Chapter 22: The Ancient Ruin

Contrary to Sung-Woon’s worries, Lakrak already seemed interested.

Lakrak had been exposed to too many things ever since he was young to turn down an adventure. Lakrak had lost both his parents when he was a child, so he had to grow up without anyone’s help, and he had also fought a sabertooth tiger to protect his tribe at the time when they had gotten kicked out into the wilderness.

This caught Sung-Woon’s eye, and to Sung-Woon, Lakrak seemed to have the qualities to be a tribal chief, which also led to him becoming a High Priest that acted on behalf of God’s wills.

Not too long ago, with the help of God, Lakrak defeated the violent Lizardmen tribal chief, Beauer, flipped Beauer’s drake with one hand, and also defeated an Ancient Coleoptera when they crossed the wilderness once again. After that, he saw through the deceits of the Frogmen tribe that he met for the first time in his life and witnessed the guardian he believed in cut the inferior fiend the Frogmen worshiped into pieces.

Lakrak’s life had been full of excitement. He didn’t think of a new adventure as something dangerous, but rather as a trigger that could change the future.

There were many who opposed it when Lakrak said he would go to the Ancient Ruin himself, but his stubbornness won in the end. Zaol then told Lakrak that if he was going, she would have to go with him as his companion. And this time Lakrak couldn’t win with a logical argument.

The next day, Lakrak and Zaol started their journey and were accompanied by six additional warriors. Owen was also with them as their guide.

Sung-Woon was a little worried.

‘The ancient ruins are a little different. You might be disappointed.’

Unlike the fiends and abominations who appeared according to a player’s Divinity level, locations of ancient ruins were already set at the beginning of the game, which meant that the difficulties of the challenges were also predetermined. Therefore, at this stage of the game, it wouldn’t be surprising for Lakrak to be stopped at the entrance to the Ancient Ruin without even the chance to give the challenge a go due to not meeting the challenge requirements, commonly known as an invisible wall.

𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

‘But even in that case, it’s still worth discovering an ancient ruin. Even if it may be useless right now, Lakrak has lots of interest in writing, so his clan or their descendants may discover it later on.’

There were a few kinds of things that could be obtained just by successfully entering ancient ruins.

‘First, there’s Ancient Knowledge.’

Ancient Knowledge was also known as Ancient Technology. It was called ‘ancient,’ but in the game The Lost World, ancient things were comparable to things in the most modern and advanced civilizations, entering these kinds of Ancient Ruins could yield advanced knowledge and technology that had degenerated over time.

‘But usually it isn’t even possible to get past the entrance if the level of civilization is too low.’

No matter what, the doors to an ancient ruin would never open accidentally, and in many cases, required various archeological knowledge on technology of the era right before the era of the ancient ruin.

Sung-Woon actually thought of these Ancient Ruins as technology farming dungeons made for the progression of the game.

‘So there’s no need for Ancient Knowledge to be given in ruins at this stage of time. Then would it be Rank Knowledge or skills?’

Just like livestock farming and agriculture, being able to obtain knowledge and technology indicated that the level of civilization was still low. Knowledge and technology would eventually be developed overtime, so it wasn’t necessary to discover an Ancient Ruin, but acquiring various kinds of knowledge and technology never hurt.

‘At the moment, it seems like Rank Knowledge would be the best to have. That way, it would also be possible to adequately raise Lakrak’s, Zaol’s, or Owen’s XP.’

Obtaining something did feel good, but what was obtained could be difficult to use at times.

‘Mystery.’

Among the Ancient Ruins, there were cases where the ruins themselves had special powers. These special powers included automatically creating special resources, colonies of particular organisms being formed, converting certain resources to other resources, cursing or blessing the surrounding areas, or applying a status effect to a tribe or species that think they have ownership of the ruin.

‘Mysteries themselves are good most of the time. The only problem is most Mysteries are predetermined. It’ll be hard for Lakrak’s Clan to properly utilize a Mystery as they’re already thinking of Livestock Farming.’

Splitting the clan wasn’t a problem, but their geographical location was. Mysteries weren’t always good, and Sung-Woon had already led Lakrak’s Clan into the inner part of the peninsula, far away from the other players. Even if the Mystery was on the good end, it would be hard to properly utilize it.

‘When beginners obtain a Mystery, they try to somehow change their builds to take advantage of it, but in reality, Mysteries rarely play a significant role in winning the game.’

Sung-Woon always believed in the statistics of The Lost World. And there was another thing that he wished he wouldn’t get other than these Mysteries.

‘I mean, as long as it’s not a Demonic Ruin, things should be fine, right?’

In Sung-Woon’s opinion, getting into the ruin wouldn’t be too bad as long as it wasn’t a Demonic Ruin.

‘The chances of it being a Unique Ruin is low.’

Other than Ancient Knowledge, Rank Knowledge, Mysteries, Demonic Ruins, and Unique Ruins, players would usually get other things that were classified as Miscellaneous Relics.

There could be piles of insignificant treasures, such as the Golden Tablet Lakrak had already obtained. It would have been of great value in the middle ages or modern times, but they weren’t at that stage of development yet.

‘Well, it would be useful to have a magical item as an ancient relic. It would be advantageous in future battles.’

Sung-Woon decided to wait and see what would happen, as it seemed that Lakrak’s curiosity and boldness wouldn’t lead to a bad scenario.

***

The entrance to the Ancient Ruin was simple. It was a heavy disk-shaped boulder, so several people who had sufficient strength could just push it aside.

Sung-Woon could see that the ruin wasn’t a Unique Ruin or a dungeon that would give Ancient Knowledge because of how easy it was to enter.

Zaol picked up a squarish rock and stuck it under the disk-shaped boulder so that the entrance wouldn’t become blocked.

“I thought we would have to burn some firewood assuming the cave would be dark, but it’s not,” said Zaol.

“I see that. Is that luminous moss?” asked Lakrak.

Inside the Ancient Ruin was a shockingly large empty space. It was roughly hundreds of meters in diameter, and there was green and red luminous moss here and there, which made it possible to see the overall size of the clearing. In the center of the empty space were arch stone bridges that were around tens of meters tall, and they were placed in a zigzag pattern that led downward.

“I think we’ll have to go on that path where the stones are laid,” said Zaol.

“It would be nice if we could jump down at once,” replied Lakrak.

“Are you going to pray to God?”

“No, I don’t want to bother God with something like this… And besides, I can’t just go down alone.”

Zaol looked at Lakrak’s expression of pure anticipation. She was going to ask, ‘Because that wouldn't be fun?’ But in the end, she refrained from doing so.

Lakrak, Zaol, Owen, and four other warriors briefly came together to come up with a plan. The idea of weaving long vines together into ropes was the most reasonable, but considering the time it would take, they decided it would be better to go down the bridge instead. They spent a few more minutes trying to think of something else, but as no great ideas came to them, Lakrak, who believed it was better to end meetings quickly, concluded the meeting, and they moved on to the next task.

They began to go down the bridges with their strong Lizardmen legs.

However, difficulties emerged not long after they got onto the bridges.

“What is that?” asked Lakrak.

“It looks like…a rat. A very big one.”

Owen, who had lived in the area for a long time, replied, “It’s a Nutria. You may have eaten it a few times before.”

“Ah, I remember. I wondered what kind of rat would be so big. But this one looks a lot bigger than the ones we ate.”

An average nutria was about sixty centimeters long and weighed around ten kilograms, but the Nutria Lakrak was looking at seemed to be about a meter long, which meant it would weigh tens of kilograms. Additionally, there was something else that piqued Lakrak’s attention.

“I get why I didn’t think of Nutrias. They don’t travel in groups or charge at people while baring their front teeth like that.”

“Hm, then maybe they aren’t Nutrias.”

“We’ll just call them Rat Monsters.”

It was a simple yet fitting name.

In Lakrak’s opinion, normal animals wouldn’t get hostile towards people for no reason. In fact, they would usually run away, but monsters on the other hand ran towards people as if they had a purpose.

“They might be the ones protecting this place, or maybe they’re just rats… Everyone, prepare your weapons.”

The battle began, but it quickly came to an end. There were around twenty Rat Monsters, which was quite a lot, but Lakrak and his warriors were veterans. While the bridge was quite narrow for all seven Lizardmen to stand on at once, the Rat Monsters charging at them ended up skewered by the warriors’ spears.

Lakrak pulled out the body of a dead Rat Monster and said, “We should be able to eat these, right?”

At those words, Zaol poked at the dead Rat Monster.

“There doesn’t seem to be a reason we can’t, but why is it that you always divide things as edible or inedible?”

“Well, that’s the most important thing, isn’t it?”

“You’re not wrong, but you could look at it in a different way.”

“How so?”

“Would we be able to raise them like the water buffaloes, or not?”

“Interesting… Well, let’s remove the organs first and move along.”

As they quickly took the organs out, Owen asked, “What do you mean by raising them?”

“It means…”

Lakrak was about to answer when he realized he didn’t know what it meant himself.

The water buffaloes were raised for food, but that wasn’t the case with the drake, Manun. They weren’t going to eat Manun.

‘Then is it the same as slaves?’

However, slaves were dissatisfied with their status, while things that were raised seemed somewhat satisfied. Slaves would also receive backlash for doing as they wished so they had to suppress those feelings, but that didn’t seem to apply to things that were raised.

“I’m not sure.”

Lakrak looked at Zaol, expecting her to answer instead, but Zaol also seemed troubled by the question. Zaol soon also gave up on giving a proper answer.

“It hasn’t been long since we’ve raised something, so we don’t know much about it. We’re currently raising water buffaloes and Manun. We gain meat from the buffaloes and strength from Manun, and in exchange, we find plants for the buffaloes and give Manun food. We wish for these relationships to last long. This is the only answer I can give you about what it means to raise something.”

Owen thought that was a good enough answer and said, “Then I think it would be possible to raise fish.”

“Fish? Don’t fish just come and go?”

That was what Lakrak thought. In the swamps and ponds Lakrak used to live around, the fish would gradually decrease as they got eaten and eventually disappeared.

However, Owen, who used to live with the aquatic Frogmen, knew that wasn’t the case in bigger ponds.

“Fish also lay eggs and give birth to young. The Frogmen would warn us against catching fish when it was breeding season.”

“I guess the Frogmen also had some wisdom.”

“They might have been kind until the Two-Headed Fiend appeared.”

Lakrak agreed.

“So how would you raise fish?”

.

“There are fish that grow big, which are easier to catch and eat, but they are also easily eaten by other fish when they are young. Wouldn’t it be possible to stack rocks or wood to make a dike to prevent the younger fish from getting eaten?”

“You mean block the water?”

Lakrak thought it would be difficult to do such a thing in a huge and deep lake, but he didn’t say it out loud as he considered it a unique and good idea regardless of it being difficult in reality.

‘And I’m thinking of dividing the clan into two, so it’ll be cruel to those who have to leave and also to those who have to stay through the winter.’

Lakrak then nodded and said, “It would be nice to find a way to do so.”

Then all of a sudden, one of the warriors handling a Rat Monster screamed.

“Aack!”

Lakrak quickly turned around and asked, “What’s wrong?”

The warrior held his hand in pain; one of his fingers smelled slightly burnt.

“The Rat Monster is still alive.”

“It doesn’t seem like you got bitten though.”

“All I did was touch this living one, and I felt pain.”

Another warrior then raised his spear to kill this Rat Monster, which was glaring at the Lizardmen despite having been pierced.

“Wait!”

Lakrak stopped the warrior and reached toward the Rat Monster.

“It’s dangerous!”

“Don’t worry. I can bear that much of a wound.”

Lakrak touched the Rat Monster with his hand.

Pzzzt!

There was a bright spark.

Lakrak knew the concept of static electricity from when he touched fur leather in winter, but this was too painful to be compared to that. Lakrak clenched his fingers for a moment before opening them again.

“What is this?”

Only Sung-Woon, who was watching everything unfold from behind, realized what it was.

‘Was it a Demonic Ruin that I hoped it would not be?’