Cthulhu Gonfalon

The Republic of Northwest was highly efficient. Just five days later, a group of miners was allocated on an emergency basis. Then they were rushed straight to the camp of the joint exploration team on a flying carpet.

When the people of the Commonwealth of Gold Coins saw such extravagance in using a flying carpet to transport miners, their eyes twitched, and their limbs trembled—flying carpets were not made to fly without any consumption of other resources. A continuous supply of magic was required to maneuver a flying carpet. In particular, for such a large-sized carpet, the cost of making it and the consumption of magic to enable flight were both exceptionally high. Only such an unreliable country like the Republic of Northwest would be capable of such a thing.

Nice Parne, one of the Republic of Northwest’s newest generation of Legendary Masters, led the team tasked to escort these miners to the camp. This Legendary master, who had stepped into the Legendary Realm when she was barely 60 years of age, knew Sid. The two of them even had a cordial chat for a while.

The content of their conversation was pretty much like this:

Nice: “Sid, what kind of mentality do you have by deciding to give up such a good position of a druid to come here and be a miner?”

Sid: “Aunt Nice, you achieved success in stepping into the Legendary Realm after isolating yourself in seclusion. That’s indeed something worth congratulating. But why are you being so sarcastic to others when you’re in a good mood?”

Nice: “I’m just worried about you!”

Sid: “If you have the time to worry about me, why don’t you hurry up and fall in love with someone? You used to say that you want to become a Legendary master. You want to have everlasting youth before you’d consider falling in love and getting married. Now that you have finally become a Legendary master, it’s time you fulfill your promise. Granny Teague and Aunt Liv have been waiting so long that they’re getting anxious.”

Nice: “…”

Sid: “Though people of the elvish bloodline have long lives and age slowly, Aunt Liv is already a mother of several children. Her oldest son, Etta, has even learned how to give flowers to girls. You better not wed later than your own nephew!”

Nice: “…”

Sid: “During this time, I made a new friend. He’s handsome, gentle, born to a reputable family and quite a talent. The best thing of all is that he doesn’t have a particularly strong aversion to women older than himself. Do you want me to introduce you two?”

In view of what he said, Sid eventually ended up being pressed to the ground where he was subjected to the mercy of Nice’s. But more or less, this was a matter of course.

That evening, when Hopes returned to camp, he was shocked to see the soft healing bandage on Sid’s face.

“Eh? I thought you’re not on duty today? How did you get yourself hurt in the camp?”

“I’m a little low on luck.”

“You’re almost at the advanced level, aren’t you? Exactly how “low on luck” could a druid who’s nearly at the advanced level be to get this injury in a safe camp?”

“I came across a female Tyrannosaurus rex, and she trampled over on me.”

“I won’t even ask where you found a tyrannosaurus rex on the Main Plane. From what I know, even a tyrannosaurus rex hibernates. In such weather where the mountains are all capped in snow, would a tyrannosaurus rex specifically pass by here just to give you a kick? You really think I learned nothing about plane biology?”

“Eh? You even know this?”

“Back in those years, I spent almost all my time in the library of the Walder’s family, alright!”

“What a blunder I’ve made!”

“Don’t be silly. Now tell me how you got hurt!”

“Really, it’s just something very normal… It’s no big deal.”

Hopes did not press him further with more questions and walked away.

At dinner time, he watched Sid who was eating in silence and gave a sneaky smile.

Sid felt a little unnerved under his gaze and could not help asking the question, “Your Excellency, why are you laughing?” And in return, Hopes said, “Clearly in a good relationship with each other, and yet being annoying on purpose by bringing up a topic that the other party dislikes? From what I know, this is a common way for awkward young boys to make their presence obvious to women they care about.”

Then Hopes ended up being pressed to the ground where he was subjected to the mercy of friction.

Sid was no match for Nice. But dealing with this annoying fox-rabbit was no issue for him at all.

As for what this fellow said… who would take the words of a fox-rabbit seriously! But anyone with common sense would know that those who by went the name of Walder were all masters of deception. They could conjure lies that could cause death, but they themselves would get away scot-free. Even if Hopes might be half a fox person, he was not a Walder after all!

Sid had persuaded himself as such, but that night, he still could not fall asleep.

Here and there without any restriction in movement, he tossed and turned in bed.

But regrettably, life was not a romantic story in reality. Even if he suffered an entire night of insomnia, he still had to go up the mountains for exploration work the next day.

Question: What would happen to a man who had stayed awake all night and yet insisted on leading the team to explore deep into the snow-capped mountains? And also, every time they arrived at a dangerous place, he would have to be the one to pave the way for them.

The result was obvious. So Sid got injured and quite badly at that. He broke a leg and dislocated his right arm.

If Clito had not rushed over upon receiving the news, Sid would probably have lost his life.

The valley where he had gotten injured had very steep slopes that were completely frozen. Hopes had discovered likely traces of mineral veins at the bottom of the valley when he led the team out for exploration the day before. So he brought the team here today.

At that time, he had tied a rope around his waist. Then following the trail of the icy steep slope, he slowly made his descent. At the same time, he tried to drill holes on the layer of ice to set up spikes so that his team members could follow in his stead—Hopes merely stopped by for a brief look yesterday; he did not actually do any exploration work. At the beginning, everything went smoothly. But when he was almost halfway through, the accident happened.

On a protruding rock surface, the ice cracked.

It was not a big deal that the ice broke. Given his ability, even if the cracked ice were to crash down on the top of his head, he would be able to withstand it.

However, the unfortunate thing was that the cracked ice was so sharp that it cut through his safety rope when it rubbed against rope upon descending.

If Sid was in good form, he would have sensed that something was wrong before the rope was cut. But he had been up all night and was rather tired in the first place. And with all his attention focused on climbing the mountain and securing the spikes, there was simply no way he would have paid due notice.

So when the rope snapped, he only had time to cry out in surprise. Then he fell straight down the steep slope of the snow-capped mountain.

If it had been an ordinary person, such a fall would lead to certain death. There would be no need for an emergency rescue at all—that steep slope was at least 15 to 16 stories high. If a person could fall from such a height and yet still be a complete corpse after hitting the ground, he should be considered a lucky man. Fortunately, Sid was very strong. At the most critical moment, he still had time to save himself by smashing a pickax into the ice wall next to him in an attempt to stabilize himself.

Though by doing so, he had dislocated his right arm. But at least, this had reduced the speed and impact of the fall.

But as the saying went, bad luck always came in threes. Just as he was about to hit the ground, he realized that there were many sharp, knife-like ice prisms on the ground below. They stood erect like long swords pointing towards the sky, looking just like the pike traps laid by hunters to catch prey.

Because of his dislocated right arm, he could no longer use brute strength to solve the problem. So he simply activated a magic prop that he always carried with him and sent a fireball blasting towards the ground.

That fireball shattered a large patch of ice prisms on the ground. A resulting strong gust of hot air that shot up also slowed down the momentum of his fall by a slight degree.

Even so, he broke his leg.

Fortunately, a broken leg was not a serious injury, especially when he was a druid with healing powers.

By the time Clito arrived, he had already fixed his dislocated right arm and was trying to rectify the alignment of the bones of his broken leg. He intended to use a spell to heal himself.

At that time, he even told Clito that his condition was not serious. He just needed to use two spells to recover, and his work would not be affected at all.

Clito completely ignored him with a dark face. He directly lifted Sid up as though he were catching a chicken and brought this brassy yet reckless fellow back to camp.

Then, Sid received five days of leave due to his injury.

“So boring… There aren’t any books to read here…” Sid said with a sigh as he lay in bed.

“Why don’t you use your teleportation spell to make a trip back to Void City? You should go for a thorough check-up,” Hopes persuaded him. “What if you have some internal injuries? That would spell trouble.”

“I’m not going back. It’s too humiliating for me to just go back like that!”

Hopes was speechless.

After leaving the room, he went looking for Rubey to convince Rubey to send an urgent message.

He felt that this message would be a great help to Sid. Whether Sid would thank him or find fault with him in the future, it did not really matter…