POV: Bash
Location: Southern Empire
The castle of Dragons Village was located in a remote valley surrounded by towering mountains.
We walked through the narrow streets and passed a lot of stone houses. Soon we came to a large castle in the outskirts of the village.
In front of us stood a huge castle in ruins, the walls were crumbling and the towers were leaning.
"Thanks for agreeing to come with us," Delta said, she is the leader of the three ladies sent on a mission by the white army.
"I hope we can find the Shinzin Ritta," Kanade mumbled, gripping the forest green bag she was holding intensely.
"Of course, we wouldn't find it, after all, it only exists in the history books." Hanabi hissed, her dark short hair dangling and touching her shoulders slightly.
I looked over my shoulders to Delta, our eyes locked and a slight breeze moved her long blonde hair to the side. "Why on earth would the army ask the three of you to search for an ancient artifact in a ruin castle?" I asked.
Delta broke eye contact with me and raised her head to look at the tallest tower at the center of the ruined castle, "The Shinzin Ritta, a sword held by the dark king," she sighed. "The son of the noble ruling this domain heard about its existence from his private tutor, and the next thing we know is that we were dispatched by the army to get it for him, how ridiculous."
"I see," my vision left the sight of Delta onto the tallest tower she was looking at, "Why would you give me over fifteen gold coins to escort you on a mission in which the odds of succeeding are next to none?"
From Delta's left side, Hanabi's voice escaped her mouth in a hurry.
"Bash," she called out my name, "you are a southerner, a swordsman as well, what do you think would happen if the news of three ladies camping alone in an abandoned castle got out?"
Hanabi's shark eyes were glaring at me, waiting for an answer.
"That was why you were looking for a swordsman rank Gozaimon and above," Scratching my chin with one hand I continued, "makes sense, adding somebody two ranks above you would keep a lot of guys from even thinking about it."
"Uh..hum," Delta made a sound, coughing slightly into her squeezed fist, "let's start exploring the castle before it gets dark."
As we walked into the abandoned castle, we were greeted by overgrown weeds and wildflowers. Every structure we saw was made of rocks, the castle divided itself into four sections surrounded by crumbled stone walls.
The outer wall covered over three hectares of land circling the ruined castle, a large structure in the shape of a tower sits at the center, it came out from a building that looks the healthiest in the entire area.
Delta standing beside me took a long view of the entire mess before us, her eyes darted from one crumbled building to the other, she then pointed to a medium-sized building without a roof to our left.
"Let's start looking over there," she said.
The stones in the room we found ourselves in were dark shades of gray, all the wooden furniture in there had decayed to an unusable state. All we were met with were crumbs that indicated to us where the table and the sofa used to sit.
A wooden beam full of muss on it dangled along the ceiling. it is the last piece of what used to be the roof.
"Where do we even start, with all these rocks sitting on anything that seems slightly functioning," Hanabi said, folding her arms to her chest.
"I guess we have to lift them, we might find a hidden storage underneath, the sword could be hidden there," Kanade insisted, her low voice directed at Hanabi.
I walked to a giant rock pressing what seemed to be a stone closet of some kind, grabbing the solid bricks of the crumbled wall, I commanded, "BATTLE ARTS, LIGHT TOUCH."
The crumbled wall felt light against my broad arms, moving it away from the closet, I said, "We could start our search from this thing," pointing to the rectangular closet with dust all over it.
"Battle arts, I did not know you could use that," Delta said, walking towards me to the closet.
I and Delta emptied the entire thing but we could not find anything useful, we were only met with old papers stuck together like they were one piece of wood.
From a corner of the room, Hanabi let out a sigh, she was pushing a bolder away from the crushed table in the center of the room. "We are almost there," Kanade Urged, her hands busy pushing the same bolder.