Second World

Jack came to the floor in front of the Countʼs crypt. After closer inspection, there were curved scratch marks that only happened when the heavy crypt doors were opened. The mark was fresh, which meant that the doors were indeed being opened recently.

Ted mentioned the Countʼs father had passed away a long time ago. The Count had no relative other than his son who was still living. Then what was he doing opening the cryptʼs door? Did he have to go inside to pay his respect?

Jack looked at the cryptʼs door, there was a keyhole there. He thought for a while then made a decision. He looked around to make sure there were no other people present. He then called out to his two bodyguards, ”You two, pay attention! If you see anyone is coming, let me know!”

”Huh?” The two were bewildered. Why did it sound like he was going to do something that he was not supposed to do?

The two then saw Jack take out a pair of lockpicks and were baffled to see him insert them into the keyhole of the cryptʼs door. Jack started to work with his lockpicks.

”Son of a…! Did you just ask two legally-appointed kingdom soldiers to stay watch while you illegally attempted breaking into private property? A sacred ground no less!” Jonathan exclaimed.

”Please donʼt talk so loud, I am concentrating,” Jack said.

Jonathan was speechless at Jackʼs remark. He looked at his partner, to which Harker just shrugged. ”He is a Viscount. I donʼt know, perhaps they are allowed some leniency?”

Jack was using his Enduring Lockpicks. The keyhole on the cryptʼs door was larger than usual, which meant it required a large key. However, due to this game world rule, the lockpicks magically adjusted themselves to still be able to work on this larger keyhole.

Jack was expecting to spend rather sometime lockpicking the door. He never experienced a time when lockpicking went smoothly. But as people said, there is the first time for everything. Before Jack exhausted all twelve counts of his Enduring Lockpicks, he had already heard the success notification.

Seeing Jackʼs astonished expression, Peniel said, ”Probably this doorʼs lockpicking difficulty is only equivalent to the bronze grade treasure chest.”

The doors creaked as it opened outward. They only opened ajar. Jack inserted his hands into the small gap and pulled the doors to make them open wider. They were heavy, but his strength was just enough to do the task.

Once the opening was wide enough to allow entry, he said to the two soldiers, ”Letʼs go.”

”Hold on!” Jonathan uttered. ”Not only did you ask us to stay watch while you lockpicked the door, but now you are also asking us to follow you in illegally trespassing that place?”

”Dude, you donʼt strike me as someone who follows the rules strictly. For goodness sake, you are lazing around sunbathing when you should be patrolling the street keeping order and security. Are you going to criticize me for this? If you feel uncomfortable, see it this way, we are doing an official investigation. I have a clue that points to this graveyard and this crypt. We are not trespassing, we are following a lead. Understand?”

The two soldiers looked at each other. Harker again shrugged.

”Letʼs go,” Jack said again. He then slipped into the darkness of the crypt. The two soldiers reluctantly followed.

The inside was complete darkness.

”Uh, does anyone bring a torch?” Harkerʼs voice was heard.

A glowing orb that illuminated their surroundings answered his question. Although Jack could see fine in the darkness, he cast the Illumination spell for his two companions. The walls were filled with indentations that housed an urn in some of them.

Jonathan and Harker showed some respect to these urns.

The Countʼs ancestors were cremated? He expected seeing mummified corpses actually, but this was better, less gross. The interior looked pretty much like a standard crypt. The inside was rather large, signifying the importance of the owner. Jack walked around, trying to find a clue.

He stopped when he was near the wall on the opposite side of the entrance. The reason he had stopped was because a marker had lit up on the wall.

Jack touched the marked wall. Any other time, he would have started hacking at the marked wall. But this was someoneʼs property and he was not sure this marking on the wall got anything to do with the missing children case. So, he preferred to not demolish anything unless necessary.

He noticed a slightly protruded stone beside the marked wall. He touched the stone. It wobbled. He tried to pull the stone, it stuck. He then pushed it, the stone moved. Jack pushed it all the way until it was flat with the wall. A faint click was heard, then a rumble. The marked wall started to spin open.

ʼOh… Tomb raiding style,ʼ he thought as the wall opened. He then amusingly realized that he was indeed doing tomb raiding at the moment.

He peeked inside the opened wall, just darkness. Even his Dragon Eye only showed a long tunnel with darkness at the end.

He looked back to the two soldiers and nodded his head, gesturing for them to follow. The two were starting to regret making a deal with this outworlder viscount by now. But they were already here, might as well see it through. So the two followed Jack into the dark tunnel.

Jackʼs glowing orb continued to provide light to allow his two companions to see. The light did not reach too far, so the long dark tunnel got a truly eerie vibe. As if the darkness at the end of the tunnel could just spit out unknown nightmares at the three trespassers.

The tunnel got wider as they went deeper. It curved then had a sharp turn to the left, before going up in a slope.

It was heading towards the Countʼs mansion? Jack thought. Was this a secret passage that linked to the mansion? Some eccentric rich people sometimes built this kind of secret passage out of their residence.

Jack suddenly stopped. His two entourages also stopped when he did.

”Somethingʼs the matter?” Jonathan asked.

”Shh…!” Jack gestured to the two to be quiet.

”Do you hear that?” Jack asked after a while.

”Hear what?” Jonathan asked with slight annoyance. He was feeling rather vexed. They were relaxing at their place and this outworlder had to come and drag them into a gloomy and damp tunnel inside a tomb. He was about to ask this boy to just go ahead by himself when he did hear something.

It was a rapid tap-tap-tap sound. It sounded as if… footsteps? But very rapid and irregular. Itʼs as if the one producing the sound moved swiftly then stopped, then moved again. It was also coming closer.

Jack was more sure because he saw the red dot on his radar. The reason he stopped was because of the red dot, the sound only came after.

”Ready your weapon!” Jack ordered as he took out Storm Breaker and Rapid Dazing Staff. The dot was red, meaning it was hostile from the start. He then scuffled to the two soldiersʼ backs.

”Hey, ready your weapon!” Jack exclaimed again when the two soldiers were just standing there looking at him. ”You canʼt be my bodyguards if you are killed because of being careless.”

The two thought Jack was overreacting. There was no strong monster in this area. This was probably just a stray weak monster that somehow got into the tunnel. But they still brandished their weapons when the sound was getting closer. That strange sound sent a chill down their spine.

The sound was close enough that they expected to see whatever making the sound to come into the light, but nothing did. Jack, on the other hand, saw on his radar that the red dot was now moving slowly towards them, as if creeping, maybe thatʼs why they didnʼt hear the sound anymore.

ʼStrange, from my radar, whatever it is should have come into view already,ʼ Jack thought.

While he was wondering, his eyes caught a slow movement from up there. He looked up at the ceiling and there it was. A grotesque being with a fully black body. It had a deformed humanoid shape, with very long but thin arms and legs. The four limbs bent in a way like a spiderʼs legs. It had sharp claws that enabled it to crawl on the ceiling. The head was covered with disheveled hair, two tiny shining eyes peeked through the messy hair as if two bulbs. When it opened its mouth, it was full of sharp teeth.

”Above!” Jack yelled as he fired a Mana Bullet at the creature.

The creature jumped to the side evading the attack. It was fast and agile, its jump brought it to the sidewall before it kicked on it and propelled towards Jack. Harper was by Jackʼs left so stabbed his pike at the creature. It struck the creature and caused damage but the creature didnʼt retreat. It continued forward, used its long arm to swat Harperʼs pike. Its other arm swung at the same time and struck Harperʼs head, causing him to stumble to the side.

Jack used Inspect when the creature was tussling with Harper.

Deathless Draugr (Elite monster, undead), level 60

HP: 116,000

😉