Chapter 109 – An Inheritance Beyond the Cage
No sooner had Charles returned and changed clothes than an immense pulling force suddenly seized him from below.
After a dizzying sensation of rapid descent, he opened his eyes again—only to find the world utterly transformed.
The comfortable bedroom of Winterfell had vanished in an instant, replaced by a damp, pitch-black dungeon. Flickering torchlight illuminated a corridor beyond the cell bars, while a faint stench of rot and moisture lingered in the air.
Recalling the circumstances from before he entered the world of Ice and Fire, Charles rose to his feet and stepped outside the cell. After a brief glance around, he headed toward another nearby cell.
After all, only the blink of an eye had passed—nothing unexpected could have happened.
Connie still lay unconscious in the cell not far away. Meanwhile, Charles's disguise had already been fully repaired, and the three flame spells had been completely mastered.
He picked up a ring of dungeon keys he had taken from the bandaged man's cloak and raised it toward the lock.
But just as the key touched the iron, he suddenly paused.
"Even if this place looks like nothing but a dungeon on both sides," he mused, "it can't only be a dungeon, can it? What's above it? Could there be… something special up there?"
Previously, his urgency to repair the mask had left no time to consider this question. Now that he thought about it, the possibility seemed very real.
After all, this place had been the bandaged man's final refuge—the last resort he fled to when cornered. In a sense, this dungeon might very well be his lair.
And lairs usually held… things.
With that in mind, Charles put the keys away. After glancing once more at Connie lying unconscious on the straw, he took a torch from beside the cell door and ventured deeper into the darkness.
Both sides of the corridor were swallowed by shadow, their details impossible to make out. He had no idea which direction led to an exit.
Just then, barking echoed faintly from the left.
Taking that as a cue, he moved toward the sound.
But when he reached its source, what he saw was clearly not a dog.
It was a person.
A person so filthy as to be barely recognizable, snarling and baring his teeth.
Ignoring the grime-caked face, the figure appeared to be in his early twenties. Tangled blond hair clung to his forehead. He was naked, skeletal, and smeared with filth—feces and urine staining his body. The sight between his legs hung obscenely, painful to look at.
"Hello?" Charles greeted him cautiously.
The response was a low, threatening growl.
The man bared blackened teeth through cracked lips, his long, filthy fingernails scraping and clutching at the wooden bars of the cage with a rasping sound—as if he were barely restraining an urge to attack.
This was no ordinary human.
Charles quickly came to that conclusion.
"A dog turned into a man?"
The posture, the expression, the behavior—everything about him resembled a feral dog. And yet, he was undeniably human.
Having just returned from another world, the Eye of Reality had not yet fully recharged. Charles couldn't determine the man's true condition.
"A curse?" he wondered.
In the end, he merely shook his head and left under the man's snarling gaze.
Whatever the truth was, this creature had nothing to do with him. Communication was impossible, hostility was obvious, and Charles felt no sympathy whatsoever. Releasing him would only invite trouble.
Continuing onward, Charles passed several more cells containing prisoners—but unlike the "dog-man," they were all dead.
Some were bloated and rotting, reeking of decay.
Others had been reduced to skeletons with scraps of flesh still clinging to bone, torchlight revealing maggots slowly writhing in hollow eye sockets.
No matter their condition, it was obvious they had suffered greatly before death. The walls and floors of the cells—scarred, scratched, and smeared—told that story clearly enough.
Walking steadily down the corridor, torchlight peeling back layers of darkness on either side, Charles advanced for nearly ten minutes.
At last, the cells ended.
Ahead of him lay a vast hall.
It looked much like a place where jailers once worked.
The hall lay at the very end of the dungeon. Compared to the prison area, it was noticeably cleaner—and far brighter. At the far end of the hall stood an unremarkable brown-black wooden door, quietly hinting at an exit beyond.
Charles walked up and pushed it open.
The dimness vanished in an instant. Brilliant light flooded his vision, accompanied by the salty tang of the sea. Before him stretched an endless expanse of turquoise-blue ocean, glittering beneath the sun's rays.
Beneath his feet lay a wooden bridge. On either side, stone steps led upward toward land. Turning his head, Charles saw the dark rock wall behind him, where the black wooden door stood half open. Beyond it, the gloomy hall and the pitch-black dungeon depths now looked especially sinister by contrast.
"Is this… a harbor?" he wondered.
But the moment he climbed the steps, that assumption was overturned.
This wasn't a harbor.
It was an island.
A small island.
He stood at its edge, in a place resembling a docking platform. Ahead lay a sandy beach. Beyond a few coconut trees stretched a sparse thicket of shrubs, and farther still rose a tall building with an open plaza before it.
Behind the structure spread a lush forest. Leaves swayed gently in the wind, and faint monkey calls drifted through the air—peaceful enough to put one at ease.
Yet Charles had not forgotten what he had seen in the darkness below.
The presence of buildings immediately sharpened his vigilance. Gripping a dagger he had found in the dungeon hall in a reverse grip, he moved cautiously forward.
He couldn't be sure whether anyone else was inside that house. Under normal circumstances, waking Connie and exploring together would have been the sensible choice. But first, once Connie woke up, his movements would become far less convenient. Second, she wouldn't be of much help anyway.
After prolonged contact at sea, Charles already understood her abilities well. On paper, her rank was two levels higher than his, but due to her chosen path, she leaned heavily toward escape magic, blessings, and cumbersome ritual spells. In combat, aside from a banishment spell, she was only particularly effective with a crossbow or a flintlock.
And here, none of those were available.
True, her bloodline granted her exceptional regenerative ability—but being female, she couldn't exactly serve as a frontline tank… which was a pity.
All things considered, it was better to leave her unconscious and proceed alone.
Even so, Charles didn't approach the building immediately. Instead, he carefully circled the island's perimeter, observing from a distance.
When night fell, he even returned to a concealed boulder near the dungeon entrance and kept watch through the entire night. Only the next day—after the traversal gate had fully recharged—did he resume his investigation.
If danger arose, the gate would at least provide a buffer. But after a full night of observation, Charles increasingly felt that no one else was present on the island.
If the bandaged man had accomplices, they wouldn't have remained idle for so long after his disappearance. Yet during all that time, Charles saw no one approach the dungeon.
"It seems he trusted no one but himself," Charles muttered.
Reaching the northern side of the gray-white building, he studied it briefly. Then, holding the dagger between his teeth, he began climbing up the rear wall.
No people didn't mean no trouble.
Some things were far more troublesome than humans. For a necromancer who needed to stay hidden, distrusting others was normal—but distrusting even one's own summoned creations would be excessive.
Still, death might have caused such entities to dissipate… or not. There were no guarantees.
So the front door was out of the question.
He climbed nimbly along the building's protrusions, occasionally peering through embedded windows to inspect the interior. The empty rooms made him seem overly cautious—but with the Eye of Reality at his disposal, no hidden danger could escape his notice. That confidence was precisely what allowed him to move so boldly.
[A cursed wailing banshee. Highly alert.]
[It is wandering aimlessly.]
…
Faint, translucent silhouettes of human women drifted through the rooms. They were so insubstantial that an ordinary observer might never notice them—but Charles needed only a glance to detect their presence.
Several rooms on the first and second floors harbored such entities, so he deliberately bypassed them.
Only when he reached the roof, with nowhere left to climb, did he stop. Turning sideways, he peered through a window.
Inside was an attic converted into a study.
Charles's lips curled into a grin.
A necromancer's secret study.
And where there was a study like that…
Spellbooks were almost guaranteed.