When Roland subconsciously looked up, he saw blue sky and white clouds.
Wasn’t he underground?
How come… Roland’s attention was then drawn to the sounds in front of him, and he saw a group of people in front of him, gesturing around the well he had just been in.
What they said, Roland couldn’t understand, so he instinctively set himself up with Unhindered Communication.
“This isn’t good, the water in the Well of Light is decreasing. If this continues, it will definitely dry up.”
“Does anyone know what’s going on?”
“I guess the Goddess of Light has given up on us.”
“What should we do?”
“Sacrificial offerings, offer up virgin boys and girls.”
“Idiot, the Goddess of Light is a goddess of virtuous deity, how could she possibly accept human sacrifices?”
Roland listened to their rambling from the rear.
At this moment, Betta and the others quietly came around, and Roland set each of them up with Unhindered Communication.
Although Betta knew Language Proficiency, Roland’s Unhindered Communication was much more practical, not only allowing the understanding of spoken language but also words.
Roland had just applied his magic to his friends before a middle-aged bearded man spotted them.
Because their attire was clearly different from that the people here, the man who spotted them wore a strange expression.
Then he walked up to them.
“You guys… are foreigners?”
Roland once read about the ancient era. Because this world didn’t thoroughly develop historical records, so much of the history could only be verbally relayed, and this relaying changed the context and details to the extent that it was eventually lost.
This was why all content about the ancient kingdom were all based on speculation from some excavated ruins.
For example, the ancient kingdom was the predecessor of Hollevin, a country that was once quite powerful and had a much larger territory than the current kingdom of Hollevin, and the structure of its political system was similar.
The kingdom’s downfall and disappearance seemed to be because of man-made disasters.
However, this was only speculation.
Roland reacted quickly. He nodded his head and said, “Yes, we heard that there is Water of Light here and wanted to come over and catch a glimpse.”
“How did you guys get in here?” The man was a little surprised. “I remember there were guards down there….”
The eyes of Betta and the others immediately sharpened, already prepared for battle.
But at this moment, Roland took two steps forward, clasped the man’s right hand with both hands, and said with a smile, “It’s nothing, we just have a few friends here. You understand.”
The man froze and was about to pull away, but he immediately felt that there were some familiar, round metal objects in his hand.
And then he understood immediately.
His expression became enthusiastic. “Hahaha, I understand, and now we’re friends too.”
After releasing Roland’s hands, he flipped his palm and put two gold coins into his pocket at a very fast speed, then he wrapped his arm around Roland’s shoulder. “Not bad, you’re a good friend. Come, let me introduce you to this Water of Light.”
As he spoke, he led Roland to the well.
This group of people watching the well were all dressed quite well, looking quite wealthy and respectable. Beside the well, there were a dozen or so armored soldiers who seemed to be the guards of the Well of Light.
These guards were all level ten and above, and one was even level 13.
These men reacted as soon as Roland’s gaze fell upon them.
Roland had to withdraw his gaze.
Toward Roland’s group of people who suddenly appeared, many of them leveled curious gazes, but seeing Roland shoulder-to-shoulder with this bearded man, quite familiar with each other, they were all just curious and didn’t say anything more.
Roland looked into the Well of Light and found that it held a transparent liquid, and the most miraculous thing about it was that it glowed and was overflowing with large amounts of light element.
This was probably what was known as Tears of Light.
Even if he was not a follower of the Goddess of Light or a priest, Roland could sense that these Tears of Light contained an exaggerated amount of light element.
But Roland then realized that there weren’t many Tears of Light left, and the water level was now almost about one-fifth of the height of the well.
It seemed that the Water of Light was drying up, and these people were currently discussing how they should save it.
Looking at Roland staring blankly at the Tears of Light, the bearded man smiled proudly. “Awesome isn’t it? This is the miracle of our Reguman City, the Tears of Light. Countless people want to come and taste a sip, but unfortunately, ordinary people can only strengthen their bodies and cure some diseases with it—only the Saint Samurai of the Goddess of Light will increase drastically in their talents after drinking the Tears of Light.”
“I’m here for the Water of Light, can I take some back with me?” asked Roland.
The bearded man laughed and whispered, “I know you’re blending in here for this purpose, but unfortunately, you can’t! If you had come a month earlier, I could still help you figure out a way, but now… the Water of Light has been slowly disappearing for some unknown reason, no longer accumulating the light element, but escaping outward instead. Because of this matter, the great white-robed archbishop has almost lost all his hair.”
Seemingly thinking of the archbishop’s balding appearance, the bearded man laughed joyfully.
This caused many people next to him to hold unpleasant looks.
The bearded man immediately smiled apologetically at the surrounding people.
Then with his arm around Roland, he headed over to the pyramid stairs while saying, “But don’t worry, things will always work out. Stay here for a while longer, you and I will make more friends and I will figure out a way for you.”
The implications behind the bearded man’s words were quite clear to Roland.
He nodded and smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll be very sincere.”
It certainly would be nice to be able to buy a portion of Water of Light with gold coins.
There wasn’t a single solution to a quest. After staying in this game for over a year, almost two, all players were now aware of this.
Descending again into the interior of the pyramid, Roland found that it had become very crowded with white-robed priests walking about or chatting and that there was also a great deal of furniture and apparatus.
It was a clear contrast to the previous visit when all the corners were empty.
The entrance to the pyramid was still guarded by soldiers, but since the bearded man was leading Roland and others out of the pyramid, they were not questioned by the soldiers.
The city was full of summer sunshine and the streets were quite warm.
Many pedestrians were coming and going, and when they saw the rather unique fashion of Roland and the others, they would take a few more glances, but they wouldn’t keep their eyes on them for too long.
Bringing Roland to a patch of shade, the bearded man let go of the former, and then, with arms akimbo, and a rather bold expression, asked, “Have you found a place to settle?”
“No,” said Roland with a smile. “I wonder if you have a good introduction to the location, Uncle?”
“Then let’s go to my hotel.” The bearded middle-aged man laughed and said, “My house is a hotel.”
Roland was startled for a moment and then smiled. “All right.”
They were then taken to stay in a hotel not far from the pyramid.
Roland got six rooms. This bearded man was quite nice—for six decent rooms, it only cost Roland three silver coins per day.
The bearded middle-aged man enthusiastically chatted with Roland for nearly half an hour, while also telling Roland his name.
Mippels!
After the bearded hotel owner left, the five gathered in Roland’s room for a meeting.
Betta was the first to speak, saying, “On the way to the hotel, I looked at the proportion of pedestrians on the street, and there were many women.”
“It’s no surprise that women love to shop,” continued Brazil, tossing a salt bean into his mouth.
Betta shook his head. “Not shopping, they were in a hurry and most of them were carrying heavy loads and looked more like they were working.”
Brazil shrugged. “I remember in the small country of Thailand, isn’t it also women who work and men who sleep? It’s probably not surprising that there is a similar custom here.”
“That’s true.” Betta nodded.
At this moment, Roland placed his hand on the tabletop and tapped his index finger on it, contemplating something.
Li Lin noticed this and asked, “Roland, what are you thinking? Or have you noticed something special?”
“I think… it’s too coincidental.” Roland thought for a moment and said, “After we officially entered the dungeon, there was the Well of Light in the sink in front of us. At that time, we had two choices. One was to rob the Water of Light by force, but that definitely wouldn’t work. With more than a dozen Master-level guards and a large number of professionals in the pyramid, we’d be dead if we dared try. The other was to bribe a local as I did so that he could take us out of the top floor of the pyramid without alerting the guards and then we could continue the rest of the storyline for the dungeon. Although the system didn’t give any hints, I think we might have followed one of the branch plots—being led by the nose by the dungeon quest’s plot.”
“Why would you think that?” Li Lin asked curiously.
His question also represented the others’ doubts.
Roland explained, “The first person who spotted us was Mippels, which is too unusual. Logically, it should have been those Master guards who were guarding the well. How could the reaction speed of normal people be faster than that of professionals?”
The other four listened and found this quite reasonable.
“Besides, it’s the ultimate coincidence that Mippels is also someone who runs an inn. How does a man who runs an inn have the right to be near the Well of Light? Unless he has another identity.
“I feel like the details of this dungeon are instantaneously computed. The NPC’s actions, their identities, will change with our actions, creating a massive tree of quest processes.”
Li Lin looked baffled. He only had a high-school education and didn’t understand what Roland was saying.
Brazil and Husseret both went to third-tier diploma mills. Back then, they went to waste time; one picked up girls all day, the other played LoL all day. They cheated on the graduation exams and their theses were half-copied and half-altered.
Besides, diploma mills’ graduation exams were not very strict.
The two of them didn’t quite understand what Roland was saying, but they could still barely understand what was on the surface.
Beta really understood what Roland was saying. “You mean the NPCs in this dungeon… are real NPCs, not people?”
