Chapter 00013: Treasure Map
# Treasure Map
Chapter 13
Novel: AFK Game: Portal to Another World
Chapter 13: Treasure Map
"Absolutely not! The Leon Territory has been the land of the Leon family since the founding of the kingdom! Even the king can’t take it away at will. It belongs to me!"
Inside the lord's villa, Lord Leon roared like a wounded lion, throwing a goblet filled with wine across the room.
Red grape wine splashed all over the floor.
The butler looked at the fine wine drenched on the floor with a pained expression and quietly tried to calm him:
"My lord, why would you say such a thing?"
"Why? The princess talking to commoners is just a ploy to dig up dirt on me! Worshipping the Demon God is her way of using religion to corrupt the people, so they’ll turn against me and push me down!"
If that was her true goal, then all the strange things Princess Viola had been doing instead of conscripting soldiers in the Leon Territory suddenly made sense.
"But, my lord, the power that defeated the mountain bandits a few days ago—"
"That was just a show piece by Viola! Did you personally see the Demon God take action?!"
The butler hadn't seen it, indeed.
When the bandits came, he and the lord were hiding inside the Castle, relying on their loyal soldiers to hold the defenses.
They hadn’t even gone near the City Walls.
Li Chengxi's strike was so fast—in the most literal sense—that even the commoners in the city hadn't seen how the bandits were repelled.
They only heard about it from the soldiers who were guarding the wall at the time.
"All nobles have some precious private collections. As royalty, it’s perfectly reasonable that Viola would possess some magical artifact capable of repelling bandits. Yes, it must be that! She used it to escape from the Capital. Now she’s using it to impersonate a divine power to rally the commoners against me!"
Lord Leon grew increasingly agitated, so much so that, under the influence of alcohol and rage, he lost all reason.
He suddenly drew the longsword hanging on the wall, looking as if he might storm into the Castle to confront the princess.
"My lord, calm yourself! Please calm down! We still have a chance!"
The butler’s words soothed Lord Leon a bit—or perhaps it was the cold wind of April that hit him as the door opened, sobering him slightly.
Lord Leon sat heavily onto a chair.
The butler quickly and attentively picked up the goblet, refilled it with wine.
"My lord, as long as we can get in contact with the Coalition of Four Nations, Princess Viola will no longer be a threat to you. In fact, you should keep her tightly within your grasp—as a bargaining chip for future negotiations."
Taking a deep breath, Lord Leon lifted his goblet:
"Did the men we sent to make contact respond yet?"
"Not yet. When Her Highness entered the Leon Territory, she used magic to destroy the only Canyon Path. Our messenger has to go over mountains and ridges to get through. So it will take some time."
"Mm. But we must always have a backup plan."
The butler was about to ask what kind of plan, when he suddenly caught a glimpse of Lord Leon’s cold and sinister eyes.
He shivered and dared not ask further.
"This matter must not be known to a third person. Do you understand?"
"Of course, I understand completely."
"Mm."
Looking up at the crest of the Avarus Demon Kingdom and his own family emblem hanging on the wall, Lord Leon understood—before long, that wall would need a new coat of arms…
———
"This matter must not be known to a third person. Do you understand? … But I’ve already seen it."
Watching the screen where the lord and his butler were scheming away, Li Chengxi couldn’t help but comment.
He had gotten up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, but when he got back, he couldn’t fall asleep again.
So he pulled out his laptop and checked the status of things in the game.
As for why he saw Lord Leon?
Turns out that in the pitch-dark Leon Fortress, the only building that still had lights on was the lord’s villa.
It practically screamed "look here."
And to think people always complain about villains in movies plotting in the dark—well, Lord Leon was exactly the sort who paid for leaving the light on.
Now, Li Chengxi remembered how just a few days ago, Viola had a strategy meeting with her knights, and they were already very wary of the lord.
She knew his reputation wasn’t exactly stellar.
But if he couldn’t act openly, what if he tried something more underhanded?
Judging by what they were saying just now, it looked like they planned to poison someone.
That sort of thing was impossible to guard against.
Li Chengxi stared at the chibi-styled lord on-screen, currently drinking wine, and a sudden thought occurred to him.
Should I just poke him dead with a finger?
Even though, in Li Chengxi's eyes, they were all NPCs, there were still differences.
Princess Viola had more of a protagonist’s vibe.
She was, after all, the number one follower of the Demon God that the player roleplayed.
And more importantly… her character artwork was pretty!
Compared to that, Lord Leon's artwork basically had "I'm a villain" written across his face.
Showing bias toward characters you like more was standard in games.
Plenty of games gave players loads of characters to choose from, but everyone just stuck with the ones they found pleasing to their eye.
So, Li Chengxi reached his finger out towards the drinking Lord Leon—he was almost touching the screen—but then he pulled back.
No. That would be a problem.
Viola had just arrived and didn’t have a firm footing in the territory.
If the lord suddenly dropped dead, it’d make it harder for her to take control.
In other words, that lord couldn’t die just yet.
He was still needed as a figurehead to help stabilize things.
Once Viola had a better grip on the territory, then he’d become expendable.
Thinking it over, Li Chengxi remembered two Divine Arts he had access to in the spell list: "Neutralize Poison" and "Detect Poison."
At most, he’d just have to give Viola a heads-up and then bestow those Divine Arts on her.
That should cover it.
On the screen, the lord had apparently drunk enough.
Face red from the alcohol, he was now being helped to bed by the butler.
Consider yourself lucky today.
Li Chengxi casually pressed the alt key to see if there was anything interesting in the lord’s room.
Immediately, a bunch of item names popped up across the screen—like "Famous Painting Such-and-Such" and "Luxurious Furniture This-and-That."
The commoners can’t even afford white bread, and this guy’s living in this kind of wealth?
Li Chengxi’s impression of Lord Leon dropped another level.
But among the names of all the expensive furniture and decorations, one line suddenly caught his eye.
Hidden among the labels was something marked "Hidden Safe."
That really got his curiosity going.
He zoomed in on the area where the safe was located.
A portrait appeared on the screen, done in the same chibi pixel style.
The safe was likely behind the painting.
Li Chengxi reached his hand into the screen.
He could feel the edge of the frame.
With a nudge, he pushed it to the side.
A dark, heavy-looking safe with a dial lock appeared, tucked into a hidden wall slot.
"So… how do you open this thing? Am I supposed to take it out and study it?"
He reached in and tried lifting it.
It was incredibly heavy.
Even after using all his strength, he couldn’t budge it.
Furrowing his brow, Li Chengxi thought for a moment and suddenly recalled how, during the mountain bandits' siege, clicking the siege ladder with the mouse would make it snap.
Would that trick work on the safe too?
He moved his cursor over the lock and started clicking repeatedly.
Each click made the pixelated safe twitch slightly on screen, and the dial turned a little each time.
After seven or eight clicks, there was a soft "click," and the safe slowly popped open.
"Only a book?"
Li Chengxi thought there’d be piles of treasure inside.
Instead, there was just a single book.
He reached into the screen and pulled the book out.
The writing on it was in unfamiliar script again, but as before, it twisted in his vision and turned into readable Chinese characters.
"Income and expense records, receipts, kingdom aid list, land deeds? Transaction proofs? Holy crap, is this the lord’s hidden ledger?"
No wonder it was hidden away in a safe.
Li Chengxi skimmed a few pages and found that Lord Leon had been citing the poor status of the territory to request tax reductions, and claiming disaster damages to get aid money from the Capital.
Yet all the tax reductions and relief funds had ended up in the lord’s own pocket.
Truly a despicable person.
He casually flipped another page when a sheet of paper fluttered out of the ledger and landed on the floor.
Li Chengxi bent down to pick it up and was surprised:
"What’s this? A treasure map?"
He opened the game’s map interface to take a look, but with only a small part of the region currently unlocked, he couldn’t find any location that matched.
He yawned.
Guess I’ll figure it out tomorrow.
He stuffed the treasure map back into the ledger, shoved the ledger into the nightstand, closed his laptop, and soon fell into a deep sleep.
(End of Chapter)