Chapter 404 - Not found (Patreon)

##### Author's Note ####

Sorry about the delay in this one everyone. The files went crazy, and I lost the edited version. Instead of letting you guys read something with a bunch of mistakes, I decided to sleep and finish this up as soon as I woke up. Hope you all enjoy it!

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"Run that by me again. I want to see if I got it right," Alex rubbed her eyes.

"OK, so the Blademaster came here to talk to the people of the kingdom about the rampages," Hera started explaining.

"And they already were well known here," Alex poured some more wine on her glass.

"Yeah! Then after the meeting, they said that they were going to the temple," Hera continued pacing around their room.

"The temple that you have no idea where is located, and no one seems to know anything about it."

"I still have to look into that, but at first glance, that's the case."

"And you want to go after that temple here?" Alex took a sip of her wine before pouring another glass to Hera.

"No, I mean, maybe, but not yet. I need to look into that first, try to see if there are any records about it," Hera picked the glass that Alex poured, "Thanks."

"But eventually, that's the plan, right? Find that temple and go there, or go looking for it?" Alex asked.

"I mean, yeah. I want to see if I can find where they ended up, or just more about them," Hera started drinking the wine.

"OK… but why?"

"What?"

"Why are you doing that? Is it all just out of curiosity? Because it has nothing to do with the tamer."

"I mean, it's the only connection to the tamer I have. Also, after everything that happened with Chika, I don't think I would be able to use the skills the tamer had. What if I end up making someone spend thousands of years alone stuck somewhere," Hera glanced at Daskka, who was with her entire head inside a bowl of half-melted strawberry ice cream.

"So you are giving up on that possible legacy and going for another?" Alex had a serious expression.

"Kind of. I'm still trying to figure out how to tell that to Ninleyn and the order, but I don't think they will have a problem with that, as long as I help them with stuff when they ask."

"You do know that there is no reason to believe that the Blademaster has a legacy, right? I mean, it's supposed to be a group, as a band of mercenaries, not a single person."

"I know, but they seem awesome. Each master of their weapons, a group of people traveling through the MAZE and helping people or just doing odd jobs to make ends meet. Tell me if that's not a story you want to know more about," Hera pulled Daskka from the ice cream after noticing she had a brain freeze.

"It is, I'm not going to lie. I just wanted to be sure you knew what you were doing," Alex nodded and looked at how Hera was cleaning up Daskka, who was covered in ice cream, "Last question. What are you going to tell Silah? She won't be happy if you tell her we are staying here for weeks."

" I… still don't know. For now, I'll just tell her that I'm still looking for more information. If I actually find any answers, then I'll figure something out."

"You know that's a bad idea, right?"

"I know, but I don't know how to talk to her about this without ending up fighting."

Alex paused for a moment, "Look. I know you might not want to hear this, but… Maybe this is a deal-breaker for both of you."

Hera sighed, "I thought about that… But I love her."

"More than you love being an explorer?"

"I… don't know."

"Then…"

"I know. I have to figure that out. I'll try to do that before going after the temple if I find something about it," Hera sighed and went to eat the rest of the ice cream that Daskka had started eating. For the rest of the night, Hera and Alex just talked and watched TV. Both were relatively tired, and they just wanted to relax.

Early in the next morning, Hera went out, heading back to the library to look for any mentions of the temple. She first looked for Krioz, who was assigned to help her during her stay here. She wasn't the only person he would assist. Each of the librarians in his position would assist a number of people who came here to translate old documents. They would also get a copy of all the translations for the archive, which was why Hera had someone who would not just show her the books and scrolls that she was looking for but would actively help with her search.

"Hi, Krioz," Hera greeted the librarian.

"Hello, Ms. Kingsley. Are you looking through more of the 'Classified documents?'" Krioz asked with a smile.

"Not this time. I think I found what I was looking for. Say, have you ever heard about the temple? In those old documents, I mean," Hera leaned over and spoke in a whisper.

"Temple… There is no name? We have a couple in the city, one for the heroes, one for the system, and one for the jungle."

"No… I think this one is older. Like much older. I found it in the reports I saw yesterday."

"Ah, yes. Although the temples are not new, they weren't around during the time the documents you saw yesterday were written. Hum…" Krioz crossed his arms and looked down for a moment before typing a few things in the computer in front of his desk, "Ah, here. It seems like there are a few mentions of a Temple around that time. Unfortunately, so far, we don't have any directions to it, nor does it show in any map."

"Really? Not a single map?"

"Yes, there are some notes here from the last person who looked into it. It was something they did only in here, there was no excursion to the wilds, but they say that not a single mention is met with questions, almost as if it was something considered common knowledge. There is even a comparison with ancient Roman concrete."

"What?" Hera tilted her head.

"Ah, it's just an odd thing. The recipe for the concrete used in ancient Rome was found some time ago, but no one could make it work. Only when they used seawater that people were finally able to replicate the concrete. It took years for people to figure that out because the recipe called for water, and we believed that it was referring to freshwater, but for them, freshwater wasn't as easy to gather, so no one would waste it in construction. It's the kind of common knowledge that is lost to the ages that can cause these types of misunderstanding," Krioz explained with a glint in his eyes. It seemed like this was the type of thing that he liked.

"OK… then can you show me the maps? The ones from that time period, maybe whoever was looking into that missed something. Also, if I can check the documents with mentions of the temple, it would be great, if it's not too much trouble, I want to see the originals."

"There are a lot of those documents, are you sure? I can send you a copy of the translations right away."

"No, I want the originals, maybe they missed something in the translation, and if I have the original, I can access the translation in the archive, right?"

"Correct," Krioz nodded and started working. The first thing he did was to guide Hera to the map room on the third floor. He then showed the maps from the period she wanted and their location, and then he left to gather the other documents.

Looking over the maps, Hera realized how large the room actually was. It was almost a triangle mostly covered in jungle. In the middle of it, there were a few mountains, but even high on top of them, the maps showed a lot of green. Hera grabbed all the maps of the same era, not the originals, but the copies made to be handled by the people in the library and started comparing them. She also had a map of the current room, and things were very different. For one, the old maps had two cities. Waperath Kingdom and a place called the Jungle Village about 100 kilometers away from the other city, towards the heart of the jungle. In the new maps, that village was nowhere to be found, and two more towns existed. One on the north and one to the east, also heading to the heart of the jungle but just 50 kilometers away, and the path leading there seemed to be much larger.

Hera continued comparing the maps, the old jungled seemed much thicker, and the other corner of the room had several areas that were just green. They didn't even have the end of the room there. It was just a thick forest all the way to the end of the map. On the new map, there were a few dungeons marked, as well as some monster's dens and even the entrances of a couple of cave networks that covered the room. Looking back to the old map, Hera found a few monsters that she didn't know were part of the room as drawings, almost as if they were being used to warn people not to get too close to those areas. Some of them matched with the dens while others matched with the cave network, but a few of the more strange monsters didn't seem to be present in the updated map. A large lizard with bird-like wings in the southeast corner of the room, a snake that seemed to have limbs like a centipede on the Northeast corner, and an odd lion with two heads, five claws, and an elephant's trunk instead of a tail in the north.

From what Hera knew about this room, those monsters shouldn't exist in here. Or at least, there were no reports about them. It was possible that they were just one of a kind and were hiding, but Hera doubted that was the case. Most monsters inside the MAZE would grow old and die just like anything else. So far, the only two creatures that she knew were outliers from that rule were the Sky Ruler and Chika.

She kept looking, trying to find any hints of where the temple should be located. After a while, she changed from the maps of the entire room to the maps of each city. Maybe it was something that only showed up in more detailed representations. Around that time, Krioz came with a box of old documents. Just like the maps, these were all copies. It was a way to avoid damaging the original, but that would be more than enough for what Hera was trying to do. For almost half a day, she swapped between the maps and the documents, trying to find something that could give her a hint of where the temple was but to no avail. She went out to eat something, still with the archives open on her tablet so she could keep searching for the answer while having a late lunch. At first, she tried to call Alex, but the assassin was doing the defense dungeon again. She had found a group that was running that dungeon a couple of times a day, and since they managed to kill a very big number of monsters, the drops were amazing.

Hera was halfway through her meal when she noticed something odd in one of the documents. It was a letter someone in the Jungle Village had left behind. They were talking about how they were going to the temple and would be back in days. That phrasing was weird. It was the first time she heard someone say that they were coming back in days, not a single day, but several days, and didn't specify the amount. The line that came after it was also weird. It talked about how they could send a signal to the sky if there was an emergency, and they would be back in a jiffy. Even if whoever translated it was trying to be cute, a jiffy wasn't something anyone would use if they were days of travel away. Seeing that this could lead to something, Hera gobbled her food and rushed back to the library.

It took her a while to get the original letter, but when she did, she noticed some differences. For one, the mention of 'coming back in days' didn't seem accurate. The word used was similar, but there was a blob of ink in the end that hid the last letter. That could change the meaning entirely since the words for hours, days, and years were almost the same in the dialect used by the people in the village, only the last letter changed. Going back to the map, Hera analyzed the one for the Jungle Village. Those were the worst maps of the bunch, they had holes, ink stains, and most of the pictures were faded, but still, she tried her best. It was easier to get a complete picture by overlapping a couple of different maps, and that's when she found something. The Jungle Village had a single entrance that led to the road to the Waperath Kingdom. However, when placing all the maps together, she could see a small path on the back of the village that seemed to lead down to the south. It was hard to see, and there was a very high possibility that she was just seeing what she wanted, but at the same time, the letter talked about going to the temple and coming back soon. There had to be something there.

With a big smile, Hera took pictures of everything she found, put the maps back in their place, and went to find Alex.