Spending My Retirement In A Game

Chapter 941: Architectural Investigation

Eisen stood up from the ground and stretched for a moment. The others were still asleep, so he quietly made his way out of the old building so as to not disturb anyone. Outside, some of the soldiers were keeping watch. Technically, this place was something like a safe zone, being located directly be the stairs to the next floor, but you never knew what could happen.

The old man looked around. Since right now, they weren't trying to rush through this place as fast as possible anyway, he figured he might as well just take a closer look at some things. For one, the architecture of this place.

The way that a town was built revealed a lot about its people. Culture, when they lived, or just what species they were; a ton of things could be found out. For example, the short, stout gnomes would require smaller buildings. Shorter doors and ceilings, and everything inside of them would be fitted to work for them.

Wood-elven architecture was often heavily reliant on the natural geography. They built their homes in cliffsides or within large trees. Meanwhile, the orcs that lived in the wastelands would make use of literally whatever they could. Anything that provided shade and shelter from the sandstorms would be turned into a settlement, even if there wasn't much around that they could use to make actual houses. So, being a species of warriors, they would slowly but surely just hunt large monsters and turn their bones into pillars and their skin into leather to create large tents.

As for this place, it was clear that the folk that used to live here was slightly larger than the average human. There were no traces of doors or closable windows, meaning that there was no need to worry about animals, dust, leaves, or rain.

The buildings had multiple stories, but they didn't have stairs; instead, they had simple ladders carved into the walls. Those walls themselves often had curves and almost 'natural' shapes, something that you really didn't see quite often. It did remind Eisen a lot of the architecture he had seen on the ants' island where the summit with the giants and the countries from the central continents was held. Of course, those ants built their homes inside of the large pillars strewn around the island, but the interior was shockingly similar. These sorts of things developed out of necessity, meaning that whatever species used to live here had similar needs to those ants, just that their bodies were also a lot larger.

It was likely that they lived in some sort of cave system. The interior of this place looked quite a lot like naturally-formed caves, rather than something like an anthill that was dug out for a specific purpose. In that case, maybe that was why the scanning didn't find anything on the surface; if this was an ancient town inside of some cave system that had maybe collapsed or been buried at some point, it would make sense. Though... even then there should be some traces, like old cave entrances.

"Just don't focus on that for now..." the old man muttered to himself, touching his hand to the exterior of the buildings. They were all constructed from stone bricks. But this stone was different to the one that this town was built on. The ground here was much heavier in iron and copper, while the stone bricks that the houses were made of contained some traces of sulfur. Either, there used to be a volcano somewhere around here, or the cave was close to some kind of underground volcano.

It was possible that the forest above was in some kind of formerly volcanic region. He should have the others analyze the ground a bit more before coming into the dungeon to see. Forests thrived in volcanic regions, after all. But if that were the case, then it meant that this cave itself wasn't in that region, but the stone bricks were? Maybe it was a nomadic species that brought pieces of their homeland with them to their new homes over the years.

Was there a people like that? A species of insectoids that carried stone bricks, if not their entire homes, with them to a new settlement? Maybe Jyuuk would know. Eisen might have some kind of idea if he dug real deep, but he wasn't able to pull out any sort of knowledge or memories right now. Either way... there were a few things clear already.

One, the people that lived here were bipedial, or at least upright-walking, insectoids that were slightly larger than humans. They shared at least some traits with ants, or at least with colony-building insects as a whole.

Since the assumption was that the dungeon master was a part of this colony once in the past, figuring out details like this was going to give immensely important information for the final battle against it.

Eisen walked back to the rest of the group. Brody was laying on one of the buildings, just taking a nap. Rather, he was technically the one that was leading the ones that were keeping watch this time around. He had an innate 'danger sense' ability that helped him react to attackers even when he was dozing off like right now.

The old man climbed onto the roof, "Hey. Can you send Jyuuk a message for me?"

Brody slowly opened one of his eyes, and then sat up with a groan, "Sure, I guess. What'cha want me to tell him?"

Eisen quickly summed up the information that he had gathered and the thoughts that he had about the civilization that built this town. Brody was typing it all out into a long message, sending it off once he was done. Though, he looked at Eisen with a raised brow.

"And you're sure that this all tracks? What if the difference between the stone from the cave and the stone from the buildings is just some kind of distortion by the dungeon? Like..." Brody thought for a moment, "It's a mix of two things. In part of their life, the dungeon master lived in a volcanic region, which is where the buildings are from. Then, they moved to a different region, which is where this cave is from."

"That's possible, of course," the old man admitted, "Though either way, I'm sure Jyuuk will hopefully be able to do something with this info either way. He knows more about monster behaviour, even when it comes to their civilizations and cultures. So if I'm missing the mark about something, he'll let us know."

"I guess you've got a point there. If I thought that, I'm sure Jyuuk will think the same thing. But the only thing that's certain right now is that it's some kind of bipedal bug, right?"

"Yes, that's what it looks like," Eisen nodded, "This was a very monocultural society, so it could only be that."

"Cool. Bugs, we can deal with that. Bug monsters are weak to fire damage, so... let's go with..." Brody opened his weapon storage, quickly pulling out a particular scroll, "These ones. They're ancient weapons, each one made from a different red dragon."

Eisen raised a brow, "Oh? You didn't show me those yet. But either way, I'm not so sure if fire is going to work. If they're from a volcanic region, it's possible that they have some level of fire resistance, so other types of damage might work better."

"Wait, seriously?" Brody sighed, "I guess you've got a point... but it's still worth a try, right?"

"Right," Eisen smiled, as Brody opened the scroll up, showing all these red dragon weapons to the old man. Each one of them had a compressed mana crystal placed at its core. Dragons were able to regenerate their mana not just through their soul, but also by breathing in the air around them. Eisen figured that these swords worked the same in that sense, using ambient mana to support their magical flames.

"Interesting," the old man muttered, taking a closer look at each of the weapons. They really were just made from dragon bones and scales. True masterpieces. These weren't made by Eisen, though, but by someone else. They looked familiar, but he didn't have that sense that he got when he saw items that he had made himself in the past. Of course, Eisen wasn't the only master craftsman around.

"Whoa, what's that about?" Brody asked, clearly a bit confused as he looked at Eisen. The old man glanced at him.

"What are you talking about?"

"Nah, just... never seen you scowl so much when taking a look at a weapon."

Only then did Eisen realise that he did, in fact, know something about this weapon. It wasn't anything conscious, not anything that he could really point out. But there was a small trace hidden within that twinge of recognition.

Whoever made this sword that Eisen was looking at right now... he despised them with his whole being.

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