Inside the dim room, Luge's canine face was tinged with a waxy yellow by the warm-toned crystals all around.
"Are you... still alive?"
Only after seeing that the other party had stabilized her emotions did Luge venture to ask. As soon as the words left his mouth, it occurred to him that he had already asked something similar several times.
"Of course. Though I'm not much different from a corpse—unless you can give me a tiny bit of something fresh, delicious, and full of vital energy. That would make me feel a little better. You know, something like your fresh blood. Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you. You're my good partner for getting out of here. If it came to actually harming you, I'd rather stay like this."
The mummified corpse of the Abyssal teacher squirmed in place as she spoke.
It was clear that back when the old corpse was alive, she had been accustomed to using abundant body language to support her speech, much like Big Dumb Hum—except Big Dumb Hum's gestures were mainly meant to compensate for his lacking communication skills.
Luge didn't panic in the slightest, because he remembered Old Gold Tooth's half-pool of bathwater. Even if it contained vomit, it was still incontrovertibly genuine dragon blood; wasting it would be a shame.
Besides, in a place like this and under these circumstances, it might just serve as a life-saving medicine.
Although the bedroom space was restricted and couldn't allow him to successfully flee, using it as a storage pouch for now was no problem at all. Earlier, Half-Man's half-face had been taken out and put back in.
With that thought, he swept his hand across the table, picking out a suitable cup.
Among the full set of drinkware on the tabletop, this cup was among the smallest, but it was also the most exquisite.
"My blood stinks far too much. I have something a bit better here. I hope you'll like it, most dedicated teacher I've ever seen."
With a flick of his wrist, Luge set the cup down at the corner of the table nearest the corpse, already brimful of dragon blood courtesy of Old Gold Tooth.
Feeling the blood's overwhelming aura and its boundless vitality, the old corpse fell silent for a long time. Then, she suddenly plunged a finger into the cup.
The dragon blood vanished rapidly from the cup as a vivid crimson hue climbed up her arm. That single small cup triggered a cascade of changes: like a withered tree meeting spring, the desiccated body began to swell, and even hair sprouted from her scalp.
Luge suddenly felt that Old Gold Tooth truly was wasteful—their efficiency in utilizing it couldn't even be compared.
After waiting for quite a while, an utterly exhausted beauty blinking her eyes appeared before him. She was in no hurry to speak. Instead, she moved her limbs clumsily at first, then staggered over to one side to pick up a withered finger. After reattaching the finger, she gently caressed the ring upon it, retrieving a red robe adorned with golden patterns.
She opened her mouth, letting out several trembling "ah"s from her throat. Slipping into the gold-and-red robe, she turned around with a smile and finally began speaking with her mouth.
"Truly delicious. What was that? Dragon blood?"
The woman glided gracefully over to Luge, pulled out a chair, and slowly sat down.
"Standing for three hundred years... really isn't pleasant at all," she said, picking up the cup once more and gently sniffing it under her pert nose.
Luge noticed a slender tail behind her.
"Could you tell me about this place?" Luge asked.
"Tell you what?"
Her eyes glittering, the woman set down the cup. Upon closer inspection, she hadn't recovered very well; there were still shriveled cracks near the corners of her forehead, her fingernails were rough and split, and her newly grown dark-red hair was rather sparse.
If not for the tail behind her, she would have looked exceedingly human.
"For example, how to leave this place," he said.
"I don't know. I'm not sure yet. We'll have to try."
The woman reeled off a string of disheartening words. Luge merely raised an eyebrow, exercising restraint to appear as nonchalant as possible.
"Let me first tell you what I know. To begin with, this is an inverted castle, and what you've seen today is probably every sapient creature here: you, me, and that detestable Old Butler Izel..." The woman ground her teeth as she spoke, chipping off a tiny fragment in the process.
"Do you have a way to persuade that old butler? Or some other means?"
From what she said, since there were only the three of them here, their objective and what needed to be done went without saying.
"I suspect Old Izel is already dead. I watched him grow increasingly abnormal bit by bit. He might have even died three hundred years ago. It's the peculiarity of this castle and his own obsession that sustain him. As for you..." The woman stared at Luge. "Strictly speaking, creatures outside cannot discover this castle, nor can they enter it. Old Izel is like a sleepless ghost day and night, practically the incarnation of this castle. That's precisely why I never managed to escape."
"Could he suddenly realize that I'm not that young master, and then..." Luge began.
*Thump, thump, thump!*
A knock sounded at the door.
Luge turned his head and watched the door slowly swing open.
"Young Master, your lesson has ended. Please follow me back to your room to rest."
The voice of Butler Izel drifted in from outside.
The woman wordlessly signaled for him to go quickly, leaving him no choice but to stand up and walk toward the doorway.
Not a word was spoken along the way. Silently following the old butler back to the original room, Luge felt a sense of relief as the door closed behind him.
A dust-filled room was still better than a tense standoff.
He went to a corner of the room and sat down.
Although Half-Man had implied that the location where the fissure into the Abyss appeared was beyond his own control—a matter of luck—Luge thought of the die. In truth, this fissure could be said to have formed by triggering the power of the Demon's Dice. Could arriving here have something to do with that mischievous die?
The woman had said the castle was controlled by the sleepless butler, and leaving was fraught with difficulties and uncertainties. Could he attempt to use the Demon's Dice against the old butler? As long as he could open a spatial door for a single instant while the butler was disrupted by the die, he would be able to slip away clean.
After turning it over in his mind, he pulled out Kaliu's diary and flipped through it to calm his nerves.
Glancing through it, he quickly realized that the diary in his hands clearly was not the immediate sequel; it was probably separated from the first volume by two or three books.
As he read, he slowly sat up straight.
The diary mentioned that Kaliu had not yet abandoned the idea of becoming a Beast King Wizard. On one hand, Beast King Wizards had an advantage when advancing to formal wizard; on the other hand, the opportunity Kaliu had missed back then seemed to have become an obsession in his heart. The diary recorded that he had settled on his final nurturing target: a small, grayish-white snake, into which he began pouring resources accumulated over many years.
At first, Luge was merely reading out of curiosity, but after reading a bit further, he realized something was wrong.
Matching all the details, this was unmistakably the Gray Longneck Holy Lord that had ultimately fallen into the hands of the apprentice wizard Baonte.
A flood of thoughts rushed through his mind in an instant.
It seemed there was quite a show to watch—provided he made it back alive first.
A companion familiar ended up in such a state usually because its master had died; a normal companion familiar would never stray too far from its master. If that were the case, was Baonte searching for some valuable relics left behind by Kaliu? And what was the relationship between Kaliu and Half-Man? What Half-Man could do was far beyond an apprentice wizard's reach, and an apprentice naturally had no way to resist.
Yet Kaliu's diaries were all in Half-Man's hands, which meant the other relics must have fallen into Half-Man's hands as well.
A curio surely counted as valuable, didn't it? Luge thought of the way he had ended up here, and of the Demon's Dice that Half-Man had gifted him.
Chapter 53