Chapter 86: The Forgotten Castle

While watching the Olympics and still needing to write, I feel overwhelmed. Please, I beg for your votes!

———

After Falcon finished tidying up his affairs, we left the city and headed south together.

We passed through the Slime Prairie, entered the Stone Toad District, and then into the lush, bustling Maple Forest. By now, there were no traces of first-tier players on the road, and even second-tier players had become scarce.

Players of all races hurried along at impressive speed; even the mages, without me using Swift Step, were hardly slower than I was. The warriors, clad uniformly in high-level silver gear with weapons gleaming like snow, dispatched any monsters approaching—those that seemed even more dangerous than Wind Wolves—with astonishing efficiency and neatness.

Here, I couldn’t help but feel a chill in my heart.

Third-tier… All these experts seemed to be around the third tier. Where was Falcon taking me? Suddenly, I had the uneasy sense that Falcon was leading me somewhere to be sold off—there were no low-tier players in sight, and although Falcon said he was taking me to a leveling spot for first-tier bow warriors, the monsters along the way were growing ever stronger.

Falcon seemed to notice my doubts and smiled, “Almost there. Once we pass through this Maple Forest, we’ll arrive.”

I nodded, touching the ring on my hand infused with faint wind elemental power—the ‘Gale Magic Ring,’ which I’d bought from Falcon for eighty gold. Before leaving the city, at Falcon’s urging, I had accepted a level 15 quest at a certain place in Frostfall City, matching the direction he’d described, so he probably wasn’t lying.

Steadying my resolve, I nodded and continued following Falcon into the unknown depths of the Maple Forest.

…

“We’re here,” Falcon announced as we came to a stop before a massive, ancient castle.

Suppressing the chill rising within me, I gazed at the castle’s moat. No, what lay before us could hardly be called a moat anymore—not only was there not a drop of water, but it was piled high with mountains of pale, eerie bones. Among them were countless broken swords and shattered halberds, as well as armor so damaged as to be unrecognizable.

The sight was shocking.

Looking up, the castle walls themselves were equally staggering, riddled with craters from massive stone impacts; not a single battlement was intact, and in places, entire sections had collapsed. It resembled a battlefield ravaged by countless brutal clashes, only to be abandoned in the end.

Black vines of unknown origin crawled from the bone piles in the dry moat, winding around the corners of the castle, as if silently proclaiming to the world: this is a forsaken battlefield, one forgotten for ages.

At Falcon’s prompting, I looked up at the sky above the castle.

The gloomy sky showed no trace of sunlight, and combined with the desolate, eerie castle and the bones heaped in the moat, it felt as if the castle was emitting a silent scream. A dense, overwhelming aura of resentment filled the air, making the atmosphere deeply uncomfortable.

“This is the leveling spot you mentioned?” I asked, turning to Falcon.

He nodded, then pointed to an open area in the distance beyond the castle. “Just over there.”

Following Falcon’s gesture, I saw scattered figures moving about in the distance—turns out it was a sizable leveling area.

“Your quest target is those… Level 18 Skeleton Mages. Their abilities are ‘Skeleton Warrior Summon,’ ‘Bone Beast Summon,’ and ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp.’ With your speed and gear, leveling here should work well for you!”

Falcon spoke of the quest I’d accepted from an elderly man in the north of Frostfall City. The gist was: the old man wasn’t a native of Frostfall City, but years ago, he was a noble who lived in this abandoned castle.

A few years back, the Undead Empire allied with the Beast Tribe to attack the Knight Empire.

When the battle reached the ancient castle outside Frostfall City, the old man managed to escape, but the castle quickly fell, and nearly everyone inside perished. The castle was cursed by a lich of the Undead Empire; for miles around, darkness reigned and not a single blade of grass grew.

From that day, the old man was despised by the Knight Empire and never forgave himself, living ever since in endless remorse.

Recently, he received news that undead creatures had appeared outside the castle.

Facing the murderers who robbed him of his home, the old man begged adventurers to help slay these undead and bring back some of their belongings.

…

As I surveyed the area beyond the castle, I was puzzled. The leveling spot was quite large, so why was it so sparsely populated? Only a few scattered people were ‘luring’ Skeleton Mages, and as for teams, I saw only one—and it was a rare mage-and-warrior combination.

Sharing my doubts with Falcon, he explained, “Summoner-type mages are the hardest to deal with. Skeleton Mage’s Will-o’-the-Wisp is only a first-tier spell, but its magic attack is 12–15, which translates to a physical attack of 24–30! Plus, a Skeleton Mage can summon two level-15 Skeleton Warriors and one level-18 Bone Beast at a time. Such strength easily overwhelms an average first-tier team. Do you think everyone has your kind of high-agility gear and magic defense?”

With Falcon’s explanation, I understood.

This place was already far from Frostfall City—a full twenty minutes’ journey. Worse yet, the level-18 Skeleton Mages were summoners, effectively making players face two level-18 monsters and two level-15 monsters at once. It’s a tough leveling spot for newcomers.

Furthermore, Skeleton Mages had high magic attack, while first-tier newbies rarely had magic defense—my level-15 top-grade silver bracers and boots had only one point of magic defense, for instance.

Thus, even if newbies formed teams to level here, fighting even a single Skeleton Mage carried the risk of being wiped out. Few were willing to risk their lives for such measly experience.

Once I understood, Falcon briefed me further on the Skeleton Mages, then parted ways, striding across the mountain of bones and into the shadowed, ancient castle—The Forgotten Keep.