Chapter 17: Wheaten Smile
Holding the few pieces of parchment, Xander felt moved.
He recognized the language but he didn’t speak it.
This was the language of the ancient goblins. Before the goblin clans fell, this race had quite a dazzling civilization. Their accomplishments in the engineering field rivaled those of the dwarves.
Xander knew very little about the ancient goblins’ fall, but he was quite knowledgeable on their strong engineering.
’Looks like these sheets contain knowledge of the ancient goblins’ engineering.’
’I don’t have an engineering class, and even with the nobility knowledge field, I still can’t read it.’
’But this thing must be kept carefully, it might come in handy later.’
Xander didn’t recognize the character at the top, but he could understand the design.
There was a realistic symbol on top of the stack of parchment. If he guessed right, that should be a very famous kind of construct in engineering, the mechanical ghost statue.
It seemed that this treasure chest wasn’t dug up by the goblins, but rather had been handed down from generation to generation.
Xander took the stack of parchment along with the gem made from an unknown material and carefully put it away.
There were quite a lot of blue colored gems, but he was a total beginner in the [Geology] and [Jewel Appraising] fields so he couldn’t tell this gem’s origin.
He had to find a specialist jewel appraiser.
But since the gem and the blueprint of the mechanical ghost statue were stored together, it was safe to assume that they probably came from the same place.
---
Because of the stack of ancient goblin parchments, this small and damp goblin cavern didn’t feel so dirty any more.
Xander cheerfully followed the small path down.
He soon arrived at the end of the cavern and started feeling the walls. A small platform appeared in front of him after pushing a stone.
The sunset could be seen in the distance as dense fog rose up in the valley.
Xander’s small body stood on the platform, staring at the bottom.
He only saw the monastery gate not too far away. Those two Pain Monks were guarding the door, completely ignorant of what was happening inside.
The scarlet zealots would hide in the Ghost Hallway’s back door to pray, so if there weren’t any problems, they would avoid going outside.
As for the Demon God Enforcers, there were only a few of those freaks in the whole monastery. Xander hoped his luck wouldn’t be too bad as the monastery was quite vast. Surely he wouldn’t bump into one right?
On the side of the small platform was a small tree with deep roots, even growing inside rocks.
Xander tied one end of the Wishful Rope to the tree, and the other end to his waist.
Under the sunset, he held firmly onto the rope, cautiously going down, bit by bit.
Xander’s nimble shadow could be seen slowly climbing down the cliff in the fog.
Three minutes later, his feet touched the bottom.
’Got down safely.’
He checked his surroundings and found no traces of the Demon God Enforcers.
After chanting the incantation to untie the rope, the Wishful Rope automatically coiled itself toward the top, leaving no trace behind.
It would remain on standby until Xander wanted to go back up. He would just have to say the incantation and the rope would stretch back down again.
This was the skill of a high elf after all. Only they had the ability to make such ingenious equipment.
Taking advantage of the fact that there was still a bit of light in the sky, Xander prepared himself to use his hands to feel his way in. He then arrived at the first hall.
But at that time, the sound of a horse approaching could suddenly be heard, coming from the depth of the valley!
’Not good!’
’It’s a Demon God Enforcer!’
’He is close!’
Xander stiffened and stuck himself to the cliff wall almost instinctively. He quickly moved a few steps and found a small depression.
Hide!
[Hide (41+9) skill successfully used!]
[Wilderness bonus effect...]
[Environment (Mountain Wall, Dense Fog) bonus...]
---
The tall armored horseman on a frightening warhorse arrived at the empty space outside the Ghost Hallway.
There were around ten meters from here to the door.
Xander gripped his curved dagger firmly, extremely nervous.
He would be unable to beat this kind of Demon God Enforcer!
The Demon God Enforcer by itself was close to two meters tall, and he was riding a frightening warhorse. Xander might not be tall enough to reach his waist.
On top of that he was wearing a full set of heavy armor which was the bane of the Ranger class.
His curved dagger slashing at that kind of strong armor would probably just bend. As for hitting a vital...
Since they were creatures that had already died once, they no longer had any vitals.
Assuming this thing was only at the 2nd rank, Xander estimated that even if he was a Phantom Assassin at the peak of the 2nd rank, it would still be a tricky situation fighting one of them.
Its defense and vitality were both high enough to make people infuriated.
Holy water would work, but sadly, the holy water in Xander’s Void Conch was just common holy water with a really low concentration.
The holy water sold by the Silver Order was seriously diluted. The holy power contained inside was probably not even 1/100000.
It was enough to deal with mere zombies, but using it to deal with a Demon God Enforcer was as ridiculous as trying to kill a vicious dog with perfume.
Xander could only pray that his hiding skill was able to display its effect.
That Demon God Enforcer was quickly passing by Xander when he suddenly halted.
Xander’s heart sank.
But contrary to his expectations, the Demon God Enforcer abruptly let out a few weird and unpleasant sounding words.
It didn’t take long for the monastery door gate to open.
The Demon God Enforcer pulled on the reins and the warhorse went straight inside, not looking back.
Those two Pain Monks were still expressionless as the door once again closed.
A cloud of dust flew.
---
’Luckily I didn’t climb down slower and meet a Demon God Enforcer.’
Three minutes later, Xander was soaked in sweat all over and, not daring to stay there, quickly entered the Ghost Hallway.
His Hide skill had saved him this time. Maybe the Demon God Enforcer also hadn’t expected that someone could sneak through under the strict watch of the two Pain Monks.
But if it was when he was hanging in mid air, he could have done nothing to conceal himself or to hurriedly deal with his stuff.
This Demon God Enforcer must have been out to carry out a mission. Their boss, [Avenger] Vlodiubari, a man full of ambitions, was staying in the third hall. In the past he was the sleeping lich’s follower, but later he started having ideas on that divinity.
A troublesome guy in short, and Xander had no intention to look for Vlodiubari to drink a cup of tea.
His main goal this time was those eighteen rooms between the 1st Hall and the Ghost Hallway.
There might be scarlet zealot monsters in those rooms. They weren’t dead but the Demon God Enforcers deprived them of their ability to think. Killing them would reward a pitiful amount of experience and it was unlikely to give him anything.
However there were a lot of treasure chests inside those rooms, and these were Xander’s targets.
Xander used Stealth, walking cautiously inside the quiet Ghost Hallway.
Although the Scarlet Monastery wasn’t an underground city and the probability of traps being there was low, Xander was still doing a dangerous job, so he had to be careful.
Triggering any trap would be a terrible thing, especially an alarm trap.
Paintings were hanging on both sides of the Ghost Hallway. They were all portraits. Knights, nobles, wizards, scholars....
These portraits were all smiling, but it was a very weird smile.
If you stared at a painting for too long, it would send shivers down your spine.
Their eyes felt like they were staring right back at you. Their smiles seemed to hide wicked intentions.
There was something off about these paintings.
But Xander didn’t examine them, as he had often gone to the Scarlet Monastery. As long as he didn’t pay attention to those, he wouldn’t get into trouble.
He followed the Ghost Hallway path for some time until arriving at a fork.
It had three different paths. Each led to identical rooms, having 6 each for a total of 18 rooms.
At the end of the three paths was the first hall.
’The final destination.’
Xander leaned toward the left side. He planned to clean up these rooms one by one starting from the left, looking for treasure chests.
Uncommon items could appear inside these treasure chests. Xander once got an uncommon dagger from this place in his past life. That dagger’s effect was pretty good, so he used it for quite a long time.
At that time, he unexpectedly caught a glimpse of a painting from the corner of his eyes.
This painting was quite special and Xander was suddenly attracted to it.
’Oh? This painting... Why didn’t I see it in my past life?’
Xander, somewhat surprised, looked at the last painting of the left wall of the Ghost Hallway.
A young lady was painted, her hair the same color as wheat and her smile very brilliant.
She was quite different from the other people depicted in the paintings. Her smile felt very sincere.
’Weird.’
This was the first discrepancy between Xander’s game world and this world.
He couldn’t help but stay and take a look at the painting’s description.
But the name of the painting made him jump back, frightened.
[Headless Girl]!
This was a ghost!?
The girl in the painting was clearly a proper young lady!
Xander suddenly was filled with a kind of strange feeling.
He shivered, abruptly looking at his own stat window and battle logs.
Nothing happened.
’Could it be psychological?’
’No curse and no willpower check... Did my courage decrease?’
Xander muttered, going back on his way.
He quickly approached the first room, gently pushing the door to leave a small opening.
He could see a wooden bed in the room thanks to the dim light from the sunset, and sitting on top of the bed was an apathetic man.
Scarlet zealot!
Xander pushed the door open with his foot and kept his body low, rolling on the floor before attacking on the edge of the bed.
That scarlet zealot awoke and was about to make some noise but Xander’s curved dagger had already cut down his throat.
No blood. No scream.
That scarlet zealot died just like that.
They weren’t soul puppets so Xander only got a mere 11 exp from killing it.
The same as a low level Thief, or maybe even worse.
But there was other compensation in the room.
A shabby wooden chest was impressively standing besides the absolutely empty bed.
