harleyscars Chapter 17 Treasure?
Chapter 17 Treasure?
"What happened to you?" Lorne asked, looking at the mess in the bathroom.
"Don't tell me you wanted to take a shower, but after turning on the tap, you realized you couldn't turn it off."
"Awooo..."
Laki raised her paws somewhat aggrievedly, as if complaining that her paws were not working properly.
"Ugh, what bad luck."
Lorne had no choice but to bend down and clean up the water on the ground.
However, what he was unaware of was that a profound mystical transformation was taking place in his room.
Unfortunately, there wasn't a single audience member in the room.
……
"That's strange, why can't I turn off the water?"
Is the drain blocked?
Looking at the stagnant water that wouldn't drain away, Lorne became somewhat irritated.
It took Lorne almost an hour to clean the bathroom. Just as he was about to go back to his room, he noticed his clothes were already a little wet.
"I might as well take a shower."
After the power of the notes in the room had been overflowing for most of the day, it withered away on its own because it couldn't find a host.
……
"I feel much better." After taking a shower, Lorne changed into a bathrobe and returned to his room.
"No, what happened here?"
Lorne was dumbfounded when he saw his own room in a complete mess after he had just cleaned up the mess in the bathroom.
All the books and materials I had bought were scattered all over the floor, and even the bed sheets were lifted up.
"Wait, a thief broke in?"
Lorne didn't pack up immediately; instead, he quickly opened his suitcase to check his wallet and the small antiques he planned to sell.
"Nothing is missing..."
"Could it be caused by the wind?"
There was an open window directly in front of the desk. If a sudden gust of wind had blown everything off the desk, it wouldn't have been impossible.
"Was it because I was taking a shower that I didn't hear anything?" Lorne wondered.
Once again, Lorne directly experienced his bad luck and had no choice but to accept reality, reluctantly starting to tidy up the house.
"Hmm? What's this?" Lorne picked up a piece of parchment.
"This is the free gift from before, but wasn't it blank?"
Lorne stared dumbfounded at the parchment filled with information.
But what shocked him most was that the contents of the parchment were a map.
Could it be that it became visible because it got wet earlier, just like in tomb raiding novels...? Lorne examined the map in front of him.
"This looks familiar!" Lorne pulled out a map of Tingen that he had bought earlier from a pile of documents and began to compare it.
"That's right, the outline is the same, and so are the locations of these two rivers." Lorne was pleasantly surprised to find that the parchment showed exactly the map of Tingen.
"Then this place marked with a star, could it be..." Lorne pointed to a key location marked on the map.
"Could this be a treasure map?"
This parchment, like that notebook, is an ancient relic from the Quaternary period, possibly hundreds or even thousands of years old.
Even if there are no gold or jewels inside, just a few Quaternary cups or chairs are priceless antiques.
Are the perks for time travelers finally here?
Could it be that my luck is about to change?
A series of thoughts popped into Lorne's head, making him indulge in unrestrained daydreaming.
"No, we can't be so happy yet. This parchment was passed down from the Quaternary period. Maybe the so-called treasure has already been discovered by someone else."
After much thought, Lorne decided to go to the Tingen Library to look up information and investigate the locations on the map.
…………
One day later.
Lorne emerged from the library somewhat excited.
The location marked on the map is a wasteland, with no news whatsoever, not even an urban legend.
"Could this unexplored treasure truly be my chance?"
Overwhelmed with excitement, Lorne suppressed his emotions and waited in place for a few minutes to make sure he didn't sense anything amiss before finally smiling again.
"Very good, no warning from fate, it seems there really is a treasure."
"Opportunity waits for no one, I need to get ready quickly."
……
……
After preparing various items and performing a divination to confirm there was no danger, Lorne arrived at the address on the map.
On a barren mountain outside Tingen.
"This place is really remote, all over the wilderness. Where exactly is it?"
Lorne's boots sank into the slippery pile of decaying leaves, kicking up a pool of foul-smelling mud when he pulled them out.
This was his sixth hour in the mountains, and the edges of the parchment treasure map were worn and frayed.
But apart from a few pine cones, there wasn't a single penny in the marked area.
Lorne searched the map for a long time but couldn't find the so-called treasure.
"Awooo—" Laki suddenly cried out and ran out.
"Laki, did you find something?" Lorne hurriedly chased after her and saw the orange cat with a small field mouse in its mouth.
This glutton... Lorne sighed and facepalmed.
"You're a cat, when will you ever be a little more elegant?"
"Where is it?" After several more hours without any results, Lorne began to get impatient.
He kicked the tree trunk, causing several withered leaves to fall.
Lorne, who had circled back to the same tree for the third time, froze in place. For some reason, he had a vague feeling that something was wrong.
The damp smell of humus filled his nostrils, and he tried to back away, but suddenly stepped on a hollow, withered branch.
The feeling of weightlessness came suddenly. His back slammed heavily against the protruding rocks, and he tumbled down the steep slope like a broken sack.
Decaying leaves and pebbles got into my collar, and my right leg slammed into something hard, causing a burning pain.
"My God..." Lorne spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, reaching out in the darkness to find a solid spot to get up.
He managed to stand up, leaning on a nearby stone for support. Once he was steady, he took out a torch from his satchel and lit up the surroundings.
"Who's there!" Lorne heard the noise behind him.
"Meow."
"Rachi, it's you." Looking at the orange cat behind him, Lorne breathed a sigh of relief.
"But where exactly is this place...?"
He hadn't taken more than a few steps when he felt as if he had bumped into something hard. He crouched down and shuffled forward, his shoe kicking a protruding, hard object. His right hand touched a cold, slippery surface, and he quickly raised his torch—illuminating a hideous beast's face as big as a washbasin.
His heart nearly jumped out of his throat, and the torch clattered to the ground.
The thing's moss-covered fangs were less than two inches from his nose, and half a rusty arrow was still stuck in its stone eye socket. Cold sweat trickled down his spine and into his trousers.
The large stone eyeballs, the size of copper bells, were covered with a layer of moss, and a round ball was still inside the cracked stone mouth.
This is... a stone lion?
"Holy crap, stone lions."
The Chinese elements caught Lorne completely off guard.
After examining it closely, Lorne realized that it was indeed a stone lion, not the more Western-style griffin or other creature that Lorne remembered.
"Holding a ball in his mouth, that's really Chinese."
Picking up the torch again and looking around, Lorne found himself in a strange cave.
The edges of the cave appear to be stone walls made of stone.
Lorne went to the stone wall and gently knocked on it, only to find that it was hollow inside.
Then, turning his head, he saw a huge crack in the wall and was surprised to find that the stone wall was actually a stone door.
"A stone gate, and stone lions guarding it." Lorne chuckled lightly, having been intimately familiar with these two elements.
This must be the work of some time traveler.
By the dim light of the torch, Lorne noticed some strange protrusions on the stone door.
"Could this be..." His fingertips trembled as he hovered above the protrusion.
Those are buttons!
The rough buttons bear tiny scratches. The four trapezoidal buttons are arranged in the order of up, down, left, and right. The letters "A" and "B" are faintly engraved on the two buttons on the side.
This is basically a game controller for the Famicom!
"If I were to become Kazuma, I hope there aren't any transvestite monsters inside!"