Following the route Yura had indicated, Lucian made his way to the highest point of the ruined structure.
Sure enough, from here all it took was a light leap forward to land squarely atop the broken bridge.
There were hardly any defenders stationed on the bridge itself—it was empty, desolate. Only near the point where the bridge connected to the Academy Gate Town were there a few scattered soldiers standing guard.
At the far end of the bridge, the road led straight toward one of the Raya Lucaria Academy's two main entrances—the South Gate.
After stepping onto the broken bridge, Lucian was just about to head directly toward the academy gates when a weak, listless voice suddenly called out to him.
"You there… come closer…"
"Come here, to this old woman…"
"Your fingers, please, your fingers..."
Lucian was startled.
When he had arrived, he was certain there had been nothing at all on this bridge. And even now, he was still shrouded in invisibility, his body without form.
He turned toward the source of the voice—and saw, at the side of the broken bridge, a wooden chair.
Seated upon it was a hunched, strangely shaped old crone, clutching an enormous staff. Her posture was twisted, her body bent low as she crouched on the chair.
Her face was deeply wrinkled with age, and where her eyes should have been were sunken hollows, so deep it was impossible to tell how she perceived the world at all.
She was one of the Finger Readers of the Lands Between.
Lucian narrowed his eyes slightly.
He was certain of it—just moments ago, this Finger Reader Crone had not been here.
She had appeared suddenly, as if from nowhere.
After a brief moment of thought, Lucian did not dispel his invisibility. Remaining unseen, he walked toward her.
"You can see me?" he asked.
The Finger Reader let out a rasping, cackling laugh.
"Those who bear the makings of a lord… even without form, I can still see them. Let alone something as simple as invisibility."
"Now then… please, let me read your fingers…"
Her words were filled with an odd anticipation, as though the act of reading fingers itself brought her great delight.
Lucian considered it for a moment, then chose not to refuse.
He dismissed the spell on his hand alone, only his right hand became visible.
"Then please," he said calmly, "read my fingers."
The Finger Reader emitted another strange chuckle as she lifted Lucian's hand and examined it closely.
"Oh, bless you!"
"Oh.. ohhh!"
"…You have ties to Lord Miquella."
Lucian's brow immediately furrowed.
Why did that sound like a curse?
If this had been said back when he knew nothing, he might have brushed it off. But now, knowing full well that Miquella was that eternally youthful empyrean, and having already crossed paths with General Radahn—he found the statement deeply unsettling.
Hearing that he had "ties" to Miquella now left a distinctly unpleasant taste in his mouth.
Besides… did he really have any such connection?
Lucian didn't think so.
The Finger Reader continued muttering to herself regardless:
"Heehee… heeheehee…"
"Serves him right… serves him right, that many-eared boy…"
"Slaughter, slaughter, slaughter... The all-hearing slaughtered, but alas, it was for naught."
"That which he schemed so carefully to obtain… he will never have again…"
"And you… you no longer have any need for it."
Lucian looked at the Finger Reader Crone, unease growing in his chest.
What she was saying didn't quite match what he remembered from the game.
"The many-eared boy" could only be Sir Gideon Ofnir, the All-Knowing. As for "that thing," it had to be the Haligtree Secret Medallion.
Judging from her words, she knew he had already been to the Consecrated Snowfield, which was why she said he no longer needed it.
But how did she know?
The Finger Readers were mysterious beings. Even in the game, very little concrete information was given about them.
They were scattered throughout the Lands Between, each with a different temperament, each able to perceive different things. Their words were cryptic, riddled with riddles—but they often served as unusually direct hints, compared to most of the world's obscurity.
Especially once one understood the key events and items, looking back on the Finger Readers' words revealed that they had always been speaking in truths that could, in hindsight, be understood.
After thinking for a moment, Lucian asked her,
"Is there anything else you can see?"
The Finger Reader said nothing.
She only tilted her head slightly, the hollow pits of her eyes facing Lucian, and continued to cackle softly.
Lucian "met" her gaze for a while, then realized he likely wouldn't be getting anything more out of her.
He shook his head and turned to leave.
"Thank you for reading my fingers," he said. "Take care of yourself."
After he had taken several steps away, the Finger Reader's voice finally drifted out again, muttering indistinctly behind him.
"To the south… a ritual of death is being carried out…"
"Those stubborn ones… still praying, over and over… heehee…"
"What a pity… prayers will not be answered…"
Lucian turned back—
But the Finger Reader Crone was already gone.
She had vanished without a trace.
Lucian frowned.
Waiting until he had walked away before saying anything meaningful—these Finger Readers truly were masters of riddles.
'If you don't want to say anything, then don't. If you do want to say something, then just say it—why insist on playing these games?'
If Lucian's hearing hadn't been sharp enough, he would have missed that muttered line entirely.
But still… the south, a ritual of death, prayers?
It sounded suspiciously related to Godwyn.
The spirit at Castle Sol had also mentioned prayers—but Castle Sol was far to the north, not the south.
With no way to extract anything useful from it for now, Lucian could only commit it to memory and leave it for future exploration.
Setting out from the broken bridge, Lucian ventured deeper into the Academy Gate Town, heading toward the South Gate of Raya Lucaria Academy.
Along the way, he took the opportunity to observe the distribution of Cuckoo soldiers in the area.
The Cuckoos seemed to take the academy's orders very seriously. Even in this long-abandoned gate town, they had stationed a massive number of troops.
Nearly every major road and intersection was guarded.
Typically, there would be one or two knights leading dozens of soldiers, along with additional footmen who clearly existed only as expendable cannon fodder.
The soldiers appeared extremely vigilant, maintaining their posts without rest.
But upon closer inspection, most of them were little more than mindless living corpses—only such beings could stand watch endlessly like this.
In addition to the regular soldiers and knights, there were also several horrifying Flame Chariots stationed here.
These chariots were first-rate instruments of war.
Their fronts were cast in bronze, sculpted into the faces of Flame Giants. From the gaping mouths hung several tongue-like structures.
The thick metal plating granted them terrifying defensive power, while the flame-spewing tongues could reduce everything before them to scorched earth.
The all-consuming flames were enough to remind the world just how terrifying giants and fire truly were.
There was no doubt about it, these were absolute killing machines on any battlefield in the Lands Between.
Lucian approached one of the Flame Chariots, pressing close to its grotesque giant visage to examine it carefully.
This thing was basically a medieval tank.
A war machine that could only exist in a high-fantasy world.
Could you imagine that, aside from the driver, there were two more people crouched near the wheels, manually cranking them to provide propulsion?
Yes—this thing had no engine. It was driven entirely by human power.
When Lucian realized this, his expression turned exceedingly complicated.
It was unexpected… but also exactly the sort of thing people in the Lands Between would come up with.
Then, something unexpected caught his eye.
Lucian looked toward the underside of the Flame Chariot's front chassis.
Hanging there was a badge—badly damaged, its details almost completely worn away.
Yet it was unmistakable.
A Stormveil hawk crest.
This thing… was connected to Stormveil?
Lucian had never noticed this in the game. After all, when being relentlessly chased by these things, one usually rushed to circle around and backstab the driver—or used terrain to jump in for an execution. There was never time to study the front in detail.
Moreover, every piece of information he'd seen claimed these were the creations of the Fire Monks, with no mention of Stormveil at all.
It seemed Stormveil's past ran far deeper than Lucian had imagined.
He'd need to ask the Ancient King about this when he got the chance.
After that, still under the effects of invisibility, Lucian openly and calmly walked straight to the academy gates.
There, he took out the Academy Glintstone Key.
He pressed the key against the deep-blue magical seal. In a flash of azure light, the barrier no longer impeded his body.
Lucian passed through the seal without issue.
At the same time, the glintstone embedded in the key lost its luster.
Now that Lucian had been granted passage, the key had served its purpose—it could no longer be used.
He looked up and found himself standing on an upward-sloping path.
Unlike in the game, he had not been directly teleported to the academy's main courtyard—
—
At this very moment, inside Raya Lucaria Academy.
The leaders of the various lecture halls had reconvened, locked in a tense and heated discussion.
The topic of their argument was a mysterious individual who had entered boldly through the main gate.
During the academy's isolation, the disturbance caused by opening the seal with a Glintstone Key was more than enough to attract their attention.
As they argued and deliberated, the glintstones set into their headpieces flashed at an extremely high frequency—more frantic than an Ultra Timer nearing its limit.
"Who obtained the key? A sorcerer who was stranded outside the academy?"
"Who knows. I said long ago we should install surveillance magic at the gate."
"Shut up, idiot—we already did! He used invisibility magic. We can see the mana disturbance, but not the person!"
"At present, we know nothing about him, whether he's friend or foe. Only that he entered from the South Gate…"
"Do you think… it could be the Storm King?"
The moment those words were spoken, the other sorcerers fell silent and turned to look at the Lazuli Sorcerer who had spoken.
Without question, this was one of the worst possible scenarios.
The rapidly flashing glintstones above their heads testified to the speed at which their minds were racing.
A sorcerer of the Olivinus Conspectus spoke up to refute the idea.
"Impossible. Absolutely impossible!"
"Finding the key would require large numbers searching everywhere, Liurnia isn't his Limgrave."
"We've had eyes on Stormveil this entire time. No large force has moved out."
"And most importantly, the Storm King has no reason to sneak in under invisibility."
The other sorcerers exchanged glances.
His reasoning made sense.
They decided to abandon this inconclusive line of speculation.
In the end, regardless of who had entered, their response would be the same.
"Raise the lift immediately! Otherwise he'll be up here any moment!"
"And send more personnel down below!"