"Heh, interesting..." Rosser murmured.

"What did you say?" Sean looked at her, "What's interesting about this?"

"It won't hurt to tell you mortals," Rosser grinned, revealing her thick lips, "The Underground Civilization left relics all over the continent, and Taqila naturally studied them a lot. But these symbols..." She walked to a mottled pillar, brushing off the dust, "are not the characters they used, nor are they related to the magic characters established by the Association. Considering the past history of the Four Kingdoms, isn't that interesting enough?"

Akima found herself completely unable to understand. Although the meaning of each word was clear, she couldn't understand what they meant together. To her slight relief, Mal, from a noble family, and Nav, the local guide, also looked equally confused. She wasn't alone.

Sean, however, looked thoughtful.

"I heard His Majesty say that the Four Kingdoms used to have only scattered villages and towns, considered the corners of the continent. Their so-called history is no history at all. If this relic wasn't left by the civilization of the Divine Will War, then it means—"

He suddenly paused.

"That in the past, this place was inhabited by an unknown alien race?"

"It's too early to draw that conclusion," Rosser said with interest, "Whether the Underground Civilization might have split into tribes and created different languages is unknown. We can only get more information by going inside."

"Lord Sean, there seems to be a stone tablet here," a soldier inspecting the stone gate suddenly shouted, "It seems to have our writing on it."

The group immediately gathered around.

A granite stone lay horizontally in the weeds, covered with moss. Only one side had been polished, making it difficult to find without careful searching. It took the soldier a while to clean it up, revealing the inscriptions to everyone.

"Land cursed by the gods, do not enter, certain death."

After seeing the warning on the stone, Nav couldn't help but gasp.

"C-Could this be... the legendary c-cursed temple?" He took two steps back, stammering.

Sean exchanged a glance with the God's Punishment Witch, "Do you know its origins?"

"I've only heard about it from others, and that was more than a hundred years ago..." Nav stared at the dark entrance, swallowing his saliva, "Didn't the local lord set up many traps to prevent the Wolfheart people from crossing Mount Cage? Legend has it that a team led by a knight encountered a mountain rain while on a mission. This kind of rain comes and goes quickly, and it can knock people senseless when it falls from the sky. So the knight ordered them to find a place to shelter from the rain, and they happened to discover a strange temple."

"Oh?" Rosser raised an eyebrow, "Did they find treasures inside, and the villagers, driven by greed, stole the treasures, but were cursed by the gods and died tragically one by one?"

"Y-You've heard of it too?" Nav asked in surprise.

"Pfft," Rosser laughed, "Mortals really haven't made any progress. They played this trick hundreds of years ago, and it still works now. I bet this rumor was made up by the lord—to monopolize the wealth in the relic. As for those poor wretches, they were just used as evidence of the curse and silenced one by one."

"But... they didn't die immediately."

"What?" Rosser frowned.

The guide shrunk his neck and carefully replied, "It took about ten years for them to die one after another, and that knight was no exception—legend has it that they were in extreme pain when they died, and even the skin on their faces peeled off, revealing patches of rotten flesh, looking very hideous. That's the origin of the curse. To prevent the misfortune from spreading in the territory, the lord ordered that no one approach that area, so no one knows its exact location now."

"Are you sure?" Rosser walked to Nav's side, putting her arm around his shoulder.

Looking at that arm, which was thicker than his thigh, the guide's face turned pale, "I heard it all from the tavern, I guarantee I'm not lying!

Lord, if you don't believe me, you can ask others. If there's a problem, it must be with the rumor itself!"

If they died after such a long time, then the silencing theory doesn't hold water, Akima thought. Moreover, if the knight and the lord conspired to harm the villagers, that would be a common thing. But killing the knight as well would be another matter—the latter was a noble, and even if his family was small, he couldn't be executed without a trial.

Could it be... this is really a curse from the gods?

"Uh, how about... we go back to town first, and wait until we get more information before taking the next step?" Liaison Mal. Tokat suggested.

"The next step?" Nav looked at Sean in disbelief, "Don't tell me you came to the cursed temple in the first place?"

"That's not it, but it just happened to coincide," Rosser released Nav, "What do you think? As a guard trusted by His Majesty, I don't think you'll desert at the last minute, right?"

"Of course not," Sean replied calmly, "Completing His Majesty's entrustment is the top priority. Now that the goal is in sight, there's no reason to turn back."

"Very good, then let's go and meet the so-called 'gods'," Rosser revealed a sinister smile.

"But we can't go in unprepared," Sean shook his head, "In fact, His Majesty also mentioned that we might encounter danger when we get close to the source."

"He foresaw this too?"

"That's right," Sean turned to Akima and said, "After you left that night, His Majesty told me some things in private. He said that we might encounter two situations. One is that the source is exposed on the surface. In that case, we don't need to do anything. We can seal off the site and return to Neverwinter to report. The other is that the source is located in an underground mine—the deeper the cave, the greater the chance of danger. Therefore, if we encounter the second situation, we need to take precautions. Although this is not a mine, it has all the characteristics of a mine."

After speaking, he snapped his fingers at the soldiers, "Bring the stuff over."

The two quickly unloaded their luggage and took out five snow-white coats.

Rosser squatted down and spread one out curiously, "This is just ordinary leather clothing."

"It's not, if you add the mask." Sean picked up a piece of clothing and put himself into it—Akima felt that this was the only way to describe it. The leather clothing was seamless, with no buttons. It was more like a tailor-made human-shaped pocket. After putting it on, only the face was exposed, and the hands and feet were wrapped inside, making it look very strange.

Then he put on a transparent mask, filling in the last blank space. A fist-sized iron can was fixed to the front of the mask, looking like a pig's nose.

"Five people go in, the others stay outside," Sean said in a muffled voice, "Besides Miss Akima and Madam Rosser, who else wants to come?"