Chapter 193

Munch munch

And so, Daria mindlessly devoured the pulled beef.

As if she were enchanted.

“You’re eating so happily.”

“Yes. It’s such a delicious meal… Huh!?”

By the time she came to her senses, the meal was already over.

‘I-I’ve been had. I was so lost in the taste of the food that I ate without thinking, and now the meal is over!’

Daria felt a sudden jolt of clarity and looked down at her plate, but there wasn’t a single trace of pulled beef left.

Only a small amount of tomato sauce remained on the plate, a silent testament to the pulled beef that once was.

Daria, who had been surrounded by happiness just moments ago, now felt the color drain from her face.

‘If this keeps up, I won’t be able to free Aila from her brainwashing…! No, not just saving Aila, but I’ll also fall into Kurt’s clutches…!’

It’s all over now.

Just as Daria was about to sink into despair, she suddenly noticed something strange.

‘…Huh? But why am I still perfectly sane?’

The strange thing was that she could still think clearly.

When she used her mana to check her body, she could still feel her mental barrier functioning perfectly.

‘Ah, no. Maybe even feeling like my mental barrier is intact is part of the brainwashing. In times like these…’

But without letting her guard down, Daria used a reality-check method devised by the Holy Kingdom over many years to verify her mental state in a brainwashing scenario.

However, using that method, Daria felt no contradictions in her memories, no unnatural shifts in emotions, and no distortions in perception.

‘Huh…? I’m fine? Why…?’

Of course, there are still unknown aspects to the Ancient Empire’s technology, so there might be some magic even the Holy Kingdom isn’t aware of. But if it were a high-performance brainwashing magic that even her current reality check couldn’t detect, the scale of the magic would have to be enormous.

However, since Daria and Aila felt no signs of such magic up until the moment they ate, the possibility of such large-scale brainwashing magic being used was extremely slim.

Then…

‘Is it really not brainwashing…?’

But if that’s the case, then why is Aila’s condition…

‘Ah.’

Could it be that the Lizardman’s cooking was so skilled that even a devout paladin like Aila lost her mind…?

That was even less realistic than the idea that they had been brainwashed using Ancient Empire magic.

If any of the senior members of the Holy Kingdom had told her such a story, she wouldn’t have believed it.

But since she herself had fallen into Kurt’s cooking and mindlessly finished the meal, Daria couldn’t help but believe it.

“Could it be… that this dish wasn’t made using artificial means…?”

Daria muttered, feeling an inexplicable sense of defeat.

But when Kurt heard her muttering, he tilted his head in confusion and replied.

“No. I did use an artifact.”

“…Huh?”

And so, Kurt brought out the artifact to the utterly confused Daria.

It looked like an ordinary iron plate.

“Here. This is the artifact.”

“This thing is…”

Daria examined the object Kurt brought.

Though she had completely misjudged the situation during the meal and acted foolishly, she was originally a special holy maiden of the Holy Kingdom, someone who had undergone rigorous training to earn her position.

Using the knowledge she had learned in the Holy Kingdom and her practical experience, she quickly deduced the artifact’s purpose.

“This is a broken barrier generator. To be precise, it seems to be a fragment of what was once a barrier-generating artifact.”

In fact, figuring out the artifact’s purpose wasn’t difficult.

Barrier-generating artifacts were common among the dangerous relics of the Ancient Empire collected by the Holy Kingdom.

However, while the type of artifact was common, its grade wasn’t low.

Of course, in its broken state, it could barely generate a barrier strong enough to cover a single crate, so its grade was meaningless now…

But if the artifact had been intact, its performance would have been nothing short of a national treasure.

The range the artifact could protect would have been vast, covering an area that modern magic couldn’t replicate, with a strength comparable to mithril.

Yes.

Enough to cover an entire Ancient Empire ruin found in the mountains…

‘Could it be!? That ruin wasn’t originally built in the mountains…!?’

As Daria was struck by this unexpected revelation through the artifact Kurt showed her, Kurt spoke up.

“…What are you talking about? This isn’t broken.”

“Huh?”

“Look. With this artifact, you can put a barrier around meat. And if you put that meat in warm water…”

Kurt eagerly explained, as if to prove that the artifact wasn’t broken, about the wonders of the cooking method called sous-vide.

“Uh… So you’re saying that this artifact was used by the Ancient Empire to make food taste better?”

“Of course. In fact, I want to ask you. What other use could it have?”

Kurt’s answer was the conclusion he could reach without the knowledge to deduce the artifact’s original function.

If he had known its true purpose, he wouldn’t have answered like that.

But even so, the sight of Kurt using the artifact purely to make delicious food, without any selfish desires or intent to harm others, was…

So different from those who had misused artifacts to fulfill their own desires…

“Pfft.”

Daria laughed.

“…Daria?”

“Ahahaha! To think you’d be satisfied with using an Ancient Empire artifact just to make food taste better!”

It was as if Kurt was embodying the “goodness of people” that Daria had tried to convince Aila of so many times, and she couldn’t help but laugh.

“What’s the problem?”

“No. There’s no problem at all. Absolutely none.”

As she spoke, tears welled up in Daria’s eyes from how much she had laughed.

After finishing the meal, the two bid farewell to Kurt and his party in front of the Adventurer Guild.

“…With that, our escort mission is now complete.”

“Ah… What a shame.”

“We’re sorry to end the request so quickly, but as Kurt mentioned, we were originally interested in Ancient Empire relics.”

“Actually, extending the request by even a day costs quite a bit, so we apologize. The fee for a day of escort work could feed dozens of people…”

“No, it’s fine. These things happen.”

“Right. We’re Silver Rank adventurers, so we’ll find another job soon. Don’t worry about it.”

In the end, since they had achieved their goals, the escort request was concluded.

Kurt’s party felt a bit of regret since the named request was quite lucrative, but they understood the situation and saw the two off with smiles.

“So, are you two leaving Astram now?”

“Well, if our help is needed elsewhere, we’ll head there.”

“Then this is goodbye. Still, today was really fulfilling.”

“We’re glad to have made good connections.”

“Yeah. Take care.”

“Yes. May the guidance of the Black Tentacle be with you all…”

And so, the two set off again, escorted by Kurt’s party, who watched their departing figures with mixed feelings.

“That farewell was a bit…”

As he watched them leave with a complicated expression, Kurt suddenly had a question.

“But how did they know I went into the ruins?”

And so, the two returned to the church after being seen off by Kurt’s party.

“First, all the adventurers have been checked.”

“Fortunately, it seems no one has touched any dangerous Ancient Empire relics.”

At the same time, Daria crossed out Kurt’s name in her notebook.

The notebook contained the names of all the adventurers and Seiri who had approached the deeper parts of the Ancient Empire that day.

A few days before they approached Kurt.

The two had already snuck past the guards and explored the deeper parts of the ruins.

Fortunately, they found nothing that could threaten the world, and they breathed a sigh of relief.

What they did find were traces of adventurers who had infiltrated the ruins.

Upon discovering these traces, the two immediately tracked down the adventurers who had entered the ruins and completed their investigation.

Fortunately, most of the adventurers had done nothing more than run away from golems, finding nothing of note.

Even the timid Dark Elf who had gone deep into the ruins seemed to have obtained no significant artifact, and the most suspicious figure, the Lizardman Kurt, also appeared to be safe regarding Ancient Empire relics.

“The only thing that’s concerning is the alchemist whose whereabouts are unclear.”

“It seems they noticed the Holy Kingdom was monitoring Ancient Empire artifacts and disappeared immediately after entering the Ancient Empire…”

“Given that they left no trace of where they fled, they must be a very cautious individual.”

“The image of a scatterbrained alchemist must have been a mask to hide that caution.”

In reality, Seiri had been holed up in her room for days after returning from the ruins, engrossed in studying the artifacts she found. But the two, unaware of this, could only assume Seiri had gone into hiding to avoid the Holy Kingdom’s pursuit.

“Hoo… Anyway, while the alchemist Seiri’s whereabouts are concerning, it seems no one has obtained any particularly dangerous relics.”

“But our mission isn’t just to retrieve dangerous artifacts.”

However, at Aila’s rebuttal, Daria’s face hardened, and she replied in a subdued voice.

“…I know.”

“Our mission isn’t just to retrieve dangerous Ancient Empire relics, but to erase the history of the Ancient Empire from this world.”

That’s why they had to “deal with” anyone who accessed the erased history of the Ancient Empire.

That was their other mission.

It was the reason the Holy Kingdom had spent vast sums of money over the years on charity and built churches all over the world.

Everything was to conceal the truth of the world connected to the Ancient Empire and prevent it from surfacing.

Of course, the Holy Kingdom’s charity work was genuine.

The Holy Kingdom’s doctrine was fundamentally about creating a peaceful world where more people could live smiling lives.

But more important than that was ensuring that the forgotten history remained forgotten.

Because that was what was truly necessary to keep the world peaceful.

If that forgotten history were to resurface, the world would once again fall into chaos.

To prevent the mistakes of the Ancient Empire, which had nearly destroyed the world once, from being repeated…

If the history of the Ancient Empire were to repeat, a great crisis would come.

“First, we need to keep an eye out for anyone who might have accessed forbidden knowledge.”

Daria was given a second mission.

A mission not to save and protect others, but to harm them. She hated it, but she couldn’t refuse.

If something like the Ancient Empire were to happen again, the world would truly be destroyed.

“Understood. For now, let’s stay in Astram a bit longer and monitor the situation.”

And so, the two decided to stay in Astram to keep an eye on things.

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