Ishiki walked close to the pillars and saw the details in more accuracy. The designs covering them weren't random... they formed a spiral that wound up from base to capital.

Each spiral was a continuous line of text with no breaks, it was written in some weird language... the same one that was on the gates of the temple in the clearing.

'I need to bring Nina here, huh. It would be so nice if i had something like a camera.'

On the base of each of the broken pillars... there were symbols. But for some reason they were destroyed to a level that they were not recognizable.

'Maybe they didn't need them anymore? Or maybe they were, related to the destroying of the pillars.' Ishiki thought, a little frustrated.

Then he moved to the intact pillars that were built in the shadows of the old ones, with the mysterious obsidian material.

It was not surprising that he found symbols under each one of them. He took out the lighter he had gotten from Filch and lit it up to look closely at the symbols.

'Filch's skill sure is very helpful and versatile.' he sighed.

Filch just brought some broken glass pieces, some metallic objects and some fossils. Put them together and turned them into a goddamn lighter using his skill.

It was so cool Ishiki couldn't help but marvel at the sight.

Anyways, now was not the time to remember something like that. He brought the lighter's flame lower and looked at the symbol in more details.

The symbol depicted a figure hunched over what looked like an overflowing chest or treasury. The carving was simple but evocative—the figure's back was curved, its arms wrapped possessively around its hoard, every line suggesting desperate accumulation and refusal to share.

Ishiki studied it for a while and then a word formed into his mind. 'Greed.' though he couldn't have said why that word fit.

The second symbol showed an open mouth with fangs visible and throat exposed—with what might have been food or perhaps other, smaller mouths being drawn into it. The composition suggested endless consumption, appetite that could never be satisfied.

He didn't know what that was... so he moved on to the third pillar. The symbol beneath it depicted two humans intertwined with each other, at first glance Ishiki thought they were in some kind of combat.

But on a closer inspection he found out that they were not fighting rather the two bodies were meeting in a rather intimate way.

'Sex?' Ishiki frowned and blushed a little. 'They are having Sex? What does that represent? Lust?'

That made Ishiki move back and notice the second symbol once again. Indeed It was depicting gluttony.

With a deep frown Ishiki checked all the five symbols under the five pillars and found that they all depicted one of the seven cardinal sins of humanity.

'Though aren't there seven sins?' Ishiki thought and then with narrowed eyes he moved to the pillar at the center.

As expected, the symbol under the larger and ancient pillar was destroyed and besides it... under the obsidian, thinner pillar there was the symbol with a human figure sitting atop corpses and looking at the heavens.

'Pride?'

This made him crease his brows even more.

'Shouldn't there be seven of them. The outer one's depict greed, gluttony, lust, sloth and wrath.'

At the center he saw just one of the symbols that represented Pride. There should have been seven of them.

Confused, Ishiki looked around to see if there were any other pillars but there weren't. At the end he never found any traces of the seventh pillar or the symbol.

'Where is the Sin of Envy? And actually, why the hell are these here in the first place?'

He looked one last time at the pillars from top to bottom and then moved on towards the gates on the right side.

Just as he moved... he suddenly stopped and took a few steps back and stopped directly below the central pillar, he raised his face and looked up straight.

At the far ceiling of the ruined place... there were two symbols. One was carved directly next to the thicker pillar, and was destroyed completely. And the other was carved directly next to the obsidian pillar.

A human shaped figure with a snake like face, there were drops of venom dripping from the snake's fangs.

'Envy?'

Ishiki was at a loss of words. What exactly did these symbols here represent? No, more accurately what the hell did these pillars represent? Why were the older ones broken? When were they broken?

It has to be recent, considering that the illusion that Ishiki saw was something that actually happened in the past, when Aethelburg existed in its full glory.

More determined than before and filled with questions, Ishiki strode towards the doors.

He first moved to the door which was the closest to the main entrance, as it would be the one representing the lowest hierarchy in here.

The door didn't have any handle or anything, but a simple iron ring. He grasped the iron ring and pulled the door open... it opened rather smoothly.

'Well, it has only been 8 days since everyone disappeared.' He shrugged and went inside.

The room beyond was small and austere.

First Ishiki found a brass lamp on the side of the door and set it ablaze, the orange flame filled the room with orange light and dancing shadows.

The room had a single small bed with was tidied up neatly, though there was some dust over the white linen cloth now. Other than that the room was closed from all sides with just a chimney like opening at one end for air.

There was a chair, a shelf that was filled with books... a cupboard filled with male cloths and all.

Ishiki moved through the room methodically, searching for anything that might give him some answers. Except he found nothing such.

The desk drawers were empty except for dust and the desiccated corpse of a mouse. The shelf offered nothing but weird books. The space beneath the bed held only darkness and—

Wait.

Ishiki knelt, reaching under the wooden frame, and his fingers closed on something that crinkled at his touch.

Paper.

He pulled it out carefully, expecting it to crumble, but the pages held together, barely. It was a diary or journal of some kind, small enough to be hidden easily, with a leather cover that had been scorched along one edge.

Half the book had been burned. The pages past the midpoint were nothing but ash and blackened fragments that fell away as he opened the cover.

The remaining pages were covered in that same script he couldn't read—dense handwriting that filled every available space, words written with the desperate efficiency of someone who had too much to say and not enough space to say it.

Ishiki stared at the pages, trying to will them into comprehensibility, but the symbols remained stubbornly foreign.

'Fucking hell.' He cursed inwardly.

Why was it that even though he could understand the language that the people used commonly on Aethelburg for writing and talking, but not this one.

It was the same language as that written on the sealed door of the temple, maybe even the system didn't knew how to translate it, or perhaps this language predated the existence of the system itself.

Either way, he was useless here without Nina.

'But how do I ask her to come translate without explaining why I'm investigating?' Ishiki wondered, pocketing the half-burned diary. 'And do I even want anyone else to know what I'm looking for?'

He left the first room and moved to the second.

It was for the most part the same as before, jut a little more austere and slightly larger. Slightly better furnished. The bed had posts carved with simple patterns. The desk had actual drawers with brass handles.

Ishiki searched it up quickly but found nothing notable, other than the fact that the person that lived here was a female.

He felt a little ashamed and went to the next room.

The third and fourth rooms revealed more of the same escalating pattern.

The third room was twice the size of the first, with a bed that could have fit two people comfortably and a desk that looked more like furniture than simple utility. Robes hung in a closet. He could see they had been expensive once: silk, maybe, dyed in colors that had faded to ghostly suggestions of crimson and gold.

High-ranking clergy. An archbishop, perhaps, or whatever equivalent this particular religious structure employed.

The fourth room continued the trend—even larger and even more luxurious, with a sitting area separate from the sleeping space and what looked like a private altar built into one wall. The altar was empty now, whatever icon or artifact it had once held long since removed or destroyed.

That left the fifth door.

The room stood farthest from the entrance and directly in front of the five pillars. The door itself was larger and different than the others. And there was something written on the top of the door, maybe the post of something like that.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.