“That’s a test product sent by Artur-san.”

“That person rushes quite thoroughly.” (Katharina)

Ina admired Artur-san’s business spirit.

Because there are hardly any failures no matter what he does, it will probably stay the same for a while.

“However, it’s nasty towards Erw, isn’t it?”

“It can’t be helped since he lost.” (Wilma)

“Wilma sticks through and through to the truth. I also don’t plan to take over for him at all though.” (Luise)

“Since he is an adventurer, it won’t do if he doesn’t obediently accept defeat.” (Katharina)

“At this point that’s a statement, where I’m not quite sure whether it’s profound or not, Katharina.”

“I haven’t particularly aimed for such thing.” (Katharina)

“You guys, while a person is struggling&h.e.l.lip;” (Erwin)

Erw complained to the female group, who’s enjoying the tea and picking up sweets, but in the end no one listened to him since it was the grumbling of a loser, who was defeated in janken.

“9997! This one’s no good either!” (Erwin)

He has turned it from 0000 as the beginning. Although it seemed that he was turning it from the start, it might have been a punchline that 9999 is in fact the beginning. Moreover the result was 9998, despite him starting from 0001.

Naturally Erw threw the dial, which came off the door, on the ground while being enraged.

“The fellow, who made this, has a twisted and poor character!” (Erwin)

“Is it for stalling time?” (Wendelin)

“I guess so.” (Burkhart)

Burkhart-san answers my question with low tension.

“There doesn’t seem to be any inspiration in that.”

“Although it’s an entrance, this sort of ruins is almost 100% a miss.”

There are various types of things even in ancient historic ruins, but as for the pattern of being locked by an entrance, it doesn’t seem that those ruins will have overly many valuable treasures, if it’s a kind of pattern that’s relatively easy to open.

“Rarily it’s a winner though. However, that’s truly rare.”

Apparently he previously entered historic ruins with a similar lock, but he found an old food storage there, it seems.

“It was also from more than 10.000 years ago. It was empty.” (Burkhart)

If this much time pa.s.ses, food and such will go beyond being rotten and there will be nothing left.

“Although I had quite the expectation since it was historic ruins being quite deep in the hinterlands.” (Burkhart)

“It was just a food storage?”

“There are such underground ruins as well.”

There are extreme examples such as the types of secret bases of ancient great men, who conceal the true nature of the underground ruins in any way, like the one we dived in before.

Usually it’s underground structures, which have cultural value, cellars, used by individuals, and old public facilities.

What caused magic tools and treasures to be there are the a.s.sets of companies, organizations and people, who used those underground ruins, and the equipment, they left behind.

If one were to ask why they focus on domains, where monsters dwell, it seems to be because the other ruins had mostly been excavated already.

Even though it’s sarcastic, but the ones remaining are those, where it’s difficult for people to enter.

“Did people live in domains, where monsters dwell, in the era of the Ancient Magic Civilization?”

“I guess that’s how it was. There appears to be evidence as well.”

Also, it appears that occasionally historic ruins, which aren’t monster domains either, get discovered in untrodden remote areas and such.

However, nowadays that’s rare.

“Though it will be great, if it’s a sake storage.” (Burkhart)

“That again. Isn’t that just because you are fond of sake.”

“If it’s sake, it’s still possible.”

There were underground types of wine cellars, which were owned by n.o.bles long ago, discovered as historic ruins. Apparently the wine, which was stored there, was still good.

“It’s because it’s wine with the vintage from the era of the Ancient Magic Civilization. It would attain a staggering level of prices.”

n.o.bles, wealthy merchants and such unanimously raised the prices in the auction.

“While you dream of such possibilities, we will start the exploration.”