Lancelot's Curiosity

When Lancelot awoke again, he found himself not on the Emerald Grassland he had always dreamed of.

"What... what's going on?"

When he opened his eyes, he found himself still lying on the dry, desolate gray grassland of the Shadow Land.

The sky remained his familiar, colorless gray-black.

Logically, when Lancelot truly dies, the knights of the Silver Crowned Dragon... his former colleagues and comrades-in-arms, will descend from the Dream Realm across the Rainbow Bridge to guide his soul to the Silver Crowned Dragon's domain.

The towering mountains covered in snow are the Crystal Mountain Range, where the Silver Crowned Dragon resides. Distinguished guests visit from time to time, and there is also a large library donated by Weizhe, where knights can study. At other times, the knights ride horses across the Emerald Grassland at the foot of the mountains.

It was a beautiful lakeside scene bathed in perpetual sunshine, a stark contrast to the Shadow Land where Lancelot had lived for over four hundred years.

This place borders the Fairy Kingdom, and occasionally lost fairies wander into it. Some fairies, captivated by its beauty, stay and become musicians and poets in this authoritative realm. There are also fairies from the Shadow Land who occasionally come to bathe in the lake and meet the valiant knights they admire.

If it weren't for keeping the promise he made to Merlin back then, Lancelot would never have stayed in the dark and shadowy Shadow Land to hone his martial skills.

Only in the Shadow Land, where there is neither sun nor moon, neither life nor death, can Lancelot be resurrected through the grand ritual of "Shadow of Avalon." After all, this ritual itself draws upon the power of the Queen of Shadow Land to resurrect and reshape her physical body.

Looking back now, I feel like I would have been better off dead.

But if he dies now, all those four hundred years of arduous cultivation will have been for nothing. When he arrives at the Emerald Grassland, his old brothers, whom he hasn't seen for four hundred years, will probably laugh at him again.

Thinking of this, Lancelot couldn't help but press his hand to his forehead. He felt a throbbing headache.

"Huh?"

Just then, a gentle and mature voice came. "Lancelot? I heard you left?"

Upon hearing this, Lancelot knew something was wrong and reluctantly opened his eyes. "Morgan...?"

With long, silver-blue hair and sapphire-clear eyes, she was now an elf witch transformed into a fairy. She was Gawain's biological mother and Mordred's adoptive mother.

She smiled faintly and reached out to shake Lancelot's hand, as if to help him up.

She was friends with Vivian and had studied magic under Merlin for a while through Vivian's connections.

Lancelot knew a secret: Morgan and Arthur, who had been reborn as a mortal, had a past relationship. After all, Arthur's war against the Supreme Heaven wasn't a single battle. He had also been wounded and near death, and it was Morgan who healed Arthur then.

As a witch in the Domain of Love, her methods of healing Arthur naturally had a witch's touch.

What made Lancelot even more uneasy was that Morgan seemed to have taken a liking to him again.

Although she was initially elevated to the Emerald Grassland as an apostle of the Silver Crowned Dragon... she followed Lancelot after learning that he planned to go to the Shadow Land to study.

Morgan has now become an apostle of the Shadow Angel and is often seen with Vivian.

Even though Morgan and Arthur only had a one-night stand, and the Silver Crowned Dragon had never intervened... Lancelot still dared not gamble on his boss's opinion of her. Despite Lancelot's repeated advances, Lancelot never dared to touch her. After all, he was still hoping to return to the Emerald Grassland after his death.

"... It seems there's been a problem; the situation is a bit complicated."

Lancelot coughed lightly, not taking Morgan's hand, but sitting up on the grassland himself. "I think I was indeed summoned to the Material Realm by the ' Shadow of Avalon ' ritual... but then I was sacrificed as a offering, and my newly resurrected body was taken away by the City Breaker. Then I met some people... and then suddenly I came back."

"The City Breaker? Enyo?"

Upon hearing the name, Morgan was taken aback. "Are you sure?"

"...What's wrong?" Lancelot realized something was amiss.

"She just died, Bear Angel has gone mad again."

"Dead?"

Lancelot paused for a moment, then asked, "Who killed him?"

"I don't know."

"... She didn't come back to life?"

Lancelot was surprised. "Why not just ask after you're resurrected?"

Logically, phantoms are immortal—in this sense, the Material Realm is like an incubator. Once a soul ascends to become a phantom, it can survive in the Dream Realm indefinitely. Souls that fail to ascend are shattered and randomly reshaped.

After repeated cycles, the number of phantoms will naturally increase.

Unless its power is devoured by a fellow illusionary demon, an illusionary demon will reshape its body in the Dream Realm after it dies; even if it is completely destroyed, it will at most become Phantom Demon Egg and be reborn in the Material Realm.

"That's the problem," Morgan said seriously. "She didn't come back from the Dream Realm —she must have become Phantom Demon Egg."

Becoming Phantom Demon Egg means having all power taken away and falling into utter and complete death.

According to Lancelot, even if he were to be resurrected from the form of the Phantom Demon Egg, he would not be the same as before... The old memories would be blurry and incomplete, and the only clear ones would be the memories of the host in this life.

"...Strange thing."

Lancelot murmured.

He subconsciously recalled the ritual that had briefly summoned him there.

If I had to point out any problem... it would have to be this.

Is there something wrong with the Shadow of Avalon Ritual, or has someone tampered with it?

"Now that you've met the City Breaker, why don't you come with me to see Her Majesty the Queen?"

Morgan warmly invited, "Her Majesty the Queen has summoned us to discuss this matter."

"Your Her Majesty the Queen" is their respectful title for Shadow Angel, since Shadow Angel calls himself the Queen of the Shadow Land.

"... I should go."

Lancelot nodded slowly.

He suddenly remembered something. "Right, I remember Merlin was the one who maintained this ceremony, right?"

"No, Merlin was only responsible for constructing the ritual. Vivian was responsible for maintaining it." Morgan shook his head.

Upon hearing his adoptive mother's name, Lancelot paused for a moment.

He and Vivian had a complete falling out a long time ago, and now they're practically enemies. They almost never see each other.

But thinking about the Shadow of Avalon Ritual, Lancelot suppressed his strange feelings and insisted on asking, "What about Vivian? I need to ask her something..."

She's gone.

Morgan was also somewhat surprised that Lancelot actually wanted to find Vivian...

But she still explained, "I've been missing for a long time."

"... disappearance" refers to what?

Lancelot was taken aback— Vivian had been murdered too? Morgan, guessing what Lancelot was thinking, shook his head and explained, "She wasn't murdered; she ran away on her own. Since even Her Majesty the Queen can't find her, it means she's not in the Dream Realm, nor did she appear in the mortal world through the Shadow Angel ' temple... so I think she's probably reincarnated."

... Why did he suddenly reincarnate at this time? For some reason, Lancelot suddenly thought of the ritual that went wrong.

Lancelot's expression immediately became subtle. "... Are you sure you can't get in touch with him?"

Could it be that Vivian ran away because the ritual encountered an insurmountable problem?

Over the decades, Lancelot made a good friend in the Shadow Land. This friend had died in the Parthian Ancient Kingdom.

According to that guy, the Ritual Mage in the Parthian Ancient Kingdom like to pull off big stunts all the time, as if they can't prove their skill without writing a grand ceremony. Therefore, they need to swindle a lot of money from benefactors, and it's very likely that the ceremony won't ultimately achieve the requirements promised in their initial boasts.

—So there's a saying that either the ritual master or the ritual organizer needs to be able to run.

"... I'm afraid Vivian has run away. I have a bad feeling."

Lancelot recalled his strange experience and warned, "I might have just been summoned to a simulated world line by some Pillar God. I went through the Shadow of Avalon Ritual that exists in reality. That ritual is definitely problematic... I suspect it can pull Apostles directly into the Material Realm and kill them."

"I suggest you go ask Vivian's wolf cub; he should know where his master is."

Lancelot didn't have a good attitude towards that guy.

Whether Vivian was his foster mother or his lover, Lancelot disliked the young wolf cub she raised.

"We've already looked for it."

Morgan answered without hesitation, "I've been looking for her for a long time—I've even looked twice. I went to look for her seven years ago when she first disappeared, and I went again last year because I wasn't sure. But he really doesn't know where Vivian is."

"... Then let's ask Merlin."

Merlin, that bastard, might know—sometimes Lancelot feels like he knows everything.

"Merlin can't be found either."

Morgan gave a wry smile, "He basically never goes back to the Dream Realm; he's always playing around in the Material Realm. You can't lock him up with rituals, so who knows where he is right now? Let me tell you, I know the teacher very well... As long as he doesn't want to see you, you definitely won't be able to find him."

"I know that bastard very well—but no matter where he runs, Weizhe will definitely know."

Lancelot, however, was a little anxious. "Why don't you ask Gawain? If you talk to Gawain, he'll definitely go."

"Isn't it a bit much to bother the Pillar God with something like this? His Majesty might also be unhappy..."

Morgan was still somewhat hesitant.

But Lancelot saw it clearly: she simply didn't want to return to the Emerald Grassland. She had several children there, and her lover, who was now Pillar God ...

That's the trouble with the Path of Love. Once you live long enough, all sorts of complicated emotions become a tangled mess.

However, Morgan finally sighed, unable to refuse Lancelot's request. "Fine, I'll go ask—but don't get your hopes up too high. Even if you can get in touch with Merlin, he might not know where Vivian is."

"It's always good to give it a try."

Lancelot still warned, "You'd better be careful... I think the Shadow of Avalon Ritual has become very dangerous, completely different from Merlin's original design. I suspect Vivian may be plotting something."

"She won't be plotting anything, don't worry."

Morgan simply smiled and reassured her, "I know her best."

—Do you know her as well as I do?

Lancelot thought to himself.

But he was polite and didn't say it directly.

"Oh, by the way," Lancelot thought of another name, "Do you know someone named Iver Moriarty?"

"... A descendant of Mordred?"

Morgan's expression was a little strange. "What's wrong?"

Mordred was her adopted son, though they weren't related by blood... but none of Mordred's descendants were related by blood either. In that sense, since Mordred could be considered an ancestor of the Moriarty Family, she could be considered one too.

"I'm a little curious about him. Could you help me investigate him? He should be quite young, a pastor, and very handsome."

Lancelot said, "I can't leave the Shadow Land. Could you go find him for me?"

"Okay, this will be quick. It's much simpler than going to find Gawain."

Morgan laughed and said, "After I finish meeting the Queen, I'll go down and take a look... Since his surname is Moriarty, he should live on Glass Island, right? I'll just go take a stroll around Glass Island; there should be someone there who knows him."

As a fairy, she could appear briefly from any lake in the Material Realm. And Glass Island happened to have a large lake, making it quite convenient for her to get there.

Those who carelessly tossed axes by the lake were seeing these fairies.

"Remember to send him my goodwill."

Lancelot instructed, "Tell him that everything is fine here—I've returned to the Shadow Land, and it was a pleasure fighting alongside him. I hope we can meet again in the future. I'll treat him to a drink then."

His implication was that he hoped Iver could ascend to the Dream Realm in the future. Then, Iver could come to the Shadow Land to find him.

They were said to be fighting side by side... but in reality, they were two souls squeezed into one body, being brutally beaten together by the City Breaker.

But thanks to their mutual support, their souls weren't crushed by the City Breaker. If it had been just one person, they probably wouldn't have lasted long before being crushed... Although Lancelot lived for a long time, he wasn't an apostle, and his soul hadn't been elevated.

However, Morgan's expression was somewhat subtle.

The dead telling the living that they hope to meet again in the future... that doesn't seem very auspicious.

So she changed the subject and asked, "Should I help you deliver a token to him?"

"... It is possible, but I really don't have any valuables."

Lancelot thought for a moment, "Could you give Iver a gift for me, Morgan? Thank you. I'll make it up to you later."

The Lady of the Lake are all very wealthy.

After all, they were once witches, and even if they transformed into fairies or sorceresses, they still retained the ability to create artifacts and potions. Just a few hundred years of exchanging these things allowed them to accumulate a vast fortune.

"No problem, I'll give you whatever I think is appropriate."

Morgan was pleased with Lancelot's words and said with a smile, "I also look forward to your gift."