TTGOL CH90

Chapter 90: The Elven Forest (8)

The two druids had never faced such an awkward situation. All the suspicious gazes piled onto their heads made it impossible to defend themselves. “We really didn’t know, and we absolutely don’t know him! Although druids aren’t a massive race, it’s impossible for us to know every single one of them!”

But no matter how they explained, the seed of doubt was already planted. The three adventurers led by Dorn drew a clear line between themselves and the druids by maintaining an absolute physical distance. This was no joking matter.

Hei Meng walked up to Tang Cuo and asked, “Did you find anything?”

Tang Cuo inspected very carefully. After the druid reverted to his original form, he was wearing armor. Without hesitation, Tang Cuo stripped off the armor. After searching for a bit, he finally found an inconspicuous mark on his back, near the shoulder blade.

An inverted pentagram enclosing a rose.

“What the heck is this messy thing?” Hamur leaned over curiously, tilting his head, not recognizing it.

As a member of the Greenvines Alliance, Hei Meng couldn’t possibly fail to recognize it. The moment he saw the mark clearly, his expression drastically changed. He immediately turned to stare at the two remaining druids, intending to demand they strip off their armor for an inspection.

But fast as he was, the druids were faster. Almost the instant the mark was exposed, they took the nearest adventurer hostage and shouted sternly, “Don’t move, or I’ll kill him!”

The sudden turn of events caught everyone off guard.

“Don’t hurt him!” Dorn drew his sword but didn’t dare step forward, his heart leaping into his throat.

“Calm down!” The other adventurer’s eyes turned red with anxiety. How could anyone have predicted this sudden betrayal?! What exactly was the deal with that mark?!

The members of the Greenvines Alliance remained somewhat composed. The druids’ reaction proved one thing: they also bore the mark of the Rose Sect. Knowing they couldn’t escape, they struck first.

The mastermind behind the series of events at the Secret Lake was undoubtedly the Rose Sect.

And what about Kelt?

Tang Cuo looked over at him and noticed a nostalgic look on his face. He was muttering the word “Rose” under his breath, seemingly recalling something. Over there, Hei Meng had already begun negotiating with the druids. “Let him go, and I’ll let you leave.”

The druids looked at him suspiciously, cast a deep glance at Tang Cuo, and said, “Then step back.”

Hei Meng and Dorn exchanged a look, and both sides began to retreat simultaneously. The druids backed away while holding the hostage. Waiting until they were at a safe distance, they were just about to let go when Tang Cuo suddenly asked—

“Is the Rebel Aesop here?”

The druids froze. One of them tried to say something but was stopped by the other. The two glared at Tang Cuo, the hand gripping the adventurer’s neck tightening so hard it nearly drew blood.

In the next second, they violently shoved the hostage forward, turned, and fled.

“Cough, cough…” The adventurer knelt on the ground clutching his neck, his mind still reeling, cold sweat soaking his back.

Dorn rushed forward to help him up. The dwarf Hamur angrily swung his hammer and gave chase for a few steps, but upon looking back and seeing no one else pursuing, he grumpily walked back.

Pondering Tang Cuo’s earlier words, Hei Meng couldn’t help but ask, “Why did you ask them about him?”

Tang Cuo: “This is the birthplace of the elves; it holds immense significance. The Rose Sect wouldn’t send some small fry to handle matters here.”

Of course, the real reason was that Tang Cuo only knew Aesop, the one with the tassel earrings. As for Batz and Pastor Peter, he figured these druids were too low in rank to even recognize them.

Hei Meng nodded and said in a low, grave voice, “The situation seems more serious than we imagined. The Rose Sect hasn’t only infiltrated the druids; they’ve secretly slipped into the Elven Forest. They must be plotting something. We need to report this to Popolo Island immediately.”

Tang Cuo asked in return, “How do we report it?”

Hei Meng was rendered speechless. After a pause, he added, “The illusion is broken now, and no new Secret Lake has appeared. What if we retrace our steps right now? Would it work?”

Tang Cuo didn’t answer. He looked up at the towering ancient trees all around and the fog that seemed like it would never dissipate. After a long while, he said, “Have we really broken the illusion?”

Dorn frowned. “What do you mean?”

Tang Cuo found it hard to explain. He didn’t have any key evidence, the clues couldn’t be accurately connected, and most of his conclusion was based on intuition. After thinking for a few seconds, he said, “Let’s walk back first.”

It was the only option they had left.

Behind the concealed bushes, Hawke and his two companions remained silent. The druids’ conspiracy was surprising enough, and Tang Cuo’s sharp counter-kill was even more shocking. Now, it even involved the Rose Sect.

After a long while, Hawke finally broke the silence. “When did the Principality of FalanFalan get such a ruthless character? And he knows the Rebel Aesop?”

His companions shook their heads. How would they know!

“I think we should just regroup with them now. At least he looks very strong.”

“But if we go over there now, will they believe we are still the real us? What if that Theodore kills us with one sword strike too?”

Listening to his companions’ discussion, Hawke felt utterly terrible. “Then what should we do? We just came to find something; we didn’t want to get involved in this mess!”

After some discussion, the three decided on their course of action—tail them from behind and watch how things play out.

Up ahead, Tang Cuo’s group of seven retraced their steps. After walking for about fifteen minutes, they were forced to stop because a brand new Secret Lake appeared in front of them.

To make matters worse, the adventurer who was taken hostage by the druids started feeling drowsy.

Someone feeling drowsy was not a good sign.

“How could this happen?” Dorn couldn’t figure it out. They had set off early in the morning, and the sun hadn’t even set yet. Under such a tense atmosphere, how could anyone be getting sleepy?

Hei Meng: “Could it be a problem with the fog?”

At this moment, Hei Si squinted his eyes, hesitated for a second, and said, “I think I’m feeling a little drowsy too.”

With people getting sleepy one after another, something was definitely wrong.

Tang Cuo began to think about what they had come into contact with or been affected by. If it was the fog, everyone was in it, so the effects should be the same. Why would there be a chronological order to the drowsiness?

Different constitutions?

Tang Cuo suddenly thought of something and asked, “Did you eat anything?”

Hei Si and the adventurer thought carefully and shook their heads. Hei Si said, “My brother and I ate the exact same things. Breakfast was provided by the elves, lunch was dried roasted meat by the campfire—my brother and I each had two pieces plus a slice of dry bread—and the water we drank was brought over from the Elven Forest.”

If everyone ate and drank the same things, where was the problem?

Wait.

Tang Cuo carefully pondered the words “provided by the elves,” and a flash of inspiration hit him. “Last night, did an elf knock on your door and bring you dew wine?”

Everyone froze slightly, then nodded.

Tang Cuo asked again, “Did you all drink it?”

As he asked this, Hamur was just about to show Tang Cuo his last hidden flask of wine. Popping the cork, he smelled the aroma and couldn’t resist taking a sip.

Gulp. Down went the fine wine. He looked up at Tang Cuo. “Are you asking me?”

Tang Cuo stopped asking.

“The dew wine was spiked. The order in which everyone feels drowsy correlates with how much they drank,” Tang Cuo explained, then added, “Kelt and I didn’t drink any.”

No sooner had he spoken than the drowsy adventurer fell to the ground with a thud, fast asleep. The sound of his head hitting the floor made everyone wince in sympathy.

This couldn’t help but remind Tang Cuo of the night in the cave during the Returner on a Snowy Night instance. It was also the system forcing them to sleep—a trope that never changed.

But if the number of sleeping people became plural, what would the resulting illusion look like?

Tang Cuo was suddenly a little curious.

Before long, Dorn picked up his sleeping companion, and all seven arrived at the lakeshore. This time, the Secret Lake had undergone a massive change compared to the previous two times.

Herds of animals were drinking here, many of which Tang Cuo had never seen before—creatures perhaps only found in myths and legends—occupying every corner of the shore.

Not daring to get too close, the group stood behind the bushes to observe.

“There’s someone in the lake!” Hei Si widened his eyes, fighting off his drowsiness, his voice subconsciously raising.

“Keep your voice—” Hei Meng’s reprimand was cut short because he also saw the person in the lake. It was a woman of indescribable, god-like nobility and beauty. She wore a golden gauze dress as she gracefully walked from the lake’s edge. A flower crown rested on her head, and her snow-white bare feet stepped onto the green grass. Whether it was the proud unicorns or the holy white deer, all bowed their heads to her.

Taking just one extra glance made Hei Meng feel profound shame—he shouldn’t be staring directly at her face like this.

“Th-This is…”

“Gods, can anyone tell me what exactly I am looking at?”

“Could it be…”

No one cared about their volume anymore. Their minds were entirely captivated by the woman. Everyone had a vague guess, but the words reached their lips and they didn’t dare say them out loud.

That would be blasphemy.

Only Tang Cuo was a true warrior. “The Elven Goddess? Or the Goddess of Nature?”

Kelt answered him perfectly seriously, “The Goddess of Nature, Her Excellency Cynthia.”

The others fell completely silent. Even someone as hot-tempered as the dwarf Hamur didn’t dare look directly at the deity’s face or call out her name. How could these two guys be more daring than the last?

“If it’s really her, are we supposed to… even if she’s fake, it’s impossible.” Hei Meng hesitated. Tang Cuo understood the words he left unspoken—God-slaying.

To an atheist like Tang Cuo, god-slaying was just a word, but to Hei Meng and the others, it meant an absolute impossibility.

What to do?

Tang Cuo tilted his head and looked at Kelt. “You seem very familiar with her. Have you met her before?”

Kelt: “…”

Tang Cuo: “?”

Kelt: “I’ve only seen her portrait.”

Tang Cuo: “Where?”

Faced with Tang Cuo’s pressing, Kelt stayed silent for a moment before answering, “In someone’s sketchbook. He used to come to the Secret Lake for short stays occasionally, living in the wooden cabin by the lake.”

The lakeside cabin, Secrets on the Lake.

Tang Cuo felt the truth was about to surface. This clue he had accidentally obtained in the first phase of the instance was realizing its value here. Perhaps this was the true meaning of a serial instance.

“What was his name?”

“Louis.”

Louis. L.

Tang Cuo suddenly thought of another name: the Undying Rose, Louis XIV.

“How long ago was that?” he asked again.

“I can’t remember clearly.” Kelt’s gaze shifted toward the lake, piercing through the ethereal fog as if looking into the distant past. “Anyway, it was a long, long time ago. Probably before your great-great-great-great-grandfathers were even born.”

Tang Cuo didn’t even have the energy to roast his timeline that used great-grandfathers as a unit of measurement. He said seriously, “So, do you have a way to break this illusion? Or rather, do you have a way to reveal the true Secret Lake to us?”

Kelt thought about it, thought some more, and then told Tang Cuo very earnestly, “My mind seems a bit fuzzy right now.”

Just then, a strange noise suddenly came from the nearby woods.

Tang Cuo immediately set aside the matter of whether Kelt’s mind was fuzzy or not and quickly went to investigate. In the bushes, he found two sleeping people and a still-awake but extremely sour-faced Hawke.

Two more people had fallen asleep. This was very bad.

Meanwhile, Jin Cheng and McKeown managed to speak with the real Kelt.

Looking through the iron bars at the completely unharmed Jin Cheng, Kelt felt a mix of pleasant surprise and immense frustration. Clinging to the door, he couldn’t help but say, “Lancelot, where did you go? I was thinking about looking for you, but here you are, visiting me in prison.”

Truly, the massive ups and downs of life.

“Oh, I just jumped off a cliff.”

“You did what???”

“Ahem.” Jin Cheng finally restrained himself a bit. “Nothing. How did you get locked up in here? Where’s Theodore?”

Kelt then recounted everything that had happened along the way. After separating from Tang Cuo, since he hadn’t gone deep into the Secret Lake’s territory yet, he smoothly made his way out and trailed Evans. But he didn’t follow for long before Evans discovered him.

“I was being very careful and kept a long distance. I have no idea how he actually spotted me,” Kelt complained.

“Maybe he placed some kind of mark on you during the blessing,” Jin Cheng said, bending down to examine the keyhole. Turning his head, he met McKeown’s little expression, which looked as if he was asking for praise.

“Keys?” Jin Cheng raised an eyebrow. He took the keys McKeown had retrieved from the young elf guard and inserted one into the keyhole—click, the door opened.

Kelt wept tears of joy.