The Law of the Silent Gentleman

Chapter 26 – Scholar

A chill rose from the soles of Giuliano’s feet and climbed all the way to the top of his head. He stepped back subconsciously, and the thing that hooked his ankle was even tighter!

“Spider!” Antoine screamed from behind.

A dead spider that was on its back was pushed aside and another spider crawled out from under its corpse. It is the white silk that it spits out that hooks Giuliano’s ankle! This kind of monster actually knows how to use the corpses of the same kind to hide itself!

“Stand back!” The soldier pushed Antoine away, drew his sword and slashed at the spider. The monster moved its eight hairy legs swiftly, deftly avoiding the attack. The soldiers turned their blades and cut through the spider’s thread, and Giuliano was free, stumbling to the rear. Antoine took the opportunity to hug his waist and drag him away from the front line.

“Disgusting thing! No matter how you kill it, you can’t finish it!”

Two soldiers flanked the monster from left to right. The movement of the spider’s eight legs is dizzyingly fast, with sharp spikes growing at the end of each leg, which can cut even steel, which is equivalent to having eight weapons! The spider turned its body sensitively, and a white spider silk spewed out from the back of its abdomen, entangled a soldier’s body, and spit out a dark green liquid from its mouth at the same time, the soldier in front couldn’t dodge, and a little venom was splashed on his right arm. As soon as the exposed skin came into contact with the venom, it instantly turned black and festered. The soldier could no longer hold the sword, and grabbed his arm and screamed again and again.

The spider immediately turned to another opponent—the soldier it had entangled in its webs. It raised its sharp spider legs and pierced the soldier’s chest! Before the soldier could even scream, his body was pierced by several spider legs one after another. The spider trampled on his corpse and crawled towards the terrified Antoine and Giuliano.

—I must not die here!

Giuliano elbowed the dazed Antoine, rolled sideways, dodged the blades of the spider legs falling from the sky, landed next to the stabbed soldier, and grabbed his weapon. Antoine finally regained his senses. When Giuliano was dealing with the spider, he ran to the soldier who had been poisoned by the spider, picked up his weapon, and slashed at the spider’s hind legs. When the steel hit the spikes, dazzling sparks appeared! Attracted by his attack, the spider turned its attention to him.

Giuliano took the opportunity to slide under the spider’s belly. Enzo once told him that all creatures in the world, as long as they are alive, must have their weaknesses. The weak points of animals are usually the eyes and abdomen. Although the poisonous giant spider is a little bigger, its body structure must be similar to that of ordinary spiders. If it has a weak spot, it must be in the belly!

Antoine and Giuliano have never really fought side by side, but at this moment they have a tacit understanding. He kicked up the wall, leaped onto the spider’s back with the help of reaction force, and thrust his sword into the monster’s eyeball. The giant spider uttered a cry of “Ziz” and swayed frantically, trying to throw Antoine off. At the same time, Giuliano stabbed the spider’s soft abdomen, and its twisting motion just widened the wound. The foul-smelling bodily fluid spurted out of the wound like a fountain, splashing all over Giuliano, and he was almost fainted by the disgusting smell!

After struggling for a while, the spider fell down screaming “Ziz”, its eight sharp long legs kicking wildly in the air, and stopped completely after a while. Antoine slid off the spider’s back and rescued Giuliano from the sticky liquid. The young apprentice is covered in the spider’s disgusting bodily fluids. He had never hated himself so much. He really wanted to find a place to take a bath and change into clean clothes, but unfortunately objective conditions did not allow him to do so.

The poisoned soldier lay motionless on the ground, his face darkened, and he was already dead. Giuliano, disregarding the respect for the dead, took off his wet clothes and put on the soldier’s gray clothes. Of course, he didn’t touch the cloth that might be stained with venom, and Antoine tore off the sleeve directly.

The two soldiers who were in charge of escorting were killed by the poisonous spider. Giuliano never imagined that freedom would come so suddenly. But he would rather not have this “freedom”. It’s better to be watched by humans than to face a group of poisonous spiders who don’t know where to hide.

“Should we go back?” Antoine looked at the hole in the wall of the stone chamber. “We have weapons now, and we may be able to rescue those trapped.”

Giuliano shook his head: “No, let’s go down.”

“Down?” Antoine was taken aback, “Maybe there are more spiders down there!”

“Since the two soldiers need a doctor to go down, it means that there must be wounded down there. Why don’t you go down and have a look? If they are Viscount de Ranchocourt’s men, then they deserve what they deserve, and we don’t care. If they are kidnapped Innocents, we can’t just ignore death.”

Antoine suddenly realized: “You are right! I forgot about this! Let’s go! It would be bad to delay the patient’s injury!”

He drew two swords from the spider’s corpse, and wiped the liquid from the swords with the clothes of the dead soldier. The two of them were carrying weapons, and they couldn’t help gaining confidence. They went deep underground along the stairs in the center of the stone chamber. The stairs spiral down, and every time you walk, you will see spider corpses or stumped limbs, and sometimes human blood can be seen spraying on the walls. There must have been a desperate struggle between the men of the Vicomte de Ranchocourt and the giant spider. What is there below that deserves their continued pursuit?

According to Giuliano’s calculations, they went down for about one round in total, and the stairs stopped abruptly at this point, and another stone room was connected ahead. But this stone room was very different from the lifeless one above. It was full of life: stacks of books were stacked along the walls, pots and pans were scattered on the floor, and there were bacon and bread on the plate. Heaps of laundry were jumbled into wicker baskets. There was also a low assembled table with notebooks, parchments, charcoal pencils, a gyroscope, and a few broken stones, apparently for research. An animal skin was spread on the floor opposite the low table, and a man was wrapped in a rough blanket, curled up on the animal skin, with his back to the entrance of the stone chamber. On the opposite side of him is an arched door, which may be the exit of the stone chamber, and it does not know where it leads.

Giuliano and Antoine looked at each other and nodded. That person must be the “patient”. The young apprentice was beating drums in his heart, and he was completely unsure about this person’s injury. He claimed to know herbal medicine, but in fact he only learned a little bit. Antoine probably only knew some three-legged kung fu, which was far from being compared with a real doctor. But at this point, the two of them had no choice but to bite the bullet, and if it didn’t work, they transported the patient up.

“Well, hello,” said Antoine, “we are doctors… well, people who know medicine. What’s wrong with you?”

The person sleeping on the animal skin heard the sound, and a bony, trembling hand stretched out from the blanket.

“water…”

Giuliano looked around and found a kettle and a glass with a little water left on the low table. He poured a glass and came over to the patient. Antoine lifted the patient’s head, and Giuliano brought the glass to his lips. The patient took a sip of clear water, and shook his hand after a few sips, indicating that he didn’t want it. Antoine carefully helped him to lie down again.

The patient is a pale and thin young man, who should be older than Giuliano, maybe about the same age as Enzo (in fact, Giuliano can’t guess how old Enzo is), with sunken cheeks and gray complexion, making him look younger than his actual age old. His eye sockets were sunken, his lips were chapped, and his dull eyes were bloodshot. He looked seriously ill. Even if he kicked his legs up immediately, it wouldn’t be surprising. After drinking the water, the patient became a little more energetic, turned his dark eyes, and lingered on the two “doctors”.

“You are…?”

“My name is Antoine, and this is my companion Giuliano. We know a little bit about medicine. Those soldiers… I mean, those robbers asked us to come down and treat you.”

The patient pulled his lips and gave a weak and sarcastic smile: “Bandits…they’re not robbers at all…”

…They already knew this, but in order not to expose themselves, the two deliberately pretended not to understand.

“What’s your name?”

“Ioannis Mitsopoulos.”

The name doesn’t sound like a Rorjan. Although Giannis speaks Rorjan, he has a strange accent, a bit like a Yoder. Giuliano recalled that both the Bandit and the Merchant Grimmer had mentioned a “scholar”, the Bandit said the scholar was dying, and the Merchant said the scholar was locked up elsewhere. Are they referring to Giannis?

“Are you a scholar from the University of Acton?” Giuliano asked.

“Not bad…” Giannis covered his mouth and coughed violently. Giuliano and Antoine waited anxiously for him to recover. When Giannis removed his hand, they could clearly see blood on his fingers.

“What disease are you suffering from? Or are you injured? Although we are not skilled in medicine, we can help you to some extent!” Antoine said eagerly.

“It’s useless, it’s too late…” Giannis gestured to lift the blanket off his body, but he was weakly unable to even complete this simple movement. Giuliano lifted the blanket for him, and a rotten stench hit his face.

The scholar’s trousers on his left leg were pulled up to his thigh, and the exposed lower limb was already black and festered, and a large amount of pus flowed out. With a wry smile, he gestured to Giuliano to pull the blanket back.

“My leg was bitten by a poisonous spider. Fortunately, it was a young spider. The poison is not so strong, so I can barely survive until now, otherwise I would have died a long time ago…”

They have already seen how poisonous the giant spider is. Giuliano immediately shuddered at the thought of the soldier who had been stained with venom and died tragically.

“This… how to treat this?” Antoine scratched his head and scratched his head, “Is amputation okay? Someone in our village was bitten by a poisonous snake, and his limb was amputated in the end.”

“It’s useless, I…I know…” Giannis gasped for breath every time he said a word, “The poison has spread to the whole body, even amputation can’t cure it…I won’t live long…”

“Don’t be so pessimistic! We will carry you up, and we will definitely find someone with excellent medical skills to save you!”

Giannis looked towards the entrance of the stone chamber: “Those soldiers… are there?”

“They were killed by spiders.”

“Oh, it’s really…retribution…haha…” Giannis laughed intermittently, “So, no one is guarding here?”

“I suppose so.”

Giannis turned his head with difficulty, and pointed to the arch on the other side of the stone chamber: “Can you take me…over there? There is a platform there, I want to take another look…”

Scholars look really dying. Giuliano knew in his heart that even if he took him up there, his chances of surviving were slim. Since his wish was to get to the platform beyond the arch, they might as well help him get it and make him happy.

Giannis was too weak to walk at all, so Giuliano and Enzo made a simple stretcher out of blankets and carried the scholar to the archway.

As soon as they passed through the arch, the two were stunned by the sight in front of them.

Behind the arch was a wide platform, like a balcony without rails. Standing on the platform, all they could see was an unbelievably wide underground cavity, as if the entire Cheverignon Mountain had been hollowed out. They passed through long tunnels and stairs, and finally arrived at this deep underground, unforgiving place. well-known place.

The hollow is a regular circle, with six ribs rising from the cave wall and integrated into one at the top of the hollow. There is a blue light flowing on each rib, like six giant alchemy lamps, illuminating the the whole space. Countless gravels are scattered in the center of the hollow, some of which can still see the shape of the building. From the collapsed wall, it can be recognized that there was a square here and a street there. The overlapping houses, streets and squares converge into a majestic underground city. Its scale is not inferior to that of Vanessa city-state, and its architectural craftsmanship is even better. How powerful and terrifying is the person who can create such a magnificent city?

Yet it was destroyed by something greater and more terrifying. There are no longer towering towers, magnificent temples and neat streets, only piles of ruins and rubble, showing the glory of the past.

Giuliano and Antoine put scholars on the platform. The scholar tried his best to barely sit up, looking at the ruins of the underground city with fascination.

“That’s it.” He said softly, “If I can die here, my whole life is worth it…”

“This is…is…” Antoine stammered, “Is it the underground dwarf city that Enzo said?” He looked at Giannis in fear, hoping that the knowledgeable scholar could give an answer.

The scholar nodded: “But it has been destroyed.”

“The Viscount de Ranchogu really came to hunt for treasure!” Giuliano exclaimed.

“You know the Viscount?” Giannis asked.

Antoine said righteously: “Yes! To tell you the truth, we are actually here to stop him! He will do anything to seize the underground treasure, and we must not let him get away with it!”

“Underground…treasure?” Giannis was stunned for a moment, then coughed dryly and laughed, “Haha…you’re mistaken…there’s no…ahem, there’s no treasure at all…”

“What? There is no treasure?” Antoine was dumbfounded. “You mean, the Viscount de Ranchocourt has worked so hard, but in vain?”

“Of course not, you misunderstood… How could De Ranchocourt go to such great lengths just for gold, silver and jewelry… What he wants is something more precious and powerful… As long as he gets it, let alone be rich in the world, he It can even become the master of the entire land…”

Giuliano and Enzo held their breath.

Learn to look into the vast subterranean void.

“Dragon,” he said hoarsely, “he came for the dragon.”