At this moment, the way Riezel looked at the limestone cavern changed slightly.
'Could it be... we accidentally stumbled into some ancient ruins?'
Needless to say, the murals' appearance told Riezel that this place had to be connected to the ancient magic civilization.
It could only be a ruin left behind by the ancient magic civilization.
Moreover, this ancient ruin appeared to have never been excavated. At the very least, he could not find any signs that anyone had explored the area before.
With that thought in mind, his interest was immediately piqued. If this was truly an ancient ruin that had never been excavated, then something had to be lying dormant within it.
Carrying that thought, Riezel walked over to Chloria and stopped beside her.
He discovered that Chloria was staring blankly at the mural before her, completely absorbed, as though she had fallen into a daze.
Riezel immediately turned his gaze toward the mural as well, carefully examining its contents.
Like the murals he had seen before, these were extremely ancient line drawings. Even though there were only a few images, he could vaguely piece together a fragment of history from them.
He saw a group of tiny figures braving fierce snowstorms as they trekked across a frozen wasteland.
He saw those figures reach the depths of that icy land, where they began building houses and establishing a settlement.
He also saw the settlement gradually expand over time, with more and more people gathering there.
Finally, he saw a crowned figure emerge from among the people and walk toward another group that had arrived from somewhere unknown.
There were only four murals in total, far fewer than the ones Riezel had seen in the ancient temple within the ancient city of Yarakulon and in the ancient ruin of the Reinnail Clan.
Precisely because there were so few of them, Riezel could not determine which period of history they were depicting.
However, just as he was puzzling over them, Chloria suddenly spoke beside him.
"In Theresis, there has always been a legend."
Chloria began telling the story without any warning.
"It is said that the tribe the first-generation queen of Theresis came from consisted of survivors of the destroyed ancient magic civilization."
"That tribe was ancient and mysterious. According to legend, they were the first people to arrive in and settle this polar region in the north of the continent. Since ancient times, they have lived and multiplied here without ever leaving the northern lands."
"Until one day... the kingdom of Zynia found that tribe and met its saintess."
Zynia was the predecessor of Theresis.
Originally, it had merely been a small kingdom.
Because of the many hardships it faced simply to survive, its rulers eventually discovered an extraordinarily powerful tribe and met someone there, and that person was none other than the first-generation queen of Theresis.
Zynia was captivated by the queen's overwhelming strength and exceptional abilities. In the end, its people decided to place her upon the throne, allowing the kingdom to flourish once more.
Later on, the first-generation queen carried out numerous reforms throughout Zynia. Not only did she enable it to survive in the harsh frozen wilderness, but she also expanded its territory, united every tribe in the north under its rule, and gradually transformed it into one of the Akasha Continent's four great nations.
Only after that did the kingdom of Zynia change its name to the Queendom of Theresis, because 'Theresis' was both the surname of the first-generation queen and the name of that mysterious tribe.
Yuri had told Riezel this story before, so he naturally remembered it.
Hearing Chloria's account immediately reminded him of it.
"That ancient, powerful, mysterious tribe was where the first-generation queen of Theresis came from, wasn't it?" Riezel looked at Chloria and asked calmly. "And the saintess you mentioned was that first-generation queen too, right?"
Chloria neither confirmed nor denied his question.
As though her earlier explanation had merely been an impulsive remark, she fell silent once more, saying nothing further.
Riezel did not mind, but his thoughts began connecting even more pieces together.
He vaguely remembered seeing an inscription before Euryale's tomb chamber in the ancient ruin of the Reinnail Clan.
—"The war has ended."
—"By the command of our final queen, we shall now depart in search of a second homeland."
—"The glorious age has passed."
—"Its long-lasting glory now sleeps forever alongside this scarred land."
—"In accordance with the queen's final wish, we shall bury her here together with the servant of the King of Calamity."
—"May this world know no more conflict."
—"May mankind enjoy everlasting peace from this day forward."
—"Recorded by the Reinnail's most loyal vassals—the Theresis Clan."
Judging from the murals inside the tomb chamber, the Theresis Clan had once been a vassal clan of the Reinnail Clan because their ancestors had been rescued from the claws of monsters by the ancestor of the Reinnail Clan.
It seemed they had become the very first followers of the hero who led humanity's resistance.
As humanity rose to power, Reinnail became the king of humanity during the age of the ancient magic civilization, and the Reinnail Clan became the royal clan of mankind.
Eventually, those first followers left behind descendants, and generation after generation, they continued serving the royal clan, faithfully assisting the Reinnail Clan.
However, that glorious era lasted only until the birth of the King of Calamity, when monsters erupted across the continent and plunged humanity into a desperate war.
Only then did the final glory of those two families come to an end.
Even so, their legacy had clearly survived.
Before her final battle against the King of Calamity, Euryale—the last queen of Reinnail—created a refuge for humanity, the Hidden Land, and sent mankind's last remaining hope there.
However, the Theresis Clan had evidently not entered the Hidden Land. Instead, they remained on the Akasha Continent alongside their final queen and fought the monsters in the ultimate decisive battle.
As a result of that battle, the King of Calamity was sealed beneath the sea, while the last queen of Reinnail exhausted all her strength and died.
Just like that, the Theresis Clan survived, becoming the final embers of the ancient magic civilization.
Following the queen's dying wish, they buried both the queen's body and the servant of the King of Calamity—the Fire Dragon Lord—within the ruins of Reinnail before setting out in search of a second homeland.
'Judging by everything, the Theresis Clan must've ended up in this northern polar region eventually. But why'd they choose a place this brutally inhospitable?'
Riezel felt they had most likely intended to guard the entrance to the Hidden Land and become its eternal protectors.
Furthermore, the Akasha Continent had only just emerged from a catastrophic war that had destroyed an entire civilization, so the rest of the continent was undoubtedly covered in devastation, with living conditions likely even worse than those in this frozen wilderness.
For that reason, the Theresis Clan chose to settle in this desolate northern polar region, guarding the entrance to the refuge while continuing their bloodline.
As for why they had not entered the Hidden Land themselves, it was probably because the Kazdel Mountains had already become engulfed by an overwhelming blizzard.
After surviving such a civilization-ending war, even if some members of the Theresis Clan had lived through it by sheer luck, they probably no longer possessed the strength to cross that endless storm, find the Kazdel Mountains, and activate the teleportation magic circle hidden there.
Meanwhile, the Hidden Land itself was inhabited only by humanity's remaining survivors, so their strength was pitifully weak at the time. Even if they could observe the outside continent through some special mystical artifact, they likely lacked the ability to return to it.
Under those circumstances, the Theresis Clan gradually multiplied throughout this northern polar region, becoming the oldest, strongest, and most mysterious tribe within the frozen wilderness.
After countless years had passed, people from the Hidden Land finally began returning to the outside world one after another, and the Akasha Continent gradually became habitable again.
With monsters no longer posing the greatest threat, humanity rapidly flourished, and people eventually began settling in this northern polar region as well.
One nation after another was established, and in the north, the kingdom known as Zynia came into existence.
After that came the fateful meeting between Zynia and the Theresis Tribe. What followed was that the tribe's strongest saintess accepted Zynia's invitation, left her homeland, became its queen, and founded the Queendom of Theresis.
'So that's how it was...'
Riezel looked at the murals once more.
'So these weren't murals left behind during the age of the ancient magic civilization?'
From their contents, it was clear that they did not depict events from the era of the ancient magic civilization. Instead, they recorded what happened after the civilization's destruction, when the survivors of the Theresis Clan arrived in this northern polar region.
The final mural even portrayed the saintess of the Theresis Tribe—the first-generation queen—leaving the tribe to meet the kingdom of Zynia.
Clearly, the crowned figure was the first-generation queen.
And so, the four murals did not record the history of the ancient magic civilization but rather the history of the Theresis Clan survivors as they established themselves in this frozen land.
That history even extended to the moment when the first-generation queen left the Theresis Tribe, proving that the artist had lived no later than the era when Zynia had yet to be renamed Theresis and become one of the continent's four great nations.
Unlike the murals he had encountered before, whose history stretched back at least 11,000 years to the fall of the ancient magic civilization, these depicted a much more recent chapter of history that began after the civilization's collapse.
"The founding of Theresis only happened a few hundred years ago."
"In other words, these murals are, at most, only a few hundred years old."
"So this isn't some ancient ruin at all. It's just an old northern settlement that got left behind a few centuries ago."
"But then the question is... who carved these murals? And what the hell is this place?"
Riezel had finally pieced everything together, and without realizing it, he muttered those words aloud.
Suddenly...
"This was once the homeland of the Theresis Tribe, and the ones who carved these murals were also the now-vanished Theresis Tribe."
A cold, detached voice sounded from beside him, causing Riezel to narrow his eyes as a faint chill spread through the air, its icy presence prickling against his skin.
Remaining calm, Riezel slowly turned his head and saw that Chloria was still standing there, still gazing at the murals.
Only, golden light had once again appeared within her eyes, while her pink hair gradually turned icy blue from the roots outward as waves of frost surrounded her.
"...You're back again?"
Riezel spoke with surprising calmness.
Needless to say, the young woman before him had once again changed from Chloria Michette into that mysterious, unknown existence.
"Yanivette."
Without even glancing at Riezel, the young woman spoke indifferently.
"What?"
Riezel blinked in surprise.
"Yanivette is my name..." Yanivette replied in the same detached tone. "You are strong enough to deserve knowing my true name, and you are qualified to address me by it."
Although Yanivette's voice remained cold and emotionless, Riezel could clearly sense that her attitude had changed considerably, especially since she no longer used that ancient manner of speaking.
"Yanivette... huh?"
Riezel searched his memory, but unfortunately, he had never heard that name before.
"What about Chloria? How's she doing now?"
"What? Are you concerned about my vessel?" Yanivette glanced at him before answering, "Do not worry. She is merely asleep. At least, for now."
After saying that, she turned to face him and threw out a question in a cold voice.
"Now it is your turn to answer—who are you?"
"Riezel Brynhart." Riezel did not conceal his identity, answering bluntly. "What about you? Who are you, exactly? And why are you inside Chloria?"
It went without saying that the young woman before him was obviously not the same person as Chloria.
Riezel had some guesses regarding her identity, but they were only guesses, with no guarantee that they were correct, which was why he was genuinely curious about who she was and where she had come from.
However, she clearly had no intention of revealing everything.
"Although you are powerful—powerful enough to defeat me—I will not acknowledge you as my superior until I recover my inherited sword and regain all of my strength," Yanivette said calmly. "If you wish for me to obey your every command and tell you what you seek to know, then defeat me after I have regained my full power."
"Oh?" Riezel narrowed his eyes, a faint smile appearing on his face. "So you're saying only the strong get to rule over everything?"
"Naturally."
Yanivette answered without the slightest hesitation.
"Strength is truth, and those with greater power are entitled to dominate everything that belongs to those who are weaker. Such is the law of this world."
"Only the victor can claim everything, while the defeated are left with nothing. That is the law of the grasslands, and it is also the law of the snowfields."
"I never suffered a single defeat while I lived, so I obtained everything and ruled over everything."
"If you wish to rule over me, then defeat me at the peak of my power."
With those words, Yanivette turned around and walked away.
"Where are you going?"
Riezel asked instinctively.
"Further inside. Something is sleeping here that I need."
Yanivette answered without looking back.
===
[A bonus chapter for reaching 400 Power Stones]
[Support and get early access to upcoming chapters at: patreon.com/VALRRR]