Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 227 - 81 - No Regrets_1

Chapter 227: Chapter 81 - No Regrets_1

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Early morning.

The faint light of dawn penetrates the damp mist in the forest, enveloping the Dragonscar area. At the edge of the distant forest, birds leaving their nest swirl in the treetops, their crisp chirping shatters the silence of the night, heralding the arrival of a brand new morning. Accompanied by the increasingly intense chirping, roars of animal that were long or short gradually emanated from the deep depths of the forest, accompanied occasionally by the scream of a small beast before its death.

Hunting, while simultaneously being hunted, the new day thus begins in this leisure and bloodshed.

However, today was different. Just when the birds and beasts were beginning their new day as they had been doing for thousands of years, an accident occurred.

"Boom." A dull, faint noise emanated from deep underground, accompanying the noise was a slight but clear shaking of the ground. Bothered by this sudden change, the beasts in the forest started running in panic, not knowing where to go, escaping purely on instinct. Luckily, the tremors only lasted less than a minute before it subsided, and it didn’t cause any damage to the forest. The frightened beasts waited attentively for a while, when they found no further abnormalities, they started their daily routine again with ease.

What they failed to notice was in the Dragonscar area, on the edge where the forest intersected Dragonscar, a hidden Mithril metal plate suddenly emitted a faint light. A large Magic Array formed with the metal plate as its core, emitting waves of magical energy. Four figures appeared out of nowhere, stumbling upon materializing and tumbled into a heap on the ground.

"That was close, very close." Lina raised her face from the ground, her delicate face was covered in dust and rotten leaves, black patches and brown made her looks especially amusing. "That was too dangerous. Luckily Vivian was prepared. But, ordinarily, Teleportation Arrays need activation time. Vivian, how did you managed to activate it instantly?"

"It wasn’t activated instantly." Vivian sat on the ground, gasping for breath. "I kept the Teleportation Array on the brink of activation as we had agreed. That way it can be triggered at any time."

"You kept it on the brink of activation? For hours?" Catherine was also startled.

"Ha, compared to the daily needs of my adventures, few hours of maintenance is nothing." Vivian laughed proudly. "It didn’t put a heavy burden on me."

In fact, although Vivian seemed to take it lightly, if any normal mage heard this, it would be tantamount to a myth for them. For an ordinary mage, keeping a large magical spell on the brink of activation would already be considered a highly difficult control skill, and let alone maintaining this state while walking, talking, even researching and exploring during an adventure. For them, maintaining a moving spell and targeting would be considered very strenuous, let alone multitasking while moving, eating, drinking, talking? They wouldn’t even dare to dream of such a thing.

However, for Vivian, who had a high paraplegia causing whole-body muscle atrophy, it was just part of her daily life. She needs to maintain a magical state at every moment, every limb movement, or even every word she uttered had to be achieved through her control of magical effects. These circumstances brought her endless trouble and pain, made her live in torment every day. But sometimes, the gain and loss are very subtle, they have also led to her terrifyingly strong magic control ability and magic stability, as well as an ability to multitask that all would envy. If she weren’t plagued by illness, Vivian might perhaps be a once-in-a-century magic prodigy-- but that would be it, but it is precisely because she was plagued by illness, that created such an unprecedented anomaly in the magical world like her. Maybe it was a compensation brought by fate for the pain she borne.

"No, I need to sleep for a bit, good night everyone." Vivian, gasping for breath, spoke one last line before lying flat on her back, soon releasing a steady breathing sound.

"It’s not a big deal. She just used the portable teleportation array to teleport four people and all the equipment and items at once. It exceeded her limit and caused her to deplete some vitality." Catherine was already next to Vivian, supporting her neck before her head hit the ground, and checked her over carefully before feeling relieved and explaining, "She’ll be all right after sleeping for a while, there’s no problem."

"Did Elrad kill himself by causing an explosion underground?" Lina looked around. "Why would he do that?"

"He was insane." Pannis shrugged. "How can a sane person understand the thought of a madman?"

"Was he really insane?" Catherine, half hugging Vivian and kneeling on the ground, said thoughtfully, "Pannis, do you think there’s a possibility that he’s not insane at all?"

"Yeah." Pannis sighed and reluctantly replied, "Indeed there is such a possibility."

"I see you’ve also thought of it." Catherine laughed bitterly, "But you just didn’t want to tell me, right?"

"Actually, I only thought of it just now." Pannis sighed. "And it’s not that I didn’t want to tell you, but..."

"Just for the sake of my feelings, right?" Catherine’s lower lip was bitten by herself until it turned slightly pale, speaking resignedly: "If he’s not really mad, then the implications here are too abundant."

"Elder sister, you’re thinking about it after all." Lina stopped pretending to be ignorant: "Actually, I think there’s a greater chance that he’s not mad, otherwise how could a madman accurately find and install the self-destruct trap at the top of the cave in the pitch-dark environment which we all previously ignored?"

"It’s not just that." Catherine shook her head: "That is not the key, the key lies in how did he know about that trap? Why would he pretend to be mad and then activate the self-destruct trap? Did he truly want to be mutually destroyed with us? I don’t think it’s possible."

"Actually, if we were to speculate irresponsibly based on the current situation, I have a very interesting theory." Pannis sat back on the ground, casually picking up a few pieces of broken stones to play with: "A very, very interesting theory, dare to listen?"

"Go ahead." Catherine gritted her teeth: "I’m already mentally prepared."

"Haha, it seems you have guessed a little." Pannis crushed the broken stones one by one in his hand, apparently his mood was not as good as he showed: "I was wondering, since the designer of the treasure’s trap likes to play with human hearts, would they also play such a game with the placement of the treasure?"

"Just as I thought." Catherine groaned with her face covered: "Just continue, never mind me."

"I always found it strange before." Pannis continued: "The quantity of the treasure maps is a bit excessive. A kingdom’s treasure shouldn’t be like this, it should be very secretive and only the special members of the royal family who are most trusted by the king should be eligible to know about it, but according to the information we got including Elrad’s statement, the number of people who have the treasure map is much more than this. So could this treasure map itself be fake?"

"Ha, I see what you mean." Lina let out a sigh of laughter: "You’re saying that this treasure map itself is a hoax, meant to fool people, to tell everyone that my treasure is here. And when the seeker finds it and is disappointed and then discloses the news, no one will covet their actual treasure anymore?"

"That may be one of the purposes, but I don’t think it’s the whole story. Maybe I should be more accurate in saying, could this treasure map itself be incomplete?" Pannis looked at the sky: "For instance, the real meaning of this treasure is simply to hide a crucial item or crucial information, only when combined with this crucial item or information would the treasure map be truly complete, and be able to locate the real treasure. Or, maybe the key to the treasure is hidden in this fake treasure, and only with it can the door to the real treasure be opened."

"And then, we know the location of this fake treasure, while Elrad has the real location?" Lina speculated: "Hmm, this can also explain why he knows of the real treasure’s existence but still lingers around this area, it’s because he can’t find the way into the fake treasure, he can’t get the crucial item or information. Hmm, no wonder he pretended to be mad, rummaging around, so he’s trying to get that thing."

"Taking it a step further, he wasn’t just targeting the treasure seekers before." Pannis said: "He just wanted to select someone who has the strength to enter the treasure and won’t kill him due to certain situations. Of course, he was unlucky, we saw through him early on, but he was also lucky in that he did manage to get in."

"He made a fool out of us like this, causing Dora’s teammates to die and be disabled, and then he actually got what he wanted." Lina spoke indignantly: "Knowing this, we should have just killed him, avenging the Mole and the Shadow Wolf."

"Hmm, we have plenty of reasons to kill him, and if we did try to kill him then, he would have been scared. He might have revealed the secret of the real treasure to save his own life." Pannis’s voice gradually lowered, his tone growing full of regret: "In that case, we might have actually found the real treasure, not this fake one as we have now. Sigh, a kingdom’s accumulated wealth, simply because we didn’t kill someone who intended to use us, we missed it, what a pity, such a pity."

Catherine hung her head low, falling silent. Pannis didn’t utter a word either, even quietly preventing Lina from interrupting, allowing the awkward silence to linger. After about ten minutes of silence, Catherine suddenly looked up, her eyes locked onto Pannis’s, she spoke firmly: "I do not regret it."

"Oh?" Pannis raised his eyebrows: "No regrets?"

"Yes, I don’t regret." Catherine seemed to have figured something out, no longer displaying previous gloominess and hesitation: "Yes, I truly wish that he were dead, but at that time, he had already given up resistance, or rather he never resisted at all. Not killing those who surrender, granting them a open and fair trial whenever possible, these are the basic morals of a qualified knight. I believe that, if I had the chance to do it over again, even if I knew that killing him might lead me to the treasure, I wouldn’t choose to do so."

"Oh? And why is that?" Pannis propped his chin up, the corner of his mouth slightly curled up.

"Why? Haha, because I am me, I am Catherine, Knight Catherine." As Catherine’s inner confusion finally dissipated, she proudly lifted head and said, "Money, power, honor, status, life, these are indeed very important, and also very tempting. But does that mean I should give up myself for these? Abandon my beliefs and persistence of many years? No no no, that would be too stupid. Maybe these would make me hesitate and become puzzled, but they can never defeat a knight’s conviction, and only with that can one be a real knight, right?"

Pannis stared at her with a strange look, his laughter hidden as he nodded, taking out a silver-white cylinder: "Well, in that case, let’s talk about the joyful gains, like this one."