The Eerie Chessboard

Stormwind... was a little different from what Duke had imagined.

In the game, Stormwind had enormous white walls, majestic music playing the moment one entered the gates, and statues of the five heroes brimming with explosive power lining both sides of the avenue. It gave off an absolutely badass first impression.

But the current Stormwind felt ordinary to Duke.

Its mere twenty-four-foot walls were clearly poorly maintained, and Duke could see faint cracks in them. Large patches had peeled away from the outer walls of the towering arrow towers. He seriously doubted how long those towers could hold out under a catapult assault.

As mages, they naturally enjoyed privileges. They did not need to queue with the commoners in that long line waiting to enter the city; their carriage procession went straight in through the other side of the gate.

After passing through the enormous gate tunnel, Duke did not find the huge lake behind the walls that served as a moat, nor did he see an inner wall.

Seeing this, Duke could not help but laugh.

For Stormwind at this moment, it had been nearly a thousand years since it last faced a foreign enemy. Scattered monsters could not possibly threaten the heart of this human kingdom. Fortunately, Stormwind's warriors still possessed formidable combat strength under Anduin Lothar's training. Otherwise, the Stormwind Kingdom would have been nothing more than a massive, flashy shell.

Even so, the Stormwind Kingdom was still only a giant in deep slumber, completely unaware that something called "nobles" had already rotted away its limbs. Only after being tested by blood and fire, and nearly losing the entire kingdom, would Stormwind be reborn after enduring the First Orc War.

Thinking of how such a massive human city was about to be destroyed by war, the feeling of being the only sober person among the drunk was not pleasant at all.

Beside him, Daniel and Itana, the two country bumpkins who had never seen the world, had already opened their mouths wide enough to fit an egg inside.

The vastly different reactions of the three amused old Norton. He asked Duke, "What? Did Stormwind disappoint you?"

"No... Well, yes. The Stormwind I remembered should have had pristine white outer walls fifty feet tall, with Alliance emblems of blue backgrounds and golden trim hanging all over them. Inside the outer wall should have been a hundred-foot-wide inner lake serving as a moat..." Using this world's standard units of measurement, Duke described the Stormwind from the game as he remembered it. He did not know that, at that very moment, an important figure patrolling the walls had inadvertently heard every word. When that figure turned and surveyed the terrain within the walls, a thoughtful expression appeared on his face.

The carriage traveled through bustling streets. After leaving behind the clamor of the Trade District, the procession quickly crossed a small river and entered the Mage Quarter, where the Royal Academy of Magic stood.

They had barely crossed the bridge when Duke heard an explosion.

"Another explosion?"

"This time, it's Intermediate Mage Balal's laboratory."

"Damn it! We should build a high wall. The citizens in the Trade District are scared out of their wits every day."

Through the carriage window, Duke saw Stormwind's guards calmly assigning personnel as though this were routine. Some maintained order, some went to put out the fire, and several ran to Cathedral Square to summon priests who knew healing spells.

"Uh... well, you'll get used to it." Old Norton was embarrassed too.

Duke suddenly felt that mages were a bunch of freaks who kept going farther and farther down the road to self-destruction.

Well, considering that he would soon become one of those freaks, Duke's mood abruptly soured.

"Good thing this world has great goblin engineering to take the blame first..." Duke muttered to himself.

After all, no one caused explosions more often while tinkering with mechanical products than those green-skinned little people barely as tall as a human thigh.

It was very different from the game. Stormwind in this timeline had a massive academy of magic. Its iron gates, ten meters high and inlaid with arcane-gold patterns, were more impressive than the entrances of many universities from before Duke's transmigration.

On the plaza paved with pure white marble tiles, old Norton got out of the carriage first.

"All right, boys and girls, we're here." The old man pointed to a building resembling a library beside the plaza. "Go inside and register. Your information has already been sent ahead. Inside... there will be a troublesome dormitory manager who'll play a little game with you. If you win, you'll receive an extra reward. That's all I can say. Good luck."

The old man's eyes shifted. "As for you, Duke, once you've settled your dormitory, come to my laboratory. It's about the thing you traded with me for."

"Understood, High Mage Norton." When outsiders were present, Duke could not neglect his manners toward the old man. After all, Norton's seniority and status were there for all to see.

After climbing nine steps, Duke and the other two entered the "library." They did not see anyone. Instead, the enormous, hollow hall was completely empty.

Huge glass spheres suspended from the ceiling gave off a soft light brighter than candlelight, making Duke think of energy-saving lamps and the like.

"Over here... over here!"

The three of them jumped in fright. Itana, especially, being more timid, let out a shriek.

The paintings on the hall walls had moved, and the people within them were waving at Duke and the others.

Clearly, every single painting depicted the same figure: someone in a brown hood whose face could not be seen.

"Hello, I am Raven, the dormitory manager of the Royal Academy of Magic. Hmm, a harmless ghost. I believe the mage who brought you here should have told you about me."

Duke and the other two shook their heads like rattles.

"They didn't? Heavens! Who led you here? What terrible taste they had, nearly frightening my adorable juniors."

Not nearly... They had already frightened them!

Duke could clearly feel Itana's ten little fingers gripping his left arm like iron hooks, making it ache.

"All right, so you were frightened. This is the Royal Academy of Magic, not a library. Anyone so cowardly only deserves to become a librarian." With that, he beckoned, and the three young people were immediately sucked uncontrollably into three different paintings.

Duke felt dizzy, just as he had when he first transmigrated. The jarring sensation of crossing through space made him intensely uncomfortable.

When he came to his senses, Duke found himself in a void. Twinkling stars surrounded him, while before him stood a gigantic chessboard large enough for him to do eighteen forward flips and thirty-six side flips without falling off.

The black-and-white squares marked it as a standard chessboard.

But the things on the board were unusual.

Two neat rows of enormous chess pieces stood facing each other, each nearly twice the height of a man.

On the left was the Alliance side, with human appearances. On the right was the orc side, more akin to the Horde.

Duke suddenly recalled a level from the game—the chess event in Karazhan, the lair of the Guardian Medivh!