Maruyama Kugane - The Invaders of the Large Tomb

“I’m not comfortable with it, but since it’s just ten percent, so be it.”

The elder simply smiled at his sarcastic voice. In the end, it was Eruya who made a bitter expression after his snide attitude failed to garner any response.

“Ah, Elder. Can I ask you for a favour since you’re going to pass that way. We found a banner made with gold thread in the crypt we searched, but it looked too cumbersome to lug around. Could we trouble you to take it back?”

“I agree with Hekkeran. It might be a hassle, but could you help us out?”

“In that case, take mine too.”

Eruya gestured with his chin to one of the elves, and she took out a large piece of cloth to place it on the ground, all the while staggering under its weight.

“Understood. Aside from these, is there anything else you want me to safekeep or carry back?”

There was no answer to Parupatra’s question.

“Very well! Like I proposed earlier, my team will search the top. Be careful. It’s fine if you leave something valuable for me.”

“Haha, we can leave a couple of monsters for you, but there won’t be a single coin left behind for you.”

After a round of laughter, Hekkeran asked the others: “Shall we go?”

Everyone agreed immediately. They took a step forward. With their eyes shining with greed and anticipation, they took their first step into the unknown ruins—the great underground tomb.

The door opened and there was only one path leading deeper in. As they expected, it was kept clean and tidy.

Things like rust and moss weren’t found on the stone passage, there were some indents on the wall where human shaped figures, wrapped in burial clothing, had been placed. There wasn’t the unique scent of corpse here. Instead, there was a cold air and smell of the undead.

There were flickering bluish white lights on the ceiling a fixed distance from each other. However, since the distance between them was rather large, there was some darkness along the way. The light allowed them to move freely, but was just dim enough that they might miss something. It would feel dangerous if they didn’t have an alternate source of lighting.

“—Rob. Any undead reaction from that corpse?”

“No, nothing.”

Arche thanked Rob and walked towards the corpse in the body bag, cutting open with her knife.

After seeing her actions, the other team also sent out one or two members to investigate the corpse inside the body bag.

“...From this height and built, the possibility of this being human is high. A full grown man.”

“It is not wearing clothes, so it is hard to tell what time period this ruins is from.”

“But this ruins is filled with mysteries. The architecture, burial method and time period are all unknown. Maybe it is something from six hundred years ago.”

“—If that is true, this will be a historical find.”

For people doing research, this might be a topic worth discussing, but they were here to do a job.

After receiving cold stares from Hekkeran and Greenham, they hastily announced the investigation result “The time period and background of the ruins are still a mystery.”

“Understood. Shall we move on? Personally, I want to kill some monsters.”

Agreeing with the dissatisfied Eruya, the group moved ahead but stopped shortly.

Their stances were ready to draw their weapon.

Sounds of bones creaking ahead could be heard.

Due to the illumination from the ceiling, they could see the figures of the undead ahead.

After closing the distance and identifying the opponents, the workers was shaken as if they were seeing something incredible and discussed softly.

“Isn’t that too…”

“Hey, are you for real…”

“Eh? Are there only skeletons?”

The moment someone finally blurt out the name of the monster, the group couldn’t endure it anymore and burst out into laughter.

“Hey hey hey!! Isn’t sending skeletons a gone case? We have many people here alright?”

The appearance of skeletal monsters look roughly the same, so it was hard to tell what type they were.

However, it was easy to judge that these were normal skeletons from the air they gave off.

“Even if these are scouts, they should send out stronger monsters— I got it! There are either no monsters controlling this cemetery, or they are too incompetent to tell how strong we are. Or they are morons who didn’t even notice they have been infiltrated!

They couldn’t stop laughing.

“Eh, it is impossible for skeletons. Or maybe all the treasures in this ruin are placed in the crypt on the surface?”

“That would be terrible.”

For workers who were on par with mithril adventurers, skeletons were too weak. And the workers even outnumbered them.

In front of the six skeletons, they looked at each other thinking about who should go.

“I don’t want to.”

Eruya declared. It was easy to understand how he felt.

“Then I shall go.”

Greenham said and walked to the front.

The weak mind of the skeleton seemed to be thinking about something. They were probably thinking about overwhelming the lone warrior. Or maybe they were considering something else.

The skeletons attacked together and—

They were easily shattered by the swinging shield and axe.

It only took a few seconds. Maybe less.

Smashing the six skeletons and stepping on their remains, Greenham sighed as if he was tired. It wasn’t fatigue from the battle, but the fact that the first opponent in this great ruin was the too weak, the lowest tier undead skeleton.

“How brittle, just skeletons after all. That may be so, but it would be foolish to get careless. Keep the possibility that powerful undead might pop up in mind and advance with great caution!”

They straightened their faces after hearing Greenham’s words and moved on— towards the depths of the ruins. Their hearts were filled with the anticipation of the treasures lying ahead.

♦ ♦ ♦

“Yare yare, so they left huh.”

“They did. They might be workers, but we are working on the same team now, so we are colleagues for this job. It will be great if they return safely… Momon-san, what do you think?”

“—All of them will die.”

Ainz replied with a deep voice, stunning the leader of the adventurer team.

Oh no, I said my thoughts out loud—

“Eh, oh, I mean being mentally prepared for that possibility. These are unknown ruins we are talking about. There is no way of telling what dangers they will run into. Holding on to high hopes will only result in great disappointment.”

“I see, so it’s like that… Sorry for making you worry.”

... I was winging it, and he agreed with me? Well, that works great for me.

The team leader lowered his head like this because he blindly thought the words of the adamantite-ranked man were correct.

Ainz’ effort— his response filled with good intentions and friendly attitude during the journey to Nazarick paid off.

“So as we planned, I will take a break first.”

Ainz headed towards his — which was of course shared with Nabel — tent. As it was a certain distance away, some people assumed it was to keep others from hearing moans. Or rather, that was what they heard from the leader just now.

Compared to the workers, he felt more camaraderie with Momon who was also an adventurer, and shared the information he got from the workers freely.

Ainz and Nabel closed the entrance of the tent after going in. They peeked out just in case and no one seemed to be watching them. In fact, there were people who intentionally made a show of not caring.

“...Even though they said this is a love nest, not denying it outright was probably the right move.