Waking Up to a Complete Mess

Gawain felt his condition rapidly improving. His mind was gradually clearing, and he had regained enough control over his body to move freely. At last, he had the energy to pay attention to the girl who was still being held. "So... what's going on here?"

The Half-elf girl had been trying her best to make herself inconspicuous, hoping that the Cecil Family members would forget about someone digging up their ancestral tomb in the tremendous shock of "meeting their ancestor." But before she found a chance to slip away, Gawain turned his Line of Sight toward her. The unfortunate young thief could only shrink her neck and put on a pitiful expression. "I just wanted to hide in here for a while..."

"You had to burrow all the way into the deepest burial chamber just to hide?!" Heti immediately glared and said to Gawain, "Ancestor, this despicable tomb robber desecrated your resting place and disturbed your slumber!"

Gawain froze for a moment, then looked at the Half-elf girl strangely. "So... you were the one who 'woke' me up?"

If not for the limitations of human anatomy, the young thief would have wanted to pull her head straight into her pelvis. Even her voice trembled. "I really didn't do anything! At first, I truly just wanted to find somewhere safe to hide. But after I got in, my occupational habit kicked in and I accidentally made my way into the burial chamber. But once I got there, I still didn't do anythi—"

Gawain thought about it and said seriously, "Anyway, thank you."

Young thief: "...Huh?"

Everyone, including Rebecca and Heti: "...What?"

"Ahem, let her go. It doesn't look good for four grown men to hold down a young girl," Gawain said. After thanking her, he realized something felt off, but it was too late to take it back. He could only press on stubbornly. "It doesn't fit the spirit of chivalry. Yes, the spirit of chivalry."

Hesitation flashed across Heti's face. "But, Ancestor, she is..."

"I ought to thank her for waking me from my slumber," Gawain said with a wave of his hand. "Let her go. If I don't mind, what are you still arguing about?"

Knight Byron gave this "Cecil ancestor" a strange look, but at Heti's signal, he finally sheathed his longsword. The three soldiers beside him stepped back as well.

The Half-elf girl looked around, thoroughly confirming that this was not some prank before cautiously getting to her feet. Then she checked with Gawain, "Um, you're an elder, so you have to keep your word. Don't go back on it."

Heti's eye twitched. It took every bit of noble composure she had cultivated over the years to suppress the urge to beat this tomb robber senseless.

Gawain looked at the girl curiously. From the memories he had just inherited, he could tell that her race should be mixed-blood elf. "What's your name?"

The Half-elf girl blinked. "Amber."

Gawain stroked his chin. "Amber? That does sound a little like Forest Elf style..."

At that moment, Heti suddenly spoke up, interrupting the exchange between Gawain and the Half-elf who called herself Amber. "Ancestor, I must interrupt you—this is not the time for idle conversation. We are not safe now!"

Gawain tried hard to settle into his new identity and looked seriously at Heti. "What happened outside?"

"Monsters!" Rebecca, who had remained silent for quite a while, suddenly cried out. "Monsters pouring in from Celine Pass and the mines! The territory's army and Security Team were no match for them—by now, those things have probably occupied everything outside..."

"We organized resistance as best we could, and before the situation completely collapsed, we had Knight Philip lead some soldiers to cover the civilians' evacuation," Heti added. "But before the second evacuation group could set out, the monsters destroyed the drawbridge. Rebecca and I did not disgrace the Cecil Family name, nor did these brave warriors. We fought in the castle until the very last moment—only after the inner courtyard gates were breached did we have no choice but to retreat here."

Afterward, Gawain asked a few more questions and finally pieced together the outline of the entire situation:

This was the ancestral territory passed down through the Cecil Family since its first ancestor. And Rebecca, the young girl beside him carrying an iron staff and looking almost like a high school student, was actually the current lord of this territory. When the monsters attacked, the young Lady had indeed organized resistance as best she could, but it had clearly failed—the monsters had ultimately destroyed all defensive forces and slaughtered every human they encountered. After the first survivors had been evacuated, Rebecca, who had faithfully fulfilled her duties as lord, became trapped in the castle with the remaining soldiers. They held out for a long time, but when the castle was finally breached, they had no choice but to retreat into the ancestral tomb beneath it.

And then they had happened to run into him rising from the dead... no, possessing a body.

As for the beautiful mature woman named Heti, she was actually Rebecca's aunt.

But those generational relationships meant nothing to Gawain. They were all great-great-great-great... granddaughters anyway. One more "great" or one less made no difference.

As for the Half-elf named Amber, she really was a thief. But this time, she had genuinely come looking for a place to take shelter—though the young thief's professional skills were simply too impressive, allowing her to make her way all the way into the deepest burial chamber of the Cecil Family ancestral tomb...

"So I woke up to a complete mess..." Gawain rubbed his forehead. As he considered how to resolve the immediate crisis, he searched through the memory stores in his mind for information that might help. "So those monsters have completely occupied the surface. Going out means certain death. And you keep calling them monsters, but what exactly are they?"

"I suspect they are some kind of demon subspecies," Heti said. "But demons have not appeared on the Material Plane for many years, much less on such a large scale. I cannot be certain."

Rebecca gripped her staff and looked at Gawain with hopeful eyes. "Ancestor, is even your power unable to deal with the monsters outside?"

Gawain was immediately stunned. "Me?"

"Yes! Aren't you said to be the strongest knight in the Ansu Kingdom, even the entire Northern Continent?" Rebecca's eyes nearly began to sparkle. "They say you once killed the barbarian high chieftain Gurg with a single stroke of your sword..."

Gawain hurriedly searched his memories, only to receive a tremendous shock: Gawain Cecil had actually been a legendary powerhouse!

He had been one of the greatest heroes of Ansu Kingdom's age of expansion, as well as one of the earliest Expansion Knights of the era known as the Second Expansion.

During the Dark Age, when the Ancient Gondor Empire collapsed, its surviving people returned to chaos and savagery, and the flame of human civilization was gradually swallowed by the Chaos Demon Tide spreading outward from the heart of the continent, Gawain Cecil and a group of other formidable figures from the same era led the surviving humans out of the ruins of the fallen empire and advanced in four directions. One of those groups headed north and became the ancestors of the Ansu Kingdom, with Gawain Cecil among them.

His life had been extraordinarily short, yet incomparably glorious. He set out at the age of fifteen and became the youngest Expansion Knight of his era. Together with the other Expansion Knights of the time and the first King of Ansu, he carved through thorns and brambles, spending ten years establishing a new nation in the Northern Continent and pulling humanity back into civilization and order. After Ansu was founded, he became one of the kingdom's seven generals, guarding the southern frontier and repelling more than a dozen large and small counterattacks from the Dark Magic Tide without suffering a single defeat...

Yet such a brilliant life had been like a candle burning too fiercely. This legendary figure lived only to the age of thirty-five, dying of exhaustion in the final battle against the Dark Magic Tide.

The inherited memories ended there.

That was the life of this formidable man.

Gawain felt his temple throbbing.

He had possessed someone truly incredible!

He felt neither smug nor terrified. After the brief shock passed, his strongest feeling was actually... uncertainty.

Rebecca was looking at him hopefully. Amber wore the same expression. Even Lady Heti, who seemed the most mature and composed of them all, looked at him with anticipation and trust.

But the person they were looking at was Gawain Cecil, not Gawain.

Gawain lowered his head and looked at his hands. They were a warrior's hands—broad, powerful, covered in thick calluses. But he had no idea how much strength he could draw from this body while controlling it.

Yet that uncertainty did not last long, because Gawain's own memories stirred. They were memories spanning tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of years. Though the memories themselves likely contained little of practical substance, they were enough to quickly set his mind straight and fill him with confidence.

He admitted that Gawain Cecil's legendary life had shaken him somewhat. But in the current situation, what he needed was not shock and hesitation, but confidence in himself.

The source of that confidence was simple—

Long before the Sentient Beings on this continent had learned to walk upright, he had been watching this world!

He knew those memories would not provide any tangible help, but right now, he only needed to give himself a little encouragement.

Then, with that momentum, find a way to survive.

And once he calmed down, a solution naturally emerged.

He quickly found something useful among Gawain Cecil's memories.

"Fighting our way out is unrealistic," Gawain said gravely, stroking his chin. "I have been asleep for too long. I may not be able to use much of my strength, and we cannot be sure just how powerful the monsters outside are. So the best option is to find a route around them and escape somewhere safe."

Rebecca said, "But the drawbridge has been destroyed, and the other routes have been blocked off..."

Gawain raised a hand and interrupted this who-knew-how-many-times-great-granddaughter. "Underground. Cecil Territory was once part of the kingdom's southern defensive line. There is a secret tunnel system beneath this place. Its main structure was blessed by Earth Elements, so it would not collapse even after a thousand years. The entrance to that secret tunnel is beneath the castle."

"There's something like that?!" Rebecca's face immediately lit up with delight. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go find the tunnel! Ancestor, lead the way!"

"But there's a problem," Gawain said, spreading his hands. "I only know how to get there starting from the castle. I don't know the route from this tomb."

Rebecca looked astonished. "You lived here for so long and still don't know the way around?"

Gawain: "..."

Knight Byron and the soldiers: "..."

Heti's face went pale. She felt there was a very real chance that this useless descendant would anger their ancestor to death...