A Brief Taste Of Honey.

After passing through the wide, desolate garden, a fairly broad staircase appears again.

According to imperial histories, when the emperor came as far as this staircase, it was considered a tremendous honor. Hence the name, Staircase of Glory.

I don’t know what color it had been before, but now it greeted us with an ominous, murky blackish color.

“Stay alert.”

Lee Hyo-ju gives the party another warning, then looks at Hazel.

Right now Hazel and Lee Hyo-ju are each activating ‘Battlefield Analysis’ and. Perhaps that was why Lee Hyo-ju was so irritable.

Accordingly, as expected, all the members are watching the mood and trying their best not to give anyone an excuse to pick on them.

“Hyo-ju.”

“Yes, sis.”

Hazel shakes her head left and right to indicate that everything is fine. Lee Hyo-ju nods and orders the group to move out.

And after climbing exactly ninety-nine steps, a building leading to the main hall appeared.

A building faded to gray. In the days when the empire prospered, only the chosen could enter this place. The Palace of Conquest.

Once inside the entrance, it was so narrow that three adult men would have to move shoulder to shoulder. And it was so long that, at a glance, the end couldn’t be seen.

“Companion…“

Hazel’s voice calling me carried a hint of trouble. Her Battlefield Analysis must not be reaching the end of the corridor.

“It’s fine, there’s nothing here. More importantly, let’s slow our pace a little. Don’t be tense—move as comfortably as if you’re resting as much as possible. Start being tense only when the end of the corridor comes into view.”

“Yes.”

“Understood.”

“Okay!!”

The reason I slowed our pace. It was because of the map I had obtained from the monster believed to be an arch-lich and Duke Leopold.

On the map that appeared in the upper right of my field of vision, like a sort of in-game minimap, a red room was marked in the middle of the passage.

A space I hadn’t discovered even in my previous life. That made my heart pound even more.

“I’ll take the lead.”

“Mr. Kim Han?”

“Because there’s something I want to check.”

Lee Hyo-ju, who had been about to stop me, reluctantly nods, and Frey steps back. I pat his shoulder, after all the trouble he’s had at the front until now, and step forward.

Moving slowly as I had told the others, I look around and inspect the corridor. I carefully examine everything from the faded decorations hanging on the walls to the magic lamps, but nothing unusual stands out.

“Hmm…”

Though we moved slowly, it was the speed of a representative, not an ordinary person. We had already come close to the room marked in red.

“Hold on.”

I asked the party to wait a moment and looked around while repeatedly activating the power of “Check.” But no matter where I checked, the same message was displayed over and over.

『It looks ordinary, but this wall feels somehow out of place.』

“Companion?”

The moment Hazel approached, I felt the shock and embarrassment of having been struck in the head with a blunt weapon. After all, I had been doing something stupid alone with a space expert right beside me.

“Hazel, so…“

I finished explaining to Hazel about the map I had obtained from the arch-lich and that there was a hidden room in the left wall.

Hazel, her eyes wide in surprise at my story, closed them as if focusing her mind.

After concentrating with her eyes closed for a long while, Hazel let out a small murmur and then shook her head.

“As you said, it is certainly there, but it is a structure that opens only when certain conditions are met. It isn’t something that can be forced open by power.”

“Really?”

Hazel nodded. If it couldn’t be opened even by her power, which held dominion over space, then at the very least substantial high-level magic had been applied. A space that only made me more curious.

Hazel must have explained it to the members in the meantime, because they each began examining the surroundings in their own way.

However, as expected, they couldn’t find any mechanism to open the hidden door.

“Hah!”

As if a child out treasure hunting had failed to find a single thing and gotten sulky, Naruan drew out “True Flame” and swung it straight at the wall.

Everyone stared in shock, faces aghast, when the wall blocking the room was cut down far too easily and then collapsed with a rustle.

“Huh?”

“Whoa…“

“Huh? It worked! Boss, I found it! I did!”

Naruan, thrilled, raised one hand high and hopped in place. At the actions of that tiny little rascal, everyone temporarily lost the words to speak.

Since she had forcibly broken a place protected by magic, I activated defensive techniques in succession in preparation for the explosion that would follow, while at the same time pulling Naruan back.

“…“

But no matter how long we waited, there was neither a magical manifestation nor an explosion.

When even a little time passed with no change, all the members came to their senses and began speaking at once.

“You idiot! What if that had triggered a trap or something!”

“No, before that, if we hadn’t even known what was inside and it had collapsed…!”

“We might have gotten nothing, treasure or otherwise!”

“What are you worrying about? The boss would have handled it.”

At Naruan’s calm words, shock and fear settled on the members’ faces at once.

The entire group of seventy-odd members was making the same expression I often saw when I first met Naruan.

Crack—!

“Agh! Hng!!”

“Naruan, let’s talk again later. For now, let’s go in.”

I led the still-stunned members, who were staggering about in shock, and Naruan, clutching her forehead with tears welling up, into the revealed secret room.

About the size of my bedroom in the Rebound Legion House. The space was unusually surrounded on all sides by red walls.

While everyone scattered to search for various things, I examined the walls and floor with “Check.”

“B-Boss!”

Arun’s urgent voice. I moved toward the place he was pointing at.

In the middle of the wall Arun was looking at, there was a metal plate the size of a study desk. The thing Arun had pointed to with trembling hands was that very metal plate.

“What is it?”

“P-please, some divine power here…“

When I infused divine power into the metal plate as Arun asked, a not-so-bright light appeared and a scene emerged.

A screen divided into four. All of the screens—since the center of each was a bed—were showing places presumed to be bedrooms.

A few icons glowed on each of the four wide screens. When I touched one of them, dates sprang up in a stream on the corresponding screen.

“Huh?”

I touched one of them again. Then the video began to play.

The video of a man and woman entwined seemed like they were making love. However, only a short time after playback began, anyone could tell that it wasn’t love at all, but a forced act meant to satisfy lust.

The woman was crying and bleeding from the mouth, as if she had bitten her tongue, and the man, unfazed atop her, had been thrusting his hips for a while before starting to choke her neck.

The instant the woman’s neck finally bent sideways and dangled limply, the man moving his hips also shuddered and stopped moving.

The moment the image of the man, wearing a bizarre and satisfied smile, was reflected on the screen,

“…!”

Something with blue hair and a white tail stretched out long, passed by my side, and lodged itself in the metal plate.

Everyone turned in surprise to the owner of the concealed weapon.

Rarely, Lee Hyo-ju twisted her face and glared at the video—more precisely, at the man on the shattered screen—with an expression full of fury. Her shoulders trembled, and tears even welled in her eyes.

“Hyo-ju.”

I called Lee Hyo-ju, infusing divine power into my voice. Lee Hyo-ju gave a slight start and looked over here at the same time.

She met my gaze with trembling eyes, tears clinging to them, looking as if she might burst into sobs at any moment.

“You’re fine.”

When I spoke to Lee Hyo-ju, infusing divine power so only she could hear, she seemed to recover a little, nodded, and let out a sigh of “Hoo.”

Then, with her head bowed, she said quietly, “I’m sorry,” and couldn’t raise her head for a while.

“What a nasty room.”

Merus approached the metal plate, breaking the awkward silence, and spoke first. Unexpectedly, the one who responded to Merus’s words was Hugo.

“Indeed. A secret room like this.”

“Do you know what this place is for?”

I ask Merus, who seems to be appearing for the first time in a long while, what the room is used for.

Merus’s calm explanation was astounding.

I don’t know who made it, but it’s a secret room that exists in a palace where the emperor’s or king’s bedroom is located. Even if it isn’t such a perfectly magically concealed secret room, everyone has the desire to peek into the emperor’s bedroom.

Usually, secret rooms begin with palace servants making passages to eavesdrop, but sometimes courtiers who want to know the king’s weaknesses, or groups dreaming of rebellion, make luxurious rooms like this for other purposes.

The existence of such secret rooms doesn’t appear in official history, but it is actually passed down in apocryphal tales and among servants.

And according to Merus’s explanation, this place was the ultimate form of such a secret room. A place where the full view of the emperor’s bedroom could be seen as is.

Even while explaining, Merus was certain that something of this scale and with these facilities had been made not out of mere curiosity, but with malicious intent.

“And rooms like this basically have hidden things in them. In places like this, that is.”

While explaining, Merus peeled the metal plate off the wall. Then a dazzling light poured out from inside the wall.

“At this scale, it was definitely made for some unsavory purpose. And to recruit people of like mind—especially the emperor’s close aides working within the imperial palace—it must have been a facility for that. Naturally, funding and petitions would be essential.”

As Merus said, it was full of all kinds of jewels, especially jewels that clearly contained a fair amount of divine power.

I had already seen so many Legend-grade items that it no longer thrilled me, but it was still a sufficient haul. There was more than enough to use as artifact material.

“What are you doing? You should take them.”

Merus winked, pointing to the space where the jewels were laid. After putting all the jewels into the inventory, a single book was lying at the very bottom.

“What in the world is this…“

“Oh? This is a blood oath document!”

Merus approached like a child who had found a toy, examined the blood oath document, and let out a derisive “Ha!” Then Merus flipped through the pages with a face full of sneering amusement.

For a moment, that expression was so obnoxious I almost punched him without thinking.

“Explain.”

“Now that I look at it, it seems the reason the tyrant became a ‘tyrant’ lies somewhere else. Different from what history has handed down, I mean. We’ll need to return later and examine this blood oath document again.”

After making that loaded remark, Merus handed the blood oath document back to me.

Because of Merus’s tone, as if it might be something important, I stored the blood oath document in my inventory rather than in the subspace magic pouch. Not knowing what would happen because of it.