Humanity's Greatest Mecha Warrior System-Novel
Chapter 604 604 The Big Dig"So, what have you found in this pile of rubble so far?" The Lawyer from the Giants team asked once they were unloaded at the ruins, standing out in the scorching tropical afternoon sun.
"Surprisingly, a lot. We found the ruins of a city and indications that it might have once been quite advanced. Of course, since it has been over a hundred thousand years abandoned, there isn't much left here, but check these walls. What do you see?" A young Huntress in a long white coat made of thin fabric asked.
"Evenly spaced, uniform brickwork. They were made from the same mould or on a factory floor." The lawyer responded, not impressed.
"They have been hollowed for conduits, and there is an empty power node near the bottom of each wall. Also, there is still structurally intact mortar between those blocks a hundred thousand years later." The Valkia Envoy added.
"Exactly. It's not a big deal for us to make degradation stable mortar and brickwork, but at the time, it should have been all but unheard of. The signs of power distribution within the residential unit that this appears to have been used for also indicate that it wasn't a primitive culture that stumbled upon a lucky combination of local materials." The archaeologist agreed.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"How advanced do we mean, though? Dryads used plant life to communicate, and the ruins on our world are quite similar, as that is where the roots would enter the rooms to link us all together." The Dryad representative pointed out.ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ N(o)vᴇl(F)ire
"We can't say yet, we just got here today, but it is a promising start that we could find something interesting in this strange galaxy."
The group chatted as they searched the area until the Dryad stumbled across a misplaced stone on what would have been the road outside the house Hunter's team had first unearthed.
It was a flat piece of rock, heavily weathered and worn nearly round on the top, but when her toe knocked it over, the other side was exposed, showing the crudely drawn penis.
"Yes! First Dick of the dig. There are always sex organs in the ruins. We just need to find the surviving graffiti to guess what species it is. Does anyone recognize this dick?" The Archaeologist from Hunter's team asked.
"I mean, not personally. But you know, what species would that be?"
Max was laughing so hard at her stumbling over her words that he didn't answer at first. The drawing was clearly a human organ, or very close to it, but the poor drawing made it hard to tell.
"There are seventeen species the drawing is close enough to be attributed to. Hunters might not be aware, but the design is extremely common among mammalian and amphibious bipeds." The Giant Envoy informed her, making Max laugh even harder.
"Is this a human joke that I don't get?" The Giant asked.
"Yes, probably. But it just occurred to me that the only way to know for sure if it is such a common evolution was to get a size reference."
The Giant facepalmed as he realized just how useless one single piece of graffiti was in narrowing down the options, but the Hunters looked excited.
"By our count, it is actually eighty-four possibilities out of over six hundred thousand sentient species who could have been depicted by this image, not including species that went extinct before we recorded them. It's not definitive evidence, but it really does narrow down what we can expect to find here." The Huntress Envoy informed them, then gave Max a look that meant she was also including the legendary ancient species in this category.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"Alright, sorry for the interruption. I will try to be serious again. I wasn't expecting that particular bit of graffiti to be the first real discovery on this site. My hope is that we can find something similar with surviving writing, which would give us a much more clear guess of their species and development." He finally managed.
He was usually in his office these days or in a Mecha when something shocked him. He really needed to remember not to laugh at inappropriate things when he was around foreign dignitaries. They wouldn't all appreciate the same sort of humour as human soldiers and frat boys did.
Only it wasn't an isolated incident. As they cleared the first building, they found a piece of pottery that depicted dozens of mythical creatures again, including an angel, dragon, Gryphon, and more, and the angel was predictably nude.
It reminded Max of ancient human art, but it was here before there were ancient humans to make it, at least to the best of his knowledge.
When the piece of pottery was cleaned and removed, the broken piece below it brought everyone the biggest shock. There, staring back at them from the broken pottery, was the stylized visage of the God of War, the mythical construct of the lost civilization whose unknown material had brought them here.
Fortunately, nobody else in the room seemed to recognize it, and the Hunters' team quickly filed it away with the rest of the pottery from that particular pile and placed it in protective storage.
That was the evidence that they had been here for, signs that the local residents had been somewhat aware of the existence of the God of War, but from the thoughts of the dig team, it shouldn't have been here. The layers where they were finding the strange material that had images of it were on a much older layer, and this city had been built on ruins that were built on top of the ruins of the city where they had found the first bits that had been recovered.
"Once we clear the upper layers of the dirt and debris, there are a number of buildings that are near the surface and can be exposed as a tourist location within the next few months if we want to allow people here while it's still an active working site." The lead archaeologist suggested.
"I am sure the guests would love that. It's a nice short trip from the city, and taking a few busloads of people here a day should be manageable. I will refer you to the Planetary Governor for details." Max agreed, glad that none of the other Envoys had noticed the strange find of an ancient alien, possibly Mecha construct.