Chapter 4: Waking up to a Mess

Translator: Atlas Studios  Editor: Atlas Studios

Gawain felt that his condition was improving rapidly. His mind was becoming clearer, and he had attained smooth control of his body. He finally had the energy to turn his attention to the girl who was being seized. “So… What’s going on here?”

The half-elf girl had been trying to make her presence less prominent, hoping that these Cecil Clan members would forget the fact that she was digging around their graves at the shock of “meeting their ancestors”. However, before she could find the chance to slip away, Gawain turned their attention towards her again. The poor thief girl had no choice but to shrink back her neck in a pitiful look. “I just thought I could come in and hide for a while…”

“If you just wanted to hide, was there a need to hide so deep inside the burial chamber!” Herti’s eyes widened as she said to Gawain, “Ancestor, this is the despicable grave robber who desecrated your resting place and roused you from your sleep!”

Dazed for a moment, Gawain gave the half-elf girl a weird look. “In other words… you are the one who ‘woke’ me up?”

If it was not for the limitations of the body, the thief girl would have wanted to retract her head into her pelvic cavity. Her voice shook as she said, “I really didn’t do anything! I was only trying to find a safe place to hide at first. But when I came in, my occupational habit acted up, and I ended up in the burial chamber. But when I got here, I didn’t…”

Gawain thought for a moment and said very seriously, “In any case, thank you.”

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“… Eh?” said the thief girl.

“… Huh?” Rebecca, Herti, and everyone else responded.

“Cough cough, let her go. It doesn’t look good for four big men like you to be seizing a little girl like this.” After saying thanks, Gawain realized something was not right about that, but he could not retract his words anymore, so he put a bold face to it and said, “This is no act of chivalry.. yeah, it’s not chivalry.”

Herti’s countenance was painted with hesitance. “But Ancestor, she’s…”

“I want to thank her for waking me up from my sleep,” Gawain waved his hand and said, “Let her go. I have no problems with it. Do you?”

Knight Byron gave the “Cecil ancestor” an odd look. In the end, he drew back his long sword upon seeing Herti’s hinting glance. The three soldiers beside him followed after and stepped back.

The half-elf girl looked around. After confirming that she was not in the middle of some prank, she stood up cautiously and sought confirmation with Gawain. “Uh, since you’re an elder, you have to mean what you say! Don’t go back on your words!”

The corner of Herti’s eyes twitched. With the many years of behavioral training as an aristocrat, she had finally restrained the urge to give this grave robber a violent beating.

Gawain looked at the girl curiously. From the memory he had just inherited, he was able to determine that she should be a half-elf. “What is your name?”

The half-elf girl batted her eyes. “Amber.”

Gawain rubbed his chin. “Amber? It does sound forest-elfish…”

Just then, Herti suddenly piped up, interrupting the conversation between Gawain and the half-elf, who claimed to be called Amber. “Lord Ancestor, I’m sorry to interrupt, but this isn’t the time to be chatting. We’re not safe here!”

Trying to assume his new identity, he looked at Herti seriously. “What’s happening outside?”

“Monsters!” Rebecca, who had not uttered a word for some time, exclaimed, “Monsters coming from the Sellin Crossing and the mines! The army and the security forces were no match for those monsters. I’m afraid that those monsters have already completely occupied the territory outside…”

“We’ve done our utmost to organize a resistance. Before the situation turned for the worst, I had Knight Philip take some soldiers with him to help the civilians take refuge. However, before the second team of rescuers could set off, the monsters destroyed the drawbridge,” Herti added, “Rebecca and I didn’t soil the reputation of the Cecil Clan, likewise for these brave warriors. We fought in the castle all the way until the last moment when the gate to the inner courtyard was broken through. That was when we had no other choice but to retreat here.”

Gawain then asked further questions and finally pieced together the events that happened.

This was the Cecil Clan’s ancestral territory that had passed down ever since the first ancestor to the present generation, and Rebecca, the girl carrying the iron staff who looked like a high school girl, turned out to be the Lady of this territory. After the monsters attacked, the young Viscountess did all she could to organize a resistance, but it obviously failed. The monsters eventually destroyed all their defensive forces and slaughtered all the humans as they were doing that. After the first group of civilians were evacuated, Rebecca, who abided scrupulously by her responsibility as a leader of this territory, and the remaining soldiers were trapped in the castle. They held on and fought for a long time, but in the end, the castle was breached, and they had no choice but to retreat to the ancestral graves below the castle.

Then they encountered the sudden movement of his corpse… Correction: His possession of this body.

And that beautiful aristocratic lady called Herti was actually Rebecca’s aunt.

However, these generational relationships did not matter much to Gawain. So they were just great, great, great, great… granddaughters. One more ‘great’ would not make any difference.

As for the half-elf called Amber, she was indeed a bandit, but this time, she was really here to take refuge. But this bandit lady’s class skills were really something. She actually found her way to the deepest part of the Cecil Clan’s ancestral burial chamber…

“What a mess I woke up to…” Gawain rubbed his forehead as he tried to draw from his memories to find information that could help him to solve this crisis. “So, those monsters have completely taken over outside, and venturing out would be to knock on death’s door, huh. Speaking of which, what exactly are these monsters you keep talking about?”

“I’m thinking they are some demon subspecies,” Herti said. “But demons haven’t appeared in the prime material world for many years already, let alone on such a large scale. I’m not sure either.”

Grasping the staff, Rebecca looked to Gawain with hopeful eyes, “Lord Ancestor, can’t you deal with the monsters outside even with your power?”

Gawain was stumped for a moment. “Me?”

“Yeah! Aren’t you the most powerful Knight in all of Anzu Kingdom, and all of the northern continent?” Rebecca’s eyes almost began to flash. “It was said that you beheaded the barbarian warlord Goorg in a single stroke…”

Gawain quickly searched his own memory and was shocked. Gawain Cecil was actually such a legendary hero!

He was the greatest hero during Anzu Kingdom’s pioneering era, and he was one of the earliest pioneers in the period of the “Second Settlement”.

After the fall of the ancient Gondor Empire, the remaining people of the empire returned to a state of disorder and savagery. The lights of human civilization were gradually engulfed by the chaotic wave that spread from the hinterland of the continent and brought them into the dark ages. Gawain Cecil and a group of brave men led the surviving humans to escape the ruins of the fallen empire. They marched forth in four directions. The group that headed north were the founders of Anzu Kingdom, and Gawain Cecil was one of them.

His life was extremely short but brilliant. He set out on the journey as a fifteen-year-old boy and became the youngest pioneering knight in those days, blazing a trail with the other pioneering knights and the first of Anzu’s kings. They spent a decade in the northern part of the continent establishing a new nation and brought mankind back to civilization and order. After the nation was founded, he became one of the seven generals of the kingdom. He defended the southern borders, resisted multiple demonic attacks of various scales, and had never lost once…

However, his brilliant life was like a candle that burned too vigorously. This legendary character only lived to thirty-five years old. In the last battle against the dark forces, Gawain Cecil died.

The memory that he inherited ended there.

This was the life of such a brave character.

Gawain felt his forehead twitching.

He had possessed the body of this incredible person!

It was not smugness, fear, or trepidation. After the brief astonishment, his biggest reaction was actually… a lack of confidence.

Rebecca was looking at him with hopeful eyes, Amber gave him the same look. Even Herti, who seemed the most mature and composed, was also looking at him with eyes filled with anticipation and trust.

But the person they were looking at was Gawain Cecil, not Gawain.

Gawain looked down at his own hand. It was the hand of a warrior. It was thick and tough, with thick calluses, but he did not know how much power he could muster from this body.

However, this state of mind did not last very long because Gawain’s memory had come alive. It was a memory that had been through tens of thousands of years, maybe even hundreds of thousands of years. Although the useful memories might not amount to much, it was enough for him to quickly adjust his mentality and become filled with confidence.

Admittedly, he was a little shocked by Gawain Cecil’s legendary life. But what he needed now was not to be amazed or to be unconfident, but to be steady.

The source of this confidence was simple——

Before any intelligent lifeforms started to walk on this continent, he had already been watching this world!

He knew that these memories would not be of any substantial help, but at this moment, he only needed to give himself a mental boost.

Then, with this strength, he would find a way to survive.

Once calmed down, the solution would naturally come to him.

He quickly found something useful in Gawain Cecil’s memory.

“We can’t simply fight our way out.” Gawain said. He rubbed his chin and said seriously, “I’ve been sleeping for too long. I’m not sure how much strength I can muster, and we can’t be sure just how strong the monsters outside can be. Thus, our best choice is to find a way to get around these monsters and flee to a safe place.”

Rebecca said, “But the drawbridge has been destroyed, and several other roads have been blocked…”

Gawain waved his hand and interrupted this granddaughter of his of unknown generations apart. “Underground. The Cecil territory was once part of the kingdom’s southern defense line. There is a secret tunnel system underground. The bulk of it is blessed by earth elementals, so it won’t collapse, not even in a thousand years. And the entrance to this secret tunnel is beneath the castle.”

“There is such a thing?!” Rebecca suddenly had a look of pleasant surprise. “What are we waiting for then? Let’s go find the tunnel! Lord Ancestor, please lead the way!”

“But there’s a problem.” Gawain spread opened his hands. “I only know how to get there from the castle, but I don’t know the way there from the tomb.”

Rebecca was surprised. “You don’t know the way even after being here for so long?”

Gawain: “…”

Knight Byron and the soldiers: “…”

Herti’s face grew pale. She had the feeling that this disappointing descendant would be the death of her ancestor…