So, I Transmigrated Into The Heavenly Realm

36. The Archaeologists Descend

36

It had been some time since the farmer had run to tell people of the beautiful stone he had found in his field. As a farmer in a place where it was almost impossible to farm the nearest neighbours weren't close plus he'd gone there on foot and wasn't a young man anymore

The donkey he had owned with his family had died during the winter so there was only a ox in the barn now. An ox he couldn't risk taking on this journey, because he would need it to be in peak condition once the ploughing started.

After two days of walking on the steep mountain paths and broken roads his feet were beginning to make him feel like that may have been a stupid idea. His feet would probably never be the same again. It felt like his entire foot was one single blister and it damaged his pride as a farmer that he was in any pain at all.

Deep down in his bones, he knew that this was a journey that he needed to take. It was like destiny had taken his hand and was pulling him alongside it. His grandmother had always said that they had stayed farming on the mountain for a reason.

That reason had never been explained throughout all the long years of her life and here he was finding something that felt desperately important. All it had taken was his spade and the need to follow the old farming traditions.

Maybe this was the reason.

Maybe this was his reason.

Grandmother had always said that everyone was put in the world for a reason.

Grandmother had said a lot of things.

Out on the plain he reached the first small house built from mud brick and turf to keep out the wind and the freezing winds in winter. It was here he had spoken the first news about the marvellous stone, asking for directions to a large town with someone who would know what to do.

Word spread throughout the region moving from hamlet to village, town to town just as he did. Eventually it reached the nearest city and drew the interest of some archaeologists.

~~~

Piles of books and papers littered the floor of their office as they searched for any mention of a structure in the vicinity of where the stone had been found. Diligent students rifled through library shelves that hadn't seen a single human in decades, thick with dust and the scent of aged paper. Hundreds of obscure texts and maps scoured for even the faintest hint or any kind of construction using this kind of stone but despite this they found nothing.

If there had been a building, there wasn't anything among their written documents that recorded it. That wasn't to say there hadn't ever been something plenty of documents were lost to history. Floods, fires, a desperate need for loo roll during an epidemic of some diarrhoea causing sickness, there were many reasons written records were lost.

If the farmer who had found the stone was correct in his description of it, the highly decorative masonry was a first for the area. In the archeologist's experiences, circumstances thus pointed to this being a stone meant for some temple or municipal building down in the plains. People in the plains lived in small clusters of settlements around the winding rivers and lakes dotted across it, barely anyone lived in the mountains. The road down from them to the larger settlements was bumpy.

It always had been.

Not hard to lose a few stones with how much it would jostle a cart. Even now people lost things on the challenging roads.