LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 73
As soon as Alfred’s summoning order fell, Iona stood up straight, guiding the party towards the Treasure Vault.
“You fellows have no idea how great an honor this is.”
“Of course, we can’t help but know. This is the Treasure Vault of the illustrious Felwinter Family.”
“Believe me, it’s even more than you can imagine. Can’t you feel the piercing gazes of the knights and soldiers escorting you?”
Just as Iona said, Karem felt the scrutinizing stares from above and behind him the moment he stepped out of the office.
Iona, Catherine, and Mary were in front of Karem, so they were excluded as the targets of these glares.
Naturally, the owners of the stares were the knights and soldiers.
“There’s no way I could miss it. With such fervent attention directed towards me.”
“Well, just bear with it, they’re young after all.”
Iona chuckled heartily, stroking his beard.
Yet, Karem found it hard to brush off.
It reminded him of the stares he’d felt on rare occasions when stepping outside the tower.
The emotion behind those gazes was none other than jealousy.
And naturally, those emotions were inevitably directed more towards Karem than Catherine.
A youthful prodigy who had even impressed the tyrant of the kitchen.
The one who had rediscovered poisons and sparked a spicy trend in Winterhome.
A seemingly endless supply of visions that was hard to grasp.
Not to mention, he elevated the Duke’s reputation amongst the emissaries from Adobice.
Karem had enough qualifications.
But that didn’t change the fact that it felt envious.
“Huh? Little one. Your steps have slowed. Are you tired?”
“This much walking is nothing to me.”
Karem wasn’t tired in the slightest.
After all, his body was trained from daily kitchen duties.
“It’s just… I feel like I’m zigzagging through the stairs and hallways.”
Though the surrounding gazes were problematic, Karem chose to blame himself for it.
He felt burdened to speak honestly, and what he said wasn’t entirely untrue.
“Well, of course. This castle was built primarily for defense.”
“Defense. It indeed seems good for one-sided attacks, especially if I can see the castle walls of the main castle so clearly.”
Karem recalled the view from the top of the Wizard’s Tower.
People in the courtyard of the main castle and the castle walls of Winterhome, along with the nearby main castle and the inner castle.
From Winterhome, being higher than the Wizard’s Tower, would likely give a view beyond the outer castle.
“Thanks to that, Winterhome can alert us to the commotion in Coldon and threats outside it faster than anyone else. This old man may be getting weaker with age, but let’s hurry, we still have a long way to go.”
Though age was secondary, Karem thought that there were bigger issues at hand.
He gazed at someone’s belly about to burst.
Prompted by Iona, the party and their escorts quickened their pace.
After a long while of zigzagging, crossing hallways and descending stairs, Iona finally stopped in front of a wall.
“Hmm, is this the entrance for today? You folks keep a lookout around here.”
“What do you mean ‘entrance for today’?”
“The entrance to the Treasure Vault changes location daily. Luckily, today we’ve reached it here.”
Karem couldn’t help but admire quietly.
A Treasure Vault where the entrance changes daily—indeed, wait, hold on.
“Lady Iona, was the reason we zigzagged through those stairs and hallways…?”
“Of course, we were searching for the entrance to the Treasure Vault.”
“Do we need to find the door every time we want to enter the vault?”
“That’s right.”
Karem instinctively twitched at the dreadful thought of such an inconvenient security mechanism.
Given that it was a Treasure Vault, he had assumed there would naturally be some security systems in place.
Like magical traps and devices installed at the Wizard’s Tower (which he had never seen).
Spike traps, arrow traps, or other physical traps that might flatten someone.
Yet this vault, where the entrance changes randomly.
The method of finding it felt ridiculously simplistic.
“Let’s see. If we go this way, it should be around here somewhere…”
It seemed that it wasn’t just the changing entrance when Iona started to awkwardly mutter, touching the corners and edges of the empty wall.
After a while of feeling around, she touched a brick in the bottom right corner of the wall, and it glowed green.
At that moment, the bricks began to rumble, domino-like, sucking inward to transform into an archway that several people could pass through.
“Isn’t the definition of a Treasure Vault supposed to be different? Lady Iona, are you not feeling uneasy?”
“Why bother saying it? Every time this old man wants to enter the vault, I have to wander around the entire main castle to find the right entrance. If I have bad luck, I might have to descend all the way to the depths of Winterhome. Ugh, it exhausts me to death.”
And indeed, there was nothing in the Treasure Vault that Karem could wait for while enduring envious stares.
The empty gray walls inside the arched entrance led to an unknown passage.
“Oh, Sir Atanitas. Is my understanding of a Treasure Vault incorrect?”
“Honestly, it’s obvious it’s enchanted. Don’t you think?”
“Isn’t there supposed to be more inside than the outside?”
“Spatial expansion magic is the most common.”
“Like Sir Atanitas’s magical pouch?”
Upon hearing her words, Karem immediately thought of the magical pouch he’d seen in Winterhome before. Unfortunately, he had no chance to use it as Mary had a fit, claiming her workload had decreased.
“You’ve only just reached the entrance, so hurry inside. We can chat as we go.”
As Karem stood there chatting with his employer at the arched entrance, Iona, who had already stepped inside, waved them in.
Just as the two and the House Fairy hurried inside, the bricks of the entrance creaked, pushing outwards to seal it.
Walking through the strangely bright gray corridor, which was luminous enough to perceive shapes even without a source of light, Karem finally arrived at the original destination.
“Now, feel honored to have entered the Treasure Vault of Felwinter.”
Iona said confidently, and Karem thought it was justified.
What he mistook for dust on the sandy floor turned out to be flecks of gold and silver.
Large bags piled high with gold and silver dust, and blocks of gold and silver stacked like bricks were just the beginning.
Various sculptures carved entirely from precious stones, necklaces strung with pearls and sapphires, gold rings encrusted with tiny rubies, silver bracelets adorned with countless diamonds, and intricately crafted wolf-shaped helmets decorated with enormous gems, and so on.
The sight of shelves and display cases filled to the brim with various categories in a room the size of a school playground left Karem with his mouth agape.
“Karem, junior. My jaw is dropping.”
“Mary, don’t you have any thoughts after seeing this?”
“Well, organizing and cleaning does sound appealing.”
“Excuse me?”
Karem turned to look at Mary without thinking.
Her eyes were solely fixated on the gold and silver dust scattered on the floor, licking her lips.
It was entirely expected.
Her fairy mind categorized her interests as follows: work > bread, butter, milk > other food > the rest.
To her, gold and silver might not even be more significant than mere cleaning tools.
Catherine, who bore a similarly indifferent expression, suddenly frowned.
While browsing through the luxurious items capable of easily sustaining a small territory, she narrowed her eyes and asked Iona.
“Everything looks flashy, yet they’re all so utterly empty. Where’s the real deal?”
What on earth does that mean, Sir Atanitas?
Karem and Mary wanted to ask, but in a daze, they merely looked around.
“Hm, well, except for coins and gold ingots, everything here is, frankly, mere luxury items.”
Feeling slightly uncomfortable after Iona’s words, Iona quickly turned her gaze away from Catherine.
She had been concerned that if they were to get excited about truly valuable items, magic tools, or historically significant artifacts, they might just try and snatch them away.
Catherine playfully persisted.
“How childish of you.”
“Oh please, just testing your eyes.”
“But there’s already a junior with his jaw dropped.”
“The wrong choice made by the subordinate reflects poorly on the master.”
Iona strolled off as if drifting like a feather caught in the wind.
That old man’s face resembled a mischievous old raccoon.
If they fell for such a temptation, they were not worth much.
It wasn’t entirely wrong, but an irritated Catherine turned her head sharply.
“Karem, junior. Even though I’m not interested in gold and silver treasure, I feel like I didn’t know myself very well.”
“Isn’t that normal? It’s more uncommon to not have your eyes spin from seeing this.”
“Hmm. It’s strange, but Karem, this is the first time I’ve felt envious—”
Catherine playfully poked the dazed boy, mouthing off.
“Get your soul back, you fool. This is just the entrance, you can’t get lost here! Hey! Follow your senior House Fairy’s example!”
“Huh? Lost? I’ve never been lost!”
“Wipe that drool off your mouth.”
“Oh no!”
Then, she turned to Mary.
“And you, Mary? Hmm, not that interested, I see.”
“Contractor, I am a House Fairy. I’m merely too concerned about the state of this disorderly and messy space.”
“Hmm, if you want, I can let you choose something you want in place of my share of the choice.”
Mary firmly shook her head.
“Don’t go back on your word later.”
As Iona examined every corner of the room, she nodded in agreement with Mary’s words.
“Well, as your House Fairy says, it is indeed messy here. And as Sir Atanitas said, these items are simply not worth being overly concerned about.”
Then she waved her hand inward.
“Now, come this way. The real treasures are deeper inside.”
Iona led the party through a path obscured by hills of bags filled with gold and silver.
After walking for a while, when the gold and silver dust finally began to pile higher, a much larger, more distinguished room appeared than the previous one.
The weapons displayed upon the shelves and showcases looked well-maintained, ready for immediate use, while armor racks shaped like complete or partial human figures held various armor and accessories, either singularly or as sets.
Upon entering the room, Catherine quickly began to peruse the items closest to her sight, starting with gauntlets, great swords, and daggers, swiftly skimming their histories and magical properties.
At that moment, she finally relaxed her furrowed brow and nodded.
“Yes, this is indeed what one would expect from the Treasure Vault of the Felwinter family.”
“Hm, these items stored here certainly have a much more refined quality.”
Seeing this, Karem felt he could sense the difference.
The items seen in the previous room had no shortage of excess.
They were what you’d expect from a typical nouveau riche’s luxury goods; practical utility felt obsolete.
But the items in this space were different.
A elegance born from restrained splendor.
Designs appearing merely decorative while considering the user’s convenience.
Most importantly, they weren’t a strain on the eyes.
To be blunt, they were a delight to behold.
Unlike mere extravagant luxury items, having come upon true treasures, Catherine’s excitement matched the quality of her expression as she thoroughly scanned the surroundings.
Mary, too, looked around the room, mimicking Catherine, and then pouted her lips with a bored look.
“Spotless, tidy, and well-maintained. How boring.”
“What? Your impression is identical to the previous one.”
“Is more variety of impressions needed?”
What on earth could possibly excite this House Fairy besides work and food?
Perhaps if there were magical cleaning tools, her eyes might spin.
“Aside from this, items of long-standing tradition and history can be found in the first room to the left, while minor magical tools are stored in the right room. As for the rest—”
“What do you mean by minor magic?”
“Well, they’re simply minor items. A silver cup that turns water into fruit juice, or—”
“A transforming cleaning tool!”
Mary dashed into the right room like a dog chasing after a flying bone.
“But didn’t she just say she wasn’t interested in treasures?”
“Indeed.”