NOVEL NEXT Chapter 86
“Having that wizard follow us would have definitely made things easier! Whether it’s a siege or a breakthrough, it would have been a piece of cake for him!”
Bernard grumbled, not letting go of his regrets about Jeongjae. Walter, calm as ever, nodded along with Bernard’s words.
“Yeah, if Jeongjae was here, we could’ve tried attacking the Dragon directly. If the Dragon were gone, we wouldn’t even need to be stuck around here, gazing at the future.”
“If you keep talking like that, I might think the Hero who dropped that guy was someone else and not the Hero himself.”
“Well, I was planning to take that fellow back to that land eventually. I just didn’t want to make things too chaotic.”
“Chaotic, huh? Do you happen to have any money buried in that baronial territory?”
“There’s something unique rather than money. It’s a terrifying document that even I can’t decipher, perhaps a clue that could reveal the fundamental cause of what we’re fighting against.”
“Honestly, even if you put it that way, I don’t really get what’s what.”
Bernard shrugged. Walter took off his golden-framed glasses and chuckled.
“All I know is that Simon Harriet wasn’t fond of recording things in our language. The records in Caprice are limited. But the unreadable records are much more extensive. No need to rush, but I hope we can access that secret sometime…”
And Jeongjae was in the process of approaching that secret.
The wall of the armory that had returned, the suddenly appeared portrait of the great detective.
If the background of the painting wasn’t a medieval-style palace, more specifically the interior of the Audrich Imperial Palace, Jeongjae might have mistaken it for a painting directly lifted from the works of ‘Sydney Paget’, famous for illustrating the Sherlock Holmes series.
“This person, the Hero from a hundred years ago, right? I think I’ve seen him in a painting before.”
Jenis placed her hand on the portrait of Simon Harriet before pushing it. Jeongjae lightly nodded, responding to her question.
“I’m not sure, but probably so. And this person’s real name is likely not Simon Harriet.”
“Do you know this person’s name too? Is he as famous in the professor’s world as Dracula?”
“Like Dracula. Or perhaps even more famous. I’d say they are equal. In fact, I’ve read a lot about novels where these two meet and fight in the same era. They’re that well-known… No, let’s open the door and talk. We’ll have plenty of time to explain the details.”
As Jeongjae pushed the portrait with all his might, it swung open like a double door.
Just before taking a step onto the revealed staircase, Jeongjae tilted his head, pointing at the painting.
“This background is clearly inside of the Imperial Palace, right?”
“I haven’t been to the Imperial Palace, so I wouldn’t know. Is that what it is? But anyone seeing this could think he’s the Emperor.”
“Seriously. Where in the world would you find someone sitting in a gown inside the Imperial Palace?”
“Maybe he just didn’t have any other clothes to wear?”
“I doubt that. Well, it’s not surprising. This person isn’t known for being too polite.”
Even so, Sherlock Holmes wasn’t exactly an anti-social character who would treat royalty with disdain. After all, he was quite famous for having a monarch as a client.
Jeongjae decided not to dwell too much on the issue of the portrait and cautiously descended the stairs that appeared behind the door. He thought there wouldn’t be any additional traps if it was a basement dug by a Hero but didn’t forget to scan the surroundings with a reconnaissance magic circle just in case.
The place he arrived at after passing through the dim stairs was a space completely opposite from the dark ambiance of the armory and the gloomy corridor.
“Wow, this place… feels cozy.”
Jenis’s reaction upon seeing the basement of Harriet Castle was just that. Jeongjae instinctively entered the basement, searching for a switch to turn on the electric light, but of course, there were no electric engineers or fluorescent lights in this world.
Next, he thought about using a light magic spell. However, it quickly became apparent that such efforts weren’t even necessary, as the interior of the basement was surprisingly bright.
A white orb floating in the sky was the source of light in this room. Jeongjae thought that this orb had likely been floating here for nearly a hundred years and couldn’t help but exclaim in awe.
Even if this was simple light magic, maintaining such stability for over a hundred years would be nearly impossible with the mana technology of this world. No matter how meticulously Jeongjae tried, he thought that maybe one year would be his limit. There was no need to expend so much effort on basic light magic.
The bright-lit basement had quite a cozy atmosphere. A cream-colored carpet made of high-quality fabric covered the floor, and there was a table and two luxurious armchairs that looked ready for a tea time at any moment.
Around the table, there were a couple of bookshelves, not packed to the brim, which instead contributed to a more relaxed ambiance.
The walls were covered broadly with red wallpaper, not too intense in color, giving it a luxurious feel without being overly shocking.
The room was not particularly small, but it wasn’t wide enough to accommodate a noble’s escape in case of an emergency. It was roughly the size of a middle school classroom or a lord’s office.
“True, the atmosphere is nice, but… wait, there’s something concerning?”
“Right. That light magic over there. That white light is definitely some kind of holy power. Either that hero from the past or someone else who can handle holy power intentionally left it hovering like that. In that case, it explains why it has been maintained for nearly a hundred years. But… if they only left the magic circle hovering like that, it would definitely lack stability.”
“That’s not the problem… Well, sure that’s concerning, but more than that, it’s that over there.”
Jeongjae pointed his finger at an object in the room that caught his attention. Jenis seemed to realize the suspicious object for the first time, snapping out of her daze and nodding.
“Oh, right. I hadn’t noticed that.”
“That doesn’t look like something you can just pass by. Let’s get a closer look.”
“Wait a minute, professor.”
Jenis hurriedly grabbed Jeongjae’s wrist. Jeongjae turned to look at Jenis with a puzzled expression.
“What is it, Jenis?”
“Is it really okay to look at it from a distance? What if getting close brings about something dangerous?”
It seemed Jenis, who couldn’t see the object, was pretending not to see out of fright. Jeongjae thought it was rare to see Jenis showing such a timid side, and he couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Don’t worry. I’ll approach cautiously.”
“Somehow, I have a bad feeling about this…”
It was not unreasonable for Jenis to feel uneasy. Across the central table in the basement lay a long glass-covered coffin.
The coffin inside the glass container looked to be made of quite expensive wood. If something like that is placed in an ordinary setting, even in a reception room, you would certainly have to check it out.
As Jeongjae slowly approached the coffin, Jenis followed behind him. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any magical traps in the vicinity, and the two safely made it to the pedestal where the coffin was placed.
As he intently gazed at the coffin beneath the glass top, Jeongjae felt a strange sensation as if he had become the prince from the movie ‘Snow White’. Unfortunately, what was contained within was not a sleeping beauty, but a wooden coffin.
It might have actually been better that it was a coffin. If there were a body inside, that would truly be horror. With the hope that nothing strange was in the coffin, Jeongjae gave the glass lid a powerful push to open it.
‘Dririririririririri!’
The moment the glass lid was opened, the coffin began to tremble, producing a strange rattling noise. Jeongjae and Jenis stepped back in surprise.
“Br-break it, professor! Something’s coming out! It’s coming out!”
“No, nothing’s coming out! Jenis, wait! Don’t hide behind me, let’s go investigate together.”
Despite having bravely fought against Dracula before, it seemed Jenis was a bit overly jumpy today. Jeongjae was also initially thinking something might leap out of the coffin, but it continued to rattle without any sign of something suspicious coming out of it.
It was less about something alive being inside and more about the feeling that some kind of machine was operating inside.
“Then has it been a machine all along and that glass lid was just to soundproof it?”
“A machine?”
“Yeah, I think it seems like a machine. Let’s see… I’ll go check it out myself…”
Without any hesitation, Jeongjae confidently stepped toward the coffin, forcefully opening the coffin lid marked with a cross.
Just as Jeongjae expected, there were no corpses or living creatures inside the coffin. What filled the coffin was a collection of peculiar glass tubes that looked like vacuum tubes.
“Uh… light bulbs?”
Jeongjae murmured as he gazed at the cluster of crackling light bulbs. At first glance, they resembled vacuum tubes, but upon closer inspection, they were closer to simply incandescent light bulbs.
The cylindrical light bulbs flickered alternately, emitting crackling light from the filaments. Jeongjae had never heard about light bulbs being distributed in the Audrich Empire since coming to this world.
Probably, it was because there was no need to develop them in the first place, but it was also unlikely that light bulbs would just appear in a world without proper electricity generation.
However, this object was clearly mimicking the shape of incandescent light bulbs developed on Earth.
As he looked at the glass tubes pulsating on the bottom of the coffin, Jenis tilted her head.
“It seems like a mana device. It looks like it’s being operated unusually. Um, so, it’s signaling with the flickering pattern of the glass tubes… uh, I’m not sure. Should we study it more?”
“Uh… yeah. It’s probably good to study it. But what in the world…?”
The crackling sound of the lights and the noise created by the flickering sounds merged into the same rattling noise as before.
Just by removing the glass lid, the sound leaked out, and now that the lid itself was removed, the noise became even more pronounced.
Unable to tolerate the rattling sound, Jeongjae tried to close the coffin lid, but seeing Jenis, who had previously been frightened, now completely absorbed in her curiosity, he simply leaned the lid against a nearby shelf.
“Then study it and let me know. I’ll just take a quick look around the bookshelf.”
“Huh? Don’t you want to do it with me? This seems like an incredibly unique device, how would I figure it out alone?”
“Just giving it a light glance. Don’t break anything. This coffin worries me, but these books concern me more. These books… they’re in English.”
At Jeongjae’s words, Jenis nodded as if she understood.
It was impossible for Jenis not to feel interested in Jeongjae’s fascination with English books. Back when he lived in Korea, if he saw a book in English, he would sigh at the thought of having to force himself to interpret it while reading. Now that he had arrived in this world, he couldn’t express how delighted he felt about encountering the very letters of English.
If he had crossed over without properly studying English back on Earth, how regretful it would have been. Jeongjae was grateful for his graduate school life, where he had rummaged through foreign papers at high speed, almost for the first time in his life.
Of course, he left aside the fact that this lifestyle had become the fundamental cause of him being crushed by books.
“Well then, um, there are 64 glass tubes; the number of possible patterns that can be produced… uh…”
Jenis also pulled out a piece of empty paper from a bookshelf and took out her quill and inkpot, embarking on her own work. Jenis was a thoroughly prepared student, always ready with a quill and ink wherever she went. There was no doubt that she had a deep interest in her exploration activities, just as Jeongjae loved research.