Chapter 40 (2/2)

Hearing Gawain talking so much on this popular science, Amber finally heaved a breath of relief. “Phew… So those horror stories of the Dark Range are just hyperbole, and we will actually be safe here?”

Gawain thought for a moment. Then he suddenly made a scary expression in the half-elf girl’s face. “Actually I was kidding. This place is dark, dangerous, chaotic, terrifying, and there is a demon lord every 800 meters.”

Amber: “… EEooooee!!”

“What happened to the grandmaster-level bandit? What an embarrassment.” Gawain smirked delightedly, raised his hand to pat Rebecca’s head, and pointed to a trunk lying across the ground not far away. “Your fireball will be useful here. Light it up. If I remember correctly, it’s just up ahead.”

Rebecca had waited for this moment for a long time. Immediately, she happily nodded, raised her staff and threw a head-sized fireball straight ahead.

It seemed like the girl was shooting the fireball faster than before…

“Boom——”

Upon a loud bang, the fireball exploded, and the rotten, weak trunk was blown apart in the center. It broke up into two, losing their stability as they rolled down the hill, and the road ahead was suddenly opened up.

An open space hidden in the mountains appeared.

This open field seemed to have been intentionally leveled by someone. The rocks had been cut into incredibly neat shapes. Between the rocks were an ancient arched door and collapsed walls. They seemed to have been embedded within the rocks of the cliff, looking as though there was once a magnificent fortress that had been swallowed by the surrounding rocks.

But in fact, this ancient remains was built inside the mountain itself, and about two-thirds of its structure was hidden behind the stone wall.

Amber, who had been scared all the time she was on the road, Rebecca, who had been listening to the ancestor’s lectures, and Knight Byron, who was on full alert, could not help but stare with eyes wide opened at the ancient remnants hidden in the mountain.

They stared at this incredible ancient ruins in amazement.

Gawain’s eyes roved around and suddenly stopped beside some collapsed stones.

He went to the pile of stones. There was a black thing stuck in the pile, that was very different from how it originally looked. After discerning for a long time, he realized that it was heavily rusted, broken sword.

On the ground beside the stone pile, there was a line of carvings. They were so deep that even after seven hundred years of weathering, it was still legible. “Sixteenth Squad, Cole died here.”

Rebecca’s voice came from behind him. “What is… this?”

“Back then, when the party crossed the White River, they encountered pursuers. The Sixteenth Squad was in charge of taking the rear. None of them survived,” Gawain said slowly. “He is probably the last surviving soldier, who retreated to this place, after losing hope of breaking out. It’s a pity… the Dark Wave was surging violently, and the entire Dark Range was shrouded in the decaying force. When I was alive, we were unable to recapture this area. When the Dark Wave naturally subsided, no one remembered this place anymore…”

Knight Byron unsheathed his sword, pressed it against his chest, and bowed respectfully at the simple tomb.

This soldier had a tomb here, but there was not a trace of the warrior who made this tomb and left the carvings.

Gawain spent a moment of silence before the tomb. Then he picked up a stone and stacked it on top of the pile. “Relax. Everyone is alive now.”

In that moment, he wished he could say it in Gawain Cecil’s voice, and not in the voice of Gawain, the transmigrator.

Then he walked to the arched door nearby. “Follow me, I will show you what your ancestors left behind here back then.”