/
Chapter 192: Waking Up
The ancient royal family and nobles always stored some treasures in their graves. In case their descendants fell, using the passcodes passed down, useless descendants at any rate could take out some of this treasure from the graves of their ancestors and exchange it for money.
However, considering that passing down from generation to generation would lead to loss of information, in order to prevent the descendants of the tomb owner from being killed by mistake, the Lock of Pain would accept vague answers of likeness. Although Nemo didn’t know how Adrian did it, their knight commander did get the correct answer…
Seeing that the group had no intention of moving forward, the Lock of Pain flattened itself into a palm-sized thick layer and quietly pressed itself into the cold and hard tunnel of the tomb. Sticky chunks of flesh covered the delicate reliefs on the walls of the tomb tunnel, and several crimson eyeballs were still staring at Adrian.
It was now the narrow passage suddenly became a lot wider.
“Mr. Cross, how did you know the answer?” Oliver asked directly.
“Speculation,” the knight commander said softly. “If the information you provided wasn’t wrong, then Medes came here alone after the death of Sonia Ramon and sealed himself in the tomb. Coupled with the attributes of this Lock of Pain, I thought it was worth a try.”
“I haven’t heard anything about those old men from the Laddism Church digging up people’s grave. Where did you get the information on the Lock of Pain?” Ann used her fingers to quickly wipe away the pieces of flesh stuck on the wall.
“Given your previous identity, it’s normal you wouldn’t have access to it.”
Adrian lowered his gaze. “Once upon a time, it was popular for the low-level church to breed modified Lock of Pains and make folk monks carry them for penance. It’s more sensitive to human pain than any living thing, and some people call it ‘the priest of penance who doesn’t speak’.”
“However, this method belongs to the folk sect that was deviant. Once the Lock of Pain grows too large, it becomes dangerous to humans. After the current Pope took office, this practice was expressly banned. Nowadays, this form of practice probably exists only in remote areas. I have dealt with many tragedies caused by the Lock of Pain getting out of control.”
Nemo didn’t care much about the source of information. “In other words, Mede’s ‘betrayed’ Oliver’s father or mother?”
“At least Mr. Medes himself think so and suffers greatly for it.” The knight commander led the way through the corridor covered with remnants of the Lock of Pain. The sole of his hard boots crushed sticky pieces of flesh. “It seems that he doesn’t mind talking to visitors who ‘understand his pain’.”
Fortunately, Tumbleweed had members that could detect traces of life, which saved them a lot of time in their exploration— Medes didn’t lock himself in the main tomb of this ancient tomb. The necromancer obviously didn’t want to disturb the rest of the original owner of the tomb, so he chose a dark and narrow room from the bottom of the main tomb.
When Nemo stood in front of the narrow door, he even doubted his judgement for a moment.
“Mr. Medes, we want to talk to you.” Oliver tried to push the stone door.
Dark light blue flames jumped on the stone platform protruding from the wall. Skeletons dressed in simple clothes wandered in silence, performing their duties, while ignoring them tacitly. Oliver’s voice echoed in the dim corridor, mixed with the click of bones colliding, the atmosphere became a little gloomy.
No response came from stone door.
“His reaction was too quiet.” Nemo probed carefully. “Mr. Medes seemed… motionless, and the magic fluctuations emitted are very gentle.”
“Which means our necromancer is sleeping?” Ann sneezed in the muddy and cold air and rubbed her nose.
“This door is unlocked.” Jesse knocked on the thick slate casually. “Look, Mr. Ramon, this is what I should be doing as my job.”
“Mr. Medes, there is a young girl who is suffering from the Trent Plague. We know that you have dealt with this disease.” Oliver hesitated for a moment and decided not to reveal his identity first. “Can you hear me, Mr. Medes?”
However, only silence answered him.
“Jesse is right, this door is unlocked, and it doesn’t look like a trap.” Nemo took in a deep breath. “Ollie, he still doesn’t seem to be awake… I’m going in.”
Nemo commanded the black shadow to go into the gap in the stone gate. With a loud sound of stone rubbing, the stone gate slowly slid open. To his surprise, there was a little dim light through the door, as if someone had put a pale candle in a dark room that was about to go out.
“I’ll explore first.” This time Nemo’s voice revealed an unquestionable taste, and Oliver nodded calmly.
Trying to ignore his heartbeat, Nemo gritted his teeth, grabbed the staff with both hands, and cautiously squeezed into the small room.
Then he shivered in place.
The interior of the stone chamber exudes a strong sense of incongruity…
This room was about 50 square meters in size. Two-thirds of the place was a normal masonry floor, while the farthest third from the door was filled with a rectangular pit, which was densely packed with countless bones.
The part on the floor was much more normal. There was a simple stone bed and a stone table that could be used as a desk. Thick parchment paper was still piled on the stone platform, white quill pens were looming in the shadows, and a weird fishy smell emerged from the long-dried ink bottle.
Adjacent to the stone platform, two small bedside cabinets made of dead bones laid quietly by the bed, one of which had a rough brown clay vase on it, and the flowers inside had already dried up. A coat rack made of branches stood quietly by the white bone pit, and about three dark long robes of indistinguishable styles were loose on it.
In the part of the “normal room”, there were three things that emitted a strong abnormal aura.
The lighting object here wasn’t a magic lamp, but a skull slowly floating in the air. The skull had no jaw and hung upside down in the air. Its cranial cavity was filled with liquid silver light. It floated like a ghost over the room, and the “light” that one couldn’t distinguish whether it was liquid or solid shook slowly inside of the skull, but it didn’t leak or drip from the eye holes.
This luminous substance was a bit subtly familiar. It was very similar to the books that recorded thoughts in the confinement room of Clementine Academy.
Another unexplainable thing was two dark stone cylinders. Nemo could smell a strange aroma floating inside— It gave off the smell of something pickling, but from time to time, it made the sound of water being stirred, and there was even a slight pulsation.
He decided not to think about the contents for the time being.
The last one was Medes himself.
Perhaps it wasn’t accurate to say “himself”. The thing lying on the stone bed didn’t resemble a normal human. The skeleton was scattered on the stone bed, and there was ghastly incantation written all over the pale bones. There was a faint red light in the hollow eyes of the skull, and it seemed like it was breathing.
The remaining four members of Tumbleweed slowly stretched their heads into the room. Nemo quickly made a gesture to ask his companions to retract their heads. The room was really weird, so he decided to wake up Medes first to determine the other party’s situation.
“Mr. Medes.” Nemo stretched out his hand hesitantly and lightly poked the skull’s humerus.
The skeletons on the stone bed trembled slightly, but the bones didn’t have any intention to gather.
“Hello, Mr. Medes.” Nemo raised his voice.
Finally, the skull with blood-red light in its eyes turned around. The red light inside was still weakly flickering. Its lower jaw opened slightly and spat out a sentence.
“…Five more minutes…” The necromancer of the Tin Soldier responded vaguely.
Nemo: “……”
He took a deep breath and simply tapped on the humerus that he had just poked. “Mr. Medes, we have something important to talk to you about.”
“Don’t look for me. Go to Flint for outside affairs of the group. I’m sleeping again…” As soon as Medes spoke this time, he woke up. The bones scattered on the stone bed flew up on their own and form a complete skeleton and the red light in the eye sockets of the skull flared up…
Balthazar Medes woke up.
“Oh, visitors.” After waking up, his voice became a lot hollow. “What can I do for you?”
“There’s a young girl who has the Trent Plague, and her condition is currently suppressed. We learned that you have treated a similar case, so we came here…”
“Well, thank you for coming here. Hm, let me get dressed first.” Medes opened his jawbone with a click and interrupted Nemo, but it didn’t sound like he was angry. “I don’t like talking to people naked.”
Nemo turned around speechlessly.
Three minutes later.
“As you can see, there are no chairs for guests and no tea.” Medes put on his robe, and the badge engraved with the Tin Soldiers mark flickered on it. “Sit over there, young man. Your companions can also come in and sit down— Since you’re able to come here, I won’t do anything to you.”
He coughed dryly and raised his frame. “But you must be prepared to be disappointed. I do have some research on the Trent Plague, but I never found a cure. To be honest, young man… If I’m not wrong, the most I can do is suppress its onset.”
“How do you know that…” Nemo’s eyes kept floating in the direction of the white bone pit as his companions squeezed in one by one like groundhogs squeezing out of a cave. Perceiving that all of Tumbleweed had crowded into the room, Nemo subconsciously turned his gaze to Oliver.
Oliver stood in the shadow and smiled at him.
“Because I am a genius and have never stopped studying it,” Medes answered Nemo’s question in a rambling manner, sounding quite proud. “Okay, don’t look at that pile of bones. That’s the funerary corpse I collected from the main tomb. It’s not fresh— If that’s what you’re worried about it. Now tell me the situation of that little girl and let me see what I can do.”
“She said she needs to drink a potion nine times a day to survive and the onset of the Trent Plague is fixed at the stage of infection,” before Nemo could speak, Ann spoke up first.
“…If it’s a cure you want, there’s nothing I can do to help her. Granted my research is in a different direction, if you have the formula of the medicine in your hand, I can reduce the number of potions to three times or less, so that the little girl will suffer less.” Medes tapped his skull with his knuckle. “Trent Plague is a terrible thing. Once it infects, no one can escape.”
“Someone once escaped,” Oliver spoke calmly in the corner.
“That’s mostly a rumor.” Medes waved his hand impatiently. “Since the first year of this disease, there have been such scammers who have been deceiving others under the guise of healing.”
“No, I meant myself. I was a patient.” Oliver took a step forward.
Medes turned his gaze in Oliver’s direction for the first time, and the silver skull leaned close to Oliver illuminating his face.
Then he was silent for a long time. After a long period of silence, the red light started dimming in the hollow eyes of the dead bones. “Your name?”
“Oliver Ramon,” Oliver sighed as he pulled Jesse who was standing in front of him away. He stood in front of the necromancer and performed a standard battle salute.
“…Or Oliver Lopez. The only child of Flint Lopez and Sonia Ramon. Mr. Medes, I’m sorry we didn’t explain all our intentions on the beginning. Besides the information about the Trent Plague, if possible, I want to know what happened that year.”
Medes didn’t answer him.
The languor, flair, and lack of tone of the necromancer vanished in a flash, and he just stared at Oliver. No emotion could be seen on the face that had long been devoid of flesh.
At the same time, there was a loud noise not far above their heads, and Nemo hurriedly launched a probe.
The size of the Lock of Pain skyrocketed three times than when they first met, directly filling half of the corridor and caused the sound of cracking in the solid wall.
“Praise Zenni,” Medes muttered. His voice was choking but the bones that had lost their flesh failed to shed tears.
“…How completely wrong I was in the first place, captain.”
The author has something to say：
Members of Flint’s Tin Soldiers: Looks cool, but actually is very normal.
Members of Oliver’s Tumbleweed: Looks normal, but actually… (……
——
Jesse: Mr. Medes, what’s up? (×