Chapter 1060 — Book 2: Chapter 258: Chaos plus chaos (7)
13 min read ·
“…….”
The Elf Guardian looked at Cale's palm with a blank look on her face. She then looked up at Cale’s face.
Once at the palm, once at the face…
She did that a few times before opening her mouth.
"We do have an approximate map of the inside of the castle, sir, but… Why do you need-”
“To loot the castle.”
Cale had said it already but he decided to be nice and say it again.
“…You are going to loot Ryan's castle?”
He was nice and nodded his head despite the repeated comment.
He then smiled.
“Apparently it is suspected that the ‘Cry of Sunset’ is there.”
“!”
Wiesha's shoulders started to shake. It was not just her.
Wolf tribe leader Nia and Koukan… The two beast people, who were in the corner, looked extremely shocked as they took a step forward.
"The Cry of Sunset?! That divine item has not been destroyed?!”
Koukan continued in a shaking voice.
“I, if we have that, we may be able to go berserk properly! Isn’t that right, tribe leader-nim?”
“Y, yes sir!”
Nia nodded her head energetically as if she had never been gloomy.
‘C, could you please explain in detail, sir?!”
The White Snake stuttered as she asked and Cale leisurely shrugged his shoulders.
“Sure. I need to explain what we are going to do as well, so why don't we sit down and chat?”
* * *
Crawl, crawl.
– Human, human! You have to lower your body more! It is getting even smaller up here!
‘Haaaaa.’
Cale lowered his body some more.
– You look like a turtle! Crawl! Crawl!
He continued to crawl.
“This is not hard for me at all, nya!”
“Meeeeow.”
Right in front of him were On and Hong, who were leisurely walking in their kitten forms. On even looked elegant as she walked. She looked as if she learned how to walk like a noble from Ron.
“Cale-nim, are you okay?”
He heard Choi Han's voice behind him.
“Should I carry you, Cale-nim? Ah.”
He stopped in the middle of the sentence.
“You can’t carry him here, nya!”
As Hong mentioned, this tunnel was too small to carry someone.
“…I'll just go on my own.”
Cale held back a sigh as he continued to speak.
He heard a voice from the front.
“The entrance, is just a bit farther up.”
It was the White Snake. She was also crawling.
"This is the only way to quietly infiltrate into the castle wall-, I apologize for this burdensome endeavor.”
Cale's group was currently using a secret path to infiltrate Ryan’s castle.
‘Magic is dangerous.’
‘All routes above ground will get caught.’
‘The guards are so strict these days so we might get caught very quickly even if we enter the castle.’
Numerous comments had come and gone before a decision was made.
‘Most importantly, we have no idea about what is going on inside Ryan's castle right now.’
That was the biggest issue the Elf Guardian mentioned.
‘We have not been able to even get close to it for about two weeks.’
Two weeks of no information…
In order to fill that gap…
‘We will first infiltrate through the secret passage, assess the situation, and come back out.’
They needed to do some reconnaissance first.
Everybody agreed with Cale.
“I'm truly sorry.”
The White Snake apologized once more and Cale answered as if it was not a big deal.
“It’s fine, ma’am.”
Wiesha still seemed to feel guilty as she groaned. Unlike before, the way she treated Cale had become even more extreme. This was probably to be expected.
‘I didn't know he really was the savior.’
Cale did not seem to think it was a big deal as he explained his conversation with the foundation of this world.
Wiesha got chills after hearing it all.
‘We can return everything back to how they were!’
Cale Henituse. This sir can do it all.
‘He can reestablish the aura of the world?
By using the foundation?
Is he really human?’
Cale claimed he was human, but Wiesha was 50/50 on whether she believed him.
Half of her felt that he was not human and was more like a god…
The other half got chills thinking that he was a human with phenomenal powers.
‘It doesn’t matter which it is.
What is important is that this esteemed sir is on our side.
It’s possible.’
The hope that they might be able to stop the Dragon Lord and the Purple Bloods…
The hope that they could stop the destruction of this world…
‘Yes, this sir is what you would call hope.
That’s why I need to do my best to help this sir with everything he wants to do.’
Wiesha firmed her resolve.
Her crawling became a bit faster as if to show her feelings.
‘Ha.’
Cale held back a sigh after seeing that she sped up and increased his speed as well. He opened his mouth as he moved.
“Lock.”
“…Yes, yes young master-nim!”
He heard Lock’s voice coming from the back of the group.
Currently, the children averaging ten-years-old, Wiesha, Choi Han, and Lock… They were the only ones with Cale.
They couldn’t bring a lot of people for reconnaissance so he only brought individuals who were skilled in stealth or had the skills to back them up.
“Are you okay?”
“…Yes sir! I am doing fine, young master-nim!”
Cale nodded his head at the innocent and docile voice and moved forward.
Lock was feeble but big, so this narrow passage was probably difficult for him, but…
‘He says he’s okay.’
He shouldn’t need to worry about it much.
Choi Han would look after Lock before any problems arose.
Cale continued to crawl without looking back.
– Cale, it's hard isn’t it?
He did his best to ignore the Super Rock.
Lock could peek at Cale from the back.
‘…I can’t hinder him.’
He curled up his body as much as possible as he crawled.
His back and head got dirty as they touched the top of the passage, but he didn't care.
‘I'm sure we will only be in the way if we go along?’
Nia had cautiously asked and Lock did not dare to tell her it was okay for her to come along.
‘I don’t have the skills to protect the tribe leader-nim and she doesn’t have the skills to protect herself.
We can’t be a burden on young master Cale-nim any more than we have already.’
Lock answered Nia and Koukan.
‘I, I will go take a good look!’
The two Beast people thanked him. And they looked at Lock-
‘They were sparkling.’
They looked at Lock with extreme sparkles in their eyes.
Lock knew that kind of gaze.
It was the same kind of gaze people gave to Cale.
That was why Lock knew that the glimmer in their eyes represented anticipation and faith.
“Huuuuuu.”
Lock subconsciously let out a deep breath.
"Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
He answered Choi Han's question as if he was fine, but he felt as if his heart was being weighed down some more.
However, he didn’t mind the weight.
Squeeze.
He strengthened his grip on the ground.
‘I will make sure……!’
He had no clear goal about making sure to do something.
The only thought on Lock's mind was that he wanted to achieve something. He also had a bit of anxiety about whether this was the right mindset for him to have.
“Stop.”
The White Snake spoke at that moment.
“We have arrived.”
Shhh.
The baby white snake slithered out of the White Snake's pocket, climbed up her head and stuck her face against the ceiling of the cave.
“Mommy, be quiet.”
Shhh.
The baby snake returned to the White Snake's pocket and Wiesha extended her hand toward the ceiling.
Plop.
The ceiling soon opened.
“One moment please.”
Wiesha stepped out first.
She stuck her head into the cave after a bit and addressed the group.
“You can come out now, sir.”
– Human, I’ll go first!
Raon started and they all got out one after the other.
“Mm.”
Of course, Cale groaned a bit as he got out of the cave.
“!”
He then slightly staggered while standing up.
– Human, are you okay?
It was because he had been kneeling on his knees for quite a while.
“Yeah. I'm fine.”
Cale gave a nonchalant answer before standing up straight.
Shh.
“Here.”
A chair appeared in front of him.
Wiesha smiled as she offered him a small chair.
“Please sit.”
“Okay then.”
Cale did not reject the offer and quickly sat down before looking around.
"This is a basement.”
Choi Han closed the door to the cave once Lock made it out. He then immediately stood behind Cale.
Chhhhhhhhh.
Cale opened the map.
“Is it this house right here?”
“Yes sir. It is that house’s basement.”
Ryan’s Castle.
Since it was called a castle, Cale had expected one large castle.
However, this place was more like a large village.
‘There is an exterior castle wall.’
Numerous houses existed inside it.
The numbers were more than most villages.
‘There is an internal castle wall as well.’
Ryan’s lair, his castle, existed inside those internal walls.
“There is a magic device installed on the internal castle walls so nobody without proper documents can approach it.”
They needed a permit to go into Ryan’s lair.
“Our spy who has such a permit works inside the castle and brings us information.”
That was the reason their map of the inside of the castle was quite thorough.
“Of course, nobody manages to last more than 3 months.”
Ryan was so good at finding the spies that nobody managed to last more than three months in his lair. It would have been fine if they managed to run away, but most of them were caught and faced not-so-good endings.
“After that, we do not generally send spies into the inside of the castle.”
They couldn't lose more of their already few allies.
“We changed tactics to focus on the external part of the castle, picking up rumors from inside the village.”
Even that had been difficult the past two weeks.
“They started patrolling inside the village as well.”
They started checking for permits inside the village as well, and the Guardian’s people did not approach the castle because of the danger.
They also told their spies not to do anything that was too much.
They couldn't do anything else.
“…It was not long after we reached the foundation of this world.”
It had been almost right after the Elf Guardian and Wiesha had met with the foundation of this world, so it was more important for them to not have their base found out.
“As for this place, it is the house of one of our people.”
This village made a circle around Ryan's lair.
This house was to the north.
“Some of the Beast people live in the western and southern regions. They do manual labor. Of course, most of the Beast people are inside the lair.”
Their gazes moved to the map of the inside of the lair.
"The basement is completely empty.”
This large lair was the size of most Imperial Palaces.
“Yes sir. We believe there are more than three floors underground, but… None of our people were able to get to that area. Of course, some of them managed to get there, but we lost contact with them.”
“They must be guarding that area the strongest then.”
“Yes sir. If we had to choose a spot where the divine item might be, I would say either this basement area or Ryan's bedroom. And then-”
He was unable to speak for a bit before continuing on.
“Apparently there is a report about a large number of Beast people who have submitted to Ryan disappearing into that basement since about a month ago.”
This was something the White Snake had not known either. She had heard from the Elf Guardian today.
Cale’s eyebrows slightly rose up.
“You said a mysterious alarm started ringing two weeks after that and made it impossible to approach?”
“Yes sir.”
Cale thought for a bit after seeing the White Snake agree with him.
The cries that reminded Choi Han of the black despair…
The Cry of Sunset divine item the foundation of this world had told him about…
Furthermore, their enemy Dragon had the attribute of Dominance.
The Hunters also were very good at using dead mana, despair, and other things to cause issues.
‘This is quite leery.’
Cale subconsciously thought about the dark side of the Alchemists’ Bell Tower he saw in the basement of the Mogoru Empire?
The hills of bones he found in the basement… The containers of dead mana standing in between them…
The black despair that was created from that…
‘There are times when our past experiences have the answer we need,’
The White Snake continued as Cale thought to himself.
“Our person here is a human.”
“Really?”
“Yes sir. One of the very few humans in this place. Just so you know, sir, a lot of humans live within Ryan’s castle. Most trivial tasks are completed by humans. Pfft.”
She chuckled.
“There is even a prayer temple serving Ryan as a god at the center of the village.”
She was actually sneering.
“Anyway, she is human but pretty old as well, so she has been working in the village for about three months without suspicion. Her abilities are worth trusting. I believe she would come up with the best record among our teams.”
She then added on.
"Based on what the Guardian told me, this person managed to get a permit to enter the lair, so it should be good to get information through her.”
"That's great.”
Cale nodded his head thinking things would go a bit easier.
Aipotu.
This world was ruled by the Dragons and the Purple Bloods, but the individuals under their rules had done quite a lot of things in their respective positions.
It made it so Cale could move a bit more relaxed.
It was at that moment.
Screeeech.
He heard a door open.
The White Snake's face brightened.
"Ah, it must be our team member!”
She looked quite happy, as if she had quite the friendship with this person.
Cale's gaze naturally moved toward the basement entrance.
Screeeech-
The door slowly opened and a person's face appeared.
The White Snake started speaking first to that person.
“It’s been a while. We came with allies. I will explain the situation.”
Wiesha wanted to say the core things first because they had not exchanged information for a while.
Creak.
However, the door stopped after it opened about half way.
“!”
And that person…
Bang!
Quickly closed the door again.
“Get her!”
As Cale jumped up and shouted…
Bang!
Choi Han had already started moving.
He broke the basement door.
No he pierced right through it.
“!”
Cale had been shocked at such a reckless choice before he saw Choi Han through the hole in the door suppress the escaping person, grab her by the neck, smash her against the ground, before covering her mouth with his hand.
He had completely suppressed her.
“W, what just-”
Wiesha was so shocked she could not speak properly, but Cale had no time to pay her any attention.
Cale immediately walked out of the basement.
He saw a typical family home that was a bit old but gave off warm vibes.
The way it was decorated made it feel very homey.
“…….”
Cale looked around the house before crouching down.
He made eye contact with the person who had been suppressed by Choi Han and was on the ground with her mouth covered.
“It's been a while?”
It was a familiar person.
It was someone Cale remembered.
“I wonder what the priestess of the God of War is doing here.”
Deputy Chief Priest Cotton.
The believer of the God of War who had been hiding as a Deputy Chief Priest at Endable when Cale went to see the White Star.
She had even prepared a spot for Cale’s group to safely evacuate to while they were fighting against the White Star.
She had disappeared without a trace once everything had ended.
But now that they knew there was something between the Purple Bloods and the God of War… Cale smiled brightly as he asked her a question.
"Did the God of War send you?”
Cotton's pupils were shaking significantly.
—
Translator's Comments
Wait…Cotton is here?!
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