Chapter 259: Dragging Someone into the Water

Inside the small town located in an arid region, the sound of surging tides suddenly echoed out. Combined with the eerily tidy graveyard outside the town, it made Saul furrowed his brows and fall into deep thought.

“This town has been targeted by someone… Is the secret behind the Grinding Sound Fruit really that complicated?”

Since it concerned the idea of turning the diary into a locator, there was no way Saul would give up easily.

After considering for a moment, he decided to take the risk and enter the town.

However, just as he placed his hand on the town gate again, the diary—which had remained quiet—suddenly floated out from his left shoulder.

Lunar Calendar, Year 316, September 1st

Rows of orderly graves—don’t they look like a neatly written invitation?

You are invited to witness a grand farewell in an uninhabited town,

But in your weakness, you stumble behind the curtains,

And glimpse the blood-soaked truth.

Powerless to escape, you are drowned beneath the tides of history and future.

The redder the curtain, the more it is dyed in the blood of its actors.

And now,

You too have the honor of offering your life to the stage.

A death warning?

Saul quickly withdrew his hand.

“What the hell happened in Grind Sail Town? Just trying to enter is enough to trigger a death warning?”

“If even I would die going in, how is that old lunatic still alive?”

“Was that really the old lunatic I saw just now?”

Saul closed his eyes. When he opened them again, all traces of fear and hesitation had vanished.

“It’s not like I haven’t seen death warnings before. What matters now is finding a way to avoid it.” He calmed his thoughts and reread the text in the diary carefully.

The diary didn’t just give death warnings—it sometimes offered clues on how to avert disaster hidden between the lines.

What Saul needed to do now was identify the key points in the text that might lead to his death, then take steps to avoid them.

“‘Farewell feast’? Does that mean witnessing people’s final moments? Or someone else is about to die?”

“‘Stumbled behind the curtain’—does that mean discovering the truth behind the show? So revealing the truth is what causes the death? Then if I just look for the Grinding Sound Fruit without digging into its origin, can I get out alive?”

With that in mind, Saul stepped forward again.

But unfortunately, the diary’s entry remained unchanged—his death was still inevitable.

“So that’s not the critical part, huh?” Saul didn’t get discouraged. He was long used to making countless attempts and deductions.

He soon noticed another phrase.

“‘Weak and alone’… Does the diary mean I need a companion?”

Saul turned to look back. The coachman was standing on the ridge, staring in his direction.

When he saw Saul look back, the coachman immediately craned his neck expectantly, as if waiting to be called.

“That mushroom on his head might be creepy, but he’s too weak—only useful against regular people.” Saul didn’t even need the diary’s advice to rule him out.

“So… does the diary want me to go back and bring someone else? But who? I don’t trust anyone other than Byron and Keli. Yet bringing them might drag them into serious trouble.”

Senior Byron was still working on becoming a True Wizard, and the wraiths he’d refined were already enough to give him a headache.

Keli had just been exposed to a metallic poison—whether she was fully cured was still unknown.

Bringing those two along wouldn’t just be unhelpful—it could cost them their lives.

Saul immediately dropped the idea of bringing them.

If not them, then he had to find someone else—preferably a Third Rank apprentice.

Strong, but not so overpowering that Saul would be suppressed.

Suddenly, a name came to mind—someone nearby. Mochi Mochi, who lived in Black Castle.

Saul walked up to the town gate once more and thought to himself: I’ll bring Mochi Mochi with me.

This time, the diary remained silent.

“Is it because Mochi Mochi’s abilities are special? Or just because he’s a Third Rank apprentice?”

Saul returned to the carriage and told the coachman to circle around the town and head to another entrance on the opposite side.

This gate was closer to the desert, not far from the Grinding Sound Fruit fields.

But when Saul arrived, he found that most of the walls surrounding the fields had collapsed, scorch marks covering the remnants.

“A fire? Caused by the barbarian attack?”

“I remember reinforcements had already arrived when I left—they wouldn’t have let such a crucial field be destroyed!”

Saul crossed the crumbling walls and stepped into the field.

“Hss—” He drew in a sharp breath of pain.

The field before him looked like it had been through a massive blaze. Everything had been reduced to blackened ash.

And on this scorched earth were hundreds of neatly arranged graves.

The soil of the graves was charred as well, and Saul didn’t even have to look inside to know they held bloodstained clothing and severed body parts from various individuals.

There was no chance the Grinding Sound Fruit had survived.

And since the walls hadn’t been repaired, it was clear no viable fruit or seeds had been found after the fire.

Otherwise, they would’ve cleaned and rebuilt the area for replanting.

Saul took a deep breath. This time, he didn’t hesitate. He turned on his heel and called for the coachman to rush to Black Castle Forest at full speed.

Normally, the journey took a full day, but Saul ordered the coachman to accelerate regardless of the cost, and they arrived in just half a day.

Bang bang bang!

Saul knocked on the large gate.

Nearly five minutes passed before footsteps approached from inside.

The door creaked open, revealing Mochi Mochi in a tailored black suit. Tall and slender, he emerged with a grin.

“Well, well, a rare visitor! And it’s you! Come in, come in.”

Seeing Saul, Mochi Mochi immediately beamed and stepped aside to let him in.

Saul nodded, then glanced back at the coachman.

When they’d passed through the shadowy forest path again, the coachman had acted a little oddly.

Saul initially assumed it was trauma from almost being replaced by a mushroom person last time, but surprisingly, the coachman had looked happy. Even nostalgic.

That made Saul hesitant to leave him outside the fort.

“Can my coachman come in too?”

“Oh, no no no, that’s not possible,” Mochi Mochi rejected the request without hesitation, “It’s not that I’m being unreasonable. Ordinary people simply aren’t allowed into Black Castle.”

Although Mochi Mochi said this with a smile, the firmness in his tone made it clear: there was no room for negotiation.

So the coachman would definitely be staying outside.

Saul turned back, about to figure out how to settle the coachman, when the man spoke sincerely, “It’s fine, sir. I’ll just wait out here.”

“…Alright. Just don’t wander off.”

Saul entered Black Castle with Mochi Mochi, the tall door silently shutting behind them.

The coachman’s eyes rolled slightly, and he murmured to himself, “I won’t wander. I’m just going to visit an old friend.”

With that, he skipped cheerfully into the woods.

Inside Black Castle, Saul and Mochi Mochi stood in a long and lavish hallway.

Perhaps it was because Saul had reached Second Rank—this time, none of the lurking presences inside Black Castle bothered him.

“I heard you were heading to Borderfall City, so I figured you might stop by. But you’ve really changed, huh? Two body modifications in three years—never seen anything like it!” Mochi Mochi was quite enthusiastic, his narrow eyes bulging with curiosity, “Amazing, truly amazing. My little vines have grown up too! Can your tendrils spar with them sometime?”

Unfortunately, Saul wasn’t in the mood for sparring.

He got straight to the point, “Mochi Mochi, I came from Grind Sail Town.”

Mochi Mochi’s bulging eyes slowly narrowed into slits. His voice turned meaningful. “Oh? So that’s why you came. So? Have you seen it? Impressive, isn’t it? Quite a show, huh?”

Saul frowned slightly. Was Mochi Mochi bragging about his murder technique?

The images of Ada and Penny flashed through Saul’s mind. His heart tightened, “Do you… remember a blind little girl there? Maybe with a boy ten years older than her?”

Mochi Mochi paused, rubbing his pointed chin, “I’ve killed plenty of boys and girls. A blind one… doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I see…”

Mochi Mochi noted Saul’s expression and figured he wasn’t used to these methods yet. A green kid raised in the Wizard Tower—still too soft.

“They were your friends?”

“…You could say that.”

“No,” Mochi Mochi cut him off, “They’re not. Don’t make friends with ordinary people. Don’t make friends with wizards, either. The former might die for you. The latter might kill you. Both deaths are beyond your control.”

“Choosing the wizard’s path is choosing to walk alone. You can have companions, a family, a faction—but only if they help you grow. Anything else is irrelevant.”

“You’ll understand more in time. If you’re lucky enough to become a True Wizard, you’ll have dozens of ways to extend your life. Meanwhile, those regular folk who can’t even reach fifty? They’re like wheat in the fields—grown just to be harvested each season. Would you really mourn a single wilted stalk?”

He laid his long, thin hand on Saul’s shoulder, speaking earnestly with a smile, “The people of Grind Sail Town were just twisted stalks of wheat. Not worth your concern. They sought protection from the Wizard Tower, then secretly colluded with barbarians—that’s naked betrayal. If we don’t make an example of them, how can the Tower maintain its authority? We must root out the diseased stalks before they infect the rest.”

Saul knew many wizards were cold-blooded, viewing regular people as little more than expensive spell materials.

There was no point arguing ideology with Mochi Mochi.

Still, wizards had excellent memories. Since Mochi Mochi said he hadn’t seen a blind girl, then he really hadn’t.

Which meant Penny and the others must’ve fled after the barbarian raid.

They survived.

As for the rest of the town… Saul no longer had the energy to worry about them.

But there was one thing that puzzled him. Could the display of tidy graves and a sealed town gate alone truly uphold the Wizard Tower’s authority?

“So those graves outside the town… and the sound of tides—were those your handiwork?”

Even if Saul didn’t approve of Mochi Mochi’s methods, if he was the killer, then he probably had a way to enter the town safely.

What Saul needed to consider now was how to persuade him to help search for the Grinding Sound Fruit.

However, when Mochi Mochi heard Saul’s question, his narrow eyes suddenly widened again.

“What are you talking about? I don’t quite understand! Graves? What graves?”

[End of Chapter]

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