“Is this as far as it goes?”
Having travelled to the end of the straight path, Gran stopped his feet and voiced that question.
In front of his eyes was a massive double door that overlooked the two of them oppressively.
It was perhaps made of… metal?
No aging could be seen on the smooth silver doors, and considering that it had withstood such a long period of time, its durability could probably said to be very high.
Touching and pushing on it to investigate but finding that it wouldn’t open, Gran seemed to shake his head in acceptance, and turned to Luru to speak.
“It’s no good. This thing won’t open.”
“It’s a door, so there’s no way that it shouldn’t open, but…”
Being told that, Gran stopped to think for a little, before saying,
“I heard this from Yuumis, but in a lot of ruins there are doors that won’t open unless you fulfil some kind of requirements. This is probably one of those types too… It probably won’t open unless we fiddle with the equipment in that first room you were in, right? …Wanna head back?”
So proposed Gran.
Certainly there was a chance that it would open if they returned there.
But Luru had investigated the central installation to his limits just a while ago, and didn’t find that sort of function.
However, he had told Gran that he had just randomly fiddled with it, so he couldn’t explain the controls in too much details either.
His story was that he had just coincidentally managed to stop the Magus Machines.
“Nah, it’d be a pain to head there and back. There’s no saying that it’ll open once we head back there. Shouldn’t we look around for a bit more?”
Gran who thought about Luru’s proposal for a little while suddenly seemed to gasp a little, and then said,
“Well yeah, but… how about I try chopping it down?”
Though it wasn’t anything like ‘a flash of inspiration’, Luru did think that it was a simple method with promise.
Moreover, if it didn’t work, then it didn’t work.
“…That might be good too. Gran, mind giving it a go?”
“Aye.”
With that, Gran began to refine the mana that was set up in his greatsword.
It looked like he was simply swinging his sword, but perhaps because he was a first rate adventurer, it possessed considerable might.
Enough that you’d start to think that maybe he really could chop the doors down.
“Uoraaaaaaaaa!”
And so with a shout, the running Gran swung his sword downwards.
The greatsword had certainly headed towards the doors, and the blade had come into contact with them.
However,
―GAKIIN!―
The sound of metal on metal, together with flying sparks.
“…No use, huh.”
Said the dejected Gran.
He touched the place his sword had cut, but,
“…Not a single scratch. I’m seriously gunna lose my confidence…”
From Luru’s perspective it was also quite a powerful blow, but this probably meant that the doors’ durability had won.
They were probably created with the demon race’s highest class techniques.
With this, they had no choice but to challenge it fair-and-square, but returning to the central installation was useless too.
Just what could they do…?
Luru neared the doors, and tried touching the edges of those silver doors.
When he did, mysteriously, they could hear a voice.
It was something he had often heard in the past from Magus Machines; the sound of an artificial voice.
It resounded, with some parts of it a little blurred.
『……Mana……wavelength……confirmed……searchi……Match……100th……n King Luruslia Nord……rights……Release……the first……Great……Lock?』
There were many parts with crackling noise mixed in, but mixed in were worsd that he couldn’t ignore.
However, right now that wasn’t the issue.
It seemed that Gran had also heard it;