Raising the Princess to Overcome Death-Chapter 286: Engagement - Banun Launo
285. Engagement - Banun Launo
The temple was wide open. Ray and Rera swallowed hard, looking around its perimeter.
Each side of the square temple had six columns. The walls were not fully enclosed, with some space between the walls and the ceiling, allowing glimpses of the interior. It was clear that this place was not meant for habitation.
Yet, it felt like someone was watching them.
It wasn’t a hostile gaze that sent chills down their spines, but more like the gaze a child might feel from a father standing behind them, filled with one-sided trust.
It was somewhat contradictory.
A father might worry about his child near water but would hardly watch them with pure trust.
Yet, that’s exactly how Ray felt. He sensed a great being who cherished him, gazing at him with reverence.
Ray realized the familiarity of this feeling and soon recognized its origin. It was similar to how Sir Bart had looked at them back when they were Lean de Yriel.
“Dad?”
Rera’s expression was similarly conflicted. But… Dad? While the sensation of unilateral trust was usually something one felt from a father, Ray’s conclusion was “loyalty.” It wasn’t something that reminded him of Noel or Dehor, yet Rera suddenly rushed forward.
“Dad!!”
— Dad- Dad- Dad- ad- ad ad.
Rera’s voice echoed emptily in the deserted temple. It was in vain; Dehor was not here.
What kind of illusion had ensnared them? Ray, who followed her up the three steps, looked around the interior of the temple.
The inside was a single cella, with the outer colonnades visible from within. The only difference between the inside and outside was that the columns were adorned with reliefs on the inner walls, more akin to fences than proper walls.
Stories of humans.
The walls were carved with the tales of various figures. Ray looked up, his gaze following the carvings along the walls, and noticed why the temple’s walls were distinctively separated from the ceiling.
If one looked up from the uncolored carvings, one’s eyes would leap to the ceiling, where a dense pattern of geometric shapes swirled dizzyingly.
A being beyond the scope of humanity.
The supreme deity, the image of the main god.
Since gods can only be comprehended through ideas, the visage of the deity was represented only through points like stars and lines like constellations.
If one revered a god beyond human understanding and craned their head back as far as it could go, they would see the moon. The blue lotus moon hung in the square-shaped opening of the temple ceiling.
And on the floor, bathed in the blue moonlight, stood a lone sword firmly planted in the ground...
Ray noticed a small inscription near the sword and felt utterly embarrassed. The inscription read:
— Boris Ainar was here!
The markings appeared to have been made with charcoal.
...I apologize on behalf of humanity.
Feeling his face flush, Ray hastily erased the charcoal marks with his foot. That’s when he noticed that the sword embedded in the floor was vibrating, just like his own.
This was what had drawn them here. Ray cautiously gripped the sword. A message silently appeared before him.
[This is not yours.]
“...Rera, come over here.”
“What is that?”
Rera still looked bewildered. The quiet yet lively atmosphere of the temple made her uneasy.
“Try grabbing this. It won’t budge.”
“If you can’t pull it out, why would I be able to—Whoa! This one’s vibrating too.”
Rera grabbed the vibrating hilt with both hands, planted her feet firmly, and pulled. To her surprise, it came out effortlessly, and she fell backward onto the ground.
“Ow! What the—It just came out!”
Rera grumbled as she clutched the sword, but neither she nor Ray noticed that the blue lotus moon above had subtly rotated as the sword was pulled free.
Rera, clutching the sword nearly as large as herself, draped it over her shoulder.
Despite having fallen for a simple trick, curiosity piqued Rera, and she examined the sword. Meanwhile, Ray was distracted by another message that had appeared.
[Congratulations. The item has been bound to ‘Rera.’]
Half of the blade was white, as if stained by divine blood, similar to Manubium. The sword’s name was:
*
A’bota
*.
It was a sword given by Reisia to Todler Akiunen, the king who relied on his younger brother for nearly everything except brute strength.
*
“Wow, this really looks incredible. I can keep it, right?”
Ray nodded faintly. It was undoubtedly hers, validated by the system’s message. Rera, who had been using any random sword she could find since Noel took the family sword, was overjoyed and spoke up.
“But what is this place for? I feel... strange here. Like someone’s watching. It doesn’t feel bad, but…”
Ray shrugged.
If he had known, he would’ve paid more attention to old man Boris’s stories. But it was too late to regret it now, so Ray looked around the quiet temple once more.
The carvings on the wall seemed like they might hold some clues. Just as he was about to approach, he noticed an unusual stone slab lying in a corner of the temple.
Everything else was glowing, but that spot wasn’t. He moved closer to examine it and realized that the stone embedded in the floor was...
“A grave.”
It was the cover of someone’s tomb.
The inscription on the stone slab was written in a script so old that it was considered a dead language even during the Arcaea Empire’s era. Nevertheless, because it was the precursor to the Arcaean language, Ray managed to make out a few words.
“Foolish… devotion. A loyal retainer rests here. Huh? Banun Launo?”
Ray’s eyes widened.
“Do you know him?”
“Hold on, let me figure this out. I’m not even sure I’m reading this correctly. As far as I know, it should be Laono, not Launo. Why is it written as Launo here?”
If this person was indeed the Banun he knew, then it should be pronounced Banun “Laono.”
Banun Laono was humanity’s first noble and Toddler's first loyal subject. He was such a famous figure that the ceremony to name a noble’s heir was called “Banun” in his honor, making him unmistakably well-known.
But here, it was incorrectly inscribed.
What puzzled Ray, however, wasn’t just the misspelling; the condition of the slab was excellent, and the pronunciation of “U” in the name was consistent with the adjacent word, Ban‘u’n, which matched modern pronunciation.
What could this mean? There’s no way the surname Laono was wrong.
Laono, as the first noble’s family, was a prominent name. Though the lineage had long vanished through the storms of history, it had produced many notable figures, from great generals to artists. Among the most famous were the Second Saint, Constino Laono, and the Third Saint, Lazar Laono, both venerated by the Church.
Thus, it was hard to believe that the record on this slab was incorrect.
This was a mystical temple, a place under the watchful eye of a deity, where a false name would never be inscribed. Even if there were people who would scribble graffiti, no one would lie about their own name. As Ray pondered, something suddenly came to mind.
The Launo Family of Orville. And then,
+ …One day, while teaching swordsmanship to Katrina, Lean met Cassia. On his way, he encountered a beggar with a broken arm. Intrigued by the beggar’s use of courtly manners, Lean followed him and, upon the beggar’s request, investigated the ‘Launo Family,’ fulfilling the man’s string of requests, who claimed to have once been the chamberlain of the Tatalia royal family… +
This was information from the ending text of a previous cycle.
Setting aside how a former royal chamberlain had fallen into such a state, what was the reason behind his request to investigate the Launo Family?
Even at its best, it was nothing more than a gang.
Ray started to wonder if Banun’s true surname was Launo, not Laono, as commonly known. Perhaps it was mised at some point, or maybe… there was something he didn’t know.
‘It’s strange how I keep getting tangled up with this Launo family.’
Early in this cycle, he had scraped the bottom while living through the scenario of the beggar siblings, where he first learned of the group. Then, in the ninth cycle, he officially joined through Cassia.
After Cassia had been freed from her shackles, Lean met Jenia and thought his ties with the Launo Family would end there. Yet, the Launo Family ran the theater where Jenia worked, and Lerialia had shown a strong liking for a boy named Santian Launo, continuing the connection.
And now, it had come to the point where he had to “investigate” them.
Ray stored the thought of Banun Launo in his mind. It was a matter for Lean de Yriel to resolve within the beggar siblings scenario.
Taking his eyes off the slab, Ray and Rera circled around the temple’s cella, deciding to enjoy the carvings on the walls as a rare date activity.
However, the carvings were difficult to interpret.
Though they depicted human stories and only a few figures were drawn as protagonists, there were no captions to explain who the scenes were about or what the circumstances were. Moreover, whether intended as metaphors or not, the appearance of some characters varied from scene to scene.
A boy leapt from a cliff. His head was adorned with horns, making him look monstrous, but in the very next scene, he appeared normal.
It was unclear how someone who had jumped from a cliff could have survived, yet the boy appeared intermittently as a monster.
In another sequence, one character was entirely replaced by another.
A woman offered a vial to a troubled man, but a few scenes later, she was wearing his clothes and sitting in his place.
Given the limitations of stone carvings, it might just be a misinterpretation.
The only ways to distinguish the characters were through their consistently depicted clothing and prominent facial features. But as the characters aged or changed status, the narrative flow became jarring.
Ray and Rera admired the carvings, thinking they were impressive, and made sure to check if there was anything else hidden before leaving the mysterious temple. Besides Banun Launo’s grave, there was nothing else of note.
But after Ray and Rera left, the temple, once more silent, was visited by a faint, hazy figure.
Depicted with lush curly hair and a round nose, it was the troubled man from the carvings. He watched the two departing figures disappear along the canyon for a long time before a powerful voice turned him around.
= Banun Launo. How does it feel to reunite with your foolish old lord and Reisia? Are you overwhelmed?
- …No, Lord Lachar.
The embodiment of war and honor asked again.
= Then were you saddened, disappointed by the loss of your past glory, or angered that your sacrifice has been forgotten?
- I am neither, Lord Lachar.
= Then what did you feel?
Banun, who had waited for ten thousand years, quietly answered.
- Why do you ask such a thing of me, Lord Lachar? They are neither Lord Leonel nor Lady Reisia. Just as I am not truly Banun Launo. You’re being mischievous.
Lachar’s laughter shook the temple. He laughed like thunder, and Banun cautiously inquired.
- How long must these sacrifices continue to be offered? Can you still not forgive them?
Lachar smiled faintly. As the blue lotus moon was obscured by clouds and the temple began to fade, he finally answered.
= Not much longer. The next will be the last, so your waiting will soon come to an end.
Soon, when the blue lotus moon vanished, only an empty space remained in the canyon.
Chapter 286: Engagement - Banun Launo
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