“Did you just hear that sound?!”
“What is this… the floor…?”
As the ground opened up, the search team mbers who were exploring the area began to gather around the opening.
Most of them were startled by the sudden opening in the floor.
However, the one who was more surprised than anyone else was Jessie, the one who opened the floor.
“Uh…?”
Buried underground for hundreds of years, it was a place that held the legends of their ancestors. Jessie must have been really excited to see such a place with her own eyes.
But the sight of the forge she faced was completely different from what she had expected.
“The forge…?”
In the past, it must have been a huge forge filled with the heat of countless blacksmiths creating all kinds of items throughout the seasons.
But in this place, there was no trace of that glorious past.
All that remained were rusty, broken scraps of tal and an eerily cold atmosphere.
“This… can’t be….”
Seemingly shocked by the stark contrast of the forge, Jessie entered the ruined interior with a sad expression.
Following the somber mood of Jessie, I quietly walked in behind her with the other search team mbers.
As we entered and lit a light, the previously dim interior of the forge beca a bit clearer.
The inside of the forge, which had been left unattended for a long ti with rusty anvils and tools scattered everywhere, looked no different than what we had seen from outside, but there was sothing particularly eye-catching inside.
“Hamrs….”
They were hamrs lined up in a row in one place.
Each rusty hamr bore nas inscribed on their surfaces.
– Carmos, son of Kalin
– Yuna, daughter of Igram
And behind all those nas was the sa phrase.
– “They depart for eternal rest, but their souls shall be with us.”
As we were examining them, Jessie, who was slowly exploring the inside of the forge, walked over and spoke.
“…These are gravestones. A traditional dwarven way. They engrave the nas on the tools they used to honor them.”
“A gravestone? But there’s no tomb here?”
“…I heard this from my grandfather, but when dwarves die, they don’t bury the bodies in the ground; they all get cremated. They believed that the flas that burned the corpse would harbor the soul of the deceased, and that lting tal using that fire would imbue the equipnt with the soul, protecting future generations. So, for the dwarves, the forge isn’t just a place to create items; it’s a sacred site for rituals. Oh, wait a mont. What does it say here?”
While examining the row of hamrs, Jessie discovered an inscription on the wall and read it aloud.
“—The device has been activated. Now, the once-grand kingdom shall vanish into the earth along with history, along with our lives. To protect this forge, imbued with the spirits and souls of countless ancestors, from the wicked witch, there was no other way. Yet, there is no regret. Even if we die, the flas of the unquenchable furnace shall blaze eternally with the will of we dwarves.”
What she read to us was a farewell letter.
A heroic farewell left by the dwarves who buried their entire kingdom underground to prevent the witch from invading the forge.
Upon hearing that, those present seed to understand now, expressing their recognition.
“…So it was because the dwarves buried themselves along with their kingdom. To protect their sacred site from the witch. They weren’t just a crazy race.”
“To think that was the reason… I actually thought the dwarves were just foolish extremists who would resort to self-destruction because they thought they’d lose…”
Glancing at the thoughtless remarks that might seem harsh from a dwarf’s perspective, Jessie shook her head and sighed deeply.
“Sigh… Still, I can’t deny that the dwarves did sothing foolish. The forge they went to such lengths to protect has ended up like this… Ugh, what is this… The forge is a wreck, and even the unquenchable furnace has cooled down. What was it protecting…?”
Jessie complained as she looked at the completely ruined forge with an expression of both sorrow and disappointnt.
And then it happened.
“Huh?!”
Startled by her own musings, Jessie suddenly turned her head toward sothing.
“Another sound. The sound of a hamr….”
She remarked, glancing at us.
Yet, naturally, we couldn’t react.
Like she ntioned, we couldn’t hear any sounds.
So we exchanged confused glances as if asking what she was talking about, and Jessie, seemingly perplexed by our response, exclaid.
“W-What’s wrong with you all? Can’t you hear it?! The sound just now! It definitely ca from over here…!”
Seemingly frustrated, she shouted and dashed toward one wall of the forge.
There was a large door, so covered in soot and rust that you wouldn’t notice it without careful inspection.
Jessie struggled to open that large door, insisting that the sound had co from inside.
“The sound…?”
And what lay behind that door was,
“This is….”
Fire.
To be more precise, it was a minuscule fla, perhaps more accurately described as a spark.
A tiny fla radiating a faint red glow, burning alone amidst the already ruined forge.
At that mont, everyone probably had the sa thought.
“Th-That fla…!”
All eyes were drawn to the large iron door that Jessie had just flung open, and they examined the structure of the wall where that door was attached.
Why hadn’t we noticed it sooner?
Now looking again, it was clear.
“…A furnace!”
Exactly, it had a structure that could indeed be called a ‘furnace.’
The na of the sacred relic we sought, the unquenchable furnace.
However, contrary to its na, the furnace was an ordinary structure.
It was unquestionably not the kind of object to be called a sacred relic.
Then what was it that made this furnace a relic?
“…The unquenchable!”
That was undoubtedly sothing that kept the furnace from extinguishing.
Like that fla, which, after being left unattended for hundreds of years, continued to burn on.
That fla, indeed, was the sacred relic we had been searching for.
Finally, we had discovered the relic.
But there was a problem.
“…It seems like it could go out!”
The fla appeared to be in such a precarious condition that it seed as though it could extinguish the mont a breath of wind touched it, ironically contrary to its na.
“What?! What’s wrong with this?! Is it because it’s been left unattended for so long?”
“Wait! Don’t make any loud noises…! What if it goes out with your breath…!”
As everyone frantically covered their mouths, worried that the state of the relic would extinguish, I instinctively felt sothing.
‘Is it feeling fear?’
That the fla was indeed feeling fear about sothing.
I didn’t know how I could tell.
Whether it was because I had the ability to manipulate flas or so other reason.
But regardless, it wasn’t important at that mont, so I cautiously asked the flas.
– What are you afraid of?
As I asked that, the fla trembled slowly and pointed toward .
Afraid? Of ?
No, that wasn’t it.
I concentrated a bit more and listened carefully to the voice of the fla, and eventually, I understood what it was afraid of.
And hearing that, I stood still for a mont before turning to Jessie who was beside .
“Uh, Jessie.”
“What is it, Scarlet?”
“The forge and the path we saw while coming here, how was it?”
“Uh, suddenly? Well, it was a complete ss. Eroded and rusted away.”
“…Right. I thought the sa, but it wasn’t.”
“Not that?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t a ss. Because…”
I spoke to Jessie while recalling the scenery we saw upon descending into the underground.
The forge, and the other places we passed by.
Though they had been buried beneath the ground for hundreds of years, eroded and rusted to look like ruins,
Still,
“…There were no demonic beasts.”
“W-What? Now that you ntion it… Huh? How?”
At my comnt about there being no demonic beasts, Jessie realized it and exclaid in surprise.
She couldn’t help but be surprised.
Hundreds of years. The years during which the underground kingdom of the dwarves had collapsed and been left untouched.
Yet, despite that, there was not a single demonic beast wandering around.
Logically, it should have been impossible not to have demonic beasts arising naturally due to the accumulated magic.
It was absolutely impossible unless soone or sothing had stopped it.
For that reason, I shared my thoughts with Jessie.
“…Jessie, you said the dwarves did sothing foolish, but it seems like they did sothing right. They must have fought to protect what they treasured with their lives. That’s why this place remained untouched by the demonic beasts and has lasted this long.”
In their long years, they had considered the dwarves as their friends.
They hadn’t forgotten that they sought to protect them, and thus, for hundreds of years, they did their utmost to protect this place where mories of the dwarves remained, resisting the magic within.
The story of a certain fla.
As I shared that story, Jessie murmured in a voice that sounded like she was about to cry.
“T-Then, is this fla here to fend off magic…?”
“…Yeah, it seems it has exhausted its power trying to purify the magic.”
The fla was afraid of not but of the magic that a witch like emitted.
To be precise, it seed afraid of the fact that it might not have the strength to purify the magic anymore and that this place, filled with mories of the dwarves, might end up ruined.
Upon realizing this fact, Jessie spoke through tears.
“…Ugh, then isn’t there a way to restore this fla to its original state?”
“Don’t worry.”
And with that, I responded by igniting flas from my own body.
Flas that burned magic.
The flas, which did not feel hot, enveloped the surroundings, incinerating the surrounding magic.
Even the magic that had been suppressing the unquenchable fla.
“Ah, the fla…!”
As the magic obscuring it vanished, the fla grew in size as if in jubilation.
The once cooled furnace beca hot, and the atmosphere of the ruined forge filled with warmth.
And at that mont, as the forge, which had been cold for so long, heated up,
—Hahaha!
—Gong! Gong!
Was it the spirits of the dwarves embodied in the flas that made that sound?
We all heard it.
The sound of nurous dwarves laughing and hamring away in the forge.
Jessie jumped in surprise and looked back at us as if asking if we had heard it this ti.
Now that we all distinctly heard the sound, we nodded back to her with smiles.
And I watched that scene, smiling.
One ear felt slightly numb, but the resounding sound of hamrs was sharply clear.
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