TTGOL CH89

Thank you @Chocco for the Kofi.

Chapter 89: The Elven Forest (7)

The fact that the mouse was an elven prince gave Jin Cheng quite a shock, because in his impression, princes were supposed to turn into frogs. Moreover, the name McKeown didn’t sound nearly as much like an elven prince as Legolas did.

Thinking this, Jin Cheng opened his quest panel again.

The side quest still hadn’t changed.

Jin Cheng looked at McKeown. Connecting his identity to the elves’ abnormal actions regarding the Secret Lake, he roughly deduced that McKeown’s current state was inextricably linked to the lake.

Something must have happened in the Royal Court. The Elven Guard wouldn’t arrest their own prince for no reason.

The most crucial point was that there really was a path at the bottom of the cliff leading outside or to the Royal Court. Otherwise, how did the Elven Guard get down here? They couldn’t possibly have jumped off the cliff like Jin Cheng did.

Once the guard was far away, Jin Cheng decisively took McKeown and headed in the direction they had come from. However, before leaving, he fed the griffin a little something, reluctantly abandoning this flashy mount.

To prevent running into another patrol, Jin Cheng hugged the cliff wall as he walked, which also made it easier for him to search for the passage. Logically, the passage should be on the side closer to the Royal Court. That way, this chasm could be used to dispose of certain people who were inconvenient to deal with publicly.

Jin Cheng searched very carefully, not missing a single inch of the cliff face. Fifteen minutes later, heaven rewarded his persistence; he finally found a passage on the cliff wall, about a dozen meters above the ground.

The passage was concealed by magic. A person ignorant of magic would never have discovered it. Furthermore, it was a dozen meters off the ground. When ordinary people look for a passage, they subconsciously assume it’s on ground level—who would expect it to be suspended up high? This height perfectly bypassed common perception without being so high that a fall would cause injury.

The entrance to the passage wasn’t closed. Presumably, the guard still needed to return, and since this was the only path, they hadn’t shut it. Jin Cheng swaggered right in. After walking through a long corridor, he saw stone steps leading upward.

This was indeed the path to the Royal Court.

“Squeak.” McKeown clutched Jin Cheng’s pocket, sorrow in his eyes. Then, he slid down Jin Cheng’s arm, pointed at the stone steps, and squeaked excitedly a few more times.

“You’ll lead the way?” Jin Cheng finally shared a bit of mutual understanding with him.

McKeown nodded vigorously. The man and the mouse thus set foot on the path to the Royal Court.

The journey wasn’t short, as the stone steps weren’t straight. They twisted and turned; some parts were wide, while others were narrow, with absolutely no railings on either side. This space directly beneath the Royal Court was actually a hollow underground prison. The intricate stone steps connected the cells one by one. The cells were mostly empty, and there were no guards around.

The higher they went, the smaller the space became. Jin Cheng finally saw imprisoned inmates, and they were almost all elves.

With McKeown leading the way, Jin Cheng didn’t waste time interrogating them one by one, though he tried to pass right in front of the cell doors to see if he could trigger any quests.

McKeown’s goal was clear. He quickly led him to a cell door. Inside lay a young elf dressed in a guard’s uniform, on the verge of death.

“Squeak!” McKeown, with his small body, slipped right in. He nudged the elf’s face with his head, trying to wake him up.

Jin Cheng directly pulled out a healing potion and tossed it to him. The little mouse’s eyes filled with tears. He bowed deeply before shakily hugging the potion—which was taller than he was—and bringing it to the elf’s lips.

The elf still had a shred of consciousness left. His mouth was slightly open, allowing the potion to be poured in. However, as a mouse, the act of administering medicine was far too strenuous for him. Half the bottle spilled on the outside, making him so anxious he almost cried.

“Alright, he’ll be fine,” Jin Cheng said, checking his side quest panel again. The quest still hadn’t changed. The person lying on the ground showed no immediate signs of recovery, so Jin Cheng delayed no further and called McKeown to leave.

McKeown nodded. He climbed to the elf’s waist, retrieved a set of keys in his mouth, and reluctantly squeezed out of the cell.

The keys were handed to Jin Cheng. He raised an eyebrow—this was a pleasant surprise.

Soon, the man and the mouse reached the end of the stone steps. There was a stone door here. To their pleasant surprise, the magical mechanism on the stone door was set on the outside, meaning they could open it from the inside without any hindrance.

But an even bigger surprise was that there were people outside. The sound of conversation drifted in through the crack in the stone door.

“Elder Evans, what should we do about the Secret Lake? This person dared to follow you; he must have discovered something.”

“Just lock him up. Interrogate him thoroughly about his companion’s background.”

“You mean that young knight?”

“Yes. When I bestowed a blessing upon him, I vaguely sensed a trace of an elven bloodline aura from him.”

“This…”

The conversation paused. The speaker seemed lost in thought, or perhaps had suddenly realized something, and didn’t continue. A moment later, Evans asked again, “What about our Prince? Still haven’t found him?”

The other person replied, “No, we’ve dispatched more people to search. But you ordered us not to alert the others, Elder. Especially Elder Figaro. It seems he still refuses to believe that the anomaly at the Secret Lake has anything to do with His Highness. If he finds out we tampered with it, then—”

“Hmph. Figaro is a fool trying to subvert the elven bloodline. How can he tolerate a half-blood elf ascending the throne? It will be the shame of the elven race! Rest assured, none of us can enter the Secret Lake right now. What use are those outsiders? It is absolutely impossible for them to awaken the true Secret Lake.”

“Elder Evans, the Secret Lake has become so vicious now. So many outsiders have gone in, and not a single one has returned. The method we obtained from—those people, could there be a problem with it?”

Hearing this, Jin Cheng couldn’t help but frown.

When this person mentioned “those people,” there was a distinct pause in his speech. Earlier, Evans had said McKeown’s bloodline was impure and opposed him taking the throne—this was likely the root cause of the series of anomalies. As an elder, in order to maintain the purity of the bloodline, Evans hadn’t hesitated to plot against McKeown and even tamper with the Secret Lake.

“Those people” proved that he had accomplices; Evans had obtained the method to trigger the Secret Lake’s anomaly from someone else. And judging by the tone used to mention them in the conversation, they were most likely not elves.

Jin Cheng narrowed his eyes slightly. Associating this with the general setting of this Western fantasy world, a hypothesis formed in his mind.

“Don’t overthink it. Finding McKeown is the key.” At this point, a hint of exhaustion crept into Evans’s voice. “Take him down. Lock him at the very bottom and don’t let anyone come into contact with him.”

Hearing this, Jin Cheng immediately pulled McKeown away from the stone door. There were no good hiding spots in the dungeon, so he simply found an empty cell and lay down with his back facing the entrance.

Almost the exact moment he lay down, the stone door was opened. Footsteps approached from a distance and passed right by without stopping, completely ignoring Jin Cheng, whose body was mostly hidden in the shadows.

Once they walked past, Jin Cheng quietly opened his eyes and saw the figure being dragged away by two guards—Kelt.

Meanwhile, the battle by the Secret Lake was finally drawing to a close.

Under everyone’s combined efforts, the Abyssal Giant Python let out a wail, spilling its blood into the Secret Lake. Its massive body gradually sank to the bottom of the lake, and the illusion naturally shattered.

It had been a fierce battle.

Though the python was dead, everyone was more or less injured. Especially the two druids—covered in blood and deathly pale, they slumped on the ground gasping for air, their faces full of lingering fear and relief.

Hei Si, who had stayed by the lakeshore providing ranged support, sustained the lightest injuries. He helped Hei Meng, Dorn, and the others gather to rest. Seeing Tang Cuo walk over, he said, “In that illusion just now, the giant python’s combat power must have been reduced by half compared to a real one.”

Hei Meng nodded in agreement. “Indeed. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for us to defeat it.”

Tang Cuo nodded, putting on a pretense, and then said, “The problem now is, if everything we’ve seen are illusions, where is the real Secret Lake?”

“Cough, cough…” Dorn coughed a few times while clutching his chest, adding, “If we can’t find the real one, breaking these illusions one after another like this… I’m afraid we won’t last long.”

There were over a dozen people in the group. If everyone brought an illusion with them, this was only the second one.

Hearing this, Hei Meng and Hei Si’s expressions also grew grave.

Tang Cuo kept a close eye on Kelt and the druids. The former’s expression didn’t change, but the latter’s eyes flickered slightly upon hearing their conversation.

Were the druids hiding something?

The group from the Little Windmill Harbour and those five adventurers were still missing. Who was the enemy? Who was the friend?

What Tang Cuo didn’t know was that about two kilometers away, the two groups he was thinking about had crossed paths. However, the people from the Little Windmill Harbour were quietly hiding behind the trees, making no sound.

The five adventurers were either sitting or standing. One of them seemed to have just woken up and was rubbing his head. Hawke exchanged a glance with his companions; they all guessed that this person was most likely the master of the illusion they had just witnessed, just like the dwarf Hamur.

“How did I fall asleep just now? I was being very careful, and I didn’t drink like that vulgar dwarf,” the one rubbing his head muttered in confusion.

The others said, “Let’s not discuss this now. We need to act quickly. Let’s kill them all as soon as possible so we can go back and report.”

“No one noticed when we pushed that guy into the lake earlier, right?”

“They shouldn’t have, otherwise they wouldn’t have let us leave so easily.”

Upon hearing this, Hawke and his two companions hiding behind the trees almost let out a gasp. They never expected that the adventurer who died in the dwarf’s illusion had actually been pushed into the lake by someone.

And the implication in their words was even more shocking. Were they planning to massacre everyone?

Why?

Hawke’s eyes widened. Then, an even more shocking scene unfolded before him. The five adventurers gathered together and whispered something else. One of them began to glow, and with a flash of light, that person transformed into Tang Cuo’s appearance.

He touched his own face, cracked his neck, and said, “This guy called Theodore looks like the toughest to deal with. I’ll go meet him first. The rest of you stay hidden and don’t come out for now.”

“Remember, don’t easily fall asleep again.”

The five discussed for a moment longer before turning and leaving.

Hawke and his companions stepped out from behind the trees, looking with complicated expressions in the direction the five had gone. Touching their backs, they realized cold sweat had already seeped through their clothes. One of them asked, “What do we do now? Should we go back and warn them? If they all get killed, we won’t be able to escape either.”

Hawke frowned. “Who are these people?”

The other companion rubbed his chin, lost in thought. “Looking at the way they shapeshifted, they’re very likely druids. If he goes back wearing Theodore’s face, what will happen when two Theodores confront each other? The other two druids are already there, and the remaining five are human adventurers. They won’t suspect that there are shapeshifting druids hidden among these five.”

Hawke: “But doesn’t that Theodore have a companion? Won’t his companion be able to tell them apart?”

The companion asked in return, “Don’t you think that companion is weird too? He was the first person to get separated from us. Why not suspect that he was swapped out too? This way, both of their identities are questionable. Who do you trust?”

No one could be trusted.

“But since they said they’re going back to report, it means there’s still a way to leave this place. Let’s follow them quietly. Don’t alert anyone for now.”

Ultimately, Hawke adopted his companion’s suggestion. The three tailed the fake Tang Cuo, watching from a distance as he feigned panic and appeared before the group.

Even the usually composed Hei Meng brothers were stunned. Two Theodores? How was that possible?

“He’s a fake! He must be an illusion created by the Secret Lake to deceive everyone. Stay away from him, don’t fall for it!” After speaking, the fake Tang Cuo angrily pointed at Kelt, striking preemptively. “I was clearly separated from Kelt right at the beginning. So who are you? Are you his accomplice?!”

Tang Cuo watched this farce with cold eyes, quietly observing everyone’s reactions without saying a word.

The other party scoffed coldly. “Not speaking? Are you feeling guilty? Tell us, what is your intention in impersonating me and infiltrating the team? Did you also cause my separation from Kelt?”

This move of framing someone else was played to absolute perfection.

Tang Cuo almost couldn’t resist clapping for him, purely because his hands were itching to act. Furthermore, he truly had no desire to waste his breath on the guy. So, he simply drew his sword. Before anyone—including the imposter—could even react, he pierced his sword straight through the other’s heart, striking as swiftly as the wind.

The imposter instinctively reached out and grabbed the blade, but couldn’t impede it in the slightest, only coating his hands in blood. That face, identical to Theodore’s, was filled with shock, bewilderment, and even an overwhelming sense of absurdity.

How did he just get stabbed out of nowhere?!

Tang Cuo wasn’t about to explain it to him. He violently yanked his sword out and watched him collapse expressionlessly.

All around them, there was absolute, deathly silence.

After a moment’s thought, Tang Cuo felt he should probably say something. Thus, as he pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his blade, he looked down at the person lying on the ground and said, “I am never as noisy as you.”

The rest of the group subconsciously took a step back, but faced with the current situation, they found it hard to make a judgment. By the time Tang Cuo finished wiping the blood off his sword, the fake Tang Cuo finally died. Upon his death, his body flashed with light and reverted to its original form.

This wasn’t Theodore’s face, nor was it the face of any of the five adventurers. It was a horned druid.

Everyone’s gazes instantly snapped in unison to lock onto the two druids.