The Whispering Verses Chapter 2328: Desert Mausoleum
Although Miss Knight and Miss Meister both had experience going to that ruins, it was still the latter who led the way. However, the three of them did not talk to each other after setting off. As Xia De walked, he felt that the atmosphere was a bit awkward. He was also worried that if he walked without talking like this, he would not know if someone would fall behind, so he took the initiative to ask:
"Miss Meister, since time is tight, how about I carry Miss Knight on my back, and then we use our powers to speed up to our destination? This way is really too slow."
"This desert has many interesting effects."
The barefoot lady replied in a relaxed tone:
"In addition to the confusion of space and time, there is also a rule here that you must not be in a hurry. This rule is simple to say. The more anxious you are, the faster you will faint in the sun, and the more anxious you are to get to your destination, the more anxious you will be. It turns out that the farther away the destination is, the longer it may take us to run than to walk.”
"Well, there shouldn't be any rules like 'calm down and naturally cool down' here, right?"
Xia De asked hesitantly, and the lady naturally smiled and shook her head.
Shad deliberately drew Miss Knight into the conversation, so he asked the female knight who was half a body behind him:
"How do you feel now?"
"It feels good, I can persist."
The sound in the helmet was a bit muffled. Shade couldn't imagine how muffled she was inside, but the advantage was that it could effectively protect her skin from direct sunlight.
"Can you tell what breed this cat is? Well, this is not my cat."
Shade asked again without anything to say, so the female knight stared at the kitten with its tail on fire from inside the helmet:
"Sorry, I can't tell what kind of cat this is. But it must be of noble birth. Even the cats in Her Majesty's palace are not so beautiful."
Xia De suddenly smiled. He likes others to praise little Mia. As for the silly cat, he couldn't even understand the language of the Sixth Age, let alone the language of this era, so he was still looking at the sand sea scenery and ignored this conversation about him.
So he asked Miss Meister again:
"So can you tell what kind of cat this is?"
【Are you really looking for something to talk about? 】
"Her" light voice seemed to be able to bring the coolness of the night, and the saint did not even turn around to look at little Mia:
"Of course I'm not good at looking at cats, but I also admit that this cat is indeed quite beautiful."
In the first "Dice Story Collection" that Iluna experienced, little Mia had the title of "Beautiful Cat", which is enough to show how powerful this cat's charm is.
Seeing that the gods were unwilling to answer this question, Shade continued to walk in the desert under the scorching sun while holding the cat in his arms. The cat struggled symbolically, and Shade stretched out his hand to touch the flame on the tip of little Mia's tail.
The temperature of this flame is really not very high. Even if it comes into direct contact with Shade's fingers, it only gives him a slight tingling sensation.
"Meow~"
The cat struggled again, and Shade guessed that it wanted to walk on the sand by itself. But time was precious now, and he was not sure what Shade was under the gravel in this strange place, so he would not let little Mia follow them with her short legs.
With Miss Knight by his side, Shade had a lot to say that he couldn't say to Miss Meister. So he spent the rest of the journey talking with Miss Knight about her life experience of becoming a knight.
Although the knight lady is not very talkative, she will not avoid Shade's questions at all.
And her life so far has been as standard as Shade imagined. She was born in an ordinary knight's family, and she has dreamed of becoming a witch since she was a child. After discovering that she could not awaken, she continued swordsmanship training with her father, and inherited the identity of a knight after her father died defending against foreign enemies.
The small kingdom where she lives has only one city, so a knight's daughter like her often went to the palace to play or read books with the current queen, the former princess, when she was a child.
Although the two parties cannot be said to be close friends, they can at least be regarded as companions who grew up together. Therefore, Knight is willing to perform such dangerous tasks, not only because of the "loyalty" her father taught her when she was a child, but also because she wants to help her friends.
The hot yellow sand is very hot to the feet, but once we start chatting, time seems to fly very fast.
When the three of them climbed up a sand dune again, a small-looking building finally appeared in the distance of the desert landscape twisted by the heat.
"Arrived."
Miss Meister said softly, and Miss Knight also stopped talking and looked forward:
"Mr. Hamilton, please prepare to put on your armor."
Shad didn't want to try to find out how far the ruins of the mausoleum could repel those who approached without armor, so he stopped immediately. He took out the golden cube and threw it twice, then restored it into a huge golden box.
The box stood on the sand, shining in the scorching sun. I have to admit that when the four sides of the box slowly unfolded to reveal the lion-like armor inside, the shining golden look was quite attractive.
"Meow~"
Little Mia screamed, Shade looked at it worriedly, and found that the flames on its tail seemed to be getting bigger and bigger:
"Is this really okay?"
[Yes, no problem. 】
With the help of Miss Knight, Shade quickly put on the golden armor. The heat inside the armor was far beyond Shade's expectation. He was glad that he didn't put it on when he set off.
The golden armor seemed to be glowing in the sunlight, and Shade felt that its heat-absorbing ability seemed to be much stronger than ordinary metal.
Fortunately, the destination was not far away. Little Mia stood on the shoulders of the armor. The three of them continued to move forward, and soon they saw the entire ruins.
Just as Miss Knight and the others described, this is an above-ground mausoleum in the style of a church, and indeed there is a statue of a knight standing in front of the mausoleum.
The armored knight held the long sword thrust into his feet with one hand and raised the other hand as if to wave forward, while his helmet was placed by his feet. As for the church behind the statue, which had no traces of sand erosion at all, it was more grand than Shade thought.
Although it is quite dilapidated from the front, at least there are no signs of collapse.
If you don't have to wear armor to get close to this place, the living conditions of this mausoleum are actually better than those of the Sun Temple. Of course, the premise is that you can also find dirty water here.
Until the three of them came to the statue, Miss Meister was still not wearing armor, and Miss Knight seemed not to realize this. At the same time, when thinking about this, Shade thought that little Mia also came under the statue but was not rejected, but later realized that it was just a cat, and cats could not wear armor.
The knight statue did not move or speak due to the approach of the three people. It stood there under the scorching sun as if it would remain unchanged forever, looking at the boring scenery in front of it.
There were no words around the statue, so the three of them walked around it and approached the church mausoleum behind it. A quarter of the closed door was buried under the golden gravel. Miss Knight took the initiative to push it a few times:
"Locked."
"I'll come."
The female knight retreats and the male knight moves forward. The gauntlet pressed against the door, and after Shade frowned slightly, Cat, Miss Knight, and Miss Meister all heard a series of click~click~ sounds coming from the inside of the door.
But it was not over yet. Then, a ritual matrix composed of dots and curved lines appeared on the entire dilapidated outer wall of the church. It's just that this kind of ritual rune lock was too seriously affected by the power of this strange desert, and it was finally completely broken open by the [Key of the Door].
Xia De tried to push the door, but found that it still couldn't be pushed. So he carefully lifted the cat on his shoulder with his hand armor and handed it to Miss Knight.
After the confused female knight took over the cat with its tail burning with flames, she saw Shade move his arms twice, making the armor make a clattering sound.
He stood in front of the door and bent forward slightly, pressing his left and right hands on the two doors respectively. As his feet exerted force and pushed slightly backwards on the sand, two traces were left. The door of the mausoleum finally made a squeaking sound, and Shade pushed it open enough for people to enter. .
"There is no need to push it completely, it is not good if there is sand inside."
Shad said, reaching out his hand to Miss Knight. So the agile cat immediately jumped from Miss Knight to the armband of the golden armor, and then jumped to Shade's shoulder. Shade took the lead and walked into the church mausoleum.
The temperature inside the church was even lower than that of the Temple of the Sun. Shade gasped for air and felt the hard-won coolness. Miss Knight also took off her helmet, her gray hair sticking to her face. , a relaxed expression also appeared on the sweaty face.
The barefoot Miss Meister walked at the end and looked at the indoor space with them:
"It's really solemn."
This place is very similar to the "St. Perry Cemetery" that Shade once visited in the Randall Valley. In the completely enclosed indoor space, there are rows of neatly arranged long seats. There are faded murals on the walls, and at the deepest part of the church where the pulpit should be, there is a rectangular stone coffin elevated by a stone platform.
Although the interior of the church does not receive sunlight from the outside, the interior is not completely dark. Above the coffin, soft white light filled the surface of the coffin. Although the dim light was not enough to provide illumination, the sense of sanctity made both Shade and Miss Knight subconsciously slow down.
The area here is actually not very large. After taking a few steps forward, the three of them arrived in front of the coffin. Shade took out the fragment of the compass given to him by Grandma Siam Nord. The light spot on the fragment was indeed pointed directly at the coffin in front of him. It seemed that the target this time was inside the coffin.
But they were not in a hurry to open the coffin, because the large swaths of pouring words on the coffin lid reminded those who came after them what the price would be if they opened the coffin.
This text is quite ancient, at least it does not belong to the Fifth Age. Miss Knight naturally couldn't understand it, so Shade, who was holding the cat, tilted his head and translated. After reading it carefully twice, he turned around in surprise and looked at the knight statue standing outside the church.
Specifically, the text on the coffin describes a heroic story that happened in the distant past. And the hero is still here, not in the coffin, but outside the church.