What the Hell Is This?

Amber, a master of stealth, a Shadow Power specialist, and an enthusiastic grave robber, had a profound saying: the path is right there; doors are merely ethereal decorations. As long as you cast aside your mental barriers, even the gates of the royal treasury need nothing more than a stalk of celery.

Well, this world probably did not have celery, but Amber did not need any to pry open a door in an ancient tomb.

With just a little Shadow Trickery, some knowledge of ancient wards, and a negligible amount of luck, the half-elf thief easily broke the restrictions within the Cecil Ancestral Tombs. A passage unknown even to Heti and Rebecca appeared before them all.

Then everyone followed Amber into the passage.

The tomb passage, built from stone and Soul-Suppressing Bricks, was far more spacious than expected. Even Heavy Knights like Gawain and Byron, both nearly two meters tall, did not find it cramped. The Enchanted Lamp Posts embedded in the walls on either side had long run dry, but after Heti cast a few basic spells, those ancient lamps, seven hundred years old, lit up one after another and revealed the way ahead.

"I'm really just a little thief, just scraping together a living," Amber said modestly as she walked at the front of the group. "I'm descended from the Forest Elves, and I deeply respect Ancestral Spirits. How could I possibly do something like robbing graves?"

Gawain dismissed her claim. "You're this practiced at it, and you still have the nerve to explain?"

Perhaps having confirmed that her life was safe, the half-elf, who possessed not the slightest racial dignity, was as thick-skinned as the tomb door she had just pried open. "Lockpicking and bypassing wards are standard skills in our line of work. Is it wrong for me to have solid fundamentals?"

At that moment, Rebecca, walking in the mid-team, suddenly asked, "Are you a resident of Cecil Territory?"

Amber frowned and thought about it. "I've lived here for several years, but I never applied to become an official resident. Still, by Cecil Territory's rules, anyone who has lived here for over three years and paid taxes on time counts as a resident... So do I count or not?"

Rebecca shook her head. "Without an application, you don't count."

"Oh," Amber drawled. "Then why did you ask?"

"I am the lord of Cecil Territory," Rebecca said gravely. "So if you are one of my people, I have an obligation to protect you."

Amber said, "...Then you should've said that earlier! Is it too late for me to change my answer?"

Rebecca's face was utterly serious. "Too late."

Gawain looked at Rebecca's serious expression, then at Amber, who had no principles whatsoever, and shook his head with an amused smile.

Though he had awakened in the middle of such a mess, being human again still felt far better than that damned state from before.

He looked at Heti, walking behind him. This Lady, who knew how many generations removed his great-granddaughter was, had secretly been glancing his way more than once. He had been waiting for her to speak first, but seeing that she still had no intention of breaking the silence, he had no choice but to ask, "Whatever you want to ask, say it."

Heti was slightly startled, but she soon took a deep breath and calmed herself. Looking at Gawain's face, identical to the portraits of the family, she carefully chose her words. "Ancestor... I still find it hard to believe that you truly are..."

"Yes, I really am that Gawain Cecil, the pioneer from seven hundred years ago. I could recite all thirty-odd years of my life to you, or tell you about the Second Expansion Era. But honestly, none of that would prove much. An excellent historian might sound more convincing than I do, after all, since I'm not much of a speaker." Gawain shrugged. "You just want to confirm whether I'm real, don't you?"

"Please forgive my doubts," Heti said hurriedly. "But this is simply... While tales of Heroic Spirit Revival have existed throughout history, seeing it with one's own eyes is another matter entirely. I have heard that some Paladins and Silvermoon Elves can enter Suspended Animation for years or even decades, preserving their souls and vitality through the power of holy light and Elven Secret Arts. But I have never heard of human knights being able to do the same, much less... You have been dead for seven hundred years."

"To be honest, I don't know what happened either," Gawain said, shaking his head. He dearly wanted to concoct some airtight, logical, convincing theory on the spot to bluff this great-great-great... great-granddaughter before him, but neither his own knowledge nor Gawain Cecil's memories offered any usable explanation. So he simply admitted that he could not explain any of it. "Perhaps it has something to do with what I experienced in life. You know, when I led the first settlers in opening up the wilderness, I received the blessing of the elements. That may have changed my constitution."

"Is that so..." Heti said noncommittally, then suddenly raised her head and looked down the passage ahead.

"There's airflow," she said quietly. "And a different Magic Essence reaction. We should be nearing the end of the tomb area."

Gawain nodded and tightened his grip on the Pioneer's Sword. An inexplicable sense of dread told him that what lay ahead was probably unsafe.

"Stay alert." Knight Byron, who was walking at the very front alongside Amber, seemed to sense something as well. He drew his Steel Broadsword and casually brushed one hand over its blade. A faint layer of Silver Glow immediately rose from the edge. "You three, make sure to protect the rear."

With a chorus of metal scraping, the three soldiers prepared for battle. Though they were only of the most basic Combat Classes, they had survived to the end in the fight against monsters and were elite warriors carefully trained by the Cecil Family. The fearlessness and calm on their faces quickly reassured the nervous Amber and the little maid Betty, who was protected in the very center of the group.

Though the tomb corridor was deep and long, it had an end. The Soul-Suppressing Stone Bricks embedded every ten meters along the walls marked the tomb area, and as those bricks disappeared, a somewhat open space resembling a crossroads appeared ahead.

This was the boundary between the tomb area and the Castle Underground, as well as the transportation hub leading to those Ancient Secret Passages.

Amber pointed at one of the branches of the "crossroads." "I crawled in from that way. It leads to a Dry Well outside the castle, but that side must be occupied by monsters now."

Gawain looked at Heti. "Which way is west?"

Heti traced a simple Magic Rune in the air. The rune transformed into a glowing ribbon that swayed as it pointed in a certain direction.

"That way," Gawain said. But the instant his words fell, a sudden sense of danger struck him.

There was no time to think. This battle-hardened body reacted faster than his mind, and Gawain instinctively raised the Pioneer's Sword to block. The next moment, a hammer-like impact crashed against the blade.

His body swayed slightly before he steadied himself, and the attackers finally appeared before everyone. Accompanied by muffled, whisper-like sounds, three towering, swaying figures emerged from one of the dark corridors branching off from the crossroads!

They did not resemble any creature found in nature. They were more like monsters pieced together from the combined wicked imagination of Necromancers and Demon Sorcerers. Nearly three meters tall, they resembled shriveled, deformed giants, but their bodies were formed from shapeless matter that flowed like mud. The filth-like substance surged across their surfaces, sometimes revealing huge cavities, within which crimson bones could be seen.

"Ah!" The moment Rebecca saw the three monsters, she gave a short cry. Betty quickly bit her lip, looking as if she might burst into tears at any moment. Heti raised her staff and slammed it heavily against the ground. A Lesser Mind-Clearing Spell activated, dispelling the fear effect the monsters had imposed on everyone. At the same time, she quickly said to Gawain, "Ancestor, these are the monsters!"

By then, Gawain had recovered from the shock of seeing non-human monsters for the first time, and the relevant memories surfaced in his mind. "It's actually these things?!"

The three monsters attacked again. They kept making sleep-talking murmurs as two of them charged toward Gawain's group in great strides. The remaining monster raised an arm, and a Dark Energy Arrow condensed before it. In the next second, it shot straight toward Amber, standing at the very front of the party!

"Whoa!" Amber let out a brief cry and instantly shrank into the shadow behind Knight Byron, only to appear in another shadow ten meters away in the next moment. Knight Byron raised his broadsword, brimming with Silver Glow, and with an angry roar, took the initiative to meet one of the charging monsters.

"Heti, Rebecca, take out the one that can cast Shadow Arrow! Try not to use Arcane Magic; Arcane Magic is almost useless against these things! Amber, you and the soldiers protect the Spellcasters!" Gawain shouted. Then he swung his sword and charged forward as well, gritting his teeth.

He had never wielded a blade in battle against another person.

He had never seen any non-human monster.

Despite having crossed over and been reborn, today was the first time he had stood on this alien land with his own two legs.

So he had no idea what he could accomplish at that moment with only the Combat Instinct lingering in his body, the Combat Knowledge in his mind that did not belong to him at all, and an ancient sword stripped of its magic.

But many times, fate did not give you a choice.

You stood here, the monsters stood there, there was no way up to heaven and no way down into the earth around you, and you held nothing but a seven-hundred-year-old antique sword. You could have had a shield, but some wastrel had ruined it One Hundred Years Ago. What else could you do in that situation?

Fight. Beat the hell out of them!

They were just aberrations, weren't they?

Seven Hundred Years Ago, Gawain Cecil could take on a hundred of them alone!

There were only three today. How could he fail to deal with them?