The Former Child Prodigy Finds A Hidden Room

I was walking through the upper layers of the Ariscit Ruins together with Fiona, the client.

The details of the request were, “Stay in the Ariscit Ruins for three days for the sake of investigation. I would like to ask for an escort to and from the Imperial Capital, as well as protection on site.”

And so I was accompanying Fiona as her escort. Fiona was a young female researcher. She had brown hair and wore large round glasses.

Throughout the Ariscit Ruins, there were sculptures and stone inscriptions left behind by the ancients.

Whenever Fiona reached a room with such things in it, she hummed to herself while sketching what she saw into the sketchbook she had brought.

Watching her like that, I suddenly asked,

“…The Ariscit Ruins are already a dried-up ruin that has been explored all over. Even if you did not go out of your way to visit in person, wouldn’t books and hearing stories be enough?”

“Well, yes…”

Fiona answered without stopping her sketching hand.

“But, well, that is what my mentor as a researcher always tells me, not to cut corners. There is no experience greater than going to the site yourself. If you are a researcher, you should feel it with your own skin, they say.”

“I see.”

“But in reality, it is tough.”

Fiona let out a huge sigh.

“Traveling all the way to the site is not free, after all… And for a weak researcher like me, the research budget is pretty pathetic, so I end up paying a lot out of pocket—and for this day, just how much I had to save and save… If they are going to talk about lofty ideals, I kind of wish they would pay us a little more—”

Oh no! Something was spilling straight out of her mouth!?

Before I could figure out how to react, Fiona abruptly cut herself off.

“S-sorry!? Darkness just leaked out of my mouth, didn’t it!?”

“It… did leak out…”

“Sorry… I am a poorly paid and broke researcher… so the darkness just comes out!”

Working adults really have it hard.

…Though I still had not truly experienced that hardship myself. Scary.

“That is the hard part about being part of an organization.”

Saying that, Fiona let out another sigh and went back to sketching.

After a while, Fiona began staring intently at the statue she was drawing. Then, before long, she suddenly began climbing it.

Such sudden bizarre behavior—even I could not help but cry out in surprise.

“Eh, what is wrong!?”

“Ah, do not worry about it! It is fine. It is just that up high on this statue, there is something written there, but it is hard to see—”

Murmuring to herself, Fiona climbed to quite a high spot and narrowed her eyes.

And then,

“Ah, ahh, ahh, I see, I see, so that is what it meant! Good, good!”

She suddenly tried to pull out the sketchbook from her shoulder bag—

And let go with both hands.

Eh, no no no no no! Hey, hey!

“Ah.”

The moment she said that, Fiona fell to the floor. Thud! She landed on her rear with a loud sound.

“Ah, ow, owowowow!”

I ran over to Fiona as she rubbed her lower back.

“Are you okay!?”

“Y-yes, somehow… Ahaha, it is a bad habit of mine, getting distracted by whatever is right in front of me—”

I held out a hand to Fiona, but the odd feeling that had caught my ear bothered me, and my mind was slightly elsewhere.

“Ilvis-san?”

Fiona tilted her head after standing up.

I was staring intently at one of the walls surrounding the room.

“Um, what is wrong?”

“Ah, something is bothering me a little—”

I walked briskly over to the wall.

“A moment ago, when Fiona-san fell, there was a huge sound, right?”

“Yes.”

“At that time, the reverberation, I guess? This part of the wall sounded different somehow.”

I stood in front of the strange part of the wall and slowly ran my hand over it.

“Eh, the reverberation sounded different—you can tell something like that!? Even where it was!?”

“Yes, I can tell… You can tell, right?”

“I cannot tell at all!?”

Is that so? …Well, it happened in an instant, so maybe if you were zoning out, you could miss it.

I knocked on the wall the way one would knock on a door.

“…Hmm, the sound is a little different from the surroundings.”

As if the sound were escaping.

I tapped the wall lightly with my fingertips.

“I think there is a hollow space beyond this.”

“Eh, really!?”

Fiona took out the map she had brought.

“…There is nothing written there… Couldn’t it be that you are mistaken, Ilvis-san?”

These ruins were “dried up,” and the shallow layers had already been investigated. It was not wrong to believe that there could not possibly be a hidden room now and that a commercially sold map was correct.

But—

For example.

Maps were made based on information from adventurers’ reports. In that case, it was entirely possible that someone, somewhere, had discovered a hidden room and for some reason had not reported it.

A hidden room known only to themselves—

If such a thing existed, it would be useful.

As I touched the wall, there was one part where the feel was different.

…This is…?

I pushed that spot hard. That block clearly sank inward.

At the same time—

Gogogogogogogogogogogogogogogo…!

The wall in front of me slid upward, opening a path to the next room.

“W-wow wow wow, th-there really was a hidden room!? Ilvis-san, I am sorry for doubting you!”

“No, no, do not worry about it. …Since we found it, shall we go in?”

With a wry smile, I moved into the next room.

It was a small room about three meters across. Other than the place we had entered from, there was no entrance or exit. In the center of the room was—

“Ah, a treasure chest!?”

Fiona, who had followed me in, cried out loudly.

“Ah, is it okay to open it!? Is it okay!? I-I-I-Ilvis-san!?”

Fiona said that with money signs practically floating in her eyes.

…Well, she did seem like a poor researcher…

An utterly ordinary hidden room. And there, as though it were a reward for finding the hidden room, sat a treasure chest.

A small reward for a small discovery.

That was not so strange.

It was a common enough development.

…But what if this was a hidden room some adventurer had chosen to keep secret?

This was how it seemed to me.

Congratulations on finding this room! I prepared a decent treasure, so please turn around and go home!

Was I overthinking it?

Was that really all there was in this room?