The Holy Man of Another Century Gospel

Chapter 132 Elf Graveyard
The next morning, Eric woke up naturally in his hotel room.

After he was dressed and came out of the room, the door to the next room opened, and Elise had already woken up.

Their eyes met, and he quickly understood what she meant.

“I remember before we set off, Eileen gave you a ring that could cast fireballs. If you’re coming with me, wear that. It’ll be enough to scare away wild beasts, if nothing else.”

Elise raised her right hand, on which she was already wearing a silver ring.

"I will not cause Your Highness any trouble."

"Don't worry, there are only wild animals in this place at most, and I won't let them get close to you while I'm here. But you should be careful of snakes, insects, and rodents."

"I see."

The two left the hotel, and Eric found the tavern from the previous day and asked the waiter for directions.

"Follow this path into the forest, and in less than an hour you'll see a pond. Keep going until the second fork in the road, and that's the path up the mountain. I haven't been there for many years. The cave should be somewhere halfway up the mountain... I heard that a group of wood elves used to live there. The villagers rarely went there, and after they moved away, nobody goes there anymore. It's a desolate place, so be careful."

Eric thanked him.

The path was narrow, and they would have to return to the main road to continue south, so he and Elise rode together on one horse.

She sat behind him, supporting his waist, as the horse sometimes moved steadily and sometimes swayed as they entered the forest.

It was only eight or nine o'clock, still considered morning. A light mist hung in the forest, and the fresh sunlight shone through the branches and leaves, making it clear and bright.

The forest path was uneven, and it was obvious that few people walked on it; it was overgrown with weeds.

The tavern waiter estimated the time it would take them to walk there; riding a horse would be even faster. About twenty minutes later, Eric saw a tranquil, emerald-green pond in the woods.

“What a beautiful pond.” Elise turned her head to look.

“I’ve heard that when elves migrate, they have a habit of throwing any gold they can’t carry into the water to preserve it.” Eric led his horse closer to the pond. “This pond is so calm that you can’t see a ripple. It looks dangerous. Who knows, it might have been enchanted with some kind of magic that makes people sink as soon as they enter it.”

Elise stared at the pond surface a few more times. "It really is; the water is abnormally calm. Could there be elven treasure beneath?"

“We’ll only know for sure once we go down there,” Eric laughed. “But whether we can come back up is another matter entirely.”

Elise raised her gaze again, scanning her surroundings. "It's so quiet here, with no humans to disturb us. Why did the wood elves move away?"

“Like the druids, the wood elves worship the god of nature. They seem to pray in some way and then decide whether to stay in this forest or move elsewhere based on the revelation given by the god,” Eric explained.

Elise suddenly realized, and looked at him again, "Your Highness seems to know a little about everything."

"You'll understand once you've experienced more."

She chuckled softly, "Your Highness's experience seems less extensive than mine."

Eric tugged at the reins. "What you see in the book counts too."

"Then I can't compare to Your Highness."

After crossing the pond, Eric picked up the pace slightly and continued onward. He stopped at the second intersection, which was almost completely covered by grass, and looked up at the mountain.

Does this count as the route?

“I guess so…” Elise peeked out from behind him, then looked at the tall grass on both sides, and tried her best to lift her feet up, almost touching Eric’s legs.

Eric glanced at her fair legs, then tugged on the reins and turned onto the path.

After walking a while, the path widened slightly, and the terrain gradually rose.

"Your Highness, how exactly did you discover this place?"

"It's a long story... I won't go into it now, I'll tell you when I have time later."

Elise held his shoulder, sighed as she looked at the endless grass in front of her, wishing she could wrap her legs around his waist.

Putting aside the snakes and insects that might be lurking in the grass, the constant itching from the grass itself was enough to make her feel both itchy and uncomfortable.

"I really want to burn all the weeds here to the ground."

Eric turned and glanced at the Aran woman behind him; her words did sound somewhat like they had before.

"Lift your leg up, and I'll speed up and rush over."

"it is good……"

Elise raised her leg, inevitably stretching it out in front of her. Seeing that she was swaying and struggling to stretch it out, Eric simply reached out and pulled her up, placing her feet on his lap.

Losing her balance and with the horse accelerating, she had no choice but to cling tightly to his shoulders.

After passing through this section, the path widens again, and steps appear ahead.

The branches and leaves overhead were densely intertwined, and the sunlight that fell down was only dappled. The stone steps were covered with moss, and the air we breathed seemed cold.

Eric stopped at the bottom of the steps, and the two dismounted, looking up at the top of the steps.

"Your Highness, is the place you're looking for up there?"

“Hmm.” Eric nodded. “Somewhere up there should be a collapsed hole.”

That cave entrance is the dungeon entrance. The monsters inside are bandits who fled here after the outbreak of war, and the boss is a giant forest bear.

The dungeon is level 50, and Eric initially thought it would be difficult to challenge it with his current strength. However, the tavern waiter told him that the bear had been missing for over a decade, so there might be an opportunity.

Eric told Elise to wait downstairs while he went up to check things out.

The dungeon is called the Elf Tomb. The places these steps connect are the graveyards of the wood elves who used to live here.

The wood elves had been gone for a long time, and the tomb was left unattended. Due to wind, rain, and even landslides, an entrance to the tomb collapsed, which was then occupied by a forest bear.

At the top of the steps, Eric looked back and saw Elise watching him from below.

"If a bear comes out, mount your horse and run down the mountain."

"..."

Eric continued, "Don't worry about me. In places like this, I can outrun a horse."

Elise nodded. "Your Highness, please be careful."

He drew his weapon and looked around.

After turning around for a short while, he discovered the dark cave entrance that was almost completely covered by weeds and bushes.

It is two or three meters wide and relatively short, as if the cave entrance was originally not very big, but was squeezed to its current size by the bears in the forest when they entered and exited.

However, there were so many weeds and shrubs that they were obstructing passage.

Eric was also certain that the forest bear had indeed disappeared, or rather, the one he knew of had not yet appeared, otherwise these wild grasses would have been trampled flat long ago.

After clearing the area with his sword, Eric cut a path, revealing the original entrance to the cave, and fired a flare ball into it.

The true entrance to the elven tomb should be in some hidden corner, and this collapsed opening is located deep inside the tomb, which is a relatively spacious area.

The orb of light illuminated the cave, and Eric immediately spotted the giant skeleton on the ground. It was lying prone, structurally intact, and the skull was facing the cave entrance; it must be the forest bear.

He really died...

Then where did the giant bear that appeared in the dungeon come from?

Eric glanced inside a few times, when suddenly Iris's voice came from below.

"Your Highness! There's a bear here!"

Eric was startled and ran toward her, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the bear.

More than panicked, Elise looked surprised and didn't even mount her horse.

It was just a small bear, not even as tall as her thigh. From a distance, it might have been mistaken for a larger black dog.

Eric strode down and saw the gleaming weapon in his hand. The little bear scurried to the side, then stopped and stared at them.

Is this the juvenile form of the future giant bear BOSS?

"Where did it come from?" Eric asked. Elise pointed to the bushes nearby. "It suddenly popped out and startled me."

Eric looked in that direction; the forest was dense and the undergrowth was tangled, making it a daunting sight.

“It’s just a bear cub. But a bear cub shouldn’t be here alone; there’s probably a mother bear nearby.” Eric quickly glanced around. “I’ve found the cave. You come up too. Hurry up, grab what you need, and leave before the mother bear comes looking for you.”

Elise nodded and followed him up. The little bear watched them from below for a while, then turned and disappeared into the bushes.

Upon reaching the entrance of the collapsed tomb, the two lowered their heads and walked inside. When they saw the enormous skeleton, Elise paused.

“He’s dead,” Eric said.

Elise nodded and followed him closely, her gaze still fixed on the giant bear skeleton.

The air in the tomb was stagnant and smelled musty. Eric looked around. This elven tomb wasn't very big. He used to clear out bandits and mobs here when he was running dungeons, so he hadn't paid much attention to it before. Only now did he notice some elven writing and patterns remaining on the walls.

This was beyond their knowledge; if it were an ancient language, he and Elise could still recognize some of it.

"Eileen should know her."

"Ah."

It doesn't matter if they don't know them; they're here to collect things, not to study elf culture.

Eric fired another luminous orb toward the other side of the tomb passage and walked in. According to his memory of the dungeon's structure, this tomb was wide at both ends and flat in the middle. The entrance was occupied by a group of ordinary bandits, the middle by a few elite bandits, and the other end was where the giant bear boss was located.

The bandits haven't arrived yet, and the giant bear is still growing, so there shouldn't be any danger in the tomb.

“Both of these tombs are empty.” Elise said as she went deeper into the passage, looking at the empty cubicles on either side. “Not even bones are left.”

“Elves who are buried in tombs have all undergone some form of embalming.”

Eric told her that when she went out later, she could check if there were any human bone fragments near the giant bear's skeleton.

"...The bear ate all the corpses?" Iris felt a wave of nausea. "Do bears eat carrion?"

"They were probably starving and went mad. Those wood elves were just unlucky."

Eric gripped his sword, his eyes fixed ahead. “I’ve read in books that the funeral customs of the wood elves are not uniform. Some follow the humans’ example and build these tombs, while others follow the demons and burn them down. There are also those who build the Tower of Silence and practice sky burial to feed the birds… The elves all say that the dark elves are most influenced by humans and are the most depraved, but in reality, the wood elves are the ones who are most similar to humans in their habits.”

Elise nodded. "Those who team up with humans for adventures are mostly wood elves. Dark elves are rare, and moon elves almost never leave their towers."

Eric paused for a moment.

How did his mother meet his father?
Following the passage, the two walked to the other end of the relatively spacious tomb hall. The structure here was more intact, less damp, and the texts and pictures on the cave walls were better preserved than those at the other end.

Even without reading the text, Eric and Elise could understand many of the illustrations.

"These elves came down from a high mountain...crossed rivers and plains...been approached by some dark-skinned people...are they demons?...They were chased and fought by demons, and finally escaped here."

Eric stared at the series of patterns, and Elise reminded him that there was more content before the starting point of his interpretation of the story.

He looked over and saw that there were still patterns on most of the cave wall in front of him.

"It's all smeared in black, what does that mean, a scrapped drawing with a mistake... Hmm, no, two things appeared in the darkness... getting closer and closer... merging together... Then some people appeared, and some others seemed to be swallowed up by that thing... Hmm?"

Eric frowned, the more he looked, the more familiar it seemed. He continued looking, and at one point he finally confirmed it.

"Isn't this a creation myth?"

His reminder made Elise realize, "Do the elves believe in that kind of thing too?"

The person beside her didn't speak. She looked over and noticed that the prospective saintess had a subtle expression.

She paused for a moment, then changed her words: "So the elves also recorded the process of the supreme goddess Yera creating the world."

Eric almost laughed, but said nothing and continued watching.

As they read on, the myths recorded by the elves began to differ from what the two had known.

After Yera completed the creation, some of the other gods who were supposed to ascend to the divine kingdom with her remained behind and transformed into groups of three colors.

“…Moon elves, wood elves, dark elves?” Elise tried to identify the long-eared races in the murals, whose numbers varied significantly.

Eric nodded. "It seems that in the elves' mythology, they are descendants of those gods who failed to ascend to the divine realm with Yera."

Compared to humans in mythology who were made from the flesh and blood of dead gods and mud, the elves, who are directly descendants of gods, have a much higher birth.

Eric was quite skeptical that this was based on human mythology and then modified.

But since we're all made of flesh and blood mixed with mud, why are elves considered more noble?
What follows is the story of the wood elf tribe that once lived here, multiplying and gradually expanding their population.

It's worth noting that some individuals who appeared to be moon elves appeared in this group, but they quickly disappeared into the murals behind them. Neither of them could read elven script and had no idea what it meant.

Eric continued looking until he reached the end, but he didn't see anything else noteworthy. Finally, he remembered that he had come to this tomb to "collect" something.

"Let's see if there's anything worth taking with us."

Eric remembered that among the loot from the dungeon, besides the weapons and equipment from the bandits, the most noteworthy items were a purple-quality elven short sword dropped by the Forest Bear BOSS, and a complete set of elven armor blueprints. The latter was the main reason he made the trip.

The two began to explore the tomb. It was similar to the passageway; the tomb's compartments were all empty. Eric had no idea which corpse the BOSS had found those things on.

After searching around, the two of them found nothing.

The ball of light above his head went out, and the tomb suddenly went dark. Eric was about to cast another light spell when he felt a warm sensation on his arm.

He turned his head; he couldn't see Elise in the darkness, but he could feel her soft breath.

"Your Highness..."

"It's nothing, I... um?"

In complete darkness, even the faintest glimmer of light cannot be ignored.

Eric noticed a tiny speck of light, barely larger than a grain of wheat, peeking through the wall next to him. He stared at it and slowly groped his way toward it in the darkness.

"Your Highness?" Elise didn't know why he hadn't replenished the illumination spell yet.

"Look over here, can you see the light coming out?"

Elise turned her head and looked around, her gaze quickly falling on the tiny glimmer of light. "I see it."

A brighter ball of light suddenly appeared, illuminating the tomb space again. Eric then realized that the light was leaking from the innermost wall of the tomb compartment.

"There's space behind the wall?" Elise squinted, adjusting to the renewed light.

"It seems so..."

Unopened instance areas?
In "Thorns of the Soul," there are quite a few new dungeons that are gradually unlocked as the game progresses and the story unfolds, based on the existing dungeons. For example, there are the first level of the Sage's Tomb, the second level of the Sage's Tomb, and the third level of the Sage's Tomb...

Eric drew his weapon and poked it inside. Judging from the feel of the sword tip, it was a solid stone wall inside.

He thought for a moment, put away his weapon, and crawled into the compartment.

Elise opened her mouth, looking inside with even greater tension.

The cubicle was only about one person long, about two meters. Once Eric climbed in, he would be almost at the bottom.

He stared at the rock wall for a while, and finally found the small hole through which light was letting in, and put his eyes close to it.

The hole was so small that he could only see a faint light, but he could also confirm that it was not natural light from outside the tomb.

Eric climbed out. "There's more space inside. There must be some mechanism here that can open this wall."

The things he wanted were actually originally placed inside?
The two searched around the compartment where the corpses were kept for a while, when Elise suddenly called out to him.

Eric leaned closer and discovered a stone cup embedded in one of the compartments, which looked like it was for holding lamp oil. Behind it was a narrow stone trough leading into the stone wall.

Elise touched the stone cup, but it didn't budge. Then she scraped the stone trough a few times with her dagger, bringing out some black powder that didn't look like lamp oil.

Eric picked it up with his fingertips, stared at it for a moment, and said, "It's dried blood."

(End of this chapter)