Chapter 84: Suffering and Atonement

He listened all the way to the creaking, swaying sound of the carriage frame, and to the occasional cries and groans of the mercenaries, gradually leaving behind the town where he had not stayed long.

Then he witnessed what that Young Master Lorigo called "not far."

While reading, he glanced at the crystal clock at his side; the light at both upper and lower ends had completed nine full rotations, meaning nine days had passed.

At the same time he also witnessed the so-called Ground Cave Domain; it was not called a domain merely because it surrounded a Ground Cave City — the environment and terrain here were also more spacious and open, unlike the kobold area where one often encountered large caves connecting to small caves; the Ground Cave Domain was like a larger, more stable bubble, or several large bubbles connected and interlinked, the flat, open terrain already resembling the legendary Surface World.

Finally it was time to rest; Luge leapt down from the carriage roof.

He watched the busy mercenaries nearby, and genuinely admired these people; some mercenaries had already started fires, and a rash underground beast encountered on the road had become the main dish for the next meal.

"Lord Luge, Wizards are indeed as diligent as the rumors say," the handsome young man Lorigo said, looking at the spellbook in Luge's hand; almost every time they met it was like this. He continued, "This is also the biggest difference between you and those Wizards who hang around large mercenary groups; the ones I've seen before were mostly drinking and carousing."

After these days of travel fatigue, Lorigo also wore a tired look, but his eyes remained bright and alert.

They slept on the carriage roof, nestled in that woven small cabin, so they did not have to worry about danger from below.

The three came to a prepared bonfire and sat down.

These past few days the mercenaries were very happy; at night the rest was strangely peaceful, and some even claimed this was a journey blessed by the gods. But in reality, Luge had merely found the chance to release the Clever Worm Zizi; as a Companion Magic Pet it could sense its master's position, traveling underground and following along; when the mercenary party stopped to rest, it would hunt nearby, and with Luge's cooperation bring some back for Aijin and the others.

"Young Master Lorigo, regarding the ruins we are exploring this time, what do you hope to obtain from them?" Seeing his employer in high spirits, Luge casually brought up a topic.

The reply was the handsome young master's long silence.

"I want to become a Wizard; that has always been my dream..." Lorigo said with his head lowered, then laughed again.

"Hope you won't laugh at my foolish fantasy, haha."

In Lorigo's words and laughter, Luge could feel that yearning.

The two chatted and laughed; Luge did not ask what those ruins ultimately looked like, and Lorigo did not mention them once on his own initiative.

In the blink of an eye, another nine days passed.

Finally, at an exaggeratedly large flat area, the party slowly halted.

This was the destination of this trip.

The mercenaries began to set up camp under orders, looking prepared for a long-term garrison.

Luge observed the flat ground before him.

"Originally the flat, regular area was many times larger than this; the passage of time changes the terrain, but every few decades it becomes flat once again," Lorigo came to his side and said, "Very interesting, as if someone comes here every few decades to level it."

Luge said nothing, just listened quietly.

"Until once, a mercenary group that traveled between different Ground Cave Domains saw that Tower with their own eyes — a tower indescribably huge, so large it seemed able to tilt and pierce through different Ground Cave Domains; it existed for dozens of days, then the tower disappeared, leaving behind a huge flat area. One of my Ancestors happened to be following that mercenary group; he went inside to explore, and became the first Wizard Apprentice in the family." Lorigo said with a face full of longing.

"Of course, the era is long past; this is something I happened to come across while looking through records; for some reason, the people in the family seem to know nothing of this matter at all, so I merely came to give it a try," the handsome young master smiled, "If I only came to see the scenery, please don't laugh at me, Lord Luge; of course the Magic Stones will not be lacking."

Luge nodded; the two stood there together looking at the scenery, the red-haired woman standing behind the young master.

Luge's face was calm, but in his heart he was thinking of his spells; despite the many disturbances on the journey, two spells — the Ear Planting Technique's model was already fully constructed, and the Light Spell's model would be more or less mastered once tonight settled down; now only a spell called Writing Technique remained unlearned.

He suddenly missed Kalu a bit, and also understood why some Wild Wizards, once they have a certain extraordinary means, simply devote themselves to pleasure.

Luge discovered that when chatting with Lorigo, the other party would inadvertently slip in words like "night" or "day"; after discovering he could chat smoothly, he no longer deliberately controlled it. He recalled what Old Gold Tooth and Kalu had said: people living in the Ground Cave City also have night and day; the Nobles control the giant light source above the city, manipulating it to rotate like sun and moon, creating day and night.

In the camp after a busy day, snores rose everywhere.

Luge sat in his own tent; the tent bottom had also been given simple protection during camp construction to guard against attacks from below, but he trusted himself more, so the Zizi worm was coiled underground beneath his tent, allowing him to construct spell models with peace of mind.

The instant the Light Spell model construction succeeded, he had not yet had time to rejoice.

Roars and cries of pain sprang up all over the camp.

He pulled open the tent and walked out; the Zizi worm poked out a big head, pressing against his lower leg.

The whole camp's nearly two hundred mercenaries — even those asleep had been startled awake; several makeshift captains were commanding at the top of their lungs.

"The ruins appeared?" Luge looked toward Young Master Lorigo, who had just crawled out of his tent beside him.

The red-haired woman had already summoned two pink gems, faintly standing between them, separating the two.

He once more briefly observed Young Master Lorigo's expression at this moment.

Luge already understood — roughly, an unexpected situation had occurred for this master-servant pair.

Light Spell model empowerment complete; a huge white light ball slowly flew into the high sky, instantly illuminating the entire camp's surroundings. This spell also had its own peculiarity: empowering the spell model had an upper and lower floating threshold, not a fixed value like other spells; currently this was Luge's full-power empowered light ball; if only a little empowerment were given, it would be a small light ball on the fingertip.

By the light he looked in all directions, only to see the camp outside now inexplicably surrounded by people.

These fellows who had emerged from who knows where all had strange expressions, weapons in hand.

And Young Master Lorigo beside him was already frightened pale; the red-haired woman, an Extraordinary, likewise wore a grave expression.

"Sin!"

Those people began to shout.

Shouting, they rushed toward the camp with weapons in hand.

"We are all Sinners! We all have sin!"

Luge gradually also revealed a surprised expression; these people faced the mercenaries' blades without dodging or avoiding; when slashed they would cry out in pain, but after the pain their faces would beam with genuine smiles. At the same time they would shriek and swing their weapons at the mercenaries; aside from those felled in one blow, the rest would trade injury for injury, inflicting heavy wounds and fear on the mercenaries.

"They are Atoners; they firmly believe the Ground is a giant prison, that we all have sin; killing us, or killing themselves, are both atonement, are salvation..." The red-haired woman, seeing his doubtful look, spoke slowly.

(Chapter End)