Giant's Legacy

"There seems to be some light up ahead. Want to go take a look?"

Separated by the bubble and the pool water, Carl tried to discuss it with Hopp.

But the two different mediums made Carl's voice sound somewhat distorted, and it took Hopp a long time to understand what Carl had said.

"Sure!"

They nodded and headed toward an opening at the bottom of the pool.

The opening looked like the springhead of the pool. It was roughly circular, with a diameter slightly shorter than Carl's Power Armor.

A faint orange-yellow glow radiated from inside the opening, as if fluorescent moss and mushrooms had somehow grown all the way here.

Moving against the current, Carl and Hopp struggled forward inside the opening.

At first, the cave was somewhat narrow, but after Carl and Hopp advanced a certain distance, the space gradually began to widen.

Continuing forward, Carl and Hopp passed a bend and arrived in an entirely new world.

The inside of the opening was actually a vast karst cavern. Countless patches of fluorescent moss grew across its walls, illuminating the underwater space as brightly as day.

If I could build a place to live here, I wouldn't have to worry about Mind Flayers or goblins.

Looking at the strange underwater scenery before her, Carl thought regretfully.

The entire cavern was roughly the size of a football field. If she could make effective use of this space, Carl felt that she could lie low here for a very long time.

However, the underwater environment limited the value of this place, so Carl could only gaze at this treasure trove and sigh.

"All right, get ready to head back. Those Brain Eaters should be leaving soon."

Carl turned around and was about to take Hopp away and return to the surface when she discovered that Hopp had been swept far away by an undertow.

Poor Hopp was an awful swimmer. No matter how she flailed her limbs, she couldn't swim back.

Seeing Hopp's comical appearance, Carl very unkindly let out two quiet chuckles.

"All right, all right. I'm coming over. Grab my arm."

Seeing Hopp glare at her with an aggrieved expression, Carl stopped watching the show and piloted her Power Armor toward Hopp.

"You could've warned me! If I hadn't noticed, you might've been swept away by the undertow by now."

When she reached Hopp's side, Carl teased her while dragging her along, intending to head toward the opening they had entered through.

Just then, a powerful undertow surged over.

Even Carl, wearing Power Armor, was swept several meters away by the current.

The entire suit spun through the water and flew away, while Hopp floated upside down, frantically paddling with all four limbs.

"Ah! Damn it! Where did such a powerful undertow come from? Is this some sort of underground-river convergence beneath a dungeon?"

Waving her arms, Carl finally regained her balance in the water, but her brow throbbed with pain. It felt as though she were seasick.

As a student of Arcanix, getting seasick was impossible.

After all, Arcanix was located in the largest freshwater lake on the Continent of Khorvaire, and traveling to and from it required taking a boat.

Carl had long since grown accustomed to being on ships. She had even trained herself into a fairly capable swimmer.

"Ughh~"

Although she refused to believe she was seasick, Carl's body was remarkably honest and began dry-heaving.

To keep from vomiting inside the Power Armor, Carl immediately sucked in a deep breath and took it off.

"Blub blub~"

The warm current rushing into her face made Carl feel much better, and the dizziness from before seemed to ease as well.

With one hand resting on the Power Armor again, Carl was about to put it back on when the Dragon Mark on her rear shoulder suddenly stabbed with pain.

At the same time, some inexplicable sensation made Carl look toward the center of the cavern.

The Scouting Dragon Mark had sensed something in that direction.

Suit up!

With a thought, the Power Armor redeployed onto Carl's body. The magic patterns inside the helmet activated once more, and the liquid inside the armor was expelled.

"Hopp! There seems to be something over there! Come with me!"

Carl swam over to Hopp, grabbed her, and headed toward the center of the cavern.

The center of the cavern didn't appear to be anything special. Thick silt had accumulated along the bottom, and even the raging undertow could barely carry it away.

Yet the Scouting Dragon Mark had sensed something in this exact spot. Moreover, this sensation was far stronger than before, as if a massive Dragon Crystal were hidden beneath the silt.

The intensity of the sensation made Carl reluctant to give up.

With no other choice, she bent down and began digging.

She dug through the sticky silt, and the water stirred it up, muddying the surrounding area.

Hopp even took out her beloved Hand Axe to help dig, but after the two of them worked feverishly for a long while, they still couldn't find anything of value.

Just as Carl was considering whether to give up digging,

a metallic scraping sound rang out.

As the current slowly carried away the surrounding muddy water, a metal plate hidden beneath the silt was exposed.

Carl and Hopp exchanged glances, then began clearing away the silt with even greater vigor, as if they had been injected with energy.

Hopp was still relatively restrained, merely increasing the breadth of her movements.

But Carl even activated the Thunder Fist of her Guardian-type Power Armor, attempting to shake the silt loose with Thunder Damage (sound waves).

"Clang!"

Because she failed to control her strength, Carl struck the enormous metal object beneath them directly.

Interference pulses formed from magic power burst out, and the metal object hidden beneath the silt suddenly began vibrating on its own.

The sand and mud covering it were shaken loose, and the surrounding water grew exceptionally murky for a moment.

Carl only had time to grab Hopp before she could do nothing but let the metal object operate on its own.

Time passed second by second as the undertow carried the muddy water away.

When the nearby water gradually cleared, Carl and Hopp saw the general shape of the metal object beneath their feet.

It was a massive machine with an enormous drill at its front, and it was almost as long as the entire cavern.

Looking at the strange machine, Carl suddenly remembered an episode of "Tiga Ultraman" that she had watched in her previous life.

It was the story of Tiga's second battle against Golza, the monster that tore the earth apart. To find the monster, the Victory Team used a special vehicle capable of burrowing deep underground.

That vehicle and the machine before them served much the same purpose.

"It looks like a machine for mining underground minerals, but who would use a machine of this model? Giants? But the giants have lost their civilization by now and exist only as tribes."

Judging by its size, this thing did indeed look like it belonged to the giants. But Carl found it difficult to believe that the object beneath her feet might have been lying here for over ten thousand years.

Through the Power Armor, Carl stroked the material of the drill beneath her feet.

The thing was visibly harder than Carl's Power Armor. Based on Carl's understanding of metal materials, it contained at least several types of magic metal.

It was difficult to imagine what sort of person would spend so many precious metals merely to create something like this.

As she pondered, Carl looked up and saw pictographic runes gradually lighting up on the metal plate in the distance.

"Wait! These really are Giant's Runes. Could this thing actually be a mining vehicle that the ancient giants used to extract Khyber Dragonshards underground?"