Iver's Death Card

"A haunted hotel?"

The pastor, holding the bread in both hands, fell into deep thought, "I seem to recall something, let me think about it..."

Iver, who had raised the question, sat quietly to the side, drinking tea.

As the only pastor in Eagle Cape Village, his family was relatively wealthy. At least the tea he served to his guests was of quite good quality. While not as fine as the tea Iver drank on Glass Island, it was still considered excellent.

The old pastor's breakfast for the Iver was also quite good—a meat sauce made from pork with a bit of fat, stewed with tomatoes, sugar, beer, and butter until tender, then mashed. This sauce was then sandwiched in bread...though it was leftover bread from yesterday, it had been reheated. The flour used to make the bread wasn't very fine, and it wasn't exactly soft and sweet, but the reheated whole-grain toast still had a rich wheat aroma.

Rounding it off, it could perhaps be considered a type of roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) with tomato sauce.

The meal is served buffet style. Bread and meat sauce are provided, and you spread it on yourself.

Perhaps because the food was still quite hot, it tasted surprisingly good, at least better than the sandwiches sold on the streets of Glass Island. Even Sherlock ate a few more slices.

Now Iver and Sherlock were both full, while Lily only took a small bite. They were all waiting for Hai Na to finish eating.

Hai Na quickly forgot the strangeness that had startled her earlier and happily introduced it to Iver: "This is what I loved to eat when I was a child!"

"Although we don't know if this dish exists outside or what it's called, we kids like to call it 'Bishop's Bread.' Because some people say it's what bishops eat. They spread butter on it and use cream-colored bread..."

As she spoke, she couldn't help but laugh awkwardly, "Of course, it's all just the Children' guesses."

She suddenly realized halfway through her sentence that three out of the four people present often ate breakfast at the bishop's house.

"... Is that what you call it?"

The old pastor couldn't help but laugh, "This is something my father taught me. It's indeed a skill I learned on Glass Island, but it has nothing to do with the bishop—it's a kind of meat sauce my father ate at the hotel where he stayed when he went to Glass Island to receive his papacy. He thought the meat sauce tasted very good, and my father asked for the recipe, but the chef didn't tell us."

"So when my father got home, he tried it many times based on his memory. Although he still couldn't figure out the recipe for the meat sauce, he inadvertently created a new meat sauce. Later, the method became the standard."

"If you want to be honest, it should be called ' Eagle Cape Meat Sauce '."

It seems that talking about the past awakens memories. The old pastor suddenly clapped his hands, as if remembering something. "That Haunted Inn you mentioned, I think I remember... but that seems to have happened a very, very long time ago. It must have been when I was a child."

Iver nodded. "It should have happened about sixty years ago. Because it's 'haunted,' I think you might know about it."

Because Iver had seen that familiar sapphire-like lake in the First Layer of the dream during the advancement ritual. That was the famous Sapphire Lake of Bagpipe Town.

The Haunted Inn seemed to be located halfway up the mountain. From the window, one could vaguely see the round village at the foot of the mountain.

At that time, Iver made a mistake.

He believed that one of the reasons that layer was still a dream was because the forest had not been damaged after the storm.

After a normal storm, there should be branches, broken logs, trash, and animal carcasses everywhere. He believed that Daya's lack of life experience and insufficient imagination about storms was the reason for this.

But in retrospect... although Iver got the result right, his process was wrong.

The reason why forests remain unharmed after a storm is that they can indeed remain intact after a storm.

Eagle Cape Village Eagle Cape Village its name from the fact that it's nestled between a low mountain and a high mountain, with Bagpipe Town situated at the foot of one of them. To get from Eagle Cape Village to Bagpipe Town, you have to go up the mountain first and then down—of course, you don't have to climb over the highest point; the highest point in the Dense Forest they enter the village is only about one-third the height of the mountaintop.

The entire Eagle Cape Village lies in a basin, connecting two lakes and a swamp. It's situated between two mountains. Logically, such terrain should make it easily flooded by torrential rains.

So when Iver saw that the village at the foot of the mountain was safe and sound, he immediately judged that it was a hoax.

... But now it seems that Daya was right after all.

Iver laughed at her for not understanding storms, and she laughed at Iver for not understanding Eagle Cape Village. She probably had actually witnessed a storm there, which was why she had such a deep impression of that scene.

Since the Haunted Inn offers a clear view of both Sapphire Lake and Eagle Cape Village, but not the other side of the lake, it must be located on the mountainside of one of these two mountains, facing the direction of the other mountain.

In other words, it must be very close to Eagle Cape Village.

Sure enough, the old pastor quickly remembered.

"That's an inn in Alder Town to the south. To get there directly, you have to go through a swamp, so we usually don't go that way."

He smiled wryly, "As for Dispel Undead... we can't do that. The spirits there are Earthbound Spirit. Not to mention my father and me, even a bishop couldn't handle it."

"So we're just going to leave it alone?"

Sherlock made full use of his physical appearance and spoke his mind.

"They did manage to do something," the pastor affirmed. "The priests of Alder Town sealed off that inn."

"Because demolishing the inn directly might drive the Earthbound Spirit mad; but if left unattended, it would tempt passersby. So the priest sealed off the inn, blocked the road, and put up warning signs far away—where the Earthbound Spirit's illusions couldn't reach. There were guards in front, and roadblocks in the middle... hardly anyone would pass by that way."

"... That's a really simple and crude way to handle it."

Hai Na was a little embarrassed. "Is it okay to just leave it there?"

The old pastor, however, didn't seem to care, chuckling, "You're still too young, little Hai Na. Extraordinary Skills aren't everything, nor are they necessary. Problems that can be solved simply don't necessarily require Extraordinary Skills."

"Earthbound Spirit need to eat people to survive, but they cannot leave their dwelling places. So we don't need to sacrifice multiple priests to defeat them head-on—in a sense, Earthbound Spirit are harmless. We just need to isolate them in a place where they can't come into contact with living people, and they will slowly dissipate on their own."

"And to do this, you don't need any magic, divine arts, or rituals. All you need is a sign and a few roadblocks. As far as I know, apart from some wanted criminals who occasionally flee in a panic, I haven't heard of many people going missing in that area. This shows that it's quite effective."

The old pastor took a smug bite of his bread and chuckled, "That's the wisdom of an adult."

After having breakfast, Iver asked the old pastor for directions to the inn and then prepared to leave.

Hai Na seemed quite concerned about where she had lost the dagger... but Iver thought it might still be on Hai Na, or it might have fallen into Vivian's hands. Either way, it wouldn't be found anytime soon, so let's just pretend it didn't exist.

Meanwhile, Hai Na and Lily went to prepare the materials for the ceremony that the group would be using that night.

Iver and Sherlock, on the other hand, decided to go check out the inn.

Iver had originally planned to go and see for himself, but Sherlock insisted on coming along. Iver, of course, agreed without hesitation.

He didn't intend to hide his Card Making ability—or rather, it would be exposed sooner or later as Iver produced more and more cards. As long as those who knew the truth were safe, that was fine.

Sherlock is clearly on the trustworthy side.

Earthbound Spirit is a phantom demon with both earth and dark attributes. On one hand, she is a skeletonless undead, representing the second stage of the undead; on the other hand, her abilities are very similar to those of Dream Demon.

There are two cards that can be used to seal Earthbound Spirit: [Death] and [Tower].

Iver intends to use the Death Card here.

Because the Death Card belongs to the Amber realm, it can be created and summoned without using Earth Attribute magic—instead using Dark Attribute Mana.

So Iver took out his Tarot Card again and found the Death Card.

A layer of benzoin resin was brushed on top, and after it dried, it was buried with soil from a grave. Then, it was sealed in a small box in this state... and that was considered complete.

He had prepared all the materials needed to seal the Earthbound Spirit —much cheaper than those required for the Shadow Demon. The core materials were a handful of grave soil, some benzoin resin, and a piece of amber. The remaining materials could be obtained using any item with the Twilight affinity, such as shrouds or coffin fragments. Just be careful not to use living creatures or other members of the same species as sacrifices.

On Glass Island, he might have to buy some coffin boards and burn them to ashes.

But this requirement was far too easy to meet in Eagle Cape Village.

Iver headed straight for the swamp and filtered some of the murky water. After testing it with a ritual, he found that the substance was indeed usable and of extremely high purity... So Iver simply took several more bottles, carefully stored them, and put them in Lily's backpack.

After that, Iver took Sherlock and rode the griffin Liz to the southern Alder Town.

Update complete! Suddenly realized that A Mu has already reached one million views! (Sound of excitement) When I started this book, the plan was similar to that of the players, around 3.5 million views divided into three volumes, and this is already almost a third of the way through...