White Cliff Town, by the banks of the Stirford River.
Lorne, dressed in a black trench coat, stood on the riverbank, carefully observing the surroundings.
"Is it around here?" he asked.
"Yes," Sharon's cold voice rang out beside Lorne.
Dressed in a Gothic court dress and a delicate soft hat, she was currently floating quietly beside Lorne in a translucent spirit form.
"Hmm... my spiritual intuition is also reacting,"
"That tomb might be more dangerous than we imagined."
Lorne turned his head to look at Sharon's exquisite yet expressionless face. "We'll retreat immediately if anything feels wrong."
Sharon nodded slightly in agreement.
But then, she asked, "You seem to have an unusual interest in this tomb. Why?"
Isn't it a bit late to ask that now? — Lorne complained inwardly before explaining, "It's related to an item of mine."
He pulled out the cracked monocle from his breast pocket.
"Marich once found a Marauder Beyonder characteristic in the tomb. This item of mine is suspected to be related to the Marauder Pathway. I want to find out its origins." As companions about to fight side-by-side, Lorne felt it was necessary to explain certain things.
"I think that tomb might be connected to the Marauder, and I want to see if I can find any clues."
"Of course, this is just my guess—"
"But even if there are no clues, it would be good to get some Beyonder materials or items related to the Marauder Pathway."
"Mm."
Sharon acknowledged this explanation. But then, as if suddenly thinking of something, she turned her head slightly and, in her usual cold and flat tone, threw out a question that caught Lorne off guard.
"Hazel Mahert also seems to be a 'Marauder'..."
"And she has been getting very close to you."
She paused, as if stating an objective fact.
"She even wanted to dance with you before..."
Teacher Sharon, when did you become so talkative? And about the dancing—it was clearly you controlling Hazel's body to invite me, alright?!
Lorne complained wildly in his mind, a sense of indescribable embarrassment and weirdness instantly enveloping him. Even though Sharon's tone had no inflection, he felt as if the surrounding air had frozen.
What's with this inexplicable feeling of being caught red-handed?!
"Sigh..." He let out a soft sigh and spoke casually, "She and I are just simple collaborators. If I had to be more precise, it's at most a relationship between a blackmailer and the blackmailed."
He intentionally used a rather unpleasant description.
"Teacher Sharon, don't you already know all this?" he couldn't help but remind her.
When he first met Hazel, Sharon was his bodyguard; she knew all about these things.
"I was just... asking casually." Sharon calmly looked away, her tone showing no emotion.
"You... you certainly have a unique personality."
Because Marich had been here before.
The two of them didn't have to spend much effort to find the entrance to the Amon family tomb beneath a hidden cliff.
"Marich originally wanted to come and help, but he recently took on a well-paying commission and is quite busy," Sharon said.
"He still has to supervise the work for me—it's normal for him to be busy." Lorne smiled. "The two of us are enough. This way, I won't owe him another favor."
"Mm." Sharon nodded, agreeing with the first half of Lorne's sentence. Then, in a voice only she could hear, she whispered softly, "Two people... is quite good."
The steps, polished from black marble, had withstood one or two thousand years of time yet remained hard enough, with no signs of corrosion.
The two followed the steps all the way down into the deep underground.
They saw thick, asymmetrical stone pillars typical of the fourth epoch architectural style. At the end of the path was a massive dark gray stone door.
A fairly wide crack had already opened in the middle of the stone door.
"It was probably left by previous explorers," Lorne analyzed.
The two were in no hurry to move; instead, they circled the entrance to see if there were any treasures missed by previous explorers.
After exploring the area, they turned their gaze deep into the stone door.
"Let's go," Sharon said.
"Mm."
The two walked in one after the other. Lorne held a lantern and led the way, while Sharon floated behind him.
Relying on Premonition of Disaster and a subtle control over his own "luck," their journey forward was exceptionally smooth. They didn't encounter any of the Monsters or traps Marich had mentioned that might lurk on the tomb's periphery.
After advancing about dozens of meters, they came to a fork in the road. Two almost identical passages stretched in different directions, disappearing into the Darkness.
"Which way?" Sharon asked habitually.
"Hmm..." Lorne stopped, thought for a moment, took the monocle from his pocket, closed his eyes, and carefully sensed the changes in the surrounding spirituality.
"The right."
A faint, indistinct sense of attraction came from that direction.
Advancing along the right passage for some distance, a trace of doubt gradually rose in Lorne's heart.
"This tomb... isn't it a bit too 'empty'?" he couldn't help but whisper to Sharon.
"Reasonably speaking, shouldn't there be some murals or statues?" He had done some homework before coming and knew that when a tomb was large enough, there would more or less be things to indicate the owner's identity, status, and past glories.
Typically, murals were the most common. Humans had learned to use pictures to record information long before the birth of writing. Thus, painting murals in tombs had, to some extent, become a peculiar tradition.
"Something is indeed wrong," Sharon whispered in agreement. She had a deep understanding of fourth epoch history and noble customs; the internal structure of this tomb was indeed a bit off.
With doubt and vigilance, the two entered a relatively spacious burial chamber.
The interior of the burial chamber was still empty, except for a separate small room on the side with its stone door left ajar.
Lorne and Sharon glanced at each other, instantly dividing their tasks.
Carrying the lantern, he lightened his steps and slowly approached the small room's entrance, cautiously peering inside.
This look actually allowed him to discover something.
In the center of the room, a curled-up figure lay on the ground. "Dead..." He immediately stopped his movements, activated Spirit Vision, and glanced at the person. He found that the individual had no breath of life left, though some spirituality still remained.
Did they just die recently? He felt a chill in his heart.
At that moment, his Premonition of Disaster was triggered again, clearer than before! He immediately pulled out "Phantom" from his breast pocket and quickly scanned the surroundings.
After confirming there was no other movement, he slowly walked toward the corpse step by step.
From beginning to end, his muzzle never wavered from the corpse, fearing the other party might suddenly turn into a living dead.
The face was an unnatural bluish-purple, the features distorted as if they had experienced great pain before death, looking like... they had been suffocated to death. Relying on vision far exceeding that of an ordinary person, Lorne could see most of the details on the corpse even from a distance.
Furthermore, he noticed a red, translucent, shimmering object shaped like a pair of lips on the person's chest.
A Beyonder characteristic!
They really had just died! And most likely just a short while before they arrived!
Is my luck that good? Picking up a characteristic for free? Is the "Lucky One" passive ability activating...
No, that's not right! The "Calamity" was still there!
There were no obvious signs of a struggle around, indicating that the accident happened very suddenly.
Moreover, dying so recently also meant... the thing that killed him was likely still nearby!
"Ugh!"
A slight noise suddenly came from behind. Lorne spun around and found that Sharon had appeared behind him at some unknown point.
"Did you find anything unusual?" she asked, her voice the same as usual.
Lorne glanced at her and nodded slowly.
"Yes."
"For example, you."
"Bang!"
Before she could make any response, Lorne decisively pulled the trigger on her!