Chapter 2282

Although both Miss Knight and Miss Mester had experience going to that ruin, the latter still led the way. After setting off, the three did not talk. Xia De felt the atmosphere was a bit awkward as he walked, and he was also worried that if they kept walking without speaking, he wouldn't know if someone fell behind, so he took the initiative to ask:

"Miss Mester, since time is tight, how about I carry Miss Knight, and we use our powers to speed up to our destination? Walking like this is really too slow."

"This desert has many interesting effects."

The barefoot lady answered in a relaxed tone:

"Besides the confusion of space and time, there is also a rule here that one must absolutely not be in a hurry. This rule is simple to state: the more anxious you are, the faster you will faint under the sun, and the more anxious you are to reach your destination, the further away you will find it to be. Simply put, if we run, it might take longer than walking."

"Hmm... there shouldn't be any rule here like 'a calm heart brings natural coolness', right?"

Xia De asked hesitantly, and the lady naturally shook her head with a smile.

Xia De intended to pull Miss Knight into the conversation as well, so he asked the female knight who was half a step behind him:

"How are you feeling now?"

"I feel okay, I can hold on."

The voice inside the helmet was a bit muffled. Xia De couldn't imagine how stifling it was inside, but the benefit was that it could effectively prevent her skin from being directly exposed to the sun.

"Can you tell what breed this cat is... well, this isn't my cat."

Xia De asked again to make conversation, so the female knight stared at the kitten with the flaming tail from inside her helmet:

"Sorry, I can't tell what kind of cat this is. But it must be of noble origin; even the cats in Her Majesty the Queen's bedchamber do not have such a beautiful appearance."

Xia De smiled immediately; he loved it when others praised Little Mia. As for the silly cat, it couldn't even understand the language of the Sixth Era, let alone the language of this era, so it continued to gaze at the scenery of the sand sea, ignoring this conversation about itself.

So he asked Miss Mester again:

"Then can you tell what breed of cat this is?"

【Are you really just making conversation?】

"She" had a light voice that seemed to bring the coolness of the night, and the Saint didn't even turn her head to look at Little Mia:

"I am not good at judging cats... of course, I also admit that this cat is indeed quite beautiful."

In the first "Dice Story Collection" that Iluna experienced, Little Mia had the title of 【Beautiful Cat】, which was enough to show how powerful this cat's charm was.

Seeing that the god was also unwilling to answer this question, Xia De continued to walk in the scorching desert while holding the cat in his arms. The cat struggled symbolically, and Xia De reached out to touch the flame at the tip of Little Mia's tail.

The temperature of this flame was really not very high; even with direct contact with Xia De's fingers, it only caused him a very slight stinging sensation.

"Meow~"

The cat struggled again. Xia De guessed it wanted to walk on the sand itself. But time was precious now, and Xia De couldn't be sure what was under the sand in this eerie place, so he wouldn't let Little Mia follow them with her short legs.

With Miss Knight by his side, Xia De couldn't say many things to Miss Mester. So, during the rest of the journey, he chatted intermittently with Miss Knight about her life experience as a knight.

Although the knight lady wasn't very good at talking, she didn't avoid Xia De's questions at all.

And her life so far was quite standard, just as Xia De had imagined. She was born into an ordinary knight family, had longed to become a witch since childhood, and after discovering she couldn't awaken, she followed her father to continue sword training, inheriting the knight's status after her father sacrificed himself defending against foreign enemies.

The small kingdom she was in only had one city, so as a knight's daughter, she often went to the palace to play or read with the current Queen, who was the princess back then.

Although they couldn't be called intimate friends, they could at least be considered companions who grew up together. Therefore, Knight's willingness to carry out this dangerous mission, besides the "loyalty" her father taught her when she was young, was also partly because she wanted to help her friend.

The scorching yellow sand was very hot on the feet, and once they started chatting, time seemed to pass particularly quickly.

When the three climbed another sand dune, in the distance of the desert scenery distorted by heat, a building that didn't look very large finally appeared.

"We're here."

Miss Mester said softly, and Miss Knight also stopped talking and looked ahead:

"Mr. Hamilton, please prepare to put on your armor."

Xia De didn't want to test how large the exclusion range of the mausoleum ruin was for those not wearing armor, so he stopped immediately. He took out the golden cube, tossed it twice, and then restored it into a large golden box.

The box stood on the sand, shining brightly in the scorching sun. It had to be admitted that when the four sides of the box slowly unfolded to reveal the lion-styled armor inside, the golden appearance was quite attractive.

"Meow~"

Little Mia meowed. Xia De looked at it worriedly and found that the flame on its tail seemed to be getting bigger:

"Is this really okay?"

【Yes, it's fine.】

With Miss Knight's help, Xia De quickly put on the golden armor. The stifling heat inside the armor was far beyond Xia De's expectations; he was very glad he hadn't put it on when they first set off.

The golden armor seemed to be glowing in the sun, and Xia De felt its heat-absorption capacity seemed much stronger than ordinary metal.

Fortunately, the destination was not far away. Little Mia stood on the shoulder of the armor, and the three continued forward, soon seeing the full view of the ruin.

Just as Miss Knight and the others described, this was a church-style mausoleum above ground, and a knight statue was indeed standing in front of the mausoleum.

The armored knight had one hand resting on the long sword thrust into the ground at his feet, and the other hand raised as if waving forward, while his helmet was placed at his feet. As for the church behind the statue, which showed no signs of erosion by wind and sand, it was a bit more magnificent than Xia De had imagined.

Looking from the front, although it was quite dilapidated, at least there were no signs of collapse.

If it weren't for the fact that one must wear armor to approach this place, the living conditions of this mausoleum would actually be better than the Sun Temple... of course, provided that one could find murky water sources here.

Until the three arrived near the statue, Miss Mester still hadn't put on armor, and Miss Knight seemed not to have realized this. At the same time, considering this, Xia De thought of how Little Mia had also arrived under the statue without being repelled, but then realized it was just a cat, and a cat couldn't possibly wear armor.

The knight statue did not move or speak because of the three's approach; under the scorching sun, it stood there as if it would remain unchanged forever, looking at the boring scenery in front of it.

There was no text around the statue, so the three bypassed it and approached the church mausoleum behind. A quarter of the tightly closed gate had already been buried under golden sand and gravel. Miss Knight took the initiative to push it a few times:

"It's locked."

"Let me."

The female knight stepped back, and the male knight stepped forward. With his gauntlet pressed against the door, after Xia De frowned slightly, the cat, Miss Knight, and Miss Mester all heard a series of click-clack sounds coming from the inside of the door.

But this was not the end; subsequently, the entire dilapidated outer wall of the church revealed a ritual base array composed of dots and curved lines. It was just that this kind of ritual rune lock was severely affected by the power of this strange desert, and it was finally completely broken under the effect of the 【Key of the Door】.

Xia De tried pushing the door and found it still wouldn't budge. So he carefully lifted the cat on his shoulder with his gauntlet and handed it to Miss Knight.

The confused female knight took the kitten with the flaming tail, only then seeing Xia De move his arms, making the armor clatter.

He stood in front of the door, bent forward slightly, and pressed his left and right hands on the two doors respectively. As he exerted force with his feet, kicking two marks back into the sand, the mausoleum gate finally made a harsh creaking sound and was pushed open by Xia De just enough for someone to enter.

"No need to push it open completely; it's not good if sand gets inside."

Xia De said, reaching out to Miss Knight. The agile cat immediately jumped from Miss Knight to the arm guard of the golden armor, then darted to Xia De's shoulder, and Xia De was the first to walk into the interior of this church mausoleum.

The temperature inside the church was lower than in the Sun Temple. Xia De panted heavily, feeling this hard-won coolness, and Miss Knight also took off her helmet. Her gray-white hair stuck to her face, and a relaxed expression appeared on her sweaty face as well.

Miss Mester, barefoot, walked at the end, looking at the indoor space with them:

"It really is solemn."

This place was very similar to the "St. Perry Cemetery" Xia De had visited in the Randall Valley. In the completely enclosed indoor space were rows of neatly arranged long benches. There were faded murals on the walls, and in the deepest part of the church, where the pulpit should have been, sat a rectangular stone sarcophagus raised by a stone platform.

Although the interior of the church could not receive sunlight from outside, it was not completely dark inside. Above the sarcophagus, soft white light spilled over its surface. Although the faint light was not enough to provide illumination, the sense of holiness made both Xia De and Miss Knight subconsciously slow their steps.

The area here was actually not very large. After walking a few steps forward, the three arrived at the front of the sarcophagus together. Xia De took out the compass fragment Granny Sienode had given him, and the light spot on the fragment indeed pointed directly at the sarcophagus in front of him. It seemed the target this time was inside the sarcophagus.

But they didn't rush to open the sarcophagus, because the large swaths of cast text on the lid were reminding latecomers of the price of opening it.

This text was quite ancient, at least not belonging to the Fifth Era. Miss Knight naturally couldn't understand it, so Xia De, holding the cat, tilted his head and began to translate. After reading it carefully twice, he turned around in surprise to look at the knight statue standing outside the church.

Specifically, the text on the sarcophagus described a heroic story that happened in the distant past. And that hero was still here at this moment—not inside the sarcophagus, but outside the church.