By Zephyria 
Benjamin, seated opposite me in the carriage, let out a string of sighs. He seemed like a kettle on the verge of boiling over.
“Not marrying is fine. I understand that. Many wizards don’t have the luxury of starting a family, and looking at Marianne’s seniors and juniors, fewer than three or four are actually married.”
“…”
“But, not wanting me… I’ve always thought that was a different issue. I wish she knew that I’m not someone who can leave Marianne’s side at any moment. It’s something I’ve struggled to express, no matter how many times I’ve tried.”
“…”
“I know I’m not someone who gets overly excited about wealth, but still, I have no interest in a marriage that’s one-sided. I told her that if she ever wanted to marry someone later, anyone would be fine, and she just had to say the word. That I’d still consider her a friend even if I married someone else… But then.”
“…But then?”
“Today, while we were talking about how to spend the five hundred thousand gold, she suddenly said, ‘If you build a decent house, I can spare a room for you. If you want to come live here, just say the word.’”
“…Ah.”
Marianne was a girl with immense pride. All three of us here knew that well.
She could tolerate an imbalance in titles she believed she could attain herself later, but she couldn’t stand Benjamin gaining wealth he was born with through marriage. If she had so many wealthy friends, why… No, that wasn’t it. Why would she ask her close friends for something she wouldn’t even ask of her lover?
Benjamin’s flushed eyes sparkled, almost glaring.
“How could I possibly miss this opportunity? It feels like now or never.”
His voice simmered with affection as he spoke. He murmured as if making a declaration, “As soon as the sun rises tomorrow, I plan to propose. I’ll be happy even if you just give me a barn to live in, just say you’ll live with me.”
Ruben and I merely nodded in response.
A hollow smile touched Benjamin’s lips. It seemed he had just realized the absurdity of his actions. Even though he had gotten caught up in this love game, he somehow felt cheerful. Our eyes met, and he clasped my hand.
All the shops were closed, but the jewelry district glowed brightly under the unextinguished streetlights.
After sending the coachman away, I opened a path through Benjamin’s spirit.
The gnome guarding the warehouse, thinking Marianne had come to keep her promise, hopped around excitedly before slumping down dejectedly. Benjamin handed me a dagger from his person and went to find a ring for his proposal. I stood still, supporting Ruben’s shoulder, afraid he might fall.
I saw so many expressions on Ruben’s face today, all for the first time.
Leaning against me, Ruben’s gaze swept across the distant tower of gold coins and the weapons displayed on multiple levels. The distance between doors prevented us from seeing into the other three rooms from our current position.
Ruben stood motionless, closing and opening his eyes several times, then suddenly raised his hand as if to slap his own cheek. I immediately grabbed his wrist to stop him. Only then did Ruben’s lips part slightly, letting out a sound that was barely a sound.
“This… is real?”
“Yes. Since Marianne and Baroness Vikoff both confirmed it, it must be.”
“…A Dragon’s Lair, beneath the capital.”
“Wasn’t there even a legend about it?”
“Empress Argentia is said to have been a modest and elegant woman. It’s hard to believe that a mere commoner, who didn’t even run a merchant guild, could have amassed such wealth…”
Perhaps that’s why she suspected I created these marvels.
After a moment of thought, Ruben led me by the wrist towards the fourth room. The spot where Old Man Marcus had fallen, filled with various artifacts and statues, remained open as I had told Ruben. We moved without hesitation, having confirmed multiple times that the golems below did not venture beyond a certain range.
“Why here first?”
“In such a vast space, if there’s a guardian golem, there must be something here. You mentioned that all but one were Level 5 Circle golems. Young Lady Philodendor wouldn’t miss a magical device of that level, so there must be some mechanism.”
“Indeed, Ruben is better at spotting such things.”
“…Mm.”
I suppressed a laugh at his sudden shyness.
As before, I went down first, and Ruben followed, with me helping him. Indeed, Ruben saw many things from a different perspective than Marianne.
“This place… it looks like a space built to resemble a shrine.”
“A shrine?”
“Yes. The architectural style suggests it. On both sides, pillars are carved in relief, and each pillar has nine vertical lines. The molding supporting the ceiling is curved, and the floor has irregularly arranged five-colored tiles, symbolizing a sky full of clouds and land where flowers and grains sing in rows.”
“The floor tiles… weren’t they like that in the corridor long before we entered the Lair? And there was a portrait of Argentia on the ceiling then.”
“Yes, but there were no pillars like these there. The person who designed this secret space must have wanted to protect something in the name of a god. Of course, she lived in the era before the Shiaren Great Reform, and like us, she might have been able to face the gods directly…”
As we moved to the next room, I pushed back the attacking golems with my energy, just as before.
Ruben, walking as if on a stroll, had a refreshed expression even after witnessing my strength. It was clear he had put his worries to rest, knowing I could endure as a human, no matter how much power I displayed. I should have told him my thoughts sooner if I had known.
We soon arrived at the final room.
The golem guarding this place had already been moved to Marianne’s laboratory. In the vast, empty space, only a low altar was placed. Ruben, holding my forearm, cautiously stepped forward. For Ruben’s sake, I recounted the story Marianne and I had devised.
“We searched this entire room, but there wasn’t a single magic circle to be found, no matter how hard we looked. We only managed to determine that the golems that attacked intruders here possessed martial prowess comparable to a Grand Sword Master.”
“…This doesn’t look like an altar.”
“Huh?”
The square stone block before me was just large enough for a goat or a small child to curl up on. The top was well-polished, and the sides were carved with heavy volumes of various flora and fauna.
According to Marianne, the grooves around the altar were remnants of ancient worship. It was a device designed to allow blood from sacrifices to flow in a beautiful and sacred manner. The grooves encircling the altar evoked grim imaginings.
I scanned the object, which to my eyes looked like an altar, several times. Ruben’s hand traced the upper corner of the altar, then the raised patterns and grooves below.
“An altar is meant to hold sacrifices, isn’t it? Then it shouldn’t be this low. The Nine Gods are beings closer to the heavens than the earth. Besides, these grooves… they’re broken in places. If you drew blood from a sacrifice, it wouldn’t even seep to the floor.”
“…Then what?”
“This… it just looks like a box that imitates the appearance of an altar.”
“Hmm?”
“But the question is, how do we open it?”
A box.
After a moment of thought, I gripped the sides of the altar and tried to lift it slightly. Click. Something meshed, but it didn’t lift easily. It wasn’t stuck to the floor, which was proof it was held by some mechanism.
“Should I just break it?”
“What if there’s something inside? Wait a moment… let me examine it more closely.”
“Yes.”
Ruben’s eyes sparkled with renewed excitement.
Not knowing what might pop out when this box opened, I stood by Ruben’s side with my sword ready. Ruben, tilting his head and tracing the top and bottom surfaces of the altar with his fingertips, let out a small exclamation as if he had figured something out.
“…I think I can open it. The order of the animal reliefs attached here is reversed.”
“What? Reversed?”
“If these reliefs are supposed to be a sequential listing of the animals that appeared on the seventh day… then the order of the sheep and camel seems to be swapped here. And the rabbit is also before the peacock. This… Ah. It’s coming off.”
Ruben managed to pull out a few of the animal reliefs, which seemed to be perfectly fitted, and reinserted the removed pieces in the correct order. Click. Click. The sound of mechanical parts meshing together echoed.
Before pushing in the last piece, Ruben paused and stood still. He quietly handed the relief to me. I stepped back behind Ruben and carefully inserted what I received into the empty space.
Click.
The mana that spread out was immediately swallowed whole. Primordial Mana surged, attempting to envelop the space, but it was impossible as long as I was here. Ruben, whose Qi sense had awakened, flinched for a brief moment, but then clung to my back and peeked forward.
Inside the opened box was a tiara. A tiara with a large, pale green gem set in the center.
“…Hmm.”
“Is this Argentia’s?”
“This… yes. It is.”
So, should I give this to my mother-in-law? A symbol of Argentia, suddenly appearing in a mysterious place. Ruben, sensing my thoughts through my gaze, shook his head.
“We can’t give it to Mother like this. It could be dangerous, and the reason Argentia was considered frugal was precisely because of this tiara’s center piece.”
“Frugal?”
It hardly seemed frugal, with the gems surrounding the center piece looking like diamonds. I looked again, wondering if my eyes were deceiving me. Ruben looked up at me and winked, smiling charmingly.
“Empress Argentia left behind many portraits, occasionally changing the center piece of this tiara. But this center piece here is not transparent and has too many inclusions. So, many nobles thought she had poor taste in gems. However… this doesn’t seem like a gem. No, it’s definitely not a gem.”
“This isn’t a gem?”
“No. Looking at it now… it doesn’t seem like a Mana Stone either.”
Ruben very cautiously reached out and gently traced the gem set in the center of the tiara. Very carefully, as if touching something terrifying. As his fingertips made contact, something faintly pulsed from within.
“…I think this might be the Dragon Heart, which I’ve only heard of in legends.”
“…This?”
Then, is it an unsuitable gift for my mother-in-law?
If it were a dragon’s heart, it would suit Monarch Ruben far better. As I closely examined the dazzling tiara, with its very feminine design, Ruben nudged my forearm with his shoulder and rubbed against it.
“Let’s go up. We might be able to find the gems that were used as the center pieces for this tiara.”