Chapter 147
Chapter 147
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 147
Chapter Title: Revival of the Ancient Emperor (1)
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# 147
Ancient Emperor's Ruins. It sounded grand, but in reality, it was nothing special.
If archaeologists heard this, they'd fly into a rage, but at least by Rokan's standards, that's how it was.
It was just ruins under excavation, nothing more.
The Ancient Emperor's Ruins, where excavation had only just begun not long ago, were a place where archaeologists were dusting off artifacts in search of something.
Did that mean Rokan had to dig in the dirt and brush away dust to find the Ancient Emperor's relics?
No way. Rokan had no intention of rolling around in the dirt playing treasure hunt.
‘There’s nothing here anyway.’
Like most Ancient Emperor's tombs, this one was a ‘fake.’
More precisely, it was a showy tomb built to boast of his glory in life. It was decked out as lavishly as possible, so there would be plenty of treasures to uncover through excavation, but you couldn't find the Ancient Emperor's actual body or the legacy he left behind.
‘The real one is…….’
Rokan's gaze turned somewhere. To the ceiling. More precisely, to the seven murals painted on the ceiling.
At a glance, they looked like depictions of the Ancient Emperor's achievements in pictures and writing, but in fact, they hid the key to the real tomb where the Ancient Emperor was buried.
Panel 1. Long, long ago, the emperor of the human race raised the Red Crusaders.
Panel 2. Ten knights and a thousand knights followed as one, clad in red cloaks, and all races prostrated themselves in worship.
Panel 3. The emperor trampled everything and proclaimed an eternal empire.
Panel 4. He ruled the world with fear and took all that existed.
Panel 5. But even he grew old and sick. It was very long, but in the end, there was an end.
Panel 6. In his final moments, the emperor realized he possessed nothing. He realized there was a heaven above heaven.
Panel 7. Lamenting that it was too late, he sealed everything into a red orb, vowing to return one day.
‘Whoa, I can read this.’
Was it the effect of the title Secret Tracker? The squiggly writings accompanying the murals were easily readable.
Normally, you had to learn the ancient language skill like a second language without a skill book, but to Rokan, it appeared translated into Hangul.
There were some blurry parts or mistranslated spellings here and there, but it was enough to grasp every word from the context.
As expected of a Unique+ grade title.
‘According to this, the most noteworthy mural is the last one.’
His surprise was short-lived. Rokan stayed true to his purpose here. He began searching for the real location where the emperor was buried, using the murals.
According to the murals, he should focus on the last one, the temple-like place where the emperor seals the red orb. The image was so striking.
However, Rokan knew that was fake. The truly important one was the sixth mural right before it.
The sixth mural where the Ancient Emperor looks up at the sky, with a city depicted in that sky.
The position where the Ancient Emperor stands in that mural is the location of his real tomb.
‘Screenshot saved.’
Rokan immediately saved a photo of the mural. He wanted to find it in one go, but even he didn't know the exact location.
His specialty was godlike combat that turned the impossible possible, not solving riddles or exploring ruins.
So, while he was good at smashing the results that appeared after quests triggered, he didn't know the detailed process.
‘Where was it that those guys first appeared……?’
He could only roughly estimate the area based on past life experiences. No matter how the quest was progressed, if he recalled where the revived Ancient Emperor was active, he could roughly pinpoint the burial place, right?
The problem was that the area was quite vast, but with the clue of the ‘sixth mural,’ it would be much better.
Having secured the screenshot, Rokan immediately left the Ancient Emperor's Ruins. After all, the only place to extract the emperor's soul would be his tomb.
“This is my first in-game purchase since starting The Lord in this life.”
Having left the Ancient Emperor's Ruins, Rokan attempted his first in-game payment since starting The Lord in his current life.
In The Lord, cash items and services could only be used in ways that didn't affect gameplay, and what Rokan used was exactly that kind.
“Print.”
It was bringing image files saved on a computer or device into the game.
Originally a service to allow strategy guides or student workbooks found outside to be held in-game, but what Rokan obtained was the screenshot of the mural he just took.
“Assistant summon. Guide.”
With that in hand, Rokan used a teleport magic circle to cross space, then immediately summoned an assistant. One with guide abilities.
“Find this place.”
The next task was clear. Find the position of the Ancient Emperor depicted in the mural.
Terrain that might have changed a lot since the past required keen eyesight, a problem he solved by summoning an assistant.
Of course, users or mercenaries with pathfinding skills might find it, but that would spread ‘rumors.’
Especially, what mercenaries saw and heard was designed to leak piecemeal through taverns, info guilds, and the like.
In his past life, guilds that tried to progress quests secretly without knowing this suffered quite a bit.
“Guide's Sense. Pathfinding.”
Receiving the print from Rokan, the Guide immediately used his skill to start searching for the path.
Finding the same place from a picture from hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago in this vast land was nearly impossible, but this wasn't reality. Bizarre things impossible in reality could happen anytime.
Under the name of skills.
“This way.”
The Guide's Sense he used was, in a word, ‘guessing.’ Using the Guide's unique intuition to find the direction where the target place might be.
In reality, one might rage ‘what's that?’, but as a manifested skill, the hit rate was over 70%.
“Hurry.”
Whish!
When Rokan summoned his mount, the Guide finally started running. Not as fast as a horse, but his speed specialized in pathfinding and movement was almost as fast as a normally running horse.
They ran and ran hastily, but they couldn't find the destination within the assistant summon duration.
Now it was Rokan's turn. He scoured the direction the Guide had set, running and running, but the place from the mural didn't appear easily.
“Huh?”
Crack, craaack.
While wielding Night Vision to roam the night like day, a change occurred to Rokan.
Precisely, a change happened inside his inventory.
Squeak.
It was the egg of the Life Bigbird he got from the half-elfs' greenhouse.
It popped out of the inventory, trembling, then hatched, and a chick was born.
Pecking the shell with its beak, it came out and tilted its head at Rokan.
Cheep cheep!
Unbelievable for a newborn chick. Recognizing the first-seen Rokan as its mother? It smiled cutely and circled on Rokan's palm.
[Cute Baby Bigbird][Lv 1]
Only level 1. One might think when to raise it to be useful, but as it's a game not reality, Rokan knew the time would come sooner than thought.
[Would you like to register Cute Baby Bigbird as a pet?]
[Cute Baby Bigbird has been registered as Rokan's pet.]
The answer was obviously yes. After pet registration, another notification appeared.
[Please name your pet.]
“……Cairo it is.”
[Cute Baby Bigbird, Kai][Lv 1]
Having named it, Rokan decided to use a cheat key.
Gulp. Cheep squeak!
What he fed it was expensive high-grade stamina potion. Something even users hesitate to buy and drink casually, feeding it to a sparrow-like pet.
‘Good.’
[Cute Baby Bigbird, Kai][Lv 21]
The level rose greatly after gulping it down. 20 levels up from one potion.
Still far from usable, but Rokan wasn't impatient. He already had the short-term training method for Bigbirds in mind.
Gulp gulp.
For the Bigbird that quickly finished the high-grade stamina potion, Rokan pulled out a few more.
If you think a chick the size of a sparrow can't drink much, you'd be wrong.
Even as a chick, its satiety stat doesn't differ much from adults, so properly feeding special mounts often bends the owner's back.
[Energetic Baby Bigbird, Kai][Lv 57][Full Belly]
Thanks to that, Rokan consumed several high-grade stamina potions on the spot, raising the baby Bigbird's level to the 50s in an instant.
It showed a big speed difference from user leveling, but unavoidable. If leveling was as hard as for users, no one would raise mounts.
Cheep cheep cheep!
Due to level up? Kai, only minutes old, flapped its wings strongly.
Awkwardly, but it started floating in the air.
‘Whoa.’
This was new even for Rokan. He'd heard you could grow it fast like this, but he'd never tried it himself.
In past life, too lazy to raise mounts, he bought fully grown ones from others.
So he never felt the fun or hardship of raising, but this time he had no choice. Waiting would take too long. And to raise the desired one, manage from young.
“Better start than expected.”
Not widely known, but special mounts' attributes and abilities change based on growth process.
Rokan fed high-grade stamina potions for this reason. To awaken the abilities of its mother, the Life Bigbird.
Since he solos often and enjoys 1 vs many, it needs to be sturdy first.
And strong enough to carry Rokan and his gear weight.
Flap flap flap.
“Huh?”
Leaving Rokan's palm, Kai wobbled and flew off somewhere quickly.
Seemed like it couldn't control its body, but Rokan felt something off.
Like Kai was reacting to something.
“Ah.”
And he found it. A different but familiar space.
Weathered by time, slightly changed appearance, but in the twilight night, the place where cute Kai was toddling with its feet was undoubtedly the spot where the Ancient Emperor had been.
“Found it.”