dmims Page 240
Page 240
"Assuming he didn't know those skeletons were his teammates, then cleaning them up is understandable. But if he did know, what would he be thinking?"
Latis's mind flashed back to the image of Donco burying those skeleton soldiers, and he frowned slightly, letting out a sigh.
"As expected, it's really hard to read expressions from skeletons... Maybe... Tang Keke just wants them to rest in peace? Then what is his purpose in leaving the town and then returning every time after the White Moon?"
He stood up with some annoyance, feeling that in this world after death, the various intentions and memories of living beings, and the rapidly collapsing reality under the white moon, had turned everything he saw into a tangled mess, making it difficult to make any effective deductions.
"For the first time, I feel like the dead are more troublesome than the living..."
Latis couldn't help but mutter a complaint. He shook his head, looked at the spot the bone dragon had pointed to before leaving, and walked over there.
It was a depression on the surface of the cliff below the waterfall. Latis scratched his head. The depression was mostly hidden by the waterfall, and he couldn't see what was inside at all.
Seeing this, Sai Leng understood and ducked into the cliff to take a look, then quickly floated out and called out:
"Mr. Bones, inside... inside is a secret room!"
"Secret room?"
Latis scratched his head, puzzled. He took two steps back and glanced at the waterfall.
The surface of the cliff still bears traces of the waterfall's erosion, indicating that it has narrowed by nearly two meters since the White Moon. It is precisely because of this that the depression appeared before Latis's eyes.
He roughly estimated that if the secret chamber were to be fully revealed, the waterfall would have to narrow by at least three meters, by which time the next white moon should be approaching.
Latis sighed, glanced at his left hand, thought for a moment, and resolutely reached into the waterfall, slowly feeling his way to the handle of the secret chamber door.
He then removed the door, held it over his head, and slipped into the secret room.
Chapter 246 Human memory is a double-edged sword
The secret room was pitch black.
Latis placed the door panel on the ground, looked at the two spirit girls who had emerged from the cave wall, and breathed a slight sigh of relief.
They are semi-solid, passable, and can be slightly touched. They also have a faint glow, which is quite convenient in this scenario.
After a brief discussion, the two spirit maidens slipped into his hands, emitting a small amount of light so that Latis could grope around in the dark.
Latis glanced at his left hand, which had turned into bones, and almost had a fit of chuunibyou (middle school syndrome). Fortunately, his rationality told him that there were two little guys inside him watching over him, and he calmed down.
He first reached out and roughly explored the space inside the secret room by the light.
The secret chamber appears to be about five square meters in size and only about one person's height. The old plank marks on the cave walls prove that this is an artificially widened cave, and judging from the tool marks, it was probably dug by several people together.
"Whoever digs a hole in this place must have so much free time..."
Latis shook his head, guessing that the secret chamber was dug at the end of the two White Moon periods. After all, judging from the flow of the waterfall outside, by the time the secret chamber could be fully revealed, the White Moon River would probably be almost dry.
"Could it have been dug up by Tang Keke's wandering team?"
He rummaged around and found many trinkets on the ground, including tools for hand polishing, some thin slabs of rock, many messy bone and stone carvings, and a book made of bone fragments strung together with twisted strands of hair.
Latis thought for a moment, then sat down cross-legged and, amidst the continuous sounds of the waterfall and flowing water, first opened the book of bone fragments.
"In a world like this, would anyone still have the inclination to make books?"
With this curiosity in mind, he skimmed through the book of bone fragments.
The book roughly recounts the story of a nobleman whose family has fallen on hard times, who becomes obsessed with chivalric romances and falls into unrealistic fantasies. The protagonist sells his family's possessions, dons his ancestral armor and a tattered helmet, and embarks on a journey of chivalry, carrying a spear and a leather shield. In his many chance encounters with people, he experiences a series of hilarious and absurd events.
"You still say you're not... uh, you really aren't Don Quixote..." Latis looked at the story, which was roughly 30% similar, scratched his head, and muttered:
"What's that saying again... Give a monkey a typewriter and it'll type Shakespeare? Or give Shakespeare a monkey... Never mind."
He examined the bone fragment book repeatedly, touching the engraved characters on it, guessing that it was the work of Tang Keke from the wandering team.
Suddenly, he felt some uneven marks on the back cover of the bone fragment book. When he turned it over, he found that it contained several lines of small characters.
"The first edition of the legendary novel that will soon sweep the Bone Spirit Realm has been released!"
Tang Keke's comment: "Knights are so romantic! They make me eager to use my lance to sweep away evil!"
"Musen said: Riding across the land, upholding justice, is a truly fascinating journey."
"Gloria commented: Justice is his armor, and also his weakness; he can live for it, and he can die for it."
Bluebell said: Thank you, I really enjoyed this novel...
"...Isn't this book cover a bit too modern?"
Latis couldn't help but mutter a complaint. Immediately, the various comments on the dust jackets of numerous novels flashed through his mind. He rubbed his forehead, somewhat speechless, and put the book down.
"It feels like something a small, wandering group would come together to amuse themselves. I don't know why they went through all that trouble to carve it into words..."
He scratched his head, imagining a scene where four idle guys were carving novels on bones during the gaps in the white moonlight, and suddenly shuddered.
"Damn, I hope I'm not going to die and be stuck in a dark cave writing all day because I wrote so much in my life... This is terrifying!"
Latis rubbed his arm with the bone in his left hand, quickly dispelling the inexplicable fantasy, and then turned his attention to other things.
"Huh... what's this?" He immediately noticed several humanoid bone sculptures placed side by side in the corner, each with a different shape and looking quite lifelike.
He reached out and slightly illuminated the row of bone carvings.
The largest bone carving is a knight riding a steed, with a wavy-haired lady in full armor beside him. The two of them look quite bold.
Further to the side were two young girls. One seemed carefree, carrying a spear, while the other looked a little shy, her head bowed, holding a large bow in her hand.
"Is this Tang Keke's wandering squad?"
Latis scratched his head, silently memorized the characteristics of the four people, and pondered for a moment.
"She does seem...to have a distinctive personality."
He kept his guesses to himself for the time being, brushed the sand off the ground, and picked up a few thin slabs of rock.
There are some faint traces of writing on the rock slab, which look like they were left by someone learning to write. There are also some scattered words that look like cringeworthy quotes that someone wrote on a notebook when they were daydreaming in class.
Of course, the above also mentioned many strategic plans for conquering the Bone Dragon, but it seems that none of them were ultimately achieved. The wandering team was obviously very dissatisfied with this result, and wrote many faint complaints on the rock slab page.
Latis frowned as he glanced at the slab manuscript, which was considered a dark chapter in the history of the wandering squad, shook his head, and saved it back in place.
Then, he stood up, looked around the secret room again, and gradually pieced together the lost memories of the wandering team in his mind.
……
You returned to the center of town as promised, intending to search for the Bone Dragon's whereabouts, when a dilapidated door suddenly opened, revealing the Bone Dragon's enormous eye sockets. It asked you, "Boy, are you ready for battle?"
Looking at the tiny, dilapidated room in front of you, barely twenty square meters, you were immediately shocked. How did the bone dragon manage to squeeze itself inside? Did it dismantle itself?
Hearing your question, the Bone Dragon answered you unsurprised. It can indeed disassemble itself, but the disassembled parts have no consciousness and can only move by instinct. The trick it used to lure Tang Keke away was disassembling its bones, and at this moment it should still be leading him around the town.
However, it wasn't disassembling itself and placing it in different rooms at this moment. After all, disassembling and reassembling would inevitably lead to some assembly errors. It's not a mecha girl; it doesn't have a manufacturer's instruction manual, so it's best to be cautious in this situation.
After offering a few casual explanations, the Bone Dragon proudly demonstrated its true skill for hiding in the house—bone-shrinking technique. Of course, just as the traditional martial arts techniques of your past life weren't true bone-shrinking, the Bone Dragon's bone-shrinking technique wasn't simply about shortening bones.
You peeked into the room, staring at the pile of bones of the bone dragon, and fell silent.
In a sense... the skeletons are indeed quite small.
[The Bone Dragon tells you fiercely that in its previous life, it was often carried in a suitcase by a wizard and hidden in human society with him. Those days were truly miserable. Its limbs would often get stuck in the gaps of its own skull, which was simply unbearable...]
You stare, somewhat tensely, at the bony dragon whose foot bones are still embedded in its skull. You'd rather it didn't talk to you at all; you feel like it's almost assimil your normal mental state.
After ending the conversation, you asked the Bone Dragon why it had told you about the secret chamber. The Bone Dragon replied that it had noticed the secret chamber the wandering team had dug long ago, but its enormous size prevented it from entering even with its shrinking abilities. It wanted you to go in so it could see what was inside.
At this moment, the Bone Dragon reveals another secret to you: memories can become a person's body, shaping that person, but they can also be a hindrance to that person.
Scattered memories can make a person mechanical and stereotypical, which sounds pessimistic, but this state may actually be stronger. Conversely, once those memories are recovered, the vulnerable parts may very well diminish that person's fighting ability.
[The reason it leads you into the secret room is to let you try to find a possible vessel for Tang Keke's memories. The White Moon can take away a person's memories, but it cannot take away the traces of that person's existence. This is also an important factor in why the Bone Dragon can retain its memories. Its skeleton symbolizes that period of time that is dead but not completely dead.]
You frowned, feeling that the bone dragon was talking a bit too much, but you couldn't figure out where this strange feeling came from, so you could only let it ramble on and on about its grudges and entanglements with the wizard.
……
“…Oh, there’s one more thing, I forgot if I told you earlier.” The bone dragon leaned closer to the door frame, squeezing its large eye sockets until they looked much narrower. It poked Latis hard with a bone and said, “Wake up, are you asleep?”
"Huh? No?"
Latis wiped the drool that had involuntarily dripped from the corner of his mouth and said without changing his expression:
"Go ahead and tell me, tell me."
"Back then, when the wizard first refined me, I hadn't yet adapted to my skeletal dragon body. As the saying goes, 'The first thing we dragons do every morning is breathe dragon's breath on the ground.' We dragons have always had this tradition."
The bone dragon laughed and continued:
"But after I became a bone dragon, I lost the organs that generated dragon breath, but the impulse remained. So that impulse traveled along my bones and carried on and on. Guess where it ended up?"
"I don't know." Latis couldn't help but roll his eyes.
“Go to hell with my ox bones.” The bone dragon let out a wicked laugh and said, “The wizard had just gotten up when he was sprayed with my marrow.”
"...Damn it, I can't take it anymore! Your post-death dragon life is way too abstract, you deserve to have your bones ground up by the wizard!"
Latis covered his face in pain and scratched his ears hard, feeling as if the two unlucky creatures had been thoroughly violated by the bone dragon.
"Also..."
The bone dragon, still eager to speak, suddenly paused, its bones instantly retracting into the room, and whispered:
"he came."
Latis looked up at Don Koko, who was riding towards the center of town chasing a skeletal figure, and tears welled up in his eyes. He cried out in his heart:
"Dude, I need your help urgently!"
……
"Phew... Sir, how's the situation on your end?"
The skeletal horse beneath Tang Keke staggered for a moment before instantly disintegrating. He watched the fragments of the skeletal dragon fly away, muttered something, flicked his spear, and sighed:
"Unfortunately, my riding skills are not good enough, and I was unable to catch up with that bone dragon. However, I managed to chase it for a while, which prevented it from targeting you."
Latis shook his head helplessly, thought for a moment, and tentatively said:
"I found a secret room beneath the waterfall."
"A secret room?..." Tang Keke pondered for a moment, as if something had stirred within her, and asked in a slightly unsteady voice:
"what is inside?"
“There’s something inside…” Latis took a deep breath and said: