Entering The Relic

Minos wasn't the only one shocked by the arrows' tremendous power, Tinka also looked on with horror, knowing that an arrow with that kind of power could probably kill five of her, much less one.

It was only now she realized how important it was that Minos was here with her. Had she discovered this building alone, it's likely she would have tried to directly enter, which naturally wouldn't have ended well.

As much as Minos annoyed her at times, she couldn't help but appreciate his intelligent and stable character, making her always feel secure no matter what the situation was.

Minos naturally had no idea what Tinka was thinking about, rather he was fully focused on the strange device, wondering how exactly it worked.

Seeing as how the device only seemed to react once the rock entered the chamber, Minos realized that its sensing abilities clearly had a limit, though that limit was still unclear.

"Back up Tinka, I want to test something." Minos suddenly said, himself also taking a step back.

After making sure Tinka was at a safe distance, Minos slowly inched along the wall, closer to the opening. After arriving directly beside the opening, Minos suddenly shot his arm over the opening, before pulling back in the same instance.

The device seemed to notice Minos's hand, quickly aiming the laser towards it. However Minos was faster than it, and before the laser could touch his hand, he had already pulled it back.

Without Minos's hand in the way, the laser seemed to receive no feedback, and no arrow was fired, allowing Minos to understand its mechanics even more.

Tossing a few more rocks inside, Minos began coming up with theories as to how the device worked.

His first idea was some sort of camera, similarly to the one he had seen at the Weapon Refining Union.

But Minos thought this was unlikely, after all the camera he had seen was massive, yet this device was much smaller.

Of course it was always possible that the technology of this thing was far beyond human's in a certain regard, but Minos still thought it was unlikely. Besides, if it was utilizing a camera, then the laser would be redundant.

Since it probably didn't use visual cues, then the most likely possibility was that it used sound instead.

Similar to some species of creatures that send out noise and use the feedback to create a mental image, this device might do the same thing.

If that was the case, then as long as Minos created a loud uninterrupted noise, he would throw the device's senses completely off, rendering it useless.

With an idea in mind, Minos immediately got to work. Soon realizing he had nothing to create noise with, he decided to use the most reliable tool, his own voice.

Letting out a loud scream much to Tinka's shock, Minos maintained the sound, before tossing another stone into a room.

This time, much to Minos's joy, the device didn't swivel around to the rock immediately, insteading turning in circles as if it was confused.

Tossing a few more rocks to confirm the result, Minos soon decided to take the risk. Running towards the device with his loud voice still echoing, he soon arrived next to it.

Walking around the device, Minos soon found a small panel on its back. Pulling the panel off, Minos was greeted with a bunch of switches with the same foreign language from before written beside it.

Fortunately, despite not knowing the language, the panel was quite intuitive, and Minos immediately noticed a large switch that seemed to most likely be the on/off.

Flicking it down, the device stopped spinning, pulling the large tube back down into the slit, before covering the hole once more.

Standing up, Minos tested the device a few times, only letting out a sigh of relief once he realized that it had been completely deactivated. Walking back out of the chamber, he signaled towards Tinka.

"What was all of that? You just started screaming before running in. Also how did you manage to turn it off." Tinka began questioning.

"It's a long story, what matters is that it's off, but that doesn't mean we're safe, there may be other trap's along the way." Minos said, not answering.

Seeing that Minos didn't want to answer, Tinka didn't ask anymore. All that mattered to her that Minos was safe and that the adventure could go on.

Having cleared the first room, Minos pulled a Shining Talisman out from his spatial ring, activating it as he made his way into the chamber, Tinka following behind him.

As per usual, Minos used the stones he found to create a safe path, pelting them all over the room in an attempt to activate something.

Fortunately for Minos and Tinka, the journey down the stairs was completely safe, no strange traps activating.

Soon arriving at the bottom of the staircase, Minos stood still, using his Shining Talisman to ignite the area.

The torch was still sitting beside his feet, but its light was far weaker then the Shining Talisman, so Minos ignored it.

With the light from the Shining Talisman, the entire tunnel was illuminated, revealing a long passage that went deep into the earth.

The passage wasn't straight, but rather angled downwards slightly with a curve at the end, akin to a spiral.

The curve made it impossible to see what lay at the end of the tunnel, forcing Minos and Tinka to keep heading deeper, increasing their caution as they did so.

Fortunately for them, it seemed the trap at the entrance was the only one set up, hence the journey was uneventful, with Minos and Tinka following the spiral passage further into the depth of the earth.

After walking for about ten minutes or so, the spiral finally came to an end, Minos and Tinka arriving at what seemed to be the final chamber.

The chamber wasn't very large, however it was packed with history, a sense of ancient mysticism filling the air.

Most noticeable of everything was the sarcophagus at the center of the room, its surface packed with the unknown script they had seen earlier.

"Look Minos!" Tinka said, as she pointed towards a wall.

Looking away from the sarcophagus, Minos soon realized what Tinka was pointing at. On the wall, a large portrait was painted, depicting a strange humanoid creature.

From a further distance, one may mistake the portrait for a human, but at closer inspection, it was abundantly clear whatever this creature was, it wasn't human.

The creature's head was much larger than a normal human's head, which stood in contrast to its small body, causing its proportions to look slightly off.

Most interesting of all however, were the two antennas that sprung from the top of the creature's head, making it even more clear that they weren't human.

The creature's eyes were also much larger than normal human eyes, such that despite the creature's large head, it's eyes still managed to take up a big space on it's head.

Beyond these things, the creature actually shared quite a lot of similarities with humans. Its brownish skin was no different than most humans, and it had two legs and two arms, just like humans.

"What do you think it is?" Tinka couldn't help but ask.

"No idea, but it clearly isn't human. I've never seen anything like it in real life." Minos said, scratching his chin.

"Could they have gone extinct?" Tinka questioned.

"It's possible, and if they are extinct, we're probably the ones who did…" Minos couldn't help but say solemnly.

"Why would humans do such a thing!" Tinka asked incredulously.

"Resources, land, hatred. There's a lot of reasons." Minos answered.

"How could we be so cruel?" Tinka said sadly.

"Don't feel so sad, this is just a theory, and even if it is true, the actions of those people aren't our burden to bear."

"Besides we have no idea about the context of the conflict, even if humans were the ones who did it, it may have been a more defensive action rather than an offensive one."

"On top of all that, whether they are extinct or not is still unknown. Ultimately we know way too little about these people, so we can't say much about them." Minos finished.

"You're right." Tinka said, feeling much better after listening to Minos.

Beyond the portrait and the sarcophagus, the chamber had a few other interesting items, most of which being strange tools.

After making sure the room was safe, Minos further inspected the insides, picking up the tools he had been looking at from earlier.

The tools were sitting atop a small table in the corner of the room, which was akin to a micro-workshop.

Minos naturally had no idea what any of these objects did, but it was clear they were not primitive by any means, but rather quite advanced.

The tools seemed to be filled with a strange futuristic style, nothing he had ever seen before, with a style completely unique to these people.

One tool was like a quill, but made of metal with a few strange dials on it. Its tip had a small red crystal that glimmered slightly even in the dark room, showcasing its value.

Tinkering with the strange tool for a moment, Minos eventually put it down after he realized he couldn't get it to do anything.

Given how long this chamber had probably been buried for, it's likely that whatever energy drove the quill-like object had long since emptied, making it worthless despite its novelty.