Chapter 23: The Ruin’s Save Point
"And here’s where things got even stranger. The moment I laid eyes on that house, what had once been an endless path suddenly shortened. Before I even took two steps, I had already arrived in front of the house. There were no signs of human activity inside, and the furnishings were extremely sparse but neatly arranged. There was only a bed, a massive medicine cabinet, a table, and a black book lying on top of the table. That was all—so empty it felt eerie."
"You can probably guess what happened next," Bearnard sighed, this time truly regretful. "I was curious and flipped through the notebook on the table, but before I could finish reading, my vision went black again. When I woke up, I was no longer in the ruin. And the place I woke up in wasn’t my bedroom—it was the outskirts of town. When I came to, I found two ruin keys beside me."
After hearing Bearnard’s unbelievable experience, Illiya formed a hypothesis in his mind—one he was about sixty percent confident in.
Instinctively, he straightened his posture, and for a brief moment, his gaze sharpened before he quickly regained his usual calm demeanor.
"Have you considered this possibility? This ruin might have..."
Before Illiya could finish speaking, Bearnard seemed to have an epiphany and interrupted excitedly, "Right! I forgot to mention the most important thing—I suspect this ruin has a time limit! And it also seems to have a treasure-hunting mechanism! I must have exceeded the time limit, which is why I was forcibly transported out. But since I didn’t find the final treasure, the ruin gave me another ’key’!"
Illiya, once again cut off mid-sentence, fell silent.
Something about this city lord doesn’t seem quite right.
It wasn’t that he was particularly bothered about being interrupted—what stood out to him was that Bearnard had answered all of his unspoken questions.
In fact, even the conclusions and speculations Bearnard made were identical to his own.
Did this city lord have mind-reading abilities?