By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 15 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9, Episode 18: Collecting an Inheritance

A heavy gate loomed before me, a relic of Korumi’s former glory. Remnants of the crumbled walls stretched out in either direction, most of them taken over by vines or heatwood roots. Even in its ruined state, a flicker of a memory lingered here.

This wasn’t the time for sightseeing, though. As we approached the village, a familiar murk in the air—like the one I felt in the Starving Gallows—threatened to drown my spirits. It was leaking out of the gate.

“Don’t go through the gate!” I called out to Glen. “Go right along the walls! We need to find a secure spot!”

“Got it!” Glen bolted right, spearheading a path for us.

“We’re close!” I said after a while. “Let’s break into the city from the next crack in the walls!”

“The next—? Screw that, I’m going to make one!” Glen declared, already beating down the wall of vegetation growing over the rubble. Every boom of his fist was drawing more Undead to us, but he was digging fast, judging by the bits of rock he was shoveling behind him.

“Flash Bomb,” I incanted, using an explosion of Light magic to buy us more time. “He does make a great ally,” I muttered to myself.

“One more!” Glen shouted, blowing an entrance to Korumi wide open. I saw him land from what must have been a jump kick, and followed him into the village.

Some Undead were wandering about, but my attention was drawn to a house. Of course, the absence of (living) humans in the village had taken a toll on it over the years. Most of the village had been reclaimed by the Sea of Trees—except for that one house and its surroundings. Other than the bed of weeds around the house, it was left relatively undamaged, making it stand out like a beacon in the ruined landscape.

“Holy Space. Dimension Home.” Now that we’d made it, I created a safe space for us with the Holy Space I’d learned from Remily, and brought out all the light slimes and grave slimes I had. Slimes were too slow to help us in combat while we were on the move, but now that we could hunker down, they could utilize their full potential. At this point, the battle was already won.

I had the grave slimes lure in the Undead with Attract Spirits and swallow them up. The light slimes and I took care of any Undead that resisted with Light magic. Glen and I handled any non-Undead monsters that showed up, keeping the slimes safe.

Everything went smoothly, though I noticed that more Undead were resistant to Light magic than the ones in the City of Lost Souls. Is this because of that monster? I wondered, but decided to brush it off for now. There were too many things for me to do.

“Let’s clear the interior and make camp here,” I said.

I had the grave and light slimes merge to serve as our guards as I stepped into my grandparents’ house—my childhood home, if I could call it that. It was no surprise that the house looked like a hurricane had gone through its minimally decorated interior. Surely, no one would guess that the Sage and the God of Military Arts used to live here. Although the house was pretty spacious, it was just a rectangular box topped with five chimneys. It was built with stone walls and heatwood lumber—most likely by my grandparents’ Earth magic. Although the house looked decrepit, the walls were steadfast. Even though its owners were long gone, I felt protected. The floorboards and ceiling panels were rotting, but that couldn’t be helped.

Just as I thought so, a loud creak sounded behind me. “Holy crap, I almost stepped right through it...” Glen said. “This place is a mess, huh? Yeah, it’s old, but it’s also been ransacked—not by monsters. By humans.”

“I think you’re right. By the end, the people of this village were just like those in the base where we met,” I explained.

“Oh. That type.”

“The people who lived here were too strong to be messed with, but once the house was abandoned...” I looked up. A built-in cabinet near the ceiling had its lock broken, like it was smashed over and over again with a dull axe or something. A monster couldn’t have done that.

“Those types will steal anything that’s not nailed down as soon as they get a chance. Wait, you’ve been here before?” Glen asked.

“I guess I never told you. I used to live here. In this house, back when other people still lived here,” I explained, and Glen nodded. It was kind of incredible that he’d come all this way with me without knowing why, but he probably didn’t care what the reason was. Fortunately for me, he didn’t ask a lot of questions. “I think they did take anything that wasn’t broken,” I said.

“Cleared you out, huh? Not even a spot for an Undead to hide in—!” Glen cried out as he finally stepped on a floorboard too rotted through to hold his weight. He was obviously uninjured, though his left leg was stuck in the floor up to the knee. “This is no good. I’m heading outside. Can’t fight for crap in here. I’m borrowing your slimes to clean up monsters.”

“Okay. I’ll tell them to take care of them as long as you pile them up somewhere.” I walked farther into the house, checking for Undead monsters and blocking openings along the way...until I reached the last and most important room in the house.

Three hearths of varying sizes lined the wall of the room littered with fragments of a broken cabinet and desk—where my grandmother, the Sage, had mixed her potions. Three of the five chimneys of this house belonged to those hearths, while the other two were located in the kitchen and my grandfather’s smithy.

“Here it is.” I walked up to the largest of the hearths that could easily fit an adult inside it. I scraped out the ashes and half-burnt logs. It was quite the chore to clean out the deep hearth, but I eventually found the bottom—and a circle with two divots carved into either side. This was the entrance to where my grandparents had hidden their inheritance. I stepped into the hearth and put my fingertips into the divots before lifting straight up. With a grinding sound, I gradually began to pull the stone pillar out of the hearth. When the top of the cylinder came up to my thigh, it finally popped out, leaving a circular hole that led to an underground corridor. Placing the cylinder on the floor next to the hearth, I chucked a Light Ball into the hole. It illuminated a stone-built corridor about three meters deep, with enough irregularities in the stones to provide footholds on the way down. After clearing the air down there with Wind magic to be safe, I climbed down into the corridor.

Another Light spell showed me how short the corridor was, leading directly into a large room. Despite it having been abandoned down here for years, there were no cobwebs or even piles of dust. The gods had reassured me that there would be no traps, but the place was obviously enchanted with some sort of magic. Maybe the house was less affected by vegetation because this basement prevented any plant from rooting too deep.

“It’s like a warehouse,” I muttered. The basement contained bookshelves stuffed to their brim and barrels full of weapons along with boxes and bags that could contain anything. Between me and the room full of stuff stood a stone desk with a very conspicuously staged book atop it. I picked up what was more like a booklet, written by my grandfather Tigral. Although his handwriting was less than stellar, like he’d just casually jotted his thoughts down, it was clear that this was a message written for the person who found this place—a message to be read after his death. “I should probably sit down...” I did so and started reading.

The booklet began with the abridged story of how my grandparents came to this village. Heavily abridged, if I was being honest. It began with how they’d earned their monikers and were showered with praise and adoration from the public, which I already knew, obviously. I had also guessed that they were constantly solicited by nobles and merchants for favors and business opportunities, and that some of those solicitors didn’t entirely have my grandparents’ best interests at heart. Examples of such behavior soon turned into prolonged complaining, so I skipped ahead to where they, like me, grew tired of normal society and moved to a place so remote that almost no one could find them, and those who did couldn’t drag them out. Any secluded location would have done, but after traveling the lands, they decided on Korumi. In the struggling village, their class and fame meant nothing. As long as they contributed to the defense and income of the village, the other villagers didn’t bother them.

“‘Nowhere else was better suited for Meria to study medicine to her heart’s content, away from prying eyes.’” That concluded the introduction of the booklet. The rest was about their inheritance. “‘My wife has gone before me, but I sense I’ll be with her again soon. I have no use for the items in this room. I can’t stand to get rid of them, nor can I let my wife’s research and keepsakes of our lives together be taken by that greedy village leader. So, I hid it all in this basement.’ Okay.” After that, he had officially written that the first person to find the room could claim everything in it, followed by a list of the items. He also wrote that he wanted somebody from outside the village to find it, and for that person to pass on his wife’s research to someone who could make good use of it. Finally, he included cautionary footnotes about a few of the items in the room.

“I’ll take good care of these, Tigral. And Meria, I’ll be honored to carry on your studies. Rest in peace, you two.” I gave a silent prayer for their souls, and moved everything they left behind into the Dimension Home. I’d go through it later when I had more time.