Book 11: Chapter 335: Bodyguard Change (part 2) |
Alma had not been able to see Mira’s wink, but she knew Mira had done something judging by Noin’s reaction. Nearing her wit’s end, she just grabbed Mira from behind and picked her up, carrying her away while saying “Let’s go already!”
Meanwhile Mira just cackled to her heart’s content.
What awaited them at the end of that long room was a very unnatural door.
“Now this is quite a door too.”
“Well, there’s someone even more important than me past here, so it was only natural.”
It was a door laced with various traces of spell, like they were containing some mythical beast inside. Mira looked at it in disbelief, and Alma did not sound too happy about its presence either.
The oracle Iris was currently being hunted by the large evil organization Ira Muerte, and the power she held could be even more influential than that of Nirvana’s empress Alma. She had to be kept completely safe, even within the walls of the palace.
The door in front of them was a special one created with the help of the Silver Linked Towers, and was protected by a barrier that reportedly would only buckle against the combined power of multiple of the Twelve Apostles.
“Ohh, that sounds really impressive!”
“Just in case, don’t even think about testing it, okay? Do you understand?”
Alma’s intense desire for confirmation that she had been heard made Mira look around nervously.
“Y-Yes…I understand… Who would even think about doing that.”
In reality, she had already been wondering if it really was as strong as they claimed, and that if she managed to break through, it would prove that summoners were really the strongest. Or rather, it was best to test it out to make sure it would not fail during an emergency.
After all, everything physical is destined to crumble.
Those had been Mira’s thoughts, which she had to quickly get rid of the moment the warning came, and pretended that they never crossed her mind.
Even after she replied, she still let out a silent sigh of disappointment.
With that settled, Alma produced an enormous key. Because of all the layers of spells woven one over another on the door, the key to unlock it was also burly and complex, in some ways also resembling a ritual dagger.
When she pushed it into the keyhole, all of the spells that could even be seen by the naked eye vanished. Once they crossed inside, Mira noticed there was only a very small room and yet another door.
The second door also looked quite robust, and had two keyholes.
It turned out that the oracle’s room was protected by not one but two thick doors locked securely.
“This really is a fortress.”
“Better safe than sorry, you know. I’m sparing no expense to keep Iris safe.”
Alma sounded rather confident about those doors as she held up another burly item…though this time it was the short baton hanging from her waist. She swung it around, drawing a cross pattern in the air, and then knocked on the door with it.
A short moment later the spells on the door vanished.
“Ohh? You’re not using a key this time?”
Unlike the first door, the second door did not require a key to open, which took Mira by surprise. “Cool, isn’t it?” replied Alma, grinning as she explained how it worked.
The two keyholes on the second door were actually decoys. If anything was pushed into them, the small room would lock down entirely, and it could only be unlocked by Alma with a specific movement of her baton, or from within the oracle’s room.
“That’s a really ruthless system.”
If an intruder somehow managed to get past the first door, they would still get caught the instant they attempted to pick the locks of the second door, unless they knew how it all worked. It was both cunning and merciless.
What followed was a corridor with a rather low ceiling. Which also happened to be part of the defense system, as it would always report if someone was inside it.
“What, really? I didn’t notice at all.”
To Mira it had just looked like a regular corridor, and she could not see any such mechanisms.
“That’s the point. But here, look at this.”
While invisible, it was working flawlessly, and Alma held up the end of her baton so Mira could see it.
At closer inspection she noticed there was a 2 displayed there, which was the number of people currently in the corridor. Alma could see that every time someone entered the corridor, and Iris could also see the number on a bracelet she wore.
(Do they really need me here..?)
Mira began to wonder that, seeing how secure everything was. Obviously she would be needed later on, when Iris would to watch the tournament, but here in the palace Iris did not seem to have to worry about anything.
Mira continued pondering that as they reached the end of the corridor and finally entered the oracle’s room, where Mira’s eyes widened in shock.
“What in the… This oracle of yours is truly living in an extravagant room.”
They were supposed to be inside of the palace. But a vast scene filled with vibrant colors spread in front of Mira, and there even was the murmur of a creek.
She looked up, wondering how they could have built such a place, only to find the vast blue sky above.
“You know, she can’t really go outside in the situation she’s in, right? So I wanted her to be as comfortable as possible, and it ended up like this.”
While it was a sad situation, Alma was also proud of everything they had accomplished there in a technical sense.
Nirvana was currently at war with what was likely the strongest underground organization of the continent, and the oracle had a deathgrip on one of their highest ranking members, stopping him from being able to do much of anything.
That obviously put the oracle’s life in great danger. Even Jorg and his men, who Mira had captured, were all assassins sent to look for the oracle, and there were likely still many other spies and assassins hiding around the city.
All of that put the oracle in a precarious situation where she could not go outside anymore.
“That’s a funny looking sky though. Are you using some special device for it?”
Mira said that while looking up at the sky again. At first glance it looked like they were outside, but Mira had noticed that it was all just an illusion painted on top of some sort of barrier.
“Yup, that’s it.”
Alma nodded, confirming that suspicion. She then added that the device could reproduce sunsets and night as well.
It was a special device developed specifically to make the oracle feel less locked down. At first it had been created purely for Iris’ sake, but everyone who worked on it or saw it working seemed to take a liking to it, so now they were continuing development to turn it into a viable commercial product.
Alma had also commissioned various water recirculation and filtering systems, grow lights, and so on, all to make the place more lively, which once again was also well received by those creating them.
The whole room had become the breeding ground for revolutionary Magic Wares, so those working on them had taken to referring to it as Laboratory 1.
“That’s a rather suitable name.”
It was no easy task to make an area within a palace look like an outdoor garden without compromises. Mira could see both Alma’s dedication to the oracle, and Nirvana’s technological prowess at display there.
Curious by it all, Mira soon found herself walking around the garden and examining everything. Alma also told her “If anything sticks out to you just let me know,” as there was no place better than the Silver Linked Towers at researching and developing spells and Magic Wares. In a way, it was like a higher up from the tower was currently inspecting Nirvana’s work.
This was the perfect chance to leech some of their knowledge, and Alma would not let it go to waste.
“Hmm, well I’d say there’s a lot of wasted energy here.”
And Mira was more than willing to oblige…or rather, she just wanted to show off as she began pointing out various things.