Chapter 28

The orc bandit Luer's treasure was hidden in a very secret location deep in the Ash Forest, beside a clearing where skeletons were born.

In the Ash Forest, certain places drew in negative energy so strongly that nothing grew there, leaving bare, empty stretches of land. Beneath these clearings, the flow of negative energy gradually carried bones of all kinds to one place, forming enormous piles. Every night, the bones became a horde of skeletons, which silently absorbed negative energy in the clearing and grew stronger.

This unusual terrain was known as a "skeleton mound." When Sui Xiong had first set foot on land, he had studied one such mound.

Luer's treasure was hidden near a medium-sized skeleton mound. There was nothing unusual about the spot, whether viewed from the sky or searched on the ground. Only a locator spell could find its coordinates.

Locator magic was a very special kind of magic. It combined astrology and detection to divide the vast land into a huge coordinate system, with each coordinate corresponding to a place. People had apparently been working on a version that included "altitude," but so far no one had succeeded.

The spell was somewhat obscure and complicated to use, but it was very popular. For one thing, it was a great help when adventuring in the wilderness, letting people quickly determine their bearings by comparing their position to a map. For another, it was extremely useful for hiding treasure—practically foolproof.

Before locator magic was invented, treasure hunters had to design clear, distinctive features for their hiding places that would still escape notice. That took real skill. Countless people had gone through untold hardships, following treasure maps left by their predecessors, only to discover that some passing adventurer had spotted the clues and dug up the treasure long ago. Some particularly mean-spirited people would even leave traps behind, leaving the rightful owners bloodied and battered.

But after locator magic was invented, hiding treasure became much simpler. People could choose a place with nothing distinctive about it at all. Even if a group searched for ten days or half a month, they still wouldn't notice anything unusual. Only someone who knew the exact coordinates could find the treasure.

Unlike their predecessors, who had to outwit future treasure hunters, modern treasure owners only needed to hide their treasure well and leave their descendants the coordinates and instructions for digging it up. That was all there was to it.

Blood Hand Luer's treasure was no different. There wasn't even the slightest thing unusual about its location. Even though they had the exact coordinates, Gerald and the others still looked a little lost when they arrived at the spot they indicated.

"This place doesn't look special at all. Even if there's treasure here, where could it be hidden?" Palin studied the area carefully but couldn't find a trace of anything. He couldn't help wondering, "Could that fellow have left us the wrong coordinates?"

The coordinates couldn't possibly be wrong. Luer's soul was in Sui Xiong's hands, making him like a book that could be consulted at any time, with nothing hidden. Sui Xiong had already told Gerald everything about the treasure—even what was inside. How could he have gotten the coordinates wrong?

"This is definitely the right place. We need to dig straight down, about ten feet, and we'll find a magical mechanism. It requires Luer's bloodline as proof to unlock, so we'll need to trouble Ryan when we get there." Gerald shared some of the information he had. "Anyway, let's get started."

No one objected. The three of them got to work.

Gerald had tremendous strength, so he did most of the digging. Ryan was experienced and could lend a hand. Palin, meanwhile, could only set up camp so everyone would have a good place to rest that night.

Gerald's own preference would have been to come treasure hunting alone. He thought that if he wasn't strong enough by himself, he could always ask His Majesty Oscar for help, so there was no need to bring anyone else along. But Sui Xiong disagreed. He felt that Gerald had become too detached from society. If he didn't make an effort to build relationships, sooner or later he'd become a hermit, "apart from the world"—like a dragon or some other excessively powerful creature, living all alone in the Wasteland, without a single friend visiting or even a ghost in sight.

Humans were social creatures, after all. What kind of fun could a life like that be?

So he'd had Gerald bring Palin, who wanted to broaden his horizons, and used the excuse that "I'm busy" to make Gerald find someone to help him dismantle the magical mechanism. In the end, all he really wanted was for Gerald to spend more time talking to people and make a few friends.

As a matter of fact, he'd also been thinking about how to alter Gerald's appearance. The bald guy's look—though he wasn't bald anymore—was so outrageously cool that it left him with no friends. Even setting that aside, with a body that huge, it'd be hard for him to find a partner!

There was a playful saying on Earth that age, looks, income, personality, and even gender or life and death couldn't stand in the way of love—but physique was a real deal-breaker. Gerald's sense of beauty was certainly human, so there was no way he'd be attracted to ogres or Mountain Giants and other huge creatures. If he wanted a partner, they'd have to make him smaller again or give him the ability to change his size at will.

So ever since waking up from a good night's sleep, Sui Xiong had been working hard on the problem. If anyone flew high enough to reach the enormous Floating Jellyfish, they'd see a patch of muscle on its back constantly changing shape.

He was experimenting, trying to find a way to change shape at will.

Sui Xiong himself could shapeshift, but he couldn't do it quickly, and the process carried some risk. Besides him, someone who didn't fear death, no one else could probably use it. From the magical systems he'd encountered in this world, there had to be a better method—one that was both fast and reliable.

Such a method surely existed. He just had to find it.

Over the past few days, while Gerald and the others traveled, Sui Xiong had been concentrating on his research, trying to find a solution.

But this was something that wouldn't yield results anytime soon. All he could do was be patient and continue exploring and reasoning it out.

As dusk fell, Gerald finally dug down to the magical mechanism. It was a metal plate at least five feet square, carved with intricate patterns that were dizzying to look at. At the center of the pattern was a teardrop-shaped indentation, connected to the rest of the design by countless vein-like channels.

The correct way to unlock the mechanism was to drip the blood of someone sharing Luer's bloodline into the teardrop-shaped indentation. The blood would then flow along the channels into the magic circle, activating the bloodline identification array first. If the bloodline passed inspection, it would activate the remaining arrays and unlock the mechanism, opening the way to the treasure vault. If it failed, the array would go dark and need a night to absorb ambient negative energy before it could be used for another test.

Gerald definitely couldn't provide blood from Luer's bloodline. By the time Sui Xiong had found the information in Luer's memories, the orc had been dead for a long time, and the blood in his corpse had lost its vitality. It wouldn't pass inspection—bloodline identification arrays only recognized living blood, never blood from a corpse.

So once they'd unearthed the array, the rest was up to Ryan, the master thief.

"This looks pretty complicated—not something an ordinary person could manage." Ryan didn't rush to work. He studied it for a while, then exclaimed in admiration, "Whoever built this magical mechanism was a real expert. His handiwork is superb, and his magical skills are no joke either!"

"Usually, a magical mechanism like this takes a thief who works with his hands and a mage who works with his head. But this looks like one person made it, which is quite a feat. To be honest, the magic isn't especially advanced, but most of us who work with our hands can't learn magic. It's amazing that someone could reach this level!"

"Can you handle it?" Gerald asked.

"Twenty years ago, no problem. These days, I can't." Ryan shook his head and smiled wryly. "I studied some spells back then. I knew pretty much all the ones a thief would need. But I haven't used them in decades, so I've let them get rusty."

"Can you really get rusty at magic?"

"Of course. There's no skill in this world that can't get rusty. Why do so many great adventurers who could wield a sword and cast spells in their heyday later become mere warriors or mages? It's because as their skills improve, they have to spend more and more effort on one area, and the other falls by the wayside." Ryan said, "But don't worry. I can't build a mechanism like this anymore, but I can still crack one. After all... destruction is always easier than creation."

The old thief lowered his head and set to work, focusing intently on cracking the mechanism. His movements were so light and slow that it was almost impossible to tell what he was doing. Gerald watched for a while but couldn't make sense of it, so he shook his head and went back to help Palin.

Cracking the mechanism took longer than they'd expected, and they still hadn't finished by nightfall. So they camped beside the treasure and planned to continue the next day.

That night, Palin set up a magical array around the camp to hide them from the skeletons' senses. Though they were only a stone's throw from the dense skeleton army, nothing happened, and they slept soundly.

The sun was bright the next day, and Ryan was in good shape after a full night's sleep. He got to work after breakfast and finally brought good news at noon.

"Done!" he shouted from the pit. "Come over here! This is actually a small teleportation array."

The three of them gathered in the pit and stood together as he instructed. Then he activated the magical mechanism he'd cracked, and a faint green light shone over them.

With a slight feeling of dizziness, everything went dark and then bright again. They had been teleported out of the pit and into a cave.

The cave was exceptionally dark, but in the distance, they could make out golden objects glittering in the light of the jewels. There were far more than they'd expected.

This was the treasure of the orc bandit Blood Hand, the wealth accumulated by the bandit gang that had terrorized the Four Northwest Towns for several years.