Chapter 56: Act 48 – Infiltration
The Dark Dragon was the sworn enemy of the Four Saints during the Holy War, especially King of Flames Gilt, who had a nation-destroying grudge against it. Though Brendel was also puzzled as to why the witch Babasha would say so, this time he could not agree, for if he did, he might unwittingly find himself on the opposite side of the entire world of light: “The Dark Dragon Odin? I know that you witches regard him as the harbinger of a dark fate, but it has nothing to do with me.”
He looked at Babasha, and saw that the old witch was still kneeling on the ground in great fear, trembling all over like a sieve. Brendel was slightly surprised, then realized he had gone too far. He had forgotten that the people of this world held gods and great powers in extremely high regard, and even if they were on the opposing side, they would never disrespect them casually in words.
As a player, he couldn’t fully accept such attitudes, and his remaining half was still influenced by Brendel. Therefore, when mentioning these names, an air of equality naturally crept into his expression.
This equality meant nothing to him, but in the eyes of Charles and Babasha, it was a great insult. However, this time was a bit different—Old witch Babasha was deeply terrified, and Charles hadn’t yet recovered from his previous admiration—so this natural equality instead left more doubts in their hearts.
Brendel also realized this. He shook his head and said, “Never mind, believe what you want. As long as you don’t hinder me, you’re not allowed to go anywhere until the sun rises.”
Babasha kept her forehead on the ground and dared not move.
Brendel then gave a sign to Charles, who was standing by in a daze, telling him there was a hidden door under the table and asking him to open it. The young man moved the table with half-belief, lifted the carpet and pressed his hand down, and sure enough, the floor beneath was only thinly covered. By this point, Charles had become accustomed to his Lord’s prescience, attributing such phenomena to things beyond human ability in this world.
He found the handle on one side and pulled it forcefully, revealing a steep, dark staircase below.
”Lord, are we going in now?” he asked.
”Of course, what else do you want to do?”
”Huh, isn’t there somewhere in the vast Ridenburg where we can level up a bit more?”
”Do you think magic items are like big cabbages in the ground, that you can just pick them up?”
”Big cabbages?”
”I mean radishes. You know what that is,” Brendan slapped his forehead, realizing he had misspoke again. Vaunte was somewhat different from the world he was familiar with.
”Of course, but when Lord says it, it sounds entirely different. Big, white, cabbage, what a poetic term! Its root must come from the ancient language, you see, the pronunciation is similar.”
Brendel couldn’t help but laugh. This guy. But actually, he knew of hidden quests and secret treasures in Ridenburg, at least two places — the underground church and the famous Wind Tower. However, both places had level restrictions like doorkeepers, and they were not NPCs like Babasha where he could find loopholes, so after much consideration, he had to give up.
His greatest ideal now was to hone his strength while gathering the treasures he knew about. But his time was currently very tight. His first goal was to become a survivor, not someone chasing stats — and once the First Black Rose War ended, before the civil strife in Erluin, Brendel would have plenty of time to implement his plans. With experience and the best equipment at his command, he believed that becoming one of the strongest forces in Vaunte was not impossible.
Brendel never believed that power didn’t depend on equipment. As a player, the system where attributes, equipment, and skill were combined was essential in his view.
He casually picked up the box nearby, sweeping all the elemental crystals inside into his bag: twelve wind elements, one fire element, and only three or so were bright blue water elements. These elemental crystals, also called elemental crystals, were the condensed bodies of free-floating elements in the material world. They were originally irregular prism-like crystalline formations, but they had to be artificially polished into uniformly pointed columns, so each crystal contained one unit of energy.
After pillaging Babasha’s collection, the two of them, acting as the most competent burglars, also took Babasha’s candles and went into the tunnel. A witch’s candle was a magical item that could teleport someone to any place light could reach, a life-saving secret only known among witches — of course, Brendel was also aware of it.
The secret passage of the Yason Castle was approximately 1.5 kilometers long, and for the most part, it was narrow enough to accommodate only one person. In wider areas, there were three spider-sized human poison spiders. Wizards often did this — raising beasts to serve as guardians. Babasha placed them here obviously to flatter Duke Golan-Elsen, but these things were just scaring ordinary people. For Brendel, they were worth a total of nine experience points.
The other end of the tunnel led behind a row of wine racks in the basement of Yason Castle, though since it was a tunnel for escape, it couldn’t be sealed too tightly. Brendel found the mechanism with a little fiddling around on the wall — a device used to move the wine racks with iron slides to the side.
When the two emerged from the tunnel, they both took a deep breath — however good the ventilation was, the dust accumulating in the narrow tunnel over time was not something just anyone could endure. After walking for so long, Charles almost felt his lungs had accumulated a thick layer of dust.
”Lord, we’ve exceeded the fifteen-minute mark,” he said immediately upon emerging from the passage, pulling a silver pocket watch from his pocket and glancing at it.
”Never mind.”
”Uh?”
”I’d originally set aside time to visit Duke Golan-Elsen’s treasure vault, but it seems I’ll have to give that up. However, the collections in nobles’ villas are often nothing more than art and jewels, of little use.”
”Lord acts truly decisively, not everyone can remain unmoved by treasures.”
”No, you misunderstand, Charles. My meaning is that picking up a few treasures along the way would suffice, I’ll tell you which ones are real.”
”…”
Charles was amazed at the calm greed of his Lord, though he did not know that this thievery trait did not stem from Brendel’s own nature, but rather from an automatic behavior as a player.
The two walked up the stairs and stopped talking to each other almost simultaneously. Brendel extinguished the candle, handing it to the retainer behind, and placed his hand on the handle leading to the outside of the basement. Strength surged, and the handle shattered with a “snap.”
The moment he pushed open the door, two guards looked over in shock, but they only saw Brendel pulling out his longsword with the other hand. He slashed forward in a beautiful silver arc, cutting through the guards’ movements before they could halfway draw their swords, and their sheathed blades “clang” were struck away.
Startled, the guards realized the visitor meant no good and tried to flee, but how could Brendel let them go? Without hesitation, he chased them from behind and dispatched them with a slash each.
This was Brendel’s first time killing.
He killed the two without thinking much, his mind was even clearer than usual. Because if the other side didn’t perish, he and Charles would find themselves in a life-and-death situation. This was a fight where either one of them would die. He didn’t even have time to think about what Romaine or Freya might feel; only survival instinct drove him to act.
But after killing, Brendel felt a heavy suffocating sensation. He tried to steady his breath, tightly gripping the longsword, standing still as blood dripped from the blade onto the stone floor, without any reaction.
At that moment, he thought of many things. Numerous random thoughts crept into his mind, leaving his thinking in a state of vacuum, almost causing him a momentary loss of consciousness — initially looking for an excuse, but soon just to console himself to feel slightly at ease.
”Lord?” Charles noticed his abnormality.
Brendel raised his hand to signal it was nothing, but instead of dragging the two bodies into the basement as originally planned, this time he lacked the motivation. He could barely stop himself from looking at the other person’s bodies, that was his limit. He wasn’t afraid of killing, but he couldn’t accept the psychological impact all at once.
However, what slightly comforted him was that there was no experience from killing people. He didn’t know why this brought him solace, as he should have been desperately in need of experience, but Brendel somehow thought if killing people could earn experience, it might be something he couldn’t accept.
He pondered and believed that he was still essentially a human, unable to bear the concept of profiting from the lives of one’s own kind.
”Now we’ll act separately,” Brendel took a deep breath and responded.
”Whatever you command.”
”I’ll fight my way up to deal with that Earl, and you go the other way to sound the alarm.” Brendel said while counting from one to a hundred in his mind, regaining his composure by the time he hit thirty.
”Sound the alarm?”
”Did you forget what I told you? We must launch a frontal assault, the louder the better.”
”And then we return the same way via the secret passage?”
”No, we must fight our way out.”
Charles was startled, “Why?”
”The guest rooms are in the top few floors of the castle, we’ll only have time to escape from the top, but if the White Mane Legion has brought archers, then you and I will have to pray for Lady Martha’s protection.”
Charles nodded understandingly, turning to leave. He wouldn’t ask which way the bell was; if he couldn’t even capture a prisoner, he’d be unfit to be a retainer. Knights and their retainers must possess basic fighting skills.
But Brendel called him back, “Wait, you’re in a hurry for what?”
”What is it Lord? What other commands?”
”Certainly, from here, turn left at the stairs, the corridor at the end is full of genuine antiques. When you see something portable and easy to sell, don’t hesitate.”
”…”
Charles stared at him for a long while, then finally said, “I take back my earlier words, Lord.”
”Which one?”
”The first one, not everyone can remain unmoved by treasures. It should be instead, everyone is moved by treasures.”
”No, you don’t understand. You see, Charles, later on, I’ll have to take the responsibility of providing for Little Roman and her aunt, it’s a man’s duty. It’s not easy to support a family — I have my reasons.”
”You can say that to Duke Golan-Elsen, Lord. You can rest assured, I learned appraisal in Bud. I’ll help you pick out the most valuable ones.”
Brendel blinked, then laughed wickedly.
…
(PS. Dinner was fried rice, and late-night snack was instant noodles. But why did I feel a bit queasy after finishing the noodles?)
