MaruMA:Volume14:Chapter 10

Chapter 10

This is completely unexpected.

He knew from the start he could get to this world this way, otherwise he would never make such a serious gamble. Murata Ken relaxes his tightly-gripped left hand. Although it’s now a completely cooled metal piece, but some of the special figures still scalded his palm.

Still, it’s basically a miracle that he only got this hurt. Murata thinks back to that moment, and his body trembles despite himself.

Back then, the sky and earth had completely switched around, the grass and trees that were completely normal just a second ago swaying like underwater plants. The world turned ninety degrees, all the straight lines becoming curved. The metal shard used the power of the fire and the explosion to return to where the Box is, while he just hitched on for a ride, and successfully made it to the world his friend is in.

Back then the fire enveloping him had darted upwards in a spiral, so it wasn’t long before his clothes and hair started burning as well. The heat suffocated him, and his limbs felt as though they were being sliced by thousands of knives.

But Murata knew he wasn’t dead, so even if the heat was enough to burn his skin, he still faced it calmly.

That was how he came to the world his friend, Shibuya Yuuri, is in, and without kicking the bucket. Other than some light scalding, he doesn’t have any other obvious external injures. His spectacles, on the other hand, had cracked, so they can’t really be used anymore.

Shibuya, next time you really must take me with you. This tour was seriously tough to handle, I don’t want to use this method anymore.

The real terror is afterwards.

Of course it’s a good thing that he made it to the other world with all his limbs intact, but he has absolutely no idea where this is. The metal piece he relied on is part of the Box’s decoration, so theoretically it should return to where the Box Hazel Graves kept in the Boston suburb, ‘Inferno on the Tundra’, is. So that’s where he expected to show up.

The problem is he had no way to find out where the pivotal ‘Inferno on the Tundra’ is in this world, and couldn’t find any clues on Earth either.

The moment he ‘dropped’, the things that appeared in front of him are stone walls and floor. Add that with the white-blue light emitted by the shard in his hand, he has time to observe his surroundings. But the light is vanishing soon, so he has to prepare light before that, at the very least he needs to be able to see after this.

Murata looks around him, searching for something he could use, but suddenly he finds himself speechless. Although there are many different types of experiences in his memories, but well-versed as he is, he’s still shocked into wide-eyed, slack-jawed silence.

This is a room surrounded by ancient stone walls.

The ceiling is really low, making a stone of room of about ten meters squared. But what surprises him isn’t the walls or the ceiling, but the cube in the middle of the room.

To say he was used to seeing it would be inaccurate, but the ‘Inferno on the Tundra’ from his memories is very close to where he’s kneeling on the ground. Perhaps it’s reacting to the shard it lost and found again, so the metal sides are even glowing slightly. The cover on top is shut tight, so it won’t cause any harm for now.

But when he moves his gaze back to the center, he notices that there’s something even longer in front him, and it’s made with a different type of stone from the wall. According to his instincts, or rather, his common sense--

That’s a coffin.

And a stone coffin , too, which means this here is…

“Someone’s tomb, huh. Waa!”

Murata can’t help but crease his brow, instinctively holding his breath and covering his mouth with the hand that wasn’t scalded. He holds up for twenty seconds before realizing there was no point overreacting now. There are many things that look like rags decorating the room, but he knows immediately that’s not simply cloth. In truth there’s no need to identify anything anyway, he can tell from a glance that those are squatting bodies, and they’ve become mummies, who knows how long they’ve been in this room. They were probably buried here to die together with the owner of the coffin, a common tradition throughout history.

At first he thought this might be the tomb of a king or someone with a certain amount of authority, but since the followers were also placed in the same room, the person in the coffin must not have been as big a deal as he thought. Maybe a concubine, a dowager, or a prince with no rights of succession.

But how did the Box get here?

He sees that there’s something like a wooden bat on the shoulder of the mummy by the wall, so he takes it down carefully. He’s not afraid of ancient bodies, he just doesn’t want to simply damage historical artifacts. Still, he smiles wryly and thinks to himself, “Forgive me for taking this stick, but who should I apologize to?”

The light from the metal piece starts to dim, so he lights up the complimentary matches from the café that he kept in his pocket. The dry wood immediately catches fire, and the room lights up too.

He confirms again that the cover of the Box is closed really tightly, but the cover of the coffin is open. He tries peeking inside, and it’s exactly as he imagined.

The difference between this and the mummies as he understands them, is that the corpse was not completely preserved. The owner of his soul from who knows how many generations ago was somewhat related to Egypt, that’s how he knows about these things. Different areas have different methods of handling things, and there aren’t bandages on this body either.

All the jewelry on the body were completely cleaned out, so all that remains is a naked corpse. That makes Murata heave a sigh of relief, though. Since the corpse doesn’t have treasures adorning it, it proves this tomb was raided before.

Since there were tomb raiders here before, there must be an entrance they used to get in. Of course there was no way he could dig his way out from inside without tools, but a gang of raiders with time and manpower wouldn’t find it too hard to dig a tunnel from outside in.

“But I never thought I would come to this sort of place—”

Looking for an exit everywhere and planning to get away as soon as possible, Murata voices his current feelings.

“At first I was worried what I’d do if I ended up at the mouth of a volcano or in the sea, to think it’s actually a royal tomb, how completely unexpected.”

If someone were to reply him in this sort of place, that would surely be terrifying, but the surroundings are too quiet, giving him the strong urge to talk. Because if he didn’t, there’s a high chance he would collapse under the unease.

Since he’s already made it safely to the other world, the fear and unease in his heart has also taken a different direction. At first he was worried he wouldn’t be able to make it with all his limbs, but now he has to worry about something else. The problem he faces now is whether or not he can leave this ancient tomb, and successfully find Shibuya Yuuri.

Even if he finds the tomb raiders exit and makes it out of the tomb, he still has no way of knowing what kind of place it is outside. The style of the tomb here is different from Shin Makoku, so it must be another country, but he has no clue, and no way of finding out which country on this continent he’s in.

Not knowing his current location makes him really uneasy. He could very well be on an unknown land very far away from Yuuri, maybe even across the sea.

At first he hoped to meet him again, chat, walk side by side and laugh together, then use the information he knows to assist Yuuri.

If that hope couldn’t be realized, then there’s no point in him coming to this world.

Murata kicks the wall in anger. Among the owners of his soul are a doctor, a starlet, a baker, even a convict in prison, and people who make their living on the edge of the law. Although he has the memories of many different lives, he just has to lack a tomb raider or archeologist.

“Where on earth is the way out of here?”

Although he finds a suspicious-looking hole, it’s only large enough for one person to crawl inside. Would those tomb raiders hugging their loot leave through such a small entrance? If it really is this hole, then they would definitely take whatever they could, and make many trips. But at the same time, he can’t be sure where the pitch black hole leads.

He turns around to look at the Box hidden in the coffin, thankfully no one touched it. It’s all because the entrance was too small, that’s why the tomb raiders didn’t take it out. The light on the sides of the Box have dimmed, after he leaves this place, the stone room would most likely return to how it was, and once more be filled with darkness and silence.

Murata murmurs to himself,

“You just stay there forever.”

Kneeling on the icy cold ground, covered in dust.

But I’m leaving.

Really—Why didn’t you guys become tomb raiders?

Murata wants to throw a tantrum at the previous owners of his soul. Since they had all sorts of different career experiences, at the very least they should have broken into the Leaning Tower of Pisa once. Thinking of that, he sighs again,

“The Leaning Tower of Pisa isn’t a tomb… Then they should have broken into the Great Pyramid of Giza.”

Murata walks on the slanted surface, muttering away under his breath. Since his spectacles had cracked, the difference in the vision between his two eyes frustrated him.

He stops and takes off his glasses, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, but his whole body smells charred, and his burnt hair had also curled up.

Holding up the wooden stick in place of a torch in front of his eyes, he tries to check how long he’s been walking. It’s only natural he’s tired, if his watch wasn’t faulty, he should have walked for four hours. The light source in his hands having been replaced by a wooden stick, although he’s quite out of breath from the walking, and his knees hurt a lot too, it’s lucky he didn’t use up too much heat. In fact, the insides of this huge tomb are actually a little cold.

There’s a slight odor of dust in the air, but it doesn’t hamper his breathing. Although he doesn’t believe in Tutankhamen’s Curse or anything, he was rather worried when he opened the coffin. For example there might have been some unknown bacteria or something in the coffin to prevent tomb raiders from breaking in.

But having breathed the air here for four hours, he doesn’t feel any strange symptoms, only the quickened heart rate and heavy breathing that comes with long term exercise.

His body was never suited for long distance walking, so that feeling of weariness is all the more intense. If it was Yuuri, he could probably even frog-jump up this sort of gentle slope.

As he walks, Murata thinks hard on how to escape this huge tomb. He carefully observes his surroundings, trying to find any structure similar to ruins on Earth. Like a pyramid or Emperor Nintoku’s tomb… No, even Daisen-Kofun didn’t take up this much space. No matter how much he considers it he doesn’t know how long he’s been climbing, he just feels a lot like a train climbing up a slope on a Z-shaped track.

And if he just keeps to the main roads, his chances of survival aren’t high. Logically speaking, after the people who built this tomb put the rulers’ corpses to rest, they would have sealed up the tomb so even the tiniest bug couldn’t fly in. So what he’s looking for is the entrance the tomb raiders dug, and that’s why he would dart into anything at all that looks like a hole to try and see if it connects to the outside world.

“This is the seventh one.”

Hands on his hips, Murata starts mumbling to himself again, and then he bend backwards just once forcefully before bending down and crawling into a hole, its height requiring him to crawl on his belly to get through.

The hole he had crawled through earlier led into a treasure room. He crouched down and followed the firelight forward, trying to confirm if there was a path behind the wall. But all he saw was some gold in the corner of the room, and the gems fixed into the wall sparkling in the light. This should be the treasures the raiders didn’t take away.

Although he found the royal treasures, he felt unexpectedly dejected.

As the ceiling gets lower and lower, the uneasiness in his heart increases non-stop too. Although he tries his best to stop himself from thinking too much, there would still be some sort of terror lingering. Even if he concentrates hard to forget it, that terror still won’t go away.

So he thinks about his friend. Thinking about the places they went together in the past, and worrying about how Yuuri is doing now, trying to forget about the dangers threatening him now. But as he advances in this pose, he finds his mind occupied with his family.

Small things, like “they probably won’t call my phone, right”, “when’s the next time Father comes home”, and “the soy sauce bottle on the table is close to empty”.

To Murata, the fact that he’s thinking about these things is in fact very surprising. He doesn’t hate his parents, and it’s not like his familial relationships are terrible, it’s just that he never seems to remember his parents’ faces when he’s in danger.

“This just goes to show that my family is surprisingly full of familial love.”

When he finally gets past the narrow tunnel, he reaches a small open area that can fit about six tatami mats. But besides the tunnel he crawled through, there’s also a large road made of granite stretching in three directions. The sheer scale and grandeur of it are completely different from the ‘cave’ just now, so wide it’s easy for him to walk even with his arms spread wide.

This is the first time he came across something like this in his life.

Which road should he choose? In other words, out of the three roads, which one leads outside? Or should he avoid the three available large roads, and look for another small tunnel? To be honest, he has no idea what to do.

Murata stands on the spot, holding his head wordlessly. His head really hurts, it’s probably because his vision is affected by his glasses cracking.

“Ugh—Don’t tell me the tombs are connected?”

He troubles over it for quite some time, and decides to take the path by the left-side wall. Thirty steps, if after thirty steps there is still more road ahead he would return to the original spot and think it over again. After setting that rule he starts counting his steps, one, two, three, four…

“…Forty-eight.”

He overshot.

There’s a reason he broke the rule he just set, because when he was approaching thirty steps, the road ahead of him suddenly broke off, replaced by steps going downward. No matter how he squints he can’t see the end of it, it seems to head somewhere somewhat deep.

“This way… Wouldn’t I have climbed all this way for nothing?”

If it were the usual Murata, he probably wouldn’t have been tricked. If at this time there wasn’t a swaying light in the distance below, he would have turned around directly and looked for a different path. But what is with that light?

“Is it the exit?”

He walks down the stairs carefully, step by step. If anything went wrong, he just had to climb up again. And the air here is very clean, so there aren’t any dangerous traps. After staying here for four hours, he is sure that this tomb is like heaven to tomb raiders.

Murata spends ten minutes to get to the bottom, but that’s because the stone stairs are narrow and steep. When he reached the last step, his knees even shake non-stop embarrassingly. Although he keeps on walking without stopping, the swaying light doesn’t grow larger at all. But that’s not surprising either, after all that light isn’t a candle or a torch, but the light coming through a crack of about two centimeters in the granite wall.

But just the facts that there’s a crack in the wall and light on the other side, can be counted as a miracle.

Faced with this unexpected discovery, Murata stands frozen on the spot, thinking ‘so this is how it feels like when your mind goes blank’, and there are even the sounds of people pacing on the other side of the wall.

“Eh? Hey! Hey—”

He immediately regains his cool, placing his face to the wall and yelling. Looking through the less damaged lens on his glasses, he only sees some figures with their backs against the light, but it’s obvious there are people there. Without waiting for their response, Murata reaches his hand into the crack, using all his strength to try and pry it open. He thinks to himself, ‘For all you know this could be a door.’

“Open the door, help me!”

He keeps yelling in Japanese, English, and the common language of this world. The people on the other end of the wall don’t try to hide their movements at all, immediately picking up tools and breaking down the wall. Murata hurriedly stands back, the impacts going through the floorboards and into his feet.

Although they’re a bunch of rough fellows, Murata is now relying completely on them to rescue him. It’s an emergency, so he can’t be bothered that much now.

The crack widens, and a hole wide enough for an arm to reach through opens up in the fragile wall. A few people grab the hole with their hands, and slowly pull the wall open. The thick wall slides to a side, opening a space big enough for someone to pass through. It really is a door.

Before Murata can say anything, one person pushes through the crowd to walk up to him. Murata braces himself warily, but when he sees that person’s appearance underneath the light from both sides, Murata instantly knows there’s no need to be too cautious.

“Perfect, it’s you! Is Shibuya with you?”

The other person doesn’t answer, the force grabbing him exceptionally strong.

“Why, in this sort of place…”

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