Yugioh Card Summoner

CH.522 Finding Claus

We grouped up into smaller teams, just so we could do a few different things. I was still solo with Wilma, while the others were keeping an eye out on anything, or anyone.

All in all, the damage to the cities wasn’t catastrophic, but there were plenty of burnt buildings and so on. But still, considering the multi-mouthed, magic spamming, invisible to the naked eye creatures, it could have been a lot worse.

But that will have to wait, because first, Wilma wanted to find Claus. He was the one to inform us of the attack, and his message wasn’t exactly detailed, so I feel like there has to have been more to the attack than the creature that was setting everything on fire. 

That thing just seemed like a giant distraction.

So finding Claus and seeing what else was done was a priority. Then we can work on the little creature I still have bound in chains next to me. 

… what? It isn’t like I have a convenient jar to place this thing into. And since it is living, I can’t place it into Storage. Trust me, I tried. I really should just take it to HomeBase but …

… actually, that is a good idea. 

“Wilma, I need a bit. I’ll take this creature to HomeBase and then I’ll teleport back.” I told her. “Watch over this for a moment.” I gave her a seal slate that would act as my returning point for my Teleport to Seal spell.

I then returned myself and the creature to HomeBase with my dungeon terminal, made a quick containment unit with the Core, placed the creature inside and sealed the containment unit.

I then quickly teleported to where Janina was, handed the creature to her, gave her an extremely quick rundown, before I chanted my spell and teleported back to Wilma.

Wilma took us to Claus’ home, but he wasn’t there. 

We did find the letter exchange box. It was a bit charred, because Claus’ house had been on fire but it seemed to still work. I decided to quickly test by writing a simple note that had basic instructions for Magie. 

All she had to do was write a quick reply to my note and send it back. 

I waited a bit for a response, while looking around the house, but we didn’t find any obvious clues on where Claus would have ran to. So after we got the response from Magie, we headed back out.

As we just walked down the street, heading for the amphitheater the weapons competition was held at, because that was where the people had evacuated to, we ran into a person I recognized from the weapons competition.

Aron, one of the judges, was walking the streets, looking at the damage to the buildings. He also recognized us, so I talked to him for a second. He asked why we were here and I told him Claus sent us a message that he needed help, so we came over.

I also filled him in that a similar attack had happened in the other cities and towns, and told him that we had stopped the attacks.

I then asked if he knew where Claus was, but Aron wasn’t sure, so we had to keep searching.

The amphitheater was, in the lack of a better word, a mess. Just tons of people.

Luckily, thanks to the open sky the amphitheater had, they seemed to be mostly all healed. Rain of Mercy really is OP when I need to heal a ton of people.

There were some people still getting treated for burns, so they must have been people who were trying to find the creature, or maybe they had been fighting the fires, and Rain of Mercy just wasn’t enough to heal them.

So while I searched for someone who looked important, I discreetly used Gift Cards to heal those people. 

Eventually, I spotted another judge from the weapons competition. Lady Majken, the craftswoman, so we headed over and asked about Claus.

Lady Majken seemed like she knew, but didn’t want to answer. Wilma begged her and eventually she agreed.

She led us away from the amphitheater, and into a small temple looking place. It wasn’t dedicated to the Goddess, like churches are, but instead, it seemed to be a temple dedicated to the spirits.

There were statues of different spirits. The main two were Gaia and Ninatia. But there was also a smaller statue that was almost definitely depicting Athena. 

So this was a spirit temple for spirits of Fire, Earth and Metal. Makes sense in a dwarven city.

She led us deeper into the temple. Eventually we got to a wall that had a small, artificial looking waterfall running down it. 

“Please remove your clothing now.” Lady Majken said, as she began to do just that. 

I took a quick glance at Wilma, trying to ask with my eyes if she was fine with this. But she didn’t hesitate and simply began removing her clothes.

… so I guess this is normal. I used Storage to remove everything I was wearing as well, because apparently this is a thing.

Lady Majken then looked us over, before walking into the waterfall wall. … which clearly wasn’t a wall, and just a waterfall playing the part of the wall, because she walked straight through it.

On the other side, a handful of white robes were waiting for us, and Lady Majken told us to pick one our size and put them on. She also told us to take a pair of wooden sandals and wear them.

We then began to walk down some steps made of stone.

“I apologize I didn’t warn you about the purification. But it is required to enter this area. It is one of the blessings of the spirits, and what protects the deeper parts from intruders.” Lady Majken explained. “In all honesty, I shouldn’t be taking you here. The only reason I am is because I know both of you are blessed, so the spirits would allow it. Had you not been, the waterfall would have prevented you from entering.”

So the waterfall can stop people without a spirits blessing? That’s really cool. I need to ask the spirits about that, because that might be an interesting security measure I could use somewhere on HomeBase.

… But if you need a blessing to get to here, do both Claus and Lady Majken have a spirits blessing? Would a spirit contract work? Is there some other way they are getting through the wall? It isn’t something you wear, since … you know, so it cannot be a bracelet or something. Maybe there is some sort of ritual you can do, which will allow you to pass through the waterfall, even if you don’t have a blessing.

I’ll ask about it later.

“... and is Claus here?” Wilma asked.

“Should be. It is his responsibility currently.”

“... where are we actually going, if you don’t mind me asking?” I asked.

“The sacred forge. Where legendary metals and weapons are made.” Lady Majken answered.

“... wow.” I couldn’t help but to admire that fact. 

A sacred forge. That is under a spirit temple. And you have to walk through a waterfall to get to. A waterfall you can’t pass through without a spirit’s blessing. That is cool as anything, and you cannot convince me otherwise.

… how many cool things am I going to have to experience in a row?

Apparently the answer was at least one more, because when we arrived at the sacred forge, something cool, or more like hot, was waiting for us. 

The forge itself was already quite amazing, with a few forges, plenty of anvils, hammers and other tools, but the amazing part was the fire at the center.

It was a large open flame, burning in a large golden basin. The basin was more likely orichalcum than actual gold, but whatever. They look similar enough.

Above the flame were a few pipes, pipes that led to the forges around the forge. By lowering them a bit, I’m guessing that you can take some of that fire from the altar and power the forges with it.

The strange thing about the flame was that it was just burning on its own. There was no fuel being added to it. So it had to be some kind of magic flame.

I quickly looked over the room again, but no sign of Claus. Wilma realized that as well, because she asked Lady Majken about it.

“There is a storage room. This way.” She responded, and led us to the other side of the fire altar. She then placed her hand on what looked to just be a solid wall, only for a part of the wall to retract in a bit, before sliding to the side, revealing another room.

The storage room, as you may have guessed, was filled with shelves and racks of materials. Both ‘regular’ stuff, but there were also plenty of rarer materials. 

Towards the back of the room, there was also a decent collection of weapons, all which seemed very well made, and I wouldn’t be surprised if at least few of them were legendary grade.

… As well as the person who we were looking for. Because laying on the ground, in a pool of what I’m guessing is his own blood, layed Claus. He was holding a warhammer, as well as a shield, so he clearly fought someone.

I then looked around again, noticing the empty spots on both the material and weapon shelves. There were plenty of items missing. At least if this place was filled in with any reason, and the pieces weren’t just haphazardly thrown on the shelves.

Wilma was naturally horrified to see her teacher in such a state, but I honestly didn’t react too much. He is just dead, not permanently gone. I think I’m getting too used to the fact that death is just a temporary thing. It can’t be good for my mental health.

Wilma seemed to recall that fact as well, because she soon turned to me, and I just quietly held out two cards. Gift Card and Monster Reborn.

Spoiler

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I let Wilma take care of the resurrecting, as I turned to Lady Majken.

“With a quick glance, do you know what was taken?” I asked her.

“... Not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but what was worries me.” She answered. “That rack held our orichalcum ingots, and everything is gone.” She said as she pointed at an empty rack. “That one held adamantite, and while some remains, a lot was taken.”

“There are at least six weapons missing, one of them legendary.” She continued. “But what worries me the most is this.” She said, as she pointed at a chest with very thick walls, and it was even internally lined with what I think is adamantite. “This chest held void uranium, and it is all gone.”

“... that can’t be good. … right?” 

“Do you not know about the metal?” Lady Majken asked.

“... I know a bit, but I’m not sure what all it can be used for. I know it is the best mana storage material there is, but that is about it.”

“Yes. It is much more efficient at it than even SS-rank magic stones.” Lady Majken said. “And while we didn’t have much void uranium, if whomever took it overcharges it … it could destroy a large city.”

Yeah. I somewhat knew about that. When Wilma got her Knowledge of Legendary Metals, we found out that void uranium isn’t actually all that dangerous. Normally.

See, when I think of uranium, I think it is hyper dangerous, but it really isn’t that bad. Its half-life is like … billions of years. So it really isn’t that radioactive. Like sure, don’t eat it or wear accessories made of the stuff, but it isn’t that bad. Not like some of the radio-isotopes that are used for things like radiotherapy.

Meanwhile, void uranium is actually completely safe. It isn’t radioactive. But what it is, is miasma emitting. It basically generates small amounts of mana and miasma out of nowhere, so it passively charges with mana, while letting out small amounts of miasma.

It doesn’t actually generate it from nowhere, instead the metal takes in the ‘chaos energy’ that flows to this world from the Chaos God Dimension, then letting out the miasma and creation energy, while keeping the mana. It is not that much more than what is passively done in other materials, but it is enough to where it seems like void uranium can generate/gather mana.

But as for the explosive bit, well, there is only so much mana that even something like void uranium can hold. And if you overload the material with mana, which admittedly takes like 500,000 mana per kilogram of this stuff, it goes boom. Like nuclear level boom.

“... but how did they get in here?” I asked.

“Could be like you, with a spirit’s blessing.” Lady Majken theorized. 

“... Could be, but I don’t think so. I’m quite close with the superior spirits, and I feel like they may have asked for help if someone was misusing spirits. … actually, maybe not. They aren’t always the greatest when it comes to taking action. I’ll ask them later.”

“Yes. I suppose you can just do that. But how did they get out? Didn’t you say that you had people watching over the country? And why the fires? And what about that creature?”

“... I have some theories. First, I think they were testing the creatures. They weren’t that strong, just an amalgamation of weak creatures forced together. … at least I think so. I haven’t tested the one I captured yet.

“I think the fires were a distraction, so that whomever did this, could do this freely. Or maybe they even knew that someone would rush to protect this storage room when the city is under attack, and they had to follow that person, in this case Claus, to get to here.

“And after they got here and dealt with Claus, they took what they could carry and teleported out.” I theorized.

“Teleportation? Do you really think they could have done something like that?”

“Well, Hugo was able to do it. And I don’t think he had the skill for it. I think they are using devices that are able to teleport people.” I told her. “Add to that a few magic bags, or maybe the Item Box skill, and you can quickly realize how they got in, took the stuff, and escaped without us being able to find them.”

“And think about it this way, had Claus not alerted us, how much damage do you think would have been made? Most of the city might have burned down before anyone would have seen the invisible creature, let alone taken it down. … no offense. So when the city is in trouble, what would you do? You would get the strongest weapons you can and use them to protect everyone. Maybe the attacker even expected you to bring out the indestructible sword.”

“... Yes. I can see where you are coming from. Even if I don’t like what it implies.” Lady Majken agreed.

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