Tale of the Red Dragon Without Dragon's Might-Chapter 432 - 426: Strike First to Gain the Upper Hand
Chapter 432: Chapter 426: Strike First to Gain the Upper Hand
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Up to this point, Leon was only suspicious and needed to find more evidence to prove his guess. After all, the love story between bugbears and ogres... is probably quite rare and not easy to encounter.
It’s not a matter of time; whether it’s an infected village or not, a bit more exploration will reveal. With that thought in mind, Leon wandered around idly.
Since he had transformed into a bugbear, born for battle and chaos, making a living through plunder and hunting, ordinary goblins would shy away upon seeing him, and the hobgoblins wouldn’t bother him either. They still needed bugbears as scouts and assault troops and compensated them, so Leon remained undisturbed on his journey.
From the high platform, Leon saw a mill and a windmill, the rusty blades of the dilapidated windmill squeaked in the wind, but they were not tied with the underground dwarfs he remembered.
In the middle of the village, there was a well. Leon just glanced down and dismissed it; it was too dark to see clearly, and anyway, throwing a stone down didn’t yield any sound of water, suggesting it had long dried up.
After a simple exploration, Leon confirmed in front of the pharmacy that this was indeed the infected village from the game. However, the scale in reality was tens of times larger than in the game, with far more than just a few houses, not just dozens, but ruins and remnants everywhere.
Leon stared at the pharmacy, remembering it was where Sain’s Necromancy Spellbook was buried; it was undoubtedly a good find. Eagerly, he pushed open the door, only to find the pharmacy empty, stripped of any useful items, as if locusts had devoured a wheat field, leaving nothing like the abundance of alchemy materials and potions in the game.
Leon found the trapdoor and climbed down the ladder to the cellar, which was also ransacked.
"The secret room shouldn’t be that easy to find, right?"
"I remember the mechanism is..."
In the game, the mechanism was easily found, yet now it was hard to locate in the real world?
Leon thought that if it were so easy to find, it would have already been ruined by the goblins outside, without waiting for him, which might be a blessing.
He fumbled around the stone wall for a few minutes, achieving nothing, and finally grew a bit impatient.
"Forget it, let’s just dismantle the place."
"It should be this bookshelf."
Leon approached a heavy solid wood bookshelf, gesturing to himself that with his current bugbear transformation, it would be difficult to push it. He then flexed his arms, reverting to his dragon-man form, and with a light push, the heavy solid wood bookshelf creaked, revealing a dark hole behind it.
Leon walked through the long tunnel, entering a tomb oozing with a decaying atmosphere, flipping through dusty coffins one by one, finding a yellowed scroll, a Quasit Summoning scroll in the game, which could summon a Quasit named Little Digger. Though weak in combat, it was quite interesting in conversation.
Continuing to search, Leon finally found the feeling of playing as an adventurer, unsurprisingly awakening those Skull Guards. He smacked them apart with a tail, scattering like building blocks, then, still not satisfied, walked to the decorative mirror in the corner.
"Speak, state your name." A faint blue ghostly face appeared on the surface of the decorative mirror.
"Leon," Leon replied.
"No, haven’t heard of your name." The voice from the decorative mirror paused with each word, "If my master knows you, come forward and declare yourself an ally."
"Your master is dead, follow me from now on," Leon laughed, baring sharp teeth and claws as he approached, placing a hand on the wall, grasping the mirror frame with a clawed hand; an accidental push embedded it into the wall, awkwardly prying off a piece of the frame.
"What have you done?" The ghostly face on the mirror turned from pale blue to a furious red.
"You saw nothing." Leon raised his hand, making a fist, and suddenly punched the mirror. In the shattered pieces, the ghostly face’s final expression froze in fear. Seeing the fragments scattered across the ground, he muttered to himself, "Had you agreed to follow me earlier, it wouldn’t have come to this."
Leon soon laughed a mischievous laugh, basking in the satisfaction of committing a prank he couldn’t in the game.
The sense of breaking game rules was truly delightful. Leon passed through the hidden door behind the mirror, the outline of a laboratory faintly visible in the darkness.
The lab, undiscovered by the goblins, was well-preserved, offering a chance to loot freely. He meticulously searched every nook, collecting alchemy materials, potions, scrolls... especially the research notes, which were not to be missed, finally stopping in front of a securely locked iron door.
Unlock? He didn’t have the patience for that; breaking the door was more his style.
On the desk behind the door, Leon saw the Sain’s Necromancy Spellbook he longed for and eagerly picked it up, while the fire-breathing trap was similarly smacked apart with a tail.
Sain’s Necromancy Spellbook was locked, the keyhole being an open mouth on the cover. Leon believed that with his strength, he could force it open, but he was hesitant, worried he might break it. Though not as valuable as the Undead Black Scripture, it was still a rare treasure needing protection.
"The key should be in the cave below the well, right?"
Leon recalled the game plot; he just knew the Sain’s Necromancy Spellbook belonged to a Red Robe Mage from Sain, who stole it to revive a loved one, hiding with an apprentice in the infected village to study in seclusion, but details were unclear.
Those tiresome details were not worth his attention. Leon waved dismissively, pocketing the Sain’s Necromancy Spellbook, and turned toward the well.
What Ettercaps, Phase Spiders, even if the Phase Spider Queen stood before Leon, it would just be a trivial matter, a pesky bug easily dealt with by a flying sword, allowing him to readily find the Dark Purple Crystal, the key to Sain’s Necromancy Spellbook.
Leon toyed with the Dark Purple Crystal for a moment without embedding it into Sain’s Necromancy Spellbook because to read it, he also needed Sachiat’s Code. He wasn’t sure why Sachiat’s Code was necessary.
Leaving the well, Leon looked around but didn’t see the ogre wearing a twisted Intelligence Headband, and didn’t care much. After all, with his intelligence, he didn’t need such a thing, transforming back into a falcon and soaring into the sky once more.
From a bird’s-eye view, the wreckage of the Nautilus stood out prominently. This peculiar flying ship owned by the Mind Flayers should have navigated the Star Realm gracefully, even capable of teleportation between different Material Planes, now skewed and embedded into the earth like a beached leviathan corpse.
The Emerald Forest wasn’t far from the Nautilus wreckage. With a casual flap of wings, Leon appeared in the skies above the Emerald Forest, spotting Varro in a bard’s disguise, and couldn’t help but laugh.
In the game, Varro was a comic character, but in reality, he was an unassuming yet significant figure, not really a bard but a mage, supposedly chosen by the Magic Goddess and a node of the Magic Net, with a plethora of works such as "Vorro’s Monster Guide" and "Vorro’s Sword Bay Guide."
Without such capabilities, how could he help the protagonist swap out eyes, still allowing them to see invisibility?
Leon spiraled downward, scanning the Emerald Forest for his target, finally spotting the Githyanki girl Laiyeze’er, the poorly coiffed Half-Elf Priest Shadow Heart, the slicked-back Human Mage Gael, the white-haired High Elf Wanderer Astarion, the dark-skinned Will... and the White Dragon Descendant Sorcerer.
White Dragon Descendant Sorcerer huh?
Definitely Evil Thought, not Taf.
The coffin-hued Tomb Guardian trudged slowly, trailing behind the group, clearly noticing Leon yet making no sound or taking any action, not even a wave, seemingly uninterested in getting involved.
Seeing this, Leon exhaled slightly in relief.
If the other side didn’t allow him to approach, it would be best for him to stay away.
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