Chapter 4 – Inside Their Hideout
The three adventurers, Remi, Aisha, and Mina were entering the forest from different directions. Instead of walking straight to enter the forest, they took a roundabout way.
“Do you think we’ll run into each other?”
“The forest is quite large. If he kept running straight from here, he would have entered in from the southwest entrance. It’s hard to imagine of him taking a roundabout way and entering the forest from the northeast as we did.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
“But then again, Remi-chan, do you have to lie to him? Why didn’t you tell him that their hideout was likely to be in the northeast area?”
“We can’t share him all our information with. I’m sure he’ll follow us if I told him everything, that’s why I only told him a little bit.”
“Then, why don’t you tell him a completely different place?”
“Well, I can’t help but felt guilty if I told that.”
“Remi-chan, you’re so persistence on the weirdest things.”
So exasperated Aisha.
“More than that, we even called ourselves adventurers, but we’re not adventurers at all.”
So said Mina.
“We have no choice. We have to keep our identity a secret.”
“That’s right. Sometimes I have a sudden impulse to blurt it out.”
So said Aisha in a quiet voice.
“Don’t you dare… you know what it means, right?”
“I know already. I won’t speak any of it, so don’t glare at me like that.”
After glared at by Remi, Aisha panicked.
“Do you know what kind of curse he has?”
Out of the blue, Mina said that.
“Beats me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s a curse that makes you crazy or something.”
“Come to think of it, he looked like he wanted to die so badly. Could it be it was a curse that makes you yearn to die?”
“That’s a bit pitiful…”
Hearing that, Mina became depressed.
“Well, I heard that Meon, the evil sorcerer who created Gelhenard, was a legend in her own right. Maybe she can lift that kind of curse. At the least, if she doesn’t have a way to atone her sins that she has committed, she could repent it by lifting his curse off.”
“You’re right. In order to quickly lift his curse, we need to do our best. Look, we’ve arrived in the forest.”
The three walked into the forest. Then—
“””What is this!?”””
—shouted at the same time after looking at the bizarre scene in the forest.
Many holes were dug in the ground all over the place. Obviously, they think this was not normal.
“Don’t tell me…”
“Has Perez-san done all of them?”
“No, it can’t be, can it? Maybe a great demon had appeared out of the blue.”
“What kind of monster is that? Why do I have no knowledge about this monster?”
The three of them were discussing it in bewilderment.
“Were you the one who has dug all holes around the Gelhenard hideout?”
Surprised after hearing a person speaking from behind, the three of them turned around then saw a group of people dressed in black robes standing there.
“Crap…”
“Show them no mercy! Let them become subjects of our evil magic experiments!”
“W-Wait! These were not our doing!”
“Get them!”
“Damn it, let’s get away from here!”
They had tried some reasoning with them, but the atmosphere telling them otherwise, so, they immediately ran away.
“Dark Spear!”
The enemy unleashes their evil magic aiming at the three escaping people. Incidentally, evil magics have a similar origin as magic. In general, they used to have the same type which was dark attribute magic. Over time, the dark attribute magic was completely banned and now was called evil magics.
“Magic Shield!”
Mina put up a magical wall to block their attacks.
However, the enemies were many in number. The same evil arts were flying in many shots. All of which was difficult to defend against. It was impossible to repel all of them while running away. But the enemies were gradually approaching, continued shooting their evil magics.
“W-What do we do?”
“We have to jump down into the hole!”
Looking at the hole nearby, Remi had thought that the only way to escape was to jump into it.
“What will we have to do if the hole was too deep?”
“Let’s think about it when that happens! Now we have no choice but to jump down!”
“Ugh!”
Making their resolve, they jumped down into the hole.
○ ○ ○
I walked steadily through the hideout. But I didn’t find anyone here. If someone comes out, I’ll ask them what kind of evil magic they experimented with.
Let’s look around. There were various things that have been dropped here, such as skulls and crystals, but I have no idea what it was for.
As I walked, I found a large door, opened it, and went inside.
In the room, I found several bookshelves with many books were arranged.
Oh, let’s find out what kind of books are there, so I can figure out what kind of evil magic they’re experimenting with.
Let see…
Most of these books were about evil magics that can turn people into centipedes, lowering one’s luck, or some other trivial art.
But in the corner room—
“Immortality Magic!”
—a large number of books ranging from 1 to 150 studies on immortality magics were stacked on that bookshelf.
This… To think this organization called Gelhenard was doing research on immortality!
Okay, let’s find it out. So I took the book and read it.
“Huh? I can’t read it.”
The letters were written in a way that was completely new to me. What does it mean? Maybe the letters were changed but the meaning was similar? Or maybe not. The title was written in normal characters, but only the contents were written in nonsensical letters. Maybe they use their own letters to make sure that others will never know their research results.
What a crafty guy. Well, I can go ask the person who wrote this directly. There’s also another possibility that this book was written by another person and currently being deciphered by him. In the end, I have to ask somebody.
So, I started looking for the person who owned these books.
Paper Surgery 
Thanks for the chapter
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Thanks for the chapter.
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