Secret Room (3)
Within the Imperial Castle, there were several hidden rooms.
Some rooms stored failed prototypes from attempts at crafting artifacts, while others housed ancient weapons and magic books.
There were even occasions when Princess Estelle personally created hidden rooms to store various items related to girls she liked.
She claimed these items were as important as legendary gear.
All such places had one thing in common: they could be opened if one possessed the royal family's authority.
However, this place could never be opened, not even with that authority.
It was a high-level barrier that only people from the past could comprehend. In this era, no one could interpret it.
"It's open!"
The door that was supposed to be impossible to open had been unlocked, and the two blades that did so returned to Silia.
[As expected, it was a barrier designed by that guy.]
[Thanks to him, it was easy to open.]
"Who are you talking about?"
At Silia's question, the two Heroes named the person.
[Isaac. We can easily recognize the kind of spell he would lay.]
[He was also outstanding in those fields, not just aura.]
Louis knew well what truly formed the basis of a barrier, although to others, performing such intricate spells might seem impressive.
Actually, a barrier was nothing more than a password if you thought about it.
Since it only opened if you entered the right code and spell combination that the caster had set, the mechanisms were essentially the same.
'In fact, all barrier items in games worked that way, and to enter a field protected by a barrier, you had to input something like a password.'
Those items and systems were all like decryption in a sense.
Right now, the only reason Mirianne and Frederick had been able to break the barrier was because they knew an old friend's passphrase.
[If that's the case, this room is virtually something that guy made.]
[Anyway, let's go in.]
The group stepped through the open door and proceeded down a connected corridor.
Ahead was a spacious open area that greeted them.
"Why are things like these inside the Imperial Court...?!"
They were shocked by what they saw there. Especially for the Emperor, they were enough to make him recoil in horror.
[No way... To think a ritual to summon devils was performed here.]
[And it's been going on since long, long ago...]
A gigantic magic array was drawn on the ground. At its center, a black crystal floated in the air, emitting a dark light even now.
"What is this crystal?"
"Isn't it a superconductor?"
"A super... what?"
Seeing the metal suspended in midair without interference, Louis was reminded of a certain type of metal. Of course, in this world, such a term was meaningless.
"When... did this place even come to be...?"
The traces didn't end with the magic array.
All along the walls were books related to devils, as well as corpses that seemed to be devils and demonkin, stored in numerous transparent tubes.
In one corner, piles of bones were stacked up like a mound.
This meant that not only devils but also humans had been forcibly captured and used for experiments.
"To think the royal family in the past committed such atrocities."
"Couldn't this place have been made by Crown Prince Orbel? He too was obsessed with demonic power."
Pram offered her thoughts, but the Emperor shook his head.
"No. This room has existed since before I was even born, long before Orbel's time. Even if Orbel had found it, would he have known how to open it?"
At least it wasn't Orbel's doing. That meant the only suspects were the royals from long ago.
"What kind of ritual did they perform here?"
Louis asked as he looked at the black crystal floating at the center of the magic array.
That was the moment when his finger brushed the black crystal.
Zzzt!―
Suddenly, sparks jumped simultaneously from the black crystal and Louis's body.
Although Louis had resistance to electric shocks and was unharmed, his vision suddenly blurred.
Then, the rest of the group gasped in unison.
"Gasp!"
Before their eyes, the Chaos Dragon appeared. The image of the Chaos Dragon hovered above Louis's head.
Grrraaaah!―
Alongside the Chaos Dragon's roar, the magic array on the ground began to glow.
The Chaos Dragon's image gradually grew more substantial.
[Hurry, attack the crystal!]
Startled, Silia swung her blade at the crystal as Mirianne had instructed.
She attacked with full strength to destroy the crystal, but it remained unscathed.
"No way!"
[It's okay! Since you attacked, I was able to make contact with it.]
However, through that attack, the crystal that Mirianne touched stopped glowing.
At the same time, the Chaos Dragon's image atop Louis's head vanished.
"What just happened?"
As his senses returned, Louis wore a bewildered expression.
[I don't know who led this, but... it seems the Imperial Court performed a dreadful act a long time ago.]
While everyone was still shocked, Mirianne spoke.
[The Chaos Dragon we Heroes once fought... seems to have been born here.]
That stunning revelation made everyone open their eyes wide.
The fact that this place was deeply connected with the Chaos Dragon's birth astonished even Louis.
Pram spoke up in even greater shock.
"Wait. Does that mean... the Imperial Court created the monster that is the Chaos Dragon?"
Based on Mirianne's statement, Pram's supposition sounded reasonable. But Mirianne hadn't finished speaking yet.
[If it's the Chaos Dragon we fought, it definitely originated here. But this isn't technically the Chaos Dragon's homeland.]
"What do you mean by that?"
How could it be born here yet not be its homeland?
It sounded as nonsensical as saying one wasn't their mother's child despite having been born from her womb.
[Ah... I see. In fact, the monster we faced was a byproduct of the experiments conducted here!]
[Tsk. Of all things, the Imperial Court was the culprit. I kept fighting to protect them...]
Mirianne and Frederick muttered lamentations.
Naturally, the others couldn't understand and just tilted their heads in confusion.
"So you're saying the Imperial Court is the root of all this?"
When Louis asked directly, Mirianne replied.
[Things might get complicated from here. Brace yourself.]
"Okay. Okay."
Louis nodded twice, bracing himself for the coming explanation.
[Do you think the Chaos Dragon is just a laboratory creation made by humans?]
"That can't be. The Chaos Dragon, like the Great Devils, is described as a beast that's existed since ancient times."
[Exactly. That's the point.]
Mirianne agreed with the Emperor's answer.
[The Chaos Dragon isn't some artificial creature. In other words, it wasn't made directly here.]
"Then what does it mean that it was 'born here'?"
When Pram asked, Mirianne drifted in the air.
Then, from the jewel embedded in the blade, a human figure emerged. It was Mirianne herself in her human days.
[It means something like this.]
"Wow! What is it?"
"That's Lady Mirianne's true form...!"
[See? It's like I've emerged from the blade.]
When everyone agreed, Mirianne nodded too.
[That's right. Just like I'm imbued in the blade... back then, there was someone who hosted the Chaos Dragon within their body. Just like you.]
She said this, looking at Louis.
"So there was someone like me at that time, too?"
Louis was understandably curious.
[To be honest, even I find it hard to believe. How could a human possibly imprison the mighty Chaos Dragon?]
On reflection, it was preposterous.
A look at just Louis's level of the Chaos Dragon's strength made it plain that humanity couldn't oppose it.
No matter how advanced humans were in the past, capturing the original Chaos Dragon was another matter entirely.
[But don't just assume it was captured through battle. 'Captured' can mean various things. For example...]
Were there ways to capture something without fighting? The answer was surprisingly simple.
[Perhaps it was exhausted and fainted. Or maybe it was wounded and then captured.]
"In that case...."
[Actually, I've long thought, just like Louis, about whether the World Tree and the Chaos Dragon are opposing entities. The World Tree was once a being in human form who fell into a deep sleep on earth and became a tree. So, what about the Chaos Dragon...?]
If the World Tree was that kind of being, what was the Chaos Dragon, its counterpart?
The answer formed itself in Louis's mind.
"A being who likewise came down to this land and fell into a slumber... is that it?"
[I can't be sure, but if humans were to capture the Chaos Dragon without trouble, that's the only way.]
But this led to another question. Why did the Chaos Dragon descend to this land and fall asleep, just like the World Tree?
What did the two of them do that brought them down to earth? And what on earth was their relationship?
'Wait, now that I think about it...'
Louis recalled the first time he met a Great Devil.
Great Devil Palmon had recognized Louis's Chaos Dragon form and had spoken with a knowing air.
'I'm sure he said something like—Your strength is weaker than before...'
So were the Great Devils connected to the Chaos Dragon?
For that, I'll have to ask Eramon, whom I've currently locked up in the underground of the lord's manor.
He was, after all, one of the Great Devils.
"Anyway, it means they brought the sealed Chaos Dragon here and conducted all sorts of experiments on it."
[Seeing it that way, the Holy Nation and the Empire weren't so different. They played with the Chaos Dragon just like the Holy Nation experimented with the World Tree.]
[And we were the ones who cleaned up afterward.]
At Frederick's addition, Mirianne nodded.
[By the way, didn't you say Isaac was your ancestor?]
"Yes. He was once the Crown Prince, so Princess Estelle and I both share his blood."
[But seriously, when did your royal family start manifesting psychic abilities?]
"That... I'm not sure, either...."
As the Emperor responded with uncertainty, Pram yawned beside them.
"Huuuaahm~ I don't get any of this. I'm bored, so maybe I'll read one of these books?"
"What if there's a trap?"
"Don't worry. There aren't any strange mechanisms here."
At this point, there didn't seem to be anything else for Pram to do.
Using his superhuman eyesight, Louis examined the area but found no traps.
So Pram picked up a book that looked like a research diary and opened it.
"Hm?"
As soon as she looked inside, Pram wandered over to Louis.
"Young master, what's this?"
"What is it?"
"There's some kind of barrier over it, so I can't read it."
It was the same type of barrier that blocked the door earlier.
The only difference was that the book's barrier was composed of handwritten script.
[That writing is...]
When Mirianne glanced at the book, she floated over.
[That's Isaac's handwriting.]
[You're right. Did he write this here?]
[Let's try to break it.]
Together, they broke the book's barrier just as before. Then, letters began to appear on the previously blank pages.
—Something small fell in the middle of the continent. Though it looked like a baby lizard, I sensed an immense power.
—It seemed young and pitiable, so I tried to secretly raise it, but then my father suddenly appeared.
—My father recognized its worth and immediately started conducting strange experiments.
—They're booming on the eastern continent using the great power of the World Tree, while we've made no progress, so they asked me for help.
—Absurd human. After abandoning me as the child of a concubine, now that the legitimate child has disappeared, he's desperate for me instead.
—As I thought, this man never considered me human. Now, he wants to forcefully fuse the power of this lizard with me.
—So far, he's piled up countless corpses from secretly abducted civilians, and now he wants to conduct that experiment on me.
—Yet at that time, I didn't know any better. I harbored the foolish hope that if my father acknowledged me as a royal, I'd do anything.
—Why did I have such a hope? I regret it sincerely. If not for that, the legendary disaster dragon would never have returned to life through me.
—In the end, I became fused with the lizard. But perhaps due to side effects, the lizard separated from me.
—Eventually, it was discovered in a distant place on the continent. As the disaster dragon that destroys all.
—People are dying. Burned by fire, electrocuted, carried off by the wind, swallowed by cracked earth, poisoned to death.
—Screams erupt everywhere.
—Because of that monster the Imperial Court unleashed...