Ch.315Chapter 315 – Secret

After clearing out the remnants of the demon race, we began the task of disposing of their bodies.

“Move all the heretics’ bodies outside. They will be burned with holy flames, so handle them with care.”

Under the direction and supervision of the priests, the holy knights began carrying the demon corpses outside.

The number of demons was around 100 at most, so it didn’t take much time to move them.

After about two hours, once the interior cleanup was mostly complete, exploration of the place began.

Some might ask, “Why remain in a heretical stronghold?” But in my view, this place was worth exploring.

‘It strangely feels like I’ve seen this somewhere before.’

From the start of the battle until confronting the elder, I hadn’t had the leisure to look around this place.

Being surrounded by 600 people, it wasn’t suitable for independent action.

But now that we had eliminated all the demon remnants, we had some time on our hands.

Of course, we had to consider the worst-case scenario that some demons might have escaped our encirclement.

‘But we don’t need to worry about that.’

If any demons escaped, we could track their location through divine revelation.

Even without divine guidance, if they were able to flee from us, they probably weren’t that powerful.

So even if we left this place, it was reasonable to assume that demons wouldn’t dare threaten the continent.

Anyway, we needed to explore this underground facility that had been used as the demons’ base.

“It seems the demons wouldn’t have the ability to build such a facility.”

“I agree. It’s too alien to have been built by demons.”

The priests, accompanied by escort knights, moved around observing and recording everything inside the facility.

I too was exploring the facility with Eterna.

The materials and design used in this facility looked familiar to me.

Who knows? It could be something from another world.

‘This looks like stainless steel?’

And I discovered that the walls of this facility were made of stainless steel.

It wasn’t that I had the ability to distinguish stainless steel from regular steel, but I noticed protective vinyl that hadn’t been removed.

It had “stainless steel” written in blue letters on a white background. In English, no less.

‘I never thought I’d see the alphabet again in this world.’

Other priests were saying these letters were a language used by demons, but knowing what they really were, I felt rather disheartened.

One thing was certain though: this facility was made by a civilization that used English or at least the English alphabet, similar to Earth where I had lived.

“Hmm. What could this be?”

“It looks like some kind of small mechanical device…”

Just then, the priests seemed to have discovered something in a small room.

I moved with Eterna to see what they had found, and what I saw was…

‘That’s… a computer?’

It was indeed a computer from Earth. A box-shaped metal structure with a glass panel showing the interior, where a graphics card, cooler, memory, and other components were visible.

The heat sink attached to the motherboard suggested it was a fairly high-performance computer.

“Hmm? Father Pathos, do you know what that is?”

Eterna must have noticed my expression change subtly and thought I knew what it was.

“Yes. That’s a machine called a computer. It’s specialized for rapid numerical calculations. However, it seems to be non-operational due to lack of power.”

“How fascinating. You even know the purpose of such an object.”

Of course I do. I came from a world where such things were made and used.

The priests examined the computer for quite some time, but lost interest when there was no response and moved elsewhere.

I continued investigating the facility with Eterna.

“Hmm…”

Judging from the hydroponic facilities, cultured meat machines, air purification systems, water purification systems, and resource regeneration facilities, it seemed the demons had been living on food produced here.

However, I couldn’t see where power was being supplied to the entire facility, but the question was resolved faster than expected.

“There’s something collapsed and blocked here.”

“There seems to be writing, but I can’t read it.”

The priests had found a passage blocked by collapsed rocks.

I approached the passage they discovered and found a sign with “REACTOR ROOM” written in English.

The passage the priests found seemed to lead to the power reactor that supplied energy to this facility.

But the passage was collapsed due to a pile of rocks, and there were signs that someone had intentionally blocked it.

I found a journal that looked like it had been hastily written and left behind.

I picked up the journal and checked its contents.

[This is the record of day 4765 since being stranded in this desolate land. Anomalies have begun to occur in the reactor installed in the power room. We had to collapse the passage to the reactor for our survival. Fortunately, power continues to be supplied, but occasionally there are malfunctions in the life-support systems. If someone were to normalize the reactor of this facility, reactivation of the power plant would be necessary. But it would be meaningless, as no one could enter that place now contaminated with radiation. The emergency power is about to run out. Tomorrow I’ll have to go check if there are any parts left in the destroyed spaceship for repairing the auxiliary reactor.]

The content of the journal was quite shocking… because it was written in Korean.

The content itself was also shocking. The power room was closed due to radiation leakage, and the people who came here had arrived by spaceship and been stranded.

If so, they seemed to have a civilization far more advanced than the Earth I had lived on, but why was no one left here?

‘I have something to ask Epitrina.’

I carefully tucked the journal into my breast pocket. It seemed like this journal might hold some secrets.

Fortunately, no one saw me take the journal.

After the investigation was somewhat complete, we returned to the surface and repaired and reattached the broken door.

The intention was to prevent anyone else from settling here.

“If we fix the door, won’t it be inconvenient for the follow-up team when they come to explore?”

“They can break down the door just like we did, can’t they?”

Hmm, that’s true. If a holy knight with a hammer broke this door, surely they could do it again?

I took one last look at the neatly repaired door and returned to the base with everyone.

When we arrived at the coastal base, a ship loaded with supplies and personnel had already docked.

People were continuously unloading items from the ship at the temporary pier.

As we approached the palisade built around the base, the guard knight opened it upon seeing us.

“Apostle! You’ve returned!”

“We have successfully eliminated the demon remnants.”

I informed the people who had remained at the base that the operation to eliminate the demon remnants had been successful, and people began to cheer.

“Now we will leave a minimal number of people here to maintain contact with the mainland, and the rest of us will return to our families.”

Our job was to eliminate the demons here, and with that resolved, there was no reason for us to stay any longer.

After all, an expedition team would be coming to this land, so we were essentially the advance party for them.

So we decided to leave the full-scale exploration to the expedition team and return home.

‘I should come back here once more later.’

After returning to the empire by ship, I immediately headed to Epitrina’s temple.

“Welcome, Apostle. The goddess said you would come, so we’ve been waiting.”

As I entered the temple, a priest who knew I was coming had prepared a place.

When I entered the prayer room in the center of the temple, the door closed automatically and Epitrina appeared with golden particles.

“…Welcome. You must have many questions?”

“Yes, Epitrina.”

“Please sit. We have much to discuss, and it would be awkward to talk while standing.”

Epitrina created chairs and a table with her power, and I sat down across from her.

“Well then. Where shall I begin?”