The Amber Sword

v3c357p1

Requiem(7)

Although he was curious why the cavemen would appear in the underground relics, Brendel calmly buried his curiosity. He subtly looked in the direction the cavemen had left, unable to help the malicious speculation whether or not they would be torn to shreds by the raging Mother of Spiders, but did not think any further. He calmed himself down and turned back to the others， gesturing for the group to move on.

Nobody spoke as they considered the possibility of encountering another enemy, they even muffled the sound of their footsteps, and the surroundings of the dark underground returned to a peaceful and eerie calm with only the rustling of their footsteps. But everyone understood that there was danger lurking beneath the cover of silence, and though the knights were unfamiliar with creatures from the dark underground, they had at least heard of their abnormally good hearing.

No one wanted to get in trouble at this moment.

The path in the rock wall began to narrow until man-made tunnels gradually emerged. Ancient relics appeared so frequently throughout this journey that it seemed like these broken walls were interspersed with the natural rock walls. These were usually caused by the sinkage of seismic fault subsidence, though in the magical world, powerful magical forces could create the same scenario. Brendel looked closely at the sight immersed in the mute darkness; he did not have to theorize by himself as past players have long discussed it.

In fact, it doesn’t matter where, there were always players who were obsessed with exploring the history and context of the game, they would tirelessly dig for what laid beyond the rules of the game and look for details the game producers fabricated.

They really did have a lot of accomplishments, The Amber Sword was undoubtedly an excellent game, with countless historical contexts and details so elaborate one might not even believe it was only a game. The historical contexts followed each other so closely that they linked together perfectly, and players could rarely find loopholes, just like the real world.

Brendel himself used to read a lot of literature like this, though he was not a so-called “plot lover” nor a “setting fan”. It was simply because he felt that in the game, the quests related to the ancient times were so relevant to the context that knowing more about them would help him to better achieve his goal in the game.

He considered himself a neutral party, but it was also because of that, he was not able to be counted as a top tier player, despite having put in far more time than other players.

But since he had crossed over to this world, the experiences and knowledge of both the game and the background setting of the game has provided him with an amazing advantage. He led the group through the fragmented tunnels for a good ten minutes before Babasha stopped in one place.

Before that, Brendel had already felt them walk into the middle of a smaller hall, the whole of which was made entirely of cyan granite. This feature was very distinctive in the game, which was why he managed to conjure up the name from his fuzzy memory- the Temple of Rosom Meditation.

His memory was fuzzy because, in the game, this place did not occupy a very prominent place in this particular dungeon. This was originally supposed to be a temple among the remains of the underground, a place of meditation and prayer for its inhabitants, and in fact, the granite hall had a fountain on one wall with a statue of a deity on top of it, but it had unfortunately long collapsed to the point no one could tell what it was anymore.

Brendel subconsciously looked in that direction and saw the fountain of his memory, but the water had dried up. All that was left were water bowls layered like stairs. In The Amber Sword, this should probably be a temporary place to rest for players, as large-scale dungeons like this were usually relatively big underground cities, where players might have to stay for a couple of days or even longer, so the game designers had to design a place for them to rest and get offline.

The underground relics of Ampere Seale were divided into two parts, the upper level was the ancient sanctuary while the lower level was the lair of the Mother of Spiders. This was not the largest kind of dungeon Brendel had ever seen, so it had only two resting places, one towards the north deep in the Arreck Mountains, and the other one was this.

It was because of this that Brendel could barely remember the name of this resting spot. Compared to those large, super-sized ancient relics from later in the game, with dozens to hundreds of resting spots in one dungeon, it would be strange for him to remember the names of such mundane resting spots.

But this hall had long been studied by the forerunners and every inch of its floor had been imprinted with the players’ footprints. Witches, Black Tower Wizards, Star Mages, and even the Rune Mages of the dwarves; all professions related to the setting had been experimented with repeatedly here, so it could not possibly hold any more secrets here.

Therefore Brendel could not help but look curiously at the old witch, waiting to see what she had up her sleeve. A secret in the Land of Order that players had yet to discover. In my world, this would’ve been breaking news even with just a headline……

Then he saw Babasha walking towards the fountain, and couldn’t help but frown. As the only conspicuous and iconic decoration in this meditation temple, it had naturally received the most attention from players. Players had even demolished the fountain before and took down the wall behind, but to no avail.

“There’s something here?” He asked out of curiosity. “But there should be nothing here, it’s just an ordinary wall, right?”

“My Lord you have a deep insight.” If he did not know what Babasha meant, he would have thought it was disgusting flattery. However, most of Anthony’s knights inevitably showed displeasure on their faces, and the princess also frowned, although she was more doubtful than anything else.

Babasha had already gone to the fountain upon saying so. She respectfully explained, “My Lord you were correct, there is indeed no mechanism nor secret passage behind the walls here. But for us witches, the pool itself already records something.”

“Oh?”

“My Lord you must be well aware that before it was damaged, the statue on that pool was a holy sculpture of Odin the Darkness Dragon. This land holds great relevance to us witches, but not every witch has the ability to unlock the secrets here.” Babasha replied mysteriously.

Brendel frowned upon hearing the old witch mention the Darkness Dragon. But there had already been discussions on the forum, one of which discussed the possibility that this statue might have come before the Holy War, and while there was little history recorded about that, the Darkness Dragon once ruled the land so it was not surprising that its statue was there.

He nodded when he heard Babasha mentioned “not every witch has the ability to unlock the secrets here”, and he subconsciously turned his gaze to the fatigued Sugar Jar- the little witch girl who had been floppy as if she did not even the strength to move a finger ever since she cast the spell. Apparently, she would be like that for a while longer, and she could only perform a Contract Spirit spell like that once a day, but the reason why Brendel looked at her was because of a suspicion he always had.

He had a strong suspicion that Sugar Jar was the purest heir to the bloodline of the Witch of Life and Death.

It was well known that each of the twelve witches had only one heir with the purest bloodline. As the legacy of the Witch Queen was currently on Romaine, he had previously suspected that Romaine’s Aunt Jenny was the heir to the legacy of the Eternal Witch.

Babasha saw the look in his eyes and had even more admiration towards him. “That’s the Darkness Dragon for you.” Brendel heard such a voice coming from his heart, and the old witch smiled with satisfaction. “Indeed, Sugar Jar is needed here.”

Brendel nodded in his mind, but asked again, “Is she okay with that?”

“What are you guys talking about?” Princess Gryphine couldn’t help but ask upon seeing them ‘playing charades’ again, her tone was slightly displeased, there was no doubt that the princess did not like the feeling of Brendel putting her aside, and she told herself that she should take more initiative as the eldest princess of Aouine.

But in truth, the half-elf girl had a hard time admitting that she just did not want Brendel to think of her as an outsider. She had vaguely felt the difference between Brendel and other noblemen, and the people around him had formed a force that was very different from the ancient nobles of the kingdom, a force that was slightly similar to, but not identical to the students of the Royal Cavalry Academy whom she had cultivated on her own.

The youths of the Royal Cavalry Academy inherited her confusion, together with her they seemed to be able to only take uncertain steps in a huge invisible web, and she could feel that despair. But she saw people like Carglise and Amandina, who were confident in the future and seemed to have had a definite goal since long ago.

Either way, it was enough for the princess to perceive the difference between the people beside Brendel compared to a traditional nobleman’s. That seemed to be what she had been longing for, and because of it all, she had slowly begun to reject the kingdom’s original pattern of power– like Makarov, Fleetwood, or Duke Arreck, and instead turned in favor of joining Brendel’s side, even if not as a princess.

Gryphine had this kind of urge but she would never admit it. She was ashamed of her internal conflict.

Therefore, the princess coldly locked the secret in her heart and did not reveal a single word. She looked at Brendel and Babasha with her silver eyes, as if wanting to get an explanation.

Brendel felt a faint movement in his heart, and he looked at the old witch. Babasha was not impressed and smiled dryly, “It’s actually quite simple, Your Highness, this pool is actually a Teleportation Array.”