Pillar of Yita

The girl couldn’t help but laugh: ”You’re mistaken. Yoshude won’t die. He hasn’t come back to find me yet. He has always been true to his word. You know he’s a hero, so you should be clear about this, right?”

Fang Hong was left speechless; this logic was solid and powerful.

However, he felt a faint unease in his heart—he was almost certain that this girl was a ghost who perished in the disaster caused by the Dragon Witch. She might have had some connection with Yoshude during her lifetime, and she had always been here waiting for that Dragon Slaying Hero to return for her.

But outside, the world has changed drastically; the once flourishing city has turned to ruins beneath the sands. Over a hundred years have passed, and even the legendary hero himself has long become bones. Only now his sword remains, quietly resting on the Dragon Knight Rigging atop Fanric Spire—

Still narrating that past story.

And this girl, amid the ruins beneath the dust, eternally waits for the conclusion of that story. Perhaps she doesn’t even know she is already dead?

”Kind stranger,” the girl asked with her eyes closed, ”I’ve been waiting down here for so long, and I don’t know when it became like this. I’m not really scared, but could you do me a favor?”

Fang Hong looked up and asked her, ”May I ask what favor you need?”

The girl pressed her stomach, looking slightly embarrassed: ”I haven’t had anything to eat for a long time. Could you spare some food for me?”

Fang Hong was slightly surprised. Do ghosts need to eat too? But seeing the girl’s expression, she didn’t seem to be pretending, so he rummaged around on himself. He didn’t have much food, just a few emergency biscuits.

He took out the biscuits, but the girl didn’t mind. She immediately came down from the rock. Fang Hong looked closely and found that she actually left a trail of footprints—she walked barefoot on the dust but didn’t get a bit of dirt on her.

The girl took the biscuit from his hand, bit off a small corner holding it in her palms, then remembered something and looked up to thank him.

She said, ”I really haven’t eaten anything for a long time, maybe two or three days...? If I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t know what to do.”

Fang Hong was full of surprise, as when he handed the biscuits to her, he clearly felt her hand had substance—though cold to the touch, there was actually a slight warmth. This completely overturned his previous hypothesis.

Could she actually be alive?

But how could it be? Who could wait underground for a century? Even if she could live that long, shouldn’t she have noticed what happened outside? This was too absurd.

At that moment, Fang Hong heard Tata’s voice:

”Mr. Knight, communication has been restored.”

Fang Hong paused, and Miss Tata continued, ”But the Communication Crystal still can’t contact Miss Atira. We should be able to send information through the community.”

This was an unexpected surprise. He glanced at the girl in front of him, who was savoring the biscuit in her hands like it was a treasure as if she had never eaten anything so delicious—as ordinary as compressed biscuits.

Fang Hong then looked around, feeling that this place was somewhat strange.

This square hall, he confirmed, was identical to the outside hall in form, except for the skylight above. Yet where that skylight led was unknown.

He restrained his impulse to take out the Clockwork Fairy to explore. And just at that moment, the communication was restored enough to let him try to contact others, report the situation here, and see if Gita and Hilveld had heard of such a situation before.

At least he hadn’t fully trusted the girl’s self-introduction given her abnormal appearance—

He noticed the girl wasn’t paying attention to him, so he quietly opened the Invoker system and entered the community. Tianlan, Luo Yu, Gita, and Xiangzi, these Invokers, naturally had their own IDs in the community, even Parker, who hung around the China Competition Region, had registered one, and they were all long-time friends.

However, Fang Hong had not yet opened his friend list when he paused because after entering his personal center, he discovered a private message from a stranger.

The message was actually sent half a week ago, but being from a stranger, the system categorized it as an advertisement and swept it into a temporary mailbox. And Miss Tata wouldn’t normally look through his private messages, so it hadn’t been discovered.

If it were an ordinary day, Fang Hong might have ignored such ’spam’ mail, but he accidentally took a glance at the sender and couldn’t tear his gaze away. The sender’s ID was extremely simple, just a single letter:

’R’

But this letter alone was enough to freeze Fang Hong in place.

After arriving in Eteliria, he had changed his community ID twice. The first time was when he first obtained the Communication Crystal to prevent his identity from being exposed, abandoning his earliest ID and registering a new account.

The second was after the Fenris incident, when the Communication Crystal was damaged, necessitating another ID change.

For both IDs, he immediately sent a friend request to the mysterious mentor ’R’ in the community. He didn’t really expect the other to add him since ’R’ hadn’t been online since they last met roughly two years ago.

Sending the friend request was simply habitual, given everything ’R’ had taught him, Fang Hong felt a deep gratitude.

If possible, he truly wished to meet the individual once again.

Yet, he hadn’t expected to discover a private message from ’R’ at this moment in the community.

...