A heavy gate stood before me, its massive frame a lingering shadow of the village's former glory. Beside it stretched the ruins of a defensive wall. Most of it was draped in vines, and the roots of Heat-Radiating Trees had snaked through the masonry, causing the structure to buckle and collapse. Even as a ruin, however, the site still exuded a trace of its old majesty.
But this was no time for sightseeing. As we drew closer to the village, I felt a heavy, stagnant gloom clinging to the air, reminiscent of the Labyrinth of Hunger and Thirst. It was surely leaking out from behind these very gates.
"Don't go through the main entrance! Follow the outer wall and circle around to the right! We need to secure a base of operations first!"
"Got it!"
Glen-san changed his trajectory, carving a path through the brush as he sprinted forward.
"It should be around here! Let's head inside through any crack we find!"
"A crack, huh? I don't see any, so I'll just make one!"
By the time he finished speaking, his fist was already slamming into the defensive wall, which had become a gnarled mess of rubble and overgrown vegetation. Every strike rang out with a thunderous roar that surely drew the undead toward us. Judging by the speed at which stone and plant debris were flying, he was digging through the barrier at an incredible pace.
"Flash Bomb! ...He really is a terrifyingly reliable ally—so long as he’s on your side."
"And this'll do it!"
While I used Light Magic to buy us time, a particularly loud crash signaled the opening of a breach. Glen-san finished it off with a flying kick, disappearing through the hole to the other side. I followed him immediately, charging into the village. I spotted undead scattered here and there, but what truly caught my eye was a specific house.
In a village where no living human had set foot for years, the flora of the Sea of Trees had naturally reclaimed the land. Despite that, the area surrounding this building showed significantly less encroachment than the rest. Only common weeds grew nearby, and the house itself remained relatively well-preserved, making it stand out like a preserved memory in a sea of rot.
"Holy Space. Dimension Home."
Having reached our destination, I secured a safe zone using the Holy Space magic I had learned from Remily-san. Then, I summoned every Light Slime and Grave Slime I had. Slimes were far too slow to be useful in a running battle, but in a stationary defense, they were unrivaled. Once they were deployed, the situation ceased to be a fight and became mere labor.
The Grave Slimes used their Undead Attraction to lure and swallow the rotting corpses, while the Light Slimes and I struck down any that resisted with Light Magic. If any monsters other than undead appeared, either I or Glen-san finished them off while keeping the slimes safe.
There were no major issues, though I did get the impression that these undead were particularly restless. They resisted the Undead Attraction far more stubbornly than those in the Town of Ghosts. I wondered if this was the influence of the monster Gain had mentioned. It was a curious thought, but it didn't change the task at hand.
More importantly, I had work to do.
"Let's check the interior and call it a day once we're settled."
I had the slimes combine to form a barricade at the entrance, acting as gatekeepers. Then, I stepped into my grandparents' house—my childhood home. As expected, the interior was a disaster, and the layout was modest. It hardly looked like the residence of people revered as a "Sage" and a "God of War."
The exterior was large enough, but the structure itself was simple—essentially a stone box with five chimneys. The walls were solid rock, and the roof and windows were reinforced with timber from Heat-Radiating Trees. It looked as though a massive boulder had been hollowed out to create it, likely through my grandfather's Earth Magic.
It looked dilapidated at first glance, but the walls remained incredibly sturdy despite their age. Even though the residents had been gone for a long time, the house felt strangely reassuring. The ceiling and floor were rotting away, but that was to be expected.
As that thought crossed my mind, a floorboard behind me let out a sharp, loud crack.
"Whoa, almost stepped right through... This place is a wreck. But it's not just old age or monsters; there are traces of people having trashed the place."
"I think you're right. Near the end, the people living here were no different from the ones we saw at the Frontline Base."
"Ah, those guys."
"My grandparents were strong, so no one dared touch the place while they were alive. But once they were gone, I suppose that didn't matter anymore."
I looked at the cupboards built into the walls near the ceiling. The locks had been smashed. Judging by the notches in the wood, someone had hacked at them repeatedly with a dull axe. Those were marks left by human hands, in places no monster would think to strike.
"Folks like that wouldn't hesitate to loot the place the second they saw an opening. Wait, have you been here before?"
"I don't think I mentioned it, but I used to live in this village back when it was still populated. This was my family's house."
Glen-san seemed satisfied with that answer. I was actually more surprised that he had followed me all the way here without asking for an explanation, but I suppose he just didn't care. It was a relief not to be interrogated.
"It looks like they took anything that wasn't nailed down or broken."
"It really is empty. Not even an undead could hide in here—ah."
Finally, a section of the floor gave way under Glen-san’s weight. He wasn't hurt, but his left leg was buried up to the knee.
"Tch, this is useless. I'm going outside. Between the rotting floor and these cramped rooms, I can't really move anyway. I'm taking some slimes with me to deal with the monsters."
"Understood. If you just pile them up somewhere, I'll have the slimes process them later."
After parting with Glen-san, I moved deeper into the house, checking for undead and sealing off potential entry points. Finally, I reached the last room—the most important place in the building.
It was the compounding room, filled with shattered medicine cabinets, desks, and three furnaces of varying sizes. This was where my grandmother, Mealia, had crafted her medicines. Of the five chimneys I had seen outside, three were connected to the furnaces here. The other two led to the kitchen and my grandfather’s forge.
"This is the spot."
The largest of the three furnaces was big enough for an adult to crawl inside. I began shoveling out the accumulated ash and charred wood. It took some time because the floor of the furnace was recessed, but eventually, I exposed the base. Carved into the stone was a circular line with two grooves beside it. This was the entrance to the inheritance.
I stepped into the furnace, slid my hands into the grooves, and pulled straight up. With a heavy, grinding sound, a stone plug rose from the floor. Once it was about waist-high, the cylinder came out completely, revealing an underground passage.
I set the stone aside and tossed a Light Ball into the dark hole. It looked to be about three meters deep, with walls made of the same stone as the rest of the house. There were enough indentations to serve as handholds. After ventilating the space with Wind Magic, I climbed down.
Under the glow of my magic, I saw that the passage was short, opening immediately into a spacious room. Despite having been sealed for years, there was no weathering, no cobwebs, and no dust. Gain and the others had told me there were no traps, but some kind of preservation magic was clearly in effect.
Perhaps the reason the forest hadn't reclaimed the land around the house was that the roots of the trees couldn't penetrate this hidden vault.
"It looks like a storehouse."
The room was lined with bookshelves packed with volumes and barrels overflowing with weapons. There were also numerous boxes and bags of unknown contents. In the center, sitting conspicuously on a stone desk, was a thin stack of papers.
I picked it up. It wasn't a bound book, but a series of sheets bundled together. The author was my grandfather, Tigal. It looked like he had scribbled down his thoughts as they came to him; the handwriting was messy and difficult to read, but I quickly realized it was a testament for whoever found this place.
"I might as well sit down and read this properly..."
It began with a brief—or rather, a blunt—explanation of how my grandparents had ended up in this village.
It went without saying that as the God of War and the Sage, they were revered by the public. It was equally easy to imagine that they were hounded by nobles and merchants, and that some of those suitors had used less than honorable means to try and claim them.
Rather than listing specific examples, the text devolved into a series of complaints that I skimmed through. It seemed that, much like me, they had grown exhausted by human society. They had sought a place where no one could find them, or where no one could drag them back even if they were discovered.
They hadn't been picky about their destination, but after wandering and considering their options, they had finally settled on this village. Just like the Frontline Base, status and fame meant nothing in a place this impoverished. They found that if they contributed to the village’s defense and helped secure its livelihood, they were granted complete freedom.
"A place where Mealia could research her medicines in peace, away from prying eyes. He wrote that there was no place better suited than this..."
The first half ended there. The second half addressed the inheritance itself.
"My wife has passed, and I feel my own time is drawing near. The items in this room no longer serve a purpose. However, I cannot stand the thought of my mementos or my wife's life's work falling into the hands of that greedy village chief. Yet, I cannot bring myself to destroy them. So, I leave them hidden here."
He went on to state that he bequeathed everything in the room to the first person who found it. He expressed a wish that the finder would be a stranger rather than a villager, and hoped that his wife's research would find its way to someone who could use it for the common good. He also included an inventory and specific notes on several items.
"...Tigal-san, I gratefully accept this inheritance. Mealia-san, I will ensure your research continues. I hope you both found the peace you were looking for."
I offered a silent prayer to my grandparents and their legacy, then stored the entire inheritance within my Dimension Home. I would have to go through the contents properly once I was back in civilization.