LogFAQs > #905012657

"So we should examine things from a different angle than before," Cata concluded. "The mystery of the estate hinges on the fact that Cain himself probably didn't know what caused all of his mayhem. But there's someone else, someone responsible, for everything that's going on down below... and thus bringing it all back up to the surface." He'd recovered quite a bit already from his near fall. Plus, he surprised himself with this, but he was actually pretty interested in the mystery of it all.

Honestly, it was easy to forget, but Cata Spade was the only one who didn't need to be here for the sake of money. He was here for the adventure. To vanquish monsters and cleanse the land of evil. He was no crusader or warrior of the church, by any means, but he did have ambitions of growing up to be a Hero. Well, that was ten years ago. It was probably too late for those types of dreams, now.

Yet... that mindset was still guiding him. On some level, he hadn't grown up from being that young Lord. A teenager who wanted to become a Hero like those in the stories. Someone disconnected from how grim and brutal reality was. Cata thought of what had happened above, of those who had died already in the hamlet. This was a place where Heroes could perish at any moment.

As he looked on, Cata noticed the others had already begun to move on to the next room. Dismas and Maria were leading them through the passage that should bring the group toward the lower excavation tunnels.

In the winding passage they came across a slavering ghoul that was sucking on what looked to be human bones. Those weren't fresh, and whatever the thing was, it was likely craving warm meat. However, it hadn't seemed to notice them right away... and it was surprisingly Abom who wordlessly crept forward and put the monster out of its misery with one solid swing from his heavy irons.

"That kind of monster..." Abom had a tired and distant look on his face. "... probably shouldn't exist."

"Definitely, by my count," Dismas said, sauntering over the corpse.

Maria simply glanced at Cata and shrugged. "I thought it was interesting, but I've never seen anything like that. Perhaps we should have seen if it could talk with us." However, now that it was laying in a puddle of brains and blood, they'd never get the opportunity to find out.

The group came across a ready room which had been dug out and then bordered with wood and support beams. This kind of place usually served as a miner's camp, but this room was odd and surprising. It looked as if the person who was studying the below ground had also been using this as a go-between experimental chamber.

Relics from below had been gathered and set aside here. There were also several research stations, some of them still manned with supplies, and two bookshelves. Though the books on those, from a glance, seemed to have all been burned or torn to shreds.

To that point, the room was not unoccupied. A small group of those fish-like monsters was lounging around in this room. Their soft eyes blinking with a strange film. The sight of them was unnerving and they produced a sort of natural terror that couldn't be avoided, couldn't be set aside. However, when Cata looked at the others, none of them seemed to be outwardly afraid. And so he did his best to put on a brave face as well.

It was Maria, above all others, who seemed to be unnaturally calm. It was as if she was studying these monsters in a controlled environment, like this was all just some sort of experiment. And yet the thought never crossed her mind that they could turn and begin ripping this party to shreds at a moment's notice. All they had to do was catch sight or scent of the group.
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