954 Strange Ancient Castle (1/2)

Fors's gaze met Xio's in midair as both parties remained silent.

After a while, Fors chuckled dryly.

”Haha, you haven't fallen asleep?”

Xio frowned and said, ”What happened to you?”

”Nothing. Didn't I tell you before? Whenever the full moon happens, I won't be in a good state. It's even worse during the Blood Moon,” Fors replied as though everything was normal.

Xio sized her up and pulled her blanket.

”I remember that you brought sleeping pills?”

”There's no need for that. I've fine now.” Seeing that Xio wasn't pressing further, Fors secretly heaved a sigh of relief. ”Go back to sleep. We still have to head into the forest early tomorrow morning.”

Xio didn't say another word as she turned around, gripped the blanket, and closed her eyes.

Before long, her breathing turned heavier and became more drawn out and uniform.

Fors stared blankly at the ceiling as her thoughts ran wild. At some point in time, she fell asleep as well.

…

The next day at noon. In the core region of Delaire Forest, in front of a collapsed, ancient castle covered in green vines.

Fors wiped the perspiration on her forehead and exhaled.

”We're finally here…”

Xio shot her a glance and said, ”The boss at the hotel told me that we only need two hours to get here.”

They had set off before six in the morning, but they had spent nearly seven hours to arrive.

The corners of Fors's lips twitched as she said, ”Ideal conditions and reality are different. There weren't any trails for us to take towards the end. We needed to explore and forge a new path ourselves!”

Xio took out her triangular blade, nodded, and said, ”You should've foreseen this from the beginning, but you refused to have a guide as suggested by the hotel's boss.”

”As an Astrologer, I don't believe such trivialities will cause any trouble. Look, aren't we there now? Besides, the time is perfect. The wraiths and ghosts are definitely in their weakest state.” Having forced a smile, Fors held Leymano's Travels in one hand as she pointed with the other. ”I didn't notice it before, but the more I think about it, the more puzzled I become.”

”About what?” Xio also cast her gaze to the ancient abandoned castle that was covered by vines.

Fors casually found an excuse.

”Tell me, who would build a castle in the middle of a forest? Furthermore, they didn't open up a trail to it…”

Before she finished her sentence, she really found the matter a little odd.

Xio thought and said, ”Perhaps there was a trail, but after the castle was abandoned, whatever traces of it had been wiped out with time.”

Fors stroked the hair by her ear and shook her head.

”Then why would they abandon it?

”If they had considered safety back when building it, it would be more dangerous building it far from the town in an uninhabited castle. If it's just for vacations, with the way nobles do things, they wouldn't abandon it even if the maintenance and repairs are difficult.”

Xio blurted out, ”Could it be because it's haunted?”

Fors thought for a few seconds.

”Won't someone who can build such a huge castle hire Beyonders to deal with the ghosts?

”I suspect that the three Churches and the kingdom's government don't know of this ancient castle. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense that they will leave the Beyonder ingredients inside…”

Upon saying that, she raised a possibility:

”An ancient castle of the Sanguine?”

Such extraordinary creatures enjoyed living in places with few people. Furthermore, they were usually connected to dark forests and ancient castles.

In addition, information about this ancient castle came from the Sanguine to begin with.

”It's possible,” Xio first agreed before disagreeing. ”Will the Sanguine be afraid of ghosts? They definitely have the means to deal with the ancient wraiths inside.”

Makes sense… Don't tell me those Sanguine don't like money and don't care about the search for Beyonder ingredients? Fors recalled Mr. Moon's behavior and denied her hypothesis. In deliberation, she said, ”Unless there's some problem that's not easy to resolve. That's what made the bigwigs choose to skirt around it.”

In that case, her operation would become more dangerous than she had anticipated.

Xio tersely agreed.

”Let's do some preliminary investigations while the sun is still strong.”

”Alright.” Fors held Leymano's Travels and approached the half-collapsed ancient castle one step at a time.

The two soon arrived at the entrance which was two-thirds blocked by rocks. They discovered that, beneath the green vines, the stone walls were mottled and heavily weathered as though it had been in existence for a very, very long period of time.

Xio wasn't in a rush to enter. Calling out to Fors, they circled around the castle slowly.

When they returned to the entrance, she said in puzzlement, ”This castle's style is purely defensive. It doesn't seem to consider the problems needed for living in it. Besides, many of the peculiarities of the building are ones I haven't heard of before. It has probably existed in the late Fourth Epoch or even earlier.”