After Elfaria had soaked in the city atmosphere around the train station, they all headed towards Kitsushouharukaze high school. Elfaria wanted to see the school where Theia and Koutarou studied. While she couldn't enter it because they were in the middle of summer vacation, Elfaria looked at the schoolhouse and around the schoolyard with great interest. Seeing Elfaria like that, Koutarou felt like she really was a mother.
Once that was over with, the group climbed up the hill, reaching the ruins where Koutarou worked at his part-time job. This was because Elfaria was an archeologist herself. Of course she was also interested in the place where the legendary Blue Knight worked.
“Elle, everything inside this building are things excavated from these ruins. According to the group leader, this is only about 10% of it”
Koutarou first guided her to an exhibition hall that was built up next to the excavation site. It was a temporary prefabricated building, but as the excavation had dragged on, there was a surprising amount of artifacts on display.
“So these are the remnants of an ancient civilization on Earth... Reios-sama, how old are these?”
”Supposedly 10,000 years. They did dating on carbon or something on the earthenware. I don't really get it”
”So they determined the age using the radiocarbon dating method. Then the date should be roughly correct”
Elfaria looked at each of the artifacts on exhibit. To Koutarou they were just fragments of jars and arrowheads, but Elfaria had sparkles in her eyes. Having been a passionate archeologist before becoming empress, this place was like heaven to Elfaria. Even more so as this was the ancient civilization of a foreign planet.
“But... this is strange. If this level of civilization existed 10,000 years ago then Earth's civilization should be even more advanced by now. The numbers don't add up”
Elfaria tilted her head. Comparing the artifacts to Forthorthe's civilization, Earth's civilization should be a few thousand years further ahead. This was strange to Elfaria.
“Was it a large-scale disaster? Or where they wiped out in a war...?”
“I'm surprised you can tell, Elle. The higher ups are currently arguing about that. Why wasn't this advanced civilization inherited”
“I thoughts so... so did they reach a conclusion?”
“No. There are supposedly no signs of natural disasters or wars. So it must have been a closed off society or they were wiped out by an epidemic. At least that's what they're discussing now”
“What interesting ruins. I kind of want to excavate them myself”
”Hey now”
”Fufufu... by the way, Reios-sama, what is this?”
“Ah, this is―”
Elfaria and Koutarou actively discussed as they looked through the exhibit. Since this was regarding her beloved archeology she seemed very happy. There was noone around her that could follow her when she talked about archeology, on that point, Koutarou, who worked on an excavation site had some knowledge about this, so he was the perfect person for Elfaria to talk with. Because his knowledge was imperfect, Elfaria became more talkative.