Chapter 126: What Exactly Lies Buried Beneath This Land?

“This is the entrance,” Knight Byron announced.

After a brief rest to regain some strength, Byron led Gawain and the others into the woods near Gorin Mill. Beneath a small earthen mound, they found the entrance to the underground tunnel—a narrow opening cleverly concealed among stones and tree roots at the base of the slope. Thick vines and fallen leaves had grown over it, so well hidden that anyone passing by would likely overlook it without Byron’s guidance.

Byron had damaged some of the plants covering the entrance when he exited the tunnel earlier. Though he had tried to cover his tracks afterward, signs of recent passage were still visible. Pittman crouched by the entrance, peering inside before concluding, “This probably wasn’t originally an exit. Most likely, an earthquake or the roots of a giant tree cracked the earth, connecting this cave to the deeper tunnel below.”

The old man chuckled softly and added casually, “There’s quite a lot buried underground in the south.”

Gawain immediately sensed a double meaning in Pittman’s words. “You’re including me in that, aren’t you?”

Pittman gave a dry laugh, then pulled a small magical crystal from his pocket. He infused it with a bit of magic until it glowed steadily, then tossed it into the tunnel. He gestured to Gawain with a “You go first” motion. “Your turn to lead.”

Gawain shrugged, stopping Sir Philip, who had been eager to go first, and took the plunge himself.

His feet landed on a soft, damp bed of decayed leaves and twigs. The cramped earthen walls pressed close around him, but the glowing crystal illuminated the way ahead. He saw a winding, downward-sloping path—untouched by human hands, just as the old druid had said—where natural forces had opened a fissure connecting to the man-made tunnels below.

Picking up the crystal, Gawain gave it a shake to signal the way was clear, then stepped forward.

Moments later, Amber’s presence followed. The half-elf rogue moved through the underground space like a fish in water, twirling her treasured dagger with a cheerful curiosity. “This tunnel just keeps going down, huh?”

“If these really are the ‘battle tunnels’ dug long ago, they’d have to be deep,” Gawain said offhandedly. “Magic surges often leak to the surface. If the tunnels weren’t deep enough, the people sheltering inside would be vulnerable.”

The sloping passage continued for a while before opening into a wider, drier corridor. Gawain noticed the soil and natural rubble along the walls gradually gave way to crafted support beams, stone bricks, and walls reinforced with earth-element magic. The floor leveled out, no longer slanting downward.

But as he took in the surroundings, Gawain’s brow furrowed.

Amber, too, sensed something off. She stopped fiddling with her dagger and ran over to examine the wall’s texture and the patterns etched into it. Then, uncertain, she hurried back to Gawain. “This style… it’s not like the tunnels we escaped through from your tomb.”

“Exactly,” Gawain said, raising the crystal to illuminate the walls and floor. “These aren’t the southern underground works I oversaw back then. No wonder I found it strange when Byron mentioned tunnels beneath Tansan Town. That area had no development plans at the time, and even long after my death, it should have remained untouched. Who would build tunnels here?”

Amber frowned. “If you look closely, it kind of resembles the ruins in the Dark Mountains.”

Suddenly, Gawain’s vague sense of familiarity clicked into place.

The architecture and materials of this underground passage closely matched those of the massive ruins in the Dark Mountains!

Byron himself was stunned. He looked around, bewildered. “It really does look like it. When I was cursed, my head was all foggy—I didn’t notice at all!”

“Underground facilities from the Age of the Starfire, here too…” Gawain’s mind churned. “So the ruins in the Dark Mountains are just part of a larger complex? Or…”

A bolder thought struck him: Could the fortress buried in the Dark Mountains be connected to these tunnels? Could these ancient passages stretch across the northern lands, spanning the Whitewater River and the forests beyond, forming one continuous network?

But the idea didn’t last long. Gawain shook his head, doubting its likelihood. Even the mighty Gondor Empire had limits. The distance from the Dark Mountains to here was vast, with rugged terrain and rivers in between. Building such an extensive underground complex would be no small feat.

Though, to be honest, if Gondor had truly set its mind to it, marshaling the entire nation’s resources to build an underground city near the Dark Mountains wouldn’t be impossible. But what could be so valuable here to justify such a secret, massive project? Neither the people of Gondor nor later generations had any knowledge of it…

Could it be related to those human experiments Nicholas mentioned? Or that so-called “Divine Blight”?

“Hey, hey, what are you thinking about?” Amber’s voice snapped Gawain back to reality. She was waving her hand in front of his face, her half-elf features close enough to see clearly. “Not the time to zone out.”

“No, nothing,” Gawain quickly refocused, shelving his wild theories for now. “Judging by our position, we should be directly beneath the Whitewater Riverbed.”

“Really?” Amber looked up in disbelief. The stone arch overhead was dry and solid, with no dripping water or the sound of flowing river above. “Wow… this place is really deep. How did they manage to tunnel beneath the riverbed?”

“I’m more curious how he could pinpoint the location so precisely,” Pittman muttered, glancing at Gawain.

Amber’s ears twitched. “That’s easy—he’s been underground for over seven hundred years, a real expert… Ow! Hey, that hurts!”

Gawain gave her a playful twist on the ear, then ignored her antics and signaled Byron to lead on.

At the same time, he glanced at his team and felt a chill. Among the five of them, there was a rogue elf with a questionable reputation, a druid who peddled soups and dubious remedies, and an old knight who could spin a tale about running away with such righteous flair it was almost comical. Aside from himself, only Sir Philip—the serious, silent type—seemed like the last bastion of decency in the Cecil operation team.

Lost in thought, Gawain was startled when Philip suddenly turned to Byron with a serious expression. “By the way, Byron, is this ‘strategic retreat’ you mentioned some knightly skill I don’t know about?”

Everyone else was speechless.

Gawain sighed inwardly: a good guy, but still a passive straight man…

As they neared Tansan Town, the chatter died down.

Thanks to his almost supernatural memory map and terrain-reading ability, Gawain could roughly gauge their location. The long tunnel wasn’t straight; it twisted and branched. Ignoring collapsed or dead-end paths, he realized they had circled halfway around the eastern side of Tansan Town.

They were now directly beneath the Tansan Mine.

Gawain recalled the town’s geography: to the east, the massive Tansan Mine loomed; to the west, two tributaries of the Whitewater River. The town roughly formed a triangle, with Viscount Andrew’s castle on the eastern side, nestled against the gentle foothills of the mine. The castle’s main building materials came from the mine itself, which produced iron, various crystals, and high-quality stone. The Leslie family, who owned this land, had amassed enviable wealth for good reason.

Now, walking through the ancient tunnel beneath the mine, Gawain wondered: Did Viscount Andrew even know about these underground ruins?

Probably not. The iron and crystal veins in the mine weren’t deep; the mining tunnels didn’t need to go far underground. With the technology of this era, deep excavation without necessity was unthinkable—no one would waste effort on such thankless work. And if Andrew had uncovered this ancient site, word would have gotten out.

As the largest nearby settlement and a hub for merchants and travelers, Tansan Town wasn’t a place where secrets stayed buried—unlike the desolate Dark Mountains.

Ahead, the ground began to rise.

The air grew damp, a noticeable breeze brushed their skin, and faint sounds echoed from the front. All signs pointed to an exit nearby.

Soon, they emerged from the tunnel into a wide, steep cavern. At the bottom lay a pool formed by underground water seepage. The tunnel’s exit was a cracked fissure in the rock beside the pool—not a proper entrance, but a geological fracture caused by natural shifts.

The true entrance remained unknown, likely collapsed long ago.

Seeing the fissure showed no severe signs of water erosion, Gawain asked Philip, “Has there been an earthquake here in recent years?”

“No,” Philip shook his head, then frowned thoughtfully. “But locals say they sometimes hear wailing sounds from beneath the mine—like the ghosts of slaves who died there. Viscount Andrew even hired mediums and sorcerers to investigate, but they found no source.”

“Hmm…” Gawain said noncommittally, then looked up at the cavern ceiling.

Vines sprawled wildly, and massive tree roots stretched across the sides. This entrance had clearly been hidden and covered before, only recently exposed by some collapse. Byron’s luck was incredible—he truly owed his survival to the goddess of fate.

If such a goddess even existed in this world.

“From here, you can get up and see the castle’s east wall,” Byron said. “But the opening is almost vertical, and the soil is all loose dirt—it won’t be easy to climb.”

“Now it’s time to call in the expert!” Pittman stepped forward with a sly grin. The little old man reached into his pocket and pulled out a fresh green twig. Waving it like a magic wand, he traced one rune after another in the air. Meanwhile, the twig itself seemed to wither before their eyes, fading from vibrant green to dry and brittle.

A rustling sound came from above. The vines growing around the opening, energized and drawn by the druid’s spell, rapidly sprouted and hung down!

(End of chapter)