Vol3 Chapter 49 Matter of Prayer

Amos did not sleep that night.

The others eventually settled down around the dying campfire, exhaustion finally overcoming even their habit of keeping watch. One by one, their breathing became steady.

Amos remained awake.

He sat with a stone balanced across his knees, using it as an impromptu writing surface. If sleep wouldn’t come, he might as well put his thoughts in order.

He drew.

First came the entrance, followed by the route through the ruins. Then, the spot where the teleportation trap had separated him from the Blue Wolves. He marked the approximate place where he had appeared. From there, he mapped the path he took after discovering traces of the A-rank team, adding the corridors, the rooms, the resting chamber, and finally, the three passages.

He marked the left route.

Dead end.

Then the middle.

Underground stream.

Stone bridge.

Broken statue.

Coin.

His hand stopped.

Amos stared at the word for several seconds before continuing.

Finally, he added the right passage.

Large chamber.

Airflow.

Four remains.

He leaned back.

That was it.

At least, all he was sure of.

Still, something nagged at him.

The remains.

Amos slowly turned his head, his gaze slipping into the darkness beyond the camp. He remembered the moment they’d come across them—four skeletons, four sets of gear—and the way he’d reacted before he even knew why. That feeling hadn’t been random. He had known something, even if he hadn’t wanted to admit it. Looking down at his drawing, his eyes lingered on the number. Four. His expression tightened.

"...No."

He stood quietly, eyes drifting over the sleeping figures—Harold, Daren, Vena, Tessa. All four were there, alive and breathing.

Amos looked toward the enormous chamber.

Then he glanced back at them. Quietly, he picked up his weapon and slipped away from the camp. He needed to see the remains again—not from afar, not with a crowd gathered around—just alone.

He crossed the chamber slowly.

The magical light he’d left by the remains was nearly gone, but still bright enough to see. The four skeletons lay exactly where they had been. Amos crouched beside the first and examined it closely. Nothing. He moved to the second. Nothing. At the third, his gaze lingered on the scattered equipment. He picked up a damaged piece, turned it over—and froze. His grip tightened. He knew it. Not because it was rare or unique, but because he’d seen it on someone. Many times.

Amos gently set it down again, his gaze shifting to the fourth set of remains. He stepped closer, his breaths growing softer, almost intentionally muted.

He went through the equipment slowly, one item at a time—a weapon, a frayed strap, a fastening he knew well, a small personal keepsake. Then another piece. Amos’s expression emptied completely. He stood there for what felt like ages, no thoughts breaking the surface, just staring in silence.

Finally, he looked back toward the camp.

Four figures lay as if asleep. Turning back toward the remains, there were four skeletons.

His mind began connecting everything he'd spent days trying not to connect.

Conflicting memories lingered, tied to the middle passage and a single coin. There was the version of events everyone but him seemed to recall, and then the odd gaps in his own mind. All of it left him with the nagging sense that something important was missing.

And now this.

Amos slowly closed his eyes.

For the first time since entering the ruin, he made a silent prayer.

He wasn't religious.

He had never been particularly interested in gods.

But right now, he genuinely wished—more than anything—that he was wrong.

He opened his eyes and checked one last detail. There was no doubt—Amos knew these people. He’d spent days traveling with them, knew their gear, their habits, what belonged to each of them. And the remains before him were theirs. All four. Harold. Daren. Vena. Tessa. Amos’s lips parted.

Nothing came out.

He glanced at the skeletons again, then back toward the camp. His companions were still there, alive and sleeping soundly. Amos stood frozen between the two sights. For once, no clever explanation came to mind—no theory, no calculation, not even a sarcastic quip. Just nothing. He simply stood in silence, having finally confirmed the one conclusion he’d been dreading was true.

The moment Amos confirmed the remains, something shifted. Not in the chamber, not in the air—inside him. A faint sensation grazed the back of his mind, like someone calling his name from a great distance. Slowly, Amos turned his head.

"...Huh?"

There was nothing. The vast chamber stayed silent as he glanced back at the camp, where Harold, Daren, Vena, and Tessa still slept soundly. Then it came again—stronger this time. Not a voice, not exactly, but more like a pull, a direction. Amos froze, every instinct telling him to follow, which of course was a terrible idea. He sighed.

"Of course."

He looked toward the sleeping team one last time.

Then quietly walked into the darkness.

***

He had no clue how long he been walking.

The massive chamber seemed to go on endlessly, yet that strange pull never let up.

Finally, Amos reached a wall.

Just a plain, ordinary wall.

He frowned.

"...Seriously?"

The feeling came from the other side. Amos set his hand on the stone. Nothing. He pushed harder. Still nothing. Then his eyes narrowed. There—a faint line, almost invisible. He ran his fingers along it.

A hidden door.

Amos smiled faintly.

"Now we're getting somewhere."

He pushed, but nothing happened. He tried again, harder this time—still nothing. Then his eyes caught a small symbol carved into the wall. It wasn’t a rune he knew, nor any language he’d learned, yet somehow, the instant his fingers brushed against it, the wall reacted.

SHIIIIING—

Light spilled over the ancient stone, and the hidden door faded away.Amos stared.

"...I really hope I'm not making a terrible decision."

He stepped through.

The door vanished the moment he stepped through. Amos froze, turned back, and found only a solid wall where it had been.

"...Great."

He sighed.

"Definitely a terrible decision."

Then he looked forward.

And forgot about the door.

The room was enormous.

Unlike the rest of the ruin, this chamber had been preserved almost perfectly.

The walls were covered in thousands of hieroglyphs. Some were carved deep into the stone, others painted in faded pigments, and a few seemed to be made of some metallic material that faintly reflected his mana.

Amos slowly walked forward.

His eyes wandered from one symbol to the next, picking out familiar patterns—writing, records, historical accounts. But this wasn’t just an inscription; it was a story, a long one. Amos focused on the first section, where a sequence of figures emerged. At first, there was nothing.

Then—

It started with people in a small settlement, building houses, farming, crafting tools, and raising families. The civilization began to take shape. Amos watched as the settlement grew into a village, then a city, and eventually something vast. Towers climbed into the sky, roads stretched outward, and the streets filled with life. Magic appeared in the drawings, and grand structures rose. The civilization thrived.Amos slowly whispered,

"...So this is how they started."

He moved farther along the wall.

The images changed.

War erupted. One army appeared, then another. Buildings went up in flames as people fled. Soon came famine, followed by disease, and then monsters.

Then something Amos couldn't identify.

A massive black shape appeared above the civilization.

He frowned.

"...What happened here?"

He continued.

The civilization fought, adapted, and survived—for a time. Then came another chapter. People began to vanish, cities stood empty, grand towers crumbled, and roads lay deserted. The population dwindled until, at last, the civilization was no more.

Amos stood silently before the final image.

A deserted city, with no people, no armies, no signs of life. Nothing moves, only the silent remains of ruins.

His eyes narrowed.

"So that's what happened to you."

But that wasn’t the end. The hieroglyphs went on, and Amos’s expression shifted. The people had known their civilization was collapsing—and they’d made preparations. He stepped closer. The next carvings revealed massive underground structures. Not homes. Not temples. Something different. Machines. Chambers. Circular platforms. Huge crystalline containers. And an endless array of symbols encircling them.

Amos stared.

"...What is this?"

The drawings grew more intricate. One depicted a person stepping into a chamber, another revealed the glowing outline of a human body, and yet another showed what looked like memories being transferred into a crystalline structure. Amos’s eyes narrowed.

"Are they preserving people?"

He kept reading.

The next scene made him pause. The last generation of the civilization stood together—not fighting, not fleeing, but building. They were constructing something beneath the city, something massive and hidden, a secret place beneath the ruins of their dying world.

And then Amos saw the purpose.

His expression gradually hardened as the hieroglyphs revealed an underground facility being stocked—records, knowledge, tools, seeds, magic, artifacts—everything needed to rebuild their civilization.

Then came another image.

A lone figure stood in the chamber, with another beside them—nearly identical. Amos watched as the scene shifted. One became two, two became four, and soon there were dozens. The sequence revealed people being recreated, not merely resurrected.

Reconstructed.

Amos's eyes widened slightly.

"...You were going to start over."

He glanced across the wall, where the final hieroglyphs depicted the complete collapse of the surface civilization, while the underground facility remained untouched.

Waiting.

Waiting for someone to breathe life into it.

Waiting for civilization to rise once more.

Amos slowly stepped backward.

His thoughts spun wildly—ruins scattered everywhere, strange mechanisms ticking away, impossible paths twisting into the unknown. Memories flickered in and out. Four adventurers gone, four still alive. Gaps in his own mind he couldn’t explain. Amos fixed his gaze on the final hieroglyph, and for the first time, an unsettling idea took root. Maybe this place wasn’t meant just to preserve a civilization.

Maybe it was built to recreate one.

And if that was true—

Then the question wasn't whether the ruin could reconstruct the dead.

The question was—

What exactly did it consider so necessary to reconstruct?

Amos remained completely silent.

His gaze drifted back to the image of the two identical figures. Something about it gnawed at him, deep and unsettling, though he couldn’t yet say why. Somewhere in the ancient room, a mechanism stirred to life in quiet secrecy.

Click.

Amos turned.

A faint light appeared beneath the floor.

Then another.

Then another.

The entire chamber began to illuminate.