I Didn’t Even Want to Live, But God Forced Me to Reincarnate!

[Would you like to explore it?
Yes                         No]
In front of such a choice, of course the option I’d choose is…
[Yes]
I held my breath in a mix of anticipation, excitement, and stepped forward.
But as I did so, suddenly I was tapped on the shoulders, I almost leapt like a frog right there.
“Escha, what the heck is that?” Ein, who tapped my left shoulder, asked.
“Where did this path come from? I didn’t know there was such a path…,” Maiara, who tapped my right shoulder, asked as she looked in wonder at the hidden path that was just opened.
“Uhm, so… I was kinda bore–-I mean, I noticed a pattern from this bookshelf that could spell Vittae and Vidaestinae in order, and so I slightly pulled the books out to make them noticeable and…,” I almost admitted I was slacking off, so I quickly change my words.
“Still, were you planning on entering the hidden path alone?” Ein asked.
“Uh, Reynald… This isn’t what it looks like–” I quickly felt like I was doomed and wanted to explain right away.
“You shouldn’t do that! We all don’t know what’s waiting inside. What if it’s a trap? Even if you planned on checking the situation alone first before notifying us, it’s still better to check together so we can back one another up!” Ein complained.
“Yeah, I’m sorry for–wait what?” I just blurted words of apology quickly before my brain could process his words.
If I could somehow justify myself before by saying that I was practically trying to redo my childhood, I was already an adult. Even though it was just barely… But suddenly, the responsibility that was thrown to me was big, so I needed to be able to keep up with everything.
“Reynald’s right, Escha. But… if all of us were to go, what happens if someone were to come into the library to look for us?”
Maiara’s words made sense.
“Maybe one of you should stay here on standby, while the other follows me to check the place out,” Maiara decided.
“...!!” Both Ein and I were surprised. When I locked eyes with him, I realized that we were thinking of the same thing.
Both of us wanted to check the place out first-hand.
Ein’s Oracle would come in handy in scanning the place quickly and to memorize the details. As for me… I’m actually a better fighter than Ein.
I mean, even if I might not be as useful as Ein for this ‘sudden quest’ we have, I still want to come!
“Don’t worry, I’ll contact Kuu-chan to help,” I said as I pretended to use my magic to try to contact Carbuncle.
“Okay, then let’s go and check the place out. Maybe there’s really some clue there…,” Maiara seemed satisfied with this solution.
That was how both of me and Ein also entered the hidden path, as we both walked side-by-side, just right behind Maiara.
I turned around right when we were completely in the hidden path to see that the ‘gate’ was closing off.
“...?!” I quickly used my Oracle to help create the illusion that the three of us were still in the library, reading the books. Thanks to my Oracle and magic, I could see that the moment the opening was closing, the books that I slightly took out that triggered the hidden path were returning to their original positions as well, as if they had never been touched at all.
“The door has just closed. Will we be able to leave…?” Ein muttered as he stared into the opening that was now completely closed, leaving behind a magical pattern that formed a luminous seal pattern.
“That pattern… I think there’s a way to open the door from inside. It’s either by using magic or… let’s check out where this path will lead us to. Hopefully we will find the key to go out in that place…,” Maiara seemed to want to say something, but she decided not to continue her words.
I could somehow guess her next words since I was fearing the same thing.
But we should probably not think of that possibility before we knew where this path would lead us to, indeed. Overthinking the worst possibility that’s yet to happen would only cause us to lose focus right now. We couldn’t afford to lose the space that’s reserved for thinking in our brain, only to think of a scenario that might not happen at all!
We descended the seemingly never-ending stairs as we were on our alert mode, afraid that there might be traps or even enemies hidden somewhere…
But so far, we only noticed how dusty it was here and I even sneezed several times due to all the collecting dust.
“It seems like nobody has accessed this path for quite a long time…,” Ein muttered as he covered his mouth and nose with his hand.
“So, the people who are currently in the temple might not even be aware of this path too?” I asked as I tried to clean my nose after all that sneezing.
“There’s that probability too, but we are not to risk anything,” Maiara said as she walked in front of us, leading all of us as she used her light magic to light our way amidst all this dusty darkness.
Just as I was getting tired of just walking down the old stone stairs, we finally stumbled upon another door. This time, the door was a traditional wooden door that was unlocked. Maiara could easily open the door that led us to what seemed to be a small room located in the temple’s underground.
With Maiara’s magic, we could see the surroundings better.
Apparently, there was a pair of wall torches perched to the left and to the right of the entrance door. Of course, it was so dusty and seemed humid that it seemed like we’d need to exert great effort in order to light them up…
The room itself was round instead of the standard square room as of today. It wasn’t that huge, but it wasn’t that small either. The room was very dark and dusty, it also smelled moldy and unpleasant that I wish I had worn or brought a mask with me to use right now…
The walls were made of stones as well. So, instead of feeling like this was a proper basement, I felt like we just stumbled upon a cave in the temple’s underground.
I noticed that there were bookshelves near the walls of the room, a desk and a chair near the middle of the room and in the middle of the room was…
“W-what?!” I almost raised my voice too loud when I finally noticed what was located right in the middle of the room.
Ein and Maiara seemed to have noticed what was in the center of the room, as I quickly glanced at them and saw that they were staring right towards what made me scream just now.
The middle of the room had a slightly deeper area that had a circle shape. Some kind of drawings were inscribed right on the ground’s surface. It was like a magical circle, but it looked very ominous, especially because…
Because kneeling on that ominous magical circle was what seemed to be an elf’s skeleton, its hands were clasped together in a reverent and solemn praying pose, as if frozen in eternal supplication to unknown forces.
Right next to the skeleton was a broken artifact that resembled a small cage. Meanwhile, several pages and books were lying next to the magical circle and the skeleton. Some of the books and pages seemed to have been destroyed due to age, some seemed to have been destroyed by some kind of forces that were akin to magic, meanwhile some were too moldy, some were too dusty.
“What in the tarnation is this?” Maiara blurted out before she lightly cleared her throat and closed her mouth awkwardly.
Ein reacted the quickest as he had already taken out something from his small magical bag that he had been carrying with him, and he held out that item as he meticulously walked around the whole room’s nook and cranny. He was even more focused when he approached the books, papers, broken artifact, the magical circle, and the skeleton.
“I’ve finished recording the whole scene with this magical stone. I think it’s safe for us to check this whole room and whatever is in this room. We can touch and move things around since we already have the record of how this place originally looks like. Do be careful not to break anything, though,” Ein explained.
Even so, we carefully examined the surroundings together.
“This skeleton is indeed an elf’s… It seems like it has been left here for a long time…,” Maiara didn’t even bat an eye as she examined the skeleton.
“Indeed. And although this room smells unpleasant, I don’t smell anything like a rotting corpse… How odd,” Ein added.
“Now that you mention it… Although it doesn't smell good here, it isn’t that unbearable…,” I said.
“This item here… It should be an artifact… right?” Ein asked.
“Right. It doesn’t seem like an ordinary small cage decoration,” Maiara nodded.
“The papers that are scattered all over the floor… They aren’t in that great of a condition. The writings are barely recognizable,” Ein assessed.
“I guess we should give up on trying to decipher the papers, then?” I asked.
“As for the books…”
When Ein said that, Maiara went to examine the books that were scattered on the floor. Seeing that, Ein seemed to think that it’d be better for us to examine different things, as he moved towards the bookshelves to check the books there.
I glanced to the left and right, and eventually decided to follow Maiara as I was also curious about the books that were scattered on the ground. Going by logic, the books that were scattered on the ground were most likely read by this person whose skeleton remained here before their death, while the books that were tidily put on the bookshelves weren’t read recently, right?
“The books here seem to be way older than the ones in the library. These seem to be someone’s records, these seem to be written in an ancient language, and… But there doesn’t seem to be anything notable,” Ein said as he scanned the books in the shelves and sometimes took the books he was interested in and flipped through the pages.
Meanwhile, Maiara and I struggled with the books that were left on the ground.
“This book seems to be undergoing the decomposition process… This book here seems like it’s been eaten by some animals or insects… This book here is so moldy, it’s gross…”
Since Maiara was all silent as she examined the books, I became sort of a commentator to let Ein know the situation here, since he had gone through the troubles of announcing the results of his findings as he examined.
“Hmm… I don’t seem to recognize the alphabets,” I noted after seeing how the books seem to be all foreign.
“They are written in ancient elf language,” Maiara quickly explained without even turning to look at me, her eyes were intent on seeing the content of the books that were still somewhat salvageable.
Even if it looked gross, Maiara still casually flipped through the moldy book to scan the content.
“You can read the ancient elf language?” I asked in awe.
“A bit. To be honest, the writings here seem to be very ancient and complicated, so I can’t fully grasp the content,” Maiara said.
We spent some time in silence as we tried to investigate the items here, looking for any clue.
When Ein and I seemed to have given up, Maiara suddenly picked up a very old and dusty book that was still salvageable and said, “I think out of all the books here, this one is interesting and might be important.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked as I approached Maiara to take a look at the book she was holding.
“It mentions something about this village’s origin and the theories behind the saint’s power. I can’t really read it myself, but I think it’s important. The other books don’t seem to mention things like this.”
My ears perked up when I heard Maiara’s explanation.
“Then, let’s take this book with us. Do you know someone who might be able to help us decipher the content of the book?” Ein asked.
“Hmm… Probably. We can try,” Maiara thought for a bit before she answered.
“Alright. Maybe we should end our investigation now since it’s been quite some time,” Ein said.
Maiara and I nodded. We couldn’t risk staying for a longer time, indeed.
“And as for the book and this room’s discovery…,” I hesitated.
“Naturally, let’s hide it from the others, including the people of this temple. They either don’t know the existence of this area as well, or they’re hiding it from us. If the latter is true, then they might not be our ally in this mission, after all,” Ein said, his tone turning cold when he said the last sentence.
I shuddered thinking of that possibility.
They were so proud of their ‘saint/saintess’, yet they might be the ones behind the atrocities Eneida had experienced…
Until their stance was clear, it’d be better for us to not tell them anything.
“Alright, let’s return,” Ein said.
I nodded as I followed Ein who was already walking towards the only door in the room.
When Ein opened the door and the stone stairs were in our field of visions once more, I froze in an instant.
Maiara, who was behind me, also seemed to have stopped in time before she bumped into me.
Ein seemed to have noticed that I had stopped, as he halted with one of his feet on the stairs, while the other was still in the room. He then turned around and asked me, “What’s wrong?”
I gulped before I said slowly…
“The hidden path was closed the moment we all entered the stairs area. How are we going to leave this hidden place, then?”