Chapter 50 – Taking a shortcut
After being splashed with water, the blaze slowly extinguished.
"Everyone hurry and cross!" Bai Song asks everyone to hurry and walk. As all of Bai Song instructions from earlier results in no problem, everyone is more trusting of Bai Song commands.
After Bai Song, who is the last man, walks through the arch pathway, the blaze immediate appears causing everyone to look at Bai Song with more seriousness.
As they walk, a split path appears in front of them. There are two paths for them to choose from.
"Scout the road." Bai Song did not say much, instead he asks those in charge to scout ahead. After all if he is too familiar with the dungeon, it will raise the suspicion of people.
The two thieves that were tasked with scouting duty activate their Sneak skill and walks ahead carefully. After a short period of time, the thief that entered the left path returns first. "Commander, In front there is a large metal shutter. I have tried to move it but it did not budge. The sides seems to be embedded into walls, ceiling and ground. There is only a keyhole but there is no key."
Bai Song nods his head to indicate that he has received the report.
After waiting for a while more, the thief that went to the other path returns as well. He immediately reports to Bai Song: "I do not dare get too close thus I observed from a distance. Based on their outline, they seems to be similar to the monsters that we have faced earlier. And the mobs are very concentrated."
The moment the thief finished talking, Ghost Island could not help but ask: "How concentrated are the mobs?"
"Above 90 but below 100." Although the exact figure is vague, there is nothing much to suspect.
Earlier just 6 of those monster have already give the group of people quite a bit of trouble. After all this is a elite party that is formed with mages as the core. Not being able to use magic is equivalent to breaking one of their arms.
When Ghost Island hears it, he immediately turns around and asks Bai Song: "Brother Bai Song do you have any method?"
This is the first time Ghost Island is so courteous to Bai Song. This also indicates that Ghost Island finally acknowledge his abilities.
"A path split into two ways. One is a dead end the other a death path. But I think that the right path will have the key for the gate in the left path." Bai Song explains to Ghost Island.
"Ah? But even if there is a key, how are we supposed to retrieve it?" Ghost Island smiles bitterly as he shakes his head. "If we were able to use magic spells or healing then there is no problem but…"
"Ghost Island Guild Leader do not be so worried. I do have methods to retrieve the key." Bai Song says with confidence before saying to the party: "Everyone rest on the spot."
Finished talking, Bai Song walks towards the right path on his own. At this time Spectral Fire suddenly taps Bai Song shoulder causing Bai Song to turn around in confusion.
"Brother Song do you need me to help you out?" It looks like Spectral Fire wanted to go along and a.s.sist him.
"Brother Fire, you can stay here and rest. I can do it on my own." Almost as if he is afraid that Spectral Fire is going to follow him, he added: "Actually if there is more people, it will become more troublesome."
After Spectral Fire hears this, he can only give up.
Bai Song walks into the pathway, on the side of the pathway are multiple torches, casting his shadows onto the wall.
As the wind blow through the pa.s.sage, the torches flicker, causing his shadow to change shape constantly. Bai Song avoids the brightly lighted parts of the pa.s.sage, walks into an area where the light from the torch is faint and activates his Sneak skill.
Within moments Bai Song disappeared from plain sight.
[TL: Mob POV warning]
I am called Mob 1, one of the normal mob within the church. If there is something that I am different from the rest who are living within this Imperial Palace Ruin, I think it should be that I am taller than them that"s all. Because of that, everyone always call me Big One.
Today they tell me: "Big One, today please guard the chest properly, were going to have our prayer."
What the heck? Yesterday I had to guard it for the whole day and furthermore Sir Jing Hua Shi asked us to take turns guard it. I don"t know why there is a need to guard this stupid chest. If the Great Sir Jing Hua Shi knows that they push the guarding duty to me, he would definitely give them a good punishment.
I am sitting in the small confined room which is deep underground where one could not see the sun or moon. Recently I am always reading a book to occupy myself, but as time pa.s.ses, I realise that my conviction is starting to waver.
This is a very dreadful thought!
[TL: Dreadful indeed… what a high AI intelligence…]
As usual, I sit down and read my book. Suddenly I felt something is behind me and quickly turn around only to see that there is nothing. My instinct tells me that it is not so simple because in that brief moment, I felt a death threat hovering over me.
I hurriedly run out of the stone room and see those fellow doing their prayer. One of them turns around and say: "Big One you should quickly return to the room and look after the chest. If it is missing, Sir Jing Hua Shi will not forgive you."
"Look after your own post!" As I could no longer stand the fact that they keep using Sir Jing Hua Shi to threaten me, I shot back in anger.
I think I should return and continue reading my book. After reading for a while, I am starting to feel tired. As I stretched my body, I glanced towards the chest.
As in the past, the chest is locked up properly and the only key to the lock is with me. How could there be any problem?
Wait… I"m starting to get nervous. Because when I felt the pocket where the key is kept, it"s empty. I reach in and feel around. It is really missing!!!!!
I rush over to the chest and lift it up. Exerting strength, I shake the box worriedly. There is no problem with the chest but, the thing inside the chest is missing!!!!
With blank eyes, I collapse onto the ground crestfallen. I grab my hair and squeeze my eyes and mouth shut tight. At that moment I felt the mental state of person ten seconds before he became insane.
I can faintly remember my last thoughts.
Sir Jing Hua Shi will definitely put me to death.
Bai Song walks along the pathway, at this time within his hand is two sets of key. One of them is very small and delicate, while the other looks like it is more than a century old.
"My thief"s technique is still too low." Bai Song smiles bitterly and shakes his head as he thinks of how he was being discovered when he is stealing the key from the guard.
Shadow Robbery is one of Empty Hand"s self-created technique.
There are lots of famous thieves but why is Empty Hand being viewed as a G.o.d by the thieves? Other than releasing his ultimate techniques when he quit, it"s because Empty Hand will show you how your things can be stolen by him even when you have not meet a single person for the entire day.
This is also the main underlying story behind why Empty Hand quit. Ever since that single time where Empty Hand was discovered while he was using Shadow Robbery, everyone immediately knew that Empty Hand is able to steal things while he is using his Sneak Skill.
From that day onwards, when a person lost his item for no apparent reason, that black hat will land on Empty Hand"s head. There are also people who got their items stolen by others but is scared that others will say that they are idiots, they also place the black hat on Empty Hand"s head.
If I say that my stuff got stolen by the G.o.dly thief, there is no reason for you to call me an idiot. Of course due to all of these reasons, all of the enmity is given to Empty Hand. For a period of time, Empty Hand became the number one enemy of the public.
As Empty Hand was angered by those baseless debts, when he quit, he released most of his techniques to everyone.
[TL: Nice!!! Go my minions steal the world for me !!!]