Chapter 44

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Chapter 44

Her head was ringing. It felt like someone was messing around in her head. With a sharp headache, Andra grabbed her head and looked up. Dustin was lying next to her. Suddenly, Dustin also woke up. His forehead was wrinkled.

“…….”

“…….”

Their gazes met for a moment, then went around them. The dungeon was no different from before they were swallowed by the intense light. A large stone statue, nine golden chairs, and eight stone statues guarding it.

Andra and Dustin easily realized that everything they had seen and heard was an illusion or someone else’s memory. It was a sublime experience. It was an illusion that felt so vivid, but as soon as they woke up, nothing but the feeling of watching a theatre play lingered.

‘But why was it shown?’

After leaving Dustin with a face stunned for a moment, Andra got up from the spot first and looked at the altar, holding her still ringing head. What the hell is it trying to say? She was dazzled by the pure white light, and it was good until she saw a vision that was presumed to be someone else’s memory. But she couldn’t figure out why she was shown it.

‘What does the dungeon want?’

Andra moved closer to the altar again. Then something amazing happened. Until then, ancient characters that could not be read were read naturally and smoothly. Andra held the altar in disbelief as she looked at the writings.

—The eighth karma has already begun.

She narrowed her eyes to see if she was seeing something that wasn’t really there. However, no matter how much she tried to deny it, her eyes were reading Morgennis without difficulty. It was natural for her to accept it in her head as if it was her mother tongue. Andra traced the text with her fingertips.

‘The eighth karma has already begun?’

Andra glared at the red colored text. She could read it, but didn’t know what it meant. What is karma, and what is the eighth? Even one line was enough to throw someone’s thoughts into a spiral.

Andra, concentrating on the words, suddenly noticed that blue flower buds were in full bloom. Inside, something was flashing and showing off its existence. Andra picked it up in a familiar mood. It was a small gold coin the size of a thumb.

Andra looked at it carefully. On the front of the gold coin, a picture was engraved and crafted with meticulous skill. Behind the horned beast, clad in splendid ornaments, hung several human arms, each holding a weapon. On the other side, ancient characters were written in very small letters.

Surprisingly, Andra was able to read even those ancient characters naturally.

—Because this exists, let this also come into being. Those who have been chosen and have walked this far, prove yourself.

This time, it was an unfamiliar word. to prove oneself? Just then, Dustin arrived late and snatched the gold coin from Andra’s hand. Andra’s expression wrinkled dissatisfaction, as he had taken the gold coins in an instant, but Dustin didn’t care.

“Where did you find this?”

When he asked what she was looking at so carefully, she said that it was a gold coin. Dustin rolled the small gold coin in his hand. Even though it was small, it was heavy with clearly a high purity of gold. He frowned at the ancient inscriptions on the back, intricately decorated with etched drawings.

“I think there is something written on the back.”

“…Dustin Airak, can’t you read that?”

Dustin gave an absurd expression to the sudden treatment. How could he read ancient characters when he can’t even tell whether they were pictures or texts?

“How do I read the ancient letters? You couldn’t even read it either.”

“No, not that… Anyway, you’re saying you can’t read it?”

“Yeah, of course…”

Dustin noticed Andra’s reaction was odd. Andra’s expression had changed strangely. Then she said in a shaky voice.

“I can read it.”

“What?”

“I don’t even know what happened. I just woke up and the ancient letters were familiar by themselves.”

“Then what is written here?”

Dustin flipped the gold coin over and gave it back to Andra. Andra took the gold coin and looked at it again. It wasn’t a temporary occurrence. Still, in her eyes, the ancient letters were read as smoothly as in her mother tongue.

“Because this exists, let this also come into being. Those who have been chosen and have walked this far, prove yourself.”

“…What does that mean?”

“That is the riddle we have to solve.”

That was the moment. With a yawning groan, the altar suddenly went down, and something immediately went up in its place. It was like a metal disc, but there were various pictures and patterns mixed in a mess. It was like a puzzle in which they had to turn the disk to match the pictures.

“What else is this?”

“This is the second riddle.”

Andra replied, unable to take her eyes off her metal disc. Suddenly, her voice was filled with excitement. Excellent craftsmanship and these gorgeous patterns and drawings. She could tell for sure. It was an item from the ancient kingdom, Hazel.

Andra left the gold coin with Dustin, reached out her hand, and began to spin a portion of the disc. The discs turned gently as she led them.

“Do you know what to do and where to touch?”

“I know better than you. The front of the gold coin, look at the picture.”

Dustin turned the gold coin over, as Andra said, looking at the side with the picture, not where the writing was. He narrowed his brow at the grotesque picture. A creature with the face of a horned beast. He also had several arms and was carrying various weapons.

“It’s one of the nine gods.”

“This?”

Dustin asked, comparing the picture of the gold coin with the statue in front of them. All the stone statues in front were human-like, and there was no god with a strange appearance like the one drawn on the gold coin. To this, Andra replied as if she was frustrated.

“It’s like a symbol. As I said before, the nine gods have never revealed their true selves in front of humans. At that time, the ancient gods had an unwritten rule not to intervene directly in the affairs of the world.”

Dustin bit his mouth as if he had heard it from the other side of his memory. Andra continued her speech, turning the discs over and over, without even looking at Dustin’s reaction.

“Actually, no one knows what the gods really look like. It may look like a painting in the gold coin, or it may resemble a human like the stone statue in front of us.”

As Andra turned the disk to match the picture, it began to reveal the original image gradually. Dustin watched as Andra did her thing. After a while, she almost guessed the original picture and she was able to tell what it was. It was the same as the picture of the gold coin. Andra, who was over ninety percent finished with the picture, was silent for a moment.

“So, which of the nine gods is this picture referring to?”

Dustin asked. Andra touched the beast’s horns and weapons sequentially with her fingertips. They were glistening with gold. There was only one god to which these two symbols pointed. She completed the painting by turning the last part of the disc.

“The god of greed and conflict.”

Andra remembered the woman she had seen in her fantasies. The god who was cruel and wretched. Andra raised her head and looked at the statue. The stone statue on the left, still not covering its face, seemed to be looking at Andra and Dustin. And she seemed to be smiling towards Andra, who for now recognized her.

“Nera.”

The original plate on which the picture was matched turned around with a clicking sound, and soon created a small space in the middle. Andra realized that that was where she had to put the gold coin.

“Those who have been chosen and have walked this far, prove yourself…”

This was not a riddle. It was like checking the invitation before starting the riddle. Only now did she understand the words of the gold coin.

Andra looked down at the hole where she was supposed to put the gold coins, with a cold, sunken gaze.

“We came this far because the dungeon chose us.”

“Does that mean that we fell behind in the dungeon and flowed all the way up to here as intended by the dungeon?”

“Yes. That’s why it happened as soon as we entered the dungeon. If we conquer the dungeon, we might be able to understand for sure why we were given this kind of magical power.”

In response to Andra’s answer, Dustin stepped closer to Andra’s side, holding the gold coin. Without hesitation, he inserted the gold coin into the opening. Then, the disk started to click again, and then a small shaking began to occur in the dungeon. Andra lifted her head and looked around her.

“Andra.”

Then Dustin called Andra. He was pointing behind her. In the place where they had fallen, a large circular plate had formed. It looked like a magic circle, and it was meticulously crafted with gold, silver, and iron, with nine marks engraved in it, and in the middle, there was a handle for turning a plate.

“What is that?”

Instead of answering Dustin, Andra went down and looked at the circular plate. One plate was several times the size of a tent.

“It’s the mark of the nine gods.”

“Then.”

Andra said, looking at the marks in the circle one by one. Dustin, who followed her, twisted his head and looked at her statues.

“This might be some sort of puzzle. Just as this picture appeared by matching the picture before, the next one appears only when this is matched.”

Andra went to the center and grabbed the handle and turned it. However, the handle was tight and did not turn well. She was out of power. As Andra grunted and wrestled with the handle, Dustin saw this and stepped forward to take it from her. He pushed Andra aside and grabbed it instead.

“How should I do this now?”

Dustin grabbed her handle and asked Andra for her opinion. Andra pointed her finger at the marker, which was located where the handle was. The bright sun. It was a sign crafted more sublime and splendidly than any other existence.

“If you look here, there is a mark of the beginning god in the center, and the marks of the nine gods surround it. The nine gods are all equal, but… There must be an order in which they were born.”

“Are you saying that they want to put the nine gods in the order in which they were born?”

“Yes.”

She was not sure, but she had to give it a try. Andra straightened her back and began to think about the myths that she knew.

“First, the beginning god gave birth to a god that was the most opposite to itself. Because it needed a god to do the work of taking life as opposed to itself who created it.”

“That must be the god of death.”

Andra looked at the nine markers. The god of death was the first child of the primordial god, and the symbol was a darkened sun shards and violets. Andra easily found the first sign and pointed to it. Dustin, seeing the mark, turned the handle and pulled the plate up to the mark.

Crumble, rooolll—

The circular plate returned to the first position after returning to the mark of the god of death. Andra then pointed to the mark with seeds and shells, water drops, and feathers and clouds. In turn, it was the mark of the earth god and the sky god.

“By the way, they are twins.”

“So, was that why they were the only ones who appeared as a married couple in the nine scenes?”

“That’s right. So their children are not included in the nine gods, but they are gods of the sea that are comparable to the nine gods… It’s not important now, so we’ll talk about it later.”

Dustin rotated the plate by pulling it up to two markers in a row. Clank, clank— click. The plate with the two marks returned to the first position once again.

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