Free Web NovelChapter 11: A shortcut to Pandora’s Rainforest
Two hours and forty-five minutes had passed since Rian left the estate.
He was still within Garissa, the capital of the Dark Empire.
At present, he was crossing through the city’s southern district.
Garissa wasn’t merely a capital, it was where the Empress herself resided, and also where the estates of all five Archdukes stood.
The place was practically the size of a mega-city.
It was so vast, in fact, that one could easily mistake its sprawl for a fully fledged state of its own.
"Whew—"
From inside his carriage, Rian squinted up at the scorching sun overhead, feeling as though simply breathing in and out might cook his lungs from the inside.
"It is rather hot, Great Master."
Thalia fanned a palm at her neck, her other hand tugging her collar loose a notch.
Now that she is in a human body again, she could feel all the small things which normal humans can.
No matter how well made the carriage was, it couldn’t block the heat.
Though, if Rian was honest, it wasn’t truly the weather that had them both on edge. It was due to where they were headed.
The mere notion of trekking across fourteen hundred kilometers to reach Pandora’s forest was beyond absurd, it was utter lunacy.
Rian had no intention of undertaking such a grueling journey.
Instead, he had a different scheme in mind...
...a shortcut.
A faint smile played on Rian’s lips as the carriage rattled past the boundaries of Garissa.
He was heading the exact opposite direction of Pandora’s Rainforest, towards the high plain mountains right at the mountain range at Garissa’s border.
It was not like they lost direction, but in reality it was the only way to reach the designation this quickly.
It was also a strategy that Rian had devised, that if by chance someone were to see him they would just think it was the House Orlok’s master out for a little hiking with his maid.
The thought pulled a crooked grin onto his face.
Deep at the range of the Mountains, there was a teleportation gate.
It was made for any emergency evacuation in preparation for demon attack or war.
Although it was Rian’s first time seeing it, he was confident of the information about the teleportation gate.
After all, in his previous timeline, it was the Empress herself who had told him about it.
Rian still remembered it like it was yesterday.
The whole of the Dark Empire had stood on the brink of collapse.
The remaining Archduke houses were all but wiped out, and those few who still drew breath had gathered together not to fight, but to argue over how they might save their own skins.
The scene was still vivid behind his eyes.
The slurs those remaining nobles hurled at the Empress and the way they’d turned on her, and in the end to offered her up like livestock to buy themselves a little more time.
Clearly, Rian had never been particularly fond of the Empress himself.
But even so, he would never have stooped so low as they had.
If he had he been there at her side that day, then not a single soul would have dared lay a finger on the Empress.
And as for why the Empress hadn’t fought back, despite all her might... that was an answer Rian never got to find.
When a war has already turned against you, and the next corpse in the dirt might well be your own, then men abandon reason entirely.
Loss becomes certain, and so they become inhuman themselves and call it survival.
’...Such a wretched thing to do.’
Even now, the memory made his throat go tight and sour.
Gulp....
"We’ve arrived, Great Master."
Thalia’s voice pulled him from the depths of his thoughts.
Rian crouched his head down slightly to get the full view from inside his carriage.
Just outside, standing before him, were mountains so high that their tops weren’t even visible.
The entire plain was covered in green grass, except for the very top, which was drastically covered in snow.
Rian suspected that its tip might even reach the outer hemisphere.
Thalia too glanced at this natural marvel, which was nothing but a breathtaking view.
As someone who had spent most of her time locked up inside the estate, it was Thalia’s first time seeing something this up close.
Rian checked the time on his pocket watch.
’I still have four hours to spare.’
That was more than enough to get the job done and make it back home in time to prepare for the rest.
"Alright. Let’s go."
Rian stepped out of the carriage.
"Sir, are you sure this is where you want to get off?"
The driver called after him with concern.
His eyes flicked between Rian and Thalia.
Rian could tell at a single glance exactly what the man was thinking.
A young lord and a pretty maid, asking to be left out here far from the city, with no way back.
What might they be doing here?
The driver cleared his throat awkwardly.
"I mean... it’s none of my business, sir, but... there’s nothing out here but wilderness. You two sure you’ll be, ah... alright on your own?"
The implication practically dripped off his words.
Rian didn’t bother correcting him.
"We’ll be fine, and besides we’re just here to bury something."
The driver’s smile froze.
"...B-bury?"
"Mm, it’s an old family business."
He said it so casually, so pleasantly, that it took the driver a moment to process, and when he did, a cold shiver crawled straight up his spine.
He didn’t ask a single question next.
Snapping the reins hard, the man wheeled his carriage around and drove off.
’Atleast take the money...’
Rian didn’t want to scare him like this... then again it was all the driver’s fault for reacting this way.
That being said, Rian sighed and faced the humungous mountain.
"Great Master, are you certain that the teleportation gate was here?"
Thalia voiced a concern of her own, her gaze fixed on the towering mountain.
And to be fair, her worry was a reasonable one.
If Rian was right, if there truly was a teleportation gate here, one the Empire had kept hidden for so long, then surely there ought to be guards posted somewhere around the place.
Yet as far as she could sense, there was nothing of the sort.
Rian could guess what she was thinking.
Even now, he still hadn’t told Thalia the truth about being a regressor. To her, he was simply the prodigy of House Orlok, a boy of unmatched talent, and nothing more.
’...It’s not as if I can keep it hidden from her forever.’
Sooner or later, she would see him wield the Holy Mark, and that alone would raise a hundred questions he’d have to answer.
But Rian wasn’t going to trouble himself over that just yet. After all, of everyone he had in this timeline right now, Thalia was the one person he trusted without a shred of doubt.
"There are no guards here. No need to trouble yourself over that."
It was as if he’d read her mind.
Thalia glanced at him.
"Is it because the Empress wishes for it to stay hidden?"
Rian nodded.
"Exactly."
It was a simple strategy, but an effective one.
If there were guards posted here, anyone passing by would have immediately assumed something important was hidden here. So, no guards would mean no suspicion, and no suspicion meant no one ever came looking.
And it had worked before, too.
Even Rian himself, for all his sharpness, had never once suspected a place like this existed, not until the Empress had told him of it with her own mouth.
And even if someone were to suspect something, they would never manage to find it.
"Follow me."
He beckoned Thalia along.
Recalling the Empress’s words from before his return to the past, Rian traced the exact path toward the teleportation gate.
To reach the place, one didn’t need to climb the mountain at all. Instead, one had to go inside it.
The route to enter, according to the Empress, was to find a Stealth Curse Pattern hidden nearby and deactivate it.
"Found it."
It hadn’t even taken him a minute.
Just as the Empress had instructed, Rian had Thalia dispel the magic.
At his four o’clock, just to his right, a hidden door slid open.
Serrrrrrrr—!
Inside, it was pitch black.
Thalia stepped in behind him.
As Rian entered, he began searching for it at once. That was when he noticed, the entire ground within was blanketed in snow.
He strode to the center and brushed the snow away from the floor.
There it was, a circle inscribed into the very middle with strange geometric patterns and shapes.
A teleportation gate.
Rian placed his left hand at the center of the pattern and pulsed a current of raw dark mana through it.
Zzzzzzzz—!!
The mana from all across the mountain range was sucked down into the pattern at once.
Beneath his and Thalia’s feet, a brilliant white light began to gather.
And together with her, Rian’s body scattered into a fine dust of light.
. . .
Crash!
A bright flash burst across his vision, and before long, the scene before his eyes had been replaced entirely, towering trees now stretched high enough to blot out the sky.
The teleportation had been set to carry him near the border of the Dark Empire, dropping him right in the middle of some random stretch of Pandora’s Rainforest.
Beside him, Thalia stood equally bewildered.
"This is... teleportation?"
’...Right.’
Rian kept forgetting that this kind of technology was still very new to Thalia.
Back when she’d been alive, teleportation gates had only ever been used to cover short distances, nothing like this one, which had just carried them across fourteen hundred kilometers.
But as the thought crossed his mind, Rian felt his Holy Mark begin to burn once again.
’...Ah, shit. Why now, of all times?!’
It was searing this time, intense enough to make him grit his teeth.
Thank goodness he’d worn the gloves and wrappings to keep the Mark hidden from sight.
Rian hadn’t used any Necromancy Art this time. So the question remained, what had set it off this violently?
