Night Ranger

"It’s actually that thing..."

Marvin hadn’t yet finished mumbling when his whole body turned stiff on the spot!

The study was silent. Marvin was motionless, still in the posture of opening the door!

After no less than three minutes, Marvin, as if he’d just woken up from a nightmare, suddenly closed the door!

"Bang!" He used all his strength.

The next instant, he leaned his back against the door and slid down, feeling weak.

He was covered in cold sweat.

"It’s... It’s actually that thing..."

Marvin was frozen all over, feebly and powerlessly lying there. Only after five minutes did he slowly regain some spirit.

And by the time he crawled up from where he was lying, the floor was wet, covered in Marvin’s sweat!

He clambered to his bed and laid down, slowly recovering some energy.

His eyes were blank, and the scene he just experienced kept repeating in his mind.

...

After opening the entrance, what Marvin first saw was a completely empty secret room!

On the other side of the secret room was a mural.

Marvin knew of this mural. He had seen it when exploring an underground temple!

But this one was different from the one in the temple.

This was a floating mural!

In that split second, Marvin saw an extremely horrifying scene:

A mysterious power drew him into the darkness, as the voice of a girl softly chanting could be heard in the distance.

That voice was a ballad, and was actually the one he had heard in the secret path.

And accompanying this indistinct ballad was a shocking scene.

In the darkness there was a bonfire whose flames were raging. There were many men and women by the bonfire, all naked. The men were wearing black masks and the women were wearing white masks.

They were revolving around the bonfire. Suddenly, something changed.

The masked men all crazily went up to the masked women.

Moans could be heard around the bonfire as the life force slowly left their bodies.

In the end, they started withering.

The speed at which they aged could be seen with the naked eye!

Their skin dried up, and the wind blew across their skeletons, strewing their piles of bones among the bewitching flowers blooming from the ground.

They died one after the other, their masks scattering on the ground.

The bonfire was still raging and the ballad was still being sung.

In the end, only one girl remained, her body full of blood.

She slowly took off her mask, revealing her delicate appearance.

When he saw this, Marvin almost choked!

What was even more frightening was that the girl seemed to look at Marvin and apparently smile to him.

The next moment, the girl’s belly began swelling continuously.

As if there was a strong life growing inside it.

Marvin shivered all over, simply unable to control his body.

The girl firmly stared at him.

The the initial smile turned into a kind of frightening rancor!

He was dazed as he saw the girl’s head turn into that Great Devil’s head!

Three eyes, a smile that isn’t a smile, staring at him.

He felt his life leaving bit by bit!

...

‘Fortunately there was Vanessa’s gift...’

‘Otherwise this certainly would have been a disaster!’

Marvin glanced at the Willpower check and took a long breath.

That mural was absolutely not that simple.

People seeing it would sink into a sort of illusion. What happened in that illusion might have really happened in the past and been recorded with some secret technique.

Marvin boasted a strong willpower, but he hadn’t expected to almost fall head first!

If not for Vanessa’s gift giving him a substantial increase to his fear resistance, Marvin might have had trouble escaping from that illusion!

No wonder when his father told him about it, he warned him absolutely not to enter that place.

What kind of person was his grandfather!

Marvin stayed in bed for no less than an hour before recovering some strength.

In any case, the secret of the kind grandfather he remembered would definitely exceed his imagination.

This mural had at least some relation to the Anzed and Great Devils. Along with his own Numan bloodline...

But Marvin wouldn’t deal with this matter for the moment.

Based on his assessment, without a better way to increase his fear resistance than Vanessa’s gift, he couldn’t even think of taking one more step inside.

‘I still need to carefully plan what to do next.’

Marvin was thinking when Anna came over.

"Young Master, everything has been arranged."

"Eh? Why are you so pale?"

Marvin forced a smile and shook his head. "I need some mushroom soup. Have the chef put more kale in it."

Kale could restore spirit. It was one of the main ingredients in the Spirit Recovery Potion.

Marvin urgently needed to recover his spirit because he had work to do that night.

...

In the evening, outside the city walls.

Lola had a small bundle on her back, nervously looking around.

The deserted city gates had been closed for a long time, but there was one small door opened, with two guards in charge of defending it.

Not far away, a slightly small shadow unhurriedly came over.

"Sir Marvin." Lola was respectful.

"No need to pretend. I know what you are."

Marvin slightly smiled. "An extremely daring swindler, able to bluff the gnolls into releasing you out of the cell. How could you be so respectful to a countryside overlord?"

Lola froze, and suddenly said, shocked, "You are..."

Before Marvin could open his mouth, she thought of something and the latter half of her sentence was cut off.

She was a very clever girl.

Lola lowered her voice, "Turns out the rumors are real."

Marvin replied, "True or fake rumors, is it that important?"

How could he have expected Lola earnest insist, "Very important!"

"If you really are Masked Twin Blades, you are my savior."

"And you are the first to believe in me after being deceived by me."

Her expression was very sincere.

Marvin was faintly moved, but he expressionlessly said, "Really? Let’s set off!"

"Hey? Sir Marvin, you still haven’t told me where we are going!" Lola who was dragged down the hill by Marvin suddenly exclaimed.

"Jewel Bay," Marvin answered.

"But Jewel Bay isn’t this way!" Lola argued, "Let me show you the way, you are going the wrong way."

"No, it’s not the wrong way."

Marvin firmly went north after getting down the mountain.

"We are taking a shortcut."

Lola was dragged around by Marvin like a marionette. She looked at the tall mountain range in the distance in a daze, and after some time she managed to squeeze out, "You want to cross the Shrieking Mountain Range!?"

"And if we don’t?" Marvin casually said, "There is no food in the territory and we have to return within a week!"

"This is the only shortcut."

...

The Shrieking Mountain Range was one that was forgotten by most people.

It was situated within the wilderness south of Jewel Bay. In fact, it wasn’t drawn in the maps of many southern big cities.

Few people from Jewel Bay would adventure south, because of the Shrieking Mountain Range.

In fact, White River Valley and Jewel Bay were only separated by this mountain range.

As long as they passed through this mountain range, they would be able to set up a trading channel between White River Valley and Jewel Bay.

But no one would do that.

On one hand, White River Valley was a minor territory that didn’t have the ability to open a path. On the other hand, Jewel Bay was even less interested in doing business with such a small rural village.

Monsters and all kinds of lifeforms occupied the Shrieking Mountain Range.

If not for a mysterious force preventing those monsters from leaving the mountain range, Jewel Bay might have been suffering from attacks every day.

Harpies, Wyverns, Blood Ooze, some even claimed to have seen a lurking Green Dragon in the Shrieking Mountain Range.

No one knew how many monsters were in there.

But they suffered from the suppression of a mysterious power and couldn’t come out and cause a disaster.

Some adventurers who didn’t fear death would occasionally go into the Shrieking Mountain Range to hunt for treasure, but this was only a small portion of the desperate.

Most adventurers still cherished their lives, so the Shrieking Mountain Range had always been a forbidden area.

As for White River Valley’s side of the mountains, it was a relatively peaceful place. Apart from that first Gnoll invasion, this place had never met any monster attacks.

Northwest of the castle was the northern mine and River Shore City, and northeast was the entrance of Shrieking Mountain Range.

Marvin and Lola were going to cross the Shrieking Mountain Range tonight!

Night fell, giving a different feeling to the dense fog covering the Shrieking Mountain Range.

The view was very beautiful.

But Lola was going mad!

"Excuse me Sir, are you a Legend?" Lola loudly asked in the still and desolate wilderness.

"Nope," Marvin answered.

"Excuse me Sir, are you unafraid of death?" Lola was being driven insane.

"Nope," Marvin answered.

"Excuse me Sir, could you switch to another way of executing me?" Lola looked dejected.

"Nope."

Marvin dragged Lola along but didn’t say much, occasionally answering with a few words, but constantly hurrying on.

After the eloquent girl failed to get any results with her questions, she finally gave up asking.

The two walked all the way up till the moon was at its summit before arriving at the location Marvin thought of.

That was a desolate field of crushed rocks.

In front of them was a precipitous hillside.

But Marvin continued eastwards, and then moved back and forth in front of the hillside several times before finally stopping in front of a cave.

"What’s in here?" Lola asked nervously.

"This was an unknown tunnel," Marvin finally responded. "Through this tunnel, we can cross the Shrieking Mountain Range and reach Jewel Bay in one day."

"It’s a lot safer to use this path."

"Turns out you had a secret path!" Lola relaxed and displayed a worshipful expression. "Didn’t expect you actually knew that much."

"Don’t relax so soon."

Marvin pushed through the undergrowth in front of the entrance and took a step inside. "This place isn’t completely safe."

"This road has a name."

"It’s called the [Spider Crypt]."

"As the name implies, there are a lot things waiting for us inside."

"And they are hungry. Always hungry."