<h4>Chapter 229: 122. Aihrance’s Underground Labyrinth -3 (Part One)</h4>


    The very first Holy Emperor, Ordin Olfolse.


    He was the first one to nt the seed of ‘faith’ in this continent, and then went onto establish a religion based around that very faith.


    Furthermore, he founded the very first incarnation of the faith-based theocratic nation, andmanded twelve thousand Priests to craft a certain item, a task that took several decades toplete.


    And that item was the treasured tool capable of summoning an ‘angel’. A sacred sword of the gods, alsomonly referred to as the greatest relic in thend.


    However, that was nothing more than an ancient mythical tale.


    No detailed exnation on what it looked like or what its exact ability had been passed down.


    I was currently in the library located inside the Aihrance royal pce. Alice and Hans were apanying me.


    Right now, she was diving deep into the pool of magical knowledge found in this ce in order to satisfy her near-unquenchable curiosity. All those grimoires authored by magicians with value systems and thought processes quite different from Raphael’s could be found just about everywhere in this ce, and she was fully exploiting this opportunity to gain ess to them.


    As for Hans, he was searching for any knowledge rted to warp gates. From what we’ve heard, one of only a handful of magicians in the whole continent capable of casting warp magic lived in this queendom, so there should be more than enough data on the spell to be found in this library.


    I too was currently searching for information in this ce – the records detailing the ‘angel’ that Queen Rox had brought up.


    -At the end of the library on a shelf marked ‘5785’, you will find records pertaining to the angel.


    She revealed to me during the dinner that she had personally witnessed the angel’s prowess.


    I roamed around this helical-shaped library where hundreds of thousands of books had been stored. After checking out the rows of numbers on the shelves, I raised my head up high to look up.


    “...Well, that’s pretty high, alright.”


    The top of these shelves could barely be seen from down here.


    I procured adder, propped it against the shelf, and slowly climbed up.


    “Found it.”


    I took out the tome that Queen Rox had told me about and flipped it open. It contained records of the queen’s journey in thebyrinth, Titalos, and the events that happened forty years ago.


    -That ce is like apletely different world; it boasts a new and different ecosystem from ours.


    The ce featuring an environment and lifeforms of the ancient past, is it?


    -My father and I led an army andunched an investigation on thebyrinth. We finally deciphered the ancient rune letters found there. Only after it took us several years to reach this stage did we finally realise the truth. Before the Aihrance royal pce was built on top of it, this ce was actually one massive tomb created by someone.


    I flipped through some more pages.


    My eyes grewrger andrger with every page flipped through.


    -We discovered the truth. We finally figured it out. This ce, it...


    It was the tomb of the first Holy Emperor, Ordin Olfolse.


    -A truly horrifying and monstrous ‘item’ys in slumber within this ancient ruin. This thing, which possesses a humongous figure, fired out thousands of arrows and spears of light, all the whileshing out with hundreds of hooks at the same time. And...


    I swallowed back my dry saliva.


    -Nearly five hundred knights and magicians, plus two and half thousand regr soldiers were killed in action. During this event, the ruler of this nation, his majesty and my father, had to pass from this world.


    Not one person could inflict a single injury on that mysterious yet noble ‘angel’ and it went on to disy its majesty to everyone present on that day.


    This being, apparently far stronger than any dragon, truly befitted the title of an angel guarding the throne of a god.


    I closed the book.


    What I learned from this record was that things weren’t as simple as a nice little treasure sleeping quietly in a tomb somewhere, and this ‘creature’ called the angel was guarding said tomb.


    “Well, that’s not good.”


    “What is?”


    I turned my head to Alice after she asked me that question.


    She was in the middle of reading booksrge and thick enough to hide even her face. And such books were forming small hills on the table, too.


    “I learned a bit more about this thing called angel.”


    Alice’s eyes instantly became round dots resembling a shocked rabbit’s.


    She was filled with curiosity towards theology as well as magical knowledge. As such, any mention of the term ‘angel’ would have proven to be quite stimting for her curiosity.


    She even volunteered toe with me the moment she heard the term ‘first Holy Emperor’, so yeah, I was getting really tempted to praise her unyielding drive to acquire more ‘knowledge’.


    “The angel really exists?”


    She was so shocked that she wobbled unsteadily and nearly dropped the book in her hands, but managed to regain her bnce in the end. She sighed in relief and awkwardly smiled at her own clumsiness.


    I asked her, “Hang on, you know something about the angel?”


    “...Even if you ask me like that, there are a lot of different types and myths apanying them, so I...”


    “What about those myths rted to Holy Emperor Ordin?”


    Alice put the books away on a nearby shelf, then beganbing through her memories while cing her fingertip on her chin.


    “There aren’t all that many records, but...” She nced at me and continued to speak. “They all say that he was a god and a devil, your highness.”


    I furrowed my brows.


    “The records note that, when he waved his hands around, the ‘surrounding terrain was altered, his believers were saved, and the viins all cried out in despair’.”


    Why did that description sound so grand for some reason?


    However, we were talking about the very first Holy Emperor here. There’s a good possibility that the records of his exploits had been heavily embellished.


    Except that, whenparing those records with Queen Rox’s own ounts, it became harder to say that such descriptions had indeed been heavily dramatised.


    Let’s say there’s a dragon going up against the elite forces of the magic queendom. Even if it was a feared dragon, it’d still find eliminating three thousand knights and magicians exceedingly difficult to pull off. Besides, the dragon would also be inflicted with injuries a lot more serious than mere simple scratches, too.


    “If the description within those myths are real, then I wonder, will we be able to win against the angel?”


    Alice’s eyes opened wider at my question that was directed to no one in particr.


    She didn’t seem willing to verbally answer me, since all she did was shake her head while keeping her mouth firmly shut.


    She was definitely signalling no.


    I rubbed my chin in silence.


    While I pondered my options, Alice quietly stared at me. Her lips parted a little as if she wanted to say something, but it seemed that she couldn’t find enough courage to do so.


    This state of hers went on for a little while, so I nced at her to ask, ‘what’s up?’


    Only then did she finally open her mouth. “By any chance, your highness. Are you really a Sa...”


    “I finally figured it out!”


    Alice winced and mped her mouth shut.


    Hans was shouting at the top of his lungs while scattering the documents all around himself. “That’s right! Just who am I?! I’m the genius Alchemist Hans, whose family has been researching warp magic for generations already!”


    He then exploded in a peel of crazedughter.


    “Those stinking Vampire bastards! You can live for thousands of years for all I care! We have the knowledge and wisdom passed down through the generations of my ancestors! Hahahahaha!”


    His eyes were sunken with bags under them. Blood even began trickling down from his nostrils. The whites of his eyes rolled up and he slowly fell down on his back.


    “Mister Hans!”


    Alice cried out in rm and hurriedly dashed over to him, then quickly cast healing magic on the guy.


    Hans continued mumbling stuff like, ‘I did it. Sons of b*tches, this is a victory for humans, you damn Vampires...’


    It kind of looked to me that he had been working himself to the bone for the past couple of days.


    “This dude, how many days has he stayed up already?”


    Alice sighed deeply before replying back to me, “I think it’s been about a week, your highness. From the look of things, he must’ve drank a lot of holy water to force himself to stay up.”


    Well, I gotta hand it to him for his tenacity, at the very least.


    Even though you could drink holy water to heal your physical fatigue, your mind wouldn’t be able to stay up for that long, you know?


    I shifted my gaze away to his table. That’s where I discovered a piece of memo and a warp magic circle Hans had drawn.


    He had finally figured out the end coordinates of the warp magic the Vampires used.


    “Being a genius has nothing to do with one’s station, it seems.”


    Hans alone figured out something that hundreds of magicians and Alchemists that called themselves the best in the Theocratic Empire had failed to do. Not to forget, he also deciphered the Aztal Rune, so yeah, this guy was one of those rare geniuses that might show up once in a century or so.


    “I guess I’ll have to give him a special bonuster on. Let’s wait until he recovers. We’ll head to Titalos afterwards.”


    “Are you really nning to head to the Holy Emperor’s tomb, your highness?”


    “Well, I was thinking of visiting my ancestor’s resting ce to pay my respect, you see...”


    ...And to rob the tomb at the same time as well.


    Although I didn’t say thetter part of my n out aloud, Alice must’ve seen through me because a troubled expression was now forming on her face.


    I needed the help of both Hans and Alice in order to recover Ordin’s relic. My n was to head straight to thebyrinth as soon as these two’s conditions fully recovered.