Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1140 - 253: A Small Discovery in the Camp

Chapter 1140: Chapter 253: A Small Discovery in the Camp

"Is he sick? What’s wrong with his brain?" Lina’s fair forehead tensed with blue veins pulsating as she bit her teeth and spoke fiercely, "In these twenty minutes or more, I’ve prayed for him more than once, hoping his desperate soul would find rest. And what does he come up with? A tribute to fragile and desperate departures? More than once I’ve mourned for him teetering on the edge of hope, and then he shows me this line of words? I don’t care whether he’s fragile or desperate, why build a tomb if he’s not dead, and even erect a tombstone? Does he really have nothing better to do? If he’s got nothing to do, he should help with building the camp. The magical gel is so troublesome to produce, yet he uses it for such trivial matters. My grandfather should have blasted him with magic hundreds of times to see if he’d continue being this idle. Does he think he’s Freya, wanting to bury every fallen flower?"

"Cough cough, those are all matters from his childhood," Her Highness the Princess coughed dryly, her gaze on the tombstone somewhat peculiar, as among the young ladies, her poet-like gentle heart felt most sympathy for those mistakenly believed to be dead. Yet the upbringing she had received since childhood prevented her from getting as angry as Lina, instead she awkwardly stated, "Anyway, this has nothing to do with me, don’t drag me into it, although, um, although I might also want to scold him a bit."

In fact, when they saw the words on the tombstone, the seven members of the team had immediately guessed the truth. The person who had left the frantic messages the night before hadn’t hurt himself in madness and despair as everyone had thought. He had held on to the critical point of the journey, eventually walking out of what seemed to him a nightmarish Shattered Space. Given that nightmares induced by the Shattered Space naturally end when leaving the area, he surely regained his calm soon after. No one knew exactly what he had done, and for such a minor thing, it wasn’t worth asking Ava to synchronize and review the footage again. However, it was assumed that he indeed had made some uncontrolled displays of behavior, so reflecting on those actions and feelings after regaining calm inevitably prompted feelings of remorse and shame within him. To constantly remind himself to never again act foolishly due to his soul’s fragility, he built what he probably thought was this hollow grave, constructed not only in reality but in his heart as well, forever preventing him from forgetting everything that had occurred.

Such was actually quite normal; many others had done similar things. However, the problem was that the timing of this tomb’s appearance was just too coincidental, and he made the construction of the tomb overly realistic. Unlike others mourning their past or commemorating some loss with perhaps just a symbolic tomb model, he built a full-sized gravesite, which naturally led the young ladies to believe in the gravesite’s reality.

"Perhaps it was after the construction of the camp, discovering there was a bit of building material leftover," Holding back a guffaw, Pannis, struggling to contain his laughter, cheeks twitching, said to the furious priestess, "You know, once that kind of stuff is made, it can’t be preserved; unused, it would just go to waste. So he might as well use it to build such a beautiful tomb, ha ha ha ha ha."

"I don’t care if it’s recycling waste, give me back my emotions and my sorrow, you bastard." Lina lifted her foot, seemingly intending to fiercely kick the tombstone. However, she ultimately regained her composure and did not commit such a desecration of the grave but instead deeply sighed, "Never mind, after all, the loss of a life can hardly be called a bad thing."

"You’re right, he ultimately overcame his own despair," Catherine also smiled and nodded, "Although in the end, he still met death at the journey’s endpoint, at least he didn’t succumb halfway due to his own weakness. For a warrior, that’s enough to be proud of."

"Exactly, he still couldn’t escape the threat of death after all, ah, may his soul escape this twisted world soon and return to the eternal resting place." As Lina thought of a life ultimately lost, her expression turned somewhat melancholic. She cradled the scripture in her hands, her fingers slowly tracing a perfect square across her chest and murmured in a solemn, low tone, "May the gods grant him eternal slumber, in the holy name of Denia."

Following Lina’s quiet prayer, the four young ladies bowed neatly toward the tombstone, offering their mourning and blessings to the pioneer who had conquered his own fragility but still met death. Standing behind them with Ava, Pannis remained silent for a moment, then placed one hand on his chest and slightly bowed. Though deep down he had no fond feelings for these adventurers who had awakened the Temple of Danacus and eventually caused Nellie’s soul to be affected, as a Legendary Rank warrior, anyone daring enough to come here deserved respect, regardless of their stance.

"Have you all had enough fun down there?" From seven or eight meters above, the scorpion-tailed lion Dillie suddenly leaned over the outer wall and shouted down to the members of the adventure team, "If you’ve had your fun, hurry up and come back. We still haven’t checked the camp yet; no time to waste on you. Really, I don’t understand you people; a dead man is just dead. If there had been a body, paying your respects would have made sense, but bowing to an empty grave is simply incomprehensible."

"You definitely don’t understand," Pannis said with his head tilted back in a mocking tone. "You’ve already seen hordes of undead, and you’re still clinging to the notions you had when we first met, firmly denying the existence of the soul?"

"Tch, I don’t feel like talking to you," Dillie retorted, momentarily at a loss for words. She pursed her lips, snorted coldly, and, no longer entangling in words with Pannis, she picked up a climbing rope and said while dropping down the outside wall, "The old rope ladder is no longer usable, so hurry up and climb up yourself."

"Huh? How did you get up there then?" Lina asked in surprise. "I didn’t see you climb the wall."

"Have you forgotten what I am?" Dillie looked at the curious priestess girl with a disdainful gaze and patted the wings on her back, saying, "I am a magical beast, I can fly. Are you scared now, huh?"

"Oh," the priestess girl said as she annoyed tapped her forehead, her face reddening. She ran to the climbing rope, hung her head to mask her embarrassment and climbed up vehemently without saying a word. In fact, the height of seven or eight meters was something that adventurers of Legendary Rank and demigods could overcome with just one or two supports, not really needing any climbing rope, but this was only true for physical professionals. Spell-casting professionals would need to use other methods to jump up, but since there was a climbing rope, there wasn’t a need for any extra effort; climbing up the rope was enough.

The camp wasn’t exactly spacious; ten houses were arranged in a circle with doors all facing inward, forming a second line of defensive barrier. Even if enemies breached the outer wall to attack, the second barrier could provide some resistance, giving more preparation time for those inside. However, upon entering the innermost part of the camp, the second barrier, everyone almost simultaneously furrowed their brows, uttering suppressed voices of astonishment. Their gazes shifted among one another, eventually settling on Pannis’s face. Pannis nodded and said, "It is indeed unusual compared to the previous camps; it’s somewhat... chaotic here, as if they weren’t ready to leave for good."

In the unwritten rules of adventurers in the wilderness, after setting up camp each time, the next day they would clean up the campsite, dismantle all traps, and take all garbage and debris away for centralized disposal, ensuring that newcomers using the area wouldn’t stumble into traps or start by having to clear a mountain of trash. For campsites that could be reused, if possible, they were to preserve the site’s facilities for reuse by newcomers. The Guild even encouraged adventurers to, if conditions allowed and it wouldn’t negatively affect them, leave behind some long-lasting food and medicine after using such reserved campsites to help teams in distressed conditions. However, even these reserved campsites only preserved buildings and usable supplies; what needed to be dismantled and taken away still had to be tidied up to restore the campsite to a state as if untouched. Though meant to ease others, this practice could, from certain perspectives, be a convenience for oneself as well.

The previous campsites they had encountered all followed this rule, cleaned up nicely with only traces left by time and nature. But this campsite was different; though they also disposed of debris and took personal items when they left, the traps were not fully dismantled, and traces of use were not completely cleared. For instance, the cam fire in the center of the campsite had its extinguished ashes hardened like the surrounding stones, and stones used as seating were not moved to the corners. Similar traces of use were spread across the entire campsite, often indicating that the users of this camp were only temporarily gone and could return at any time. Generally, teams would choose to set up a new camp a distance away unless the situation was dire, as a gesture of respect to prior users and to avoid unnecessary disputes.

"It seems they intended to turn this place into a temporary fortress, using it as a base to radiate explorations around. No wonder they fortified the camp so solidly; they intended to use it long-term," Pannis mused, nodding thoughtfully. "I wonder how many times they’ve reused it. But from the state of the camp, the last time they left, they finally found a clue to their target, but never made it back."

"Yeah, and the Temple of Danacus, or at least its clues, are getting very close," Catherine said, biting her lip. "It’s no more than a two-day journey at most. If it were further, it wouldn’t make sense to use this place as a temporary campsite."