Chapter 305: Failed Writer's Imaginary Dragon

"Wow!" Alice peered into the collection room while showing an expression of excited amazement, "So incredible!"

Again... Edwina, seeing Alice's reaction, frowned once more.

Too vivid, too lively, and too fake.

Edwina glanced at Alice, thought for a moment, and reminded her: "You should at least wait until you see what's inside before starting to exclaim in amazement."

Seems like that's right... Alice, hearing Edwina's words, felt they made sense, and peered inside.

She showed an amazed expression again.

Edwina's collection room had several tables casually arranged, with cabinets standing nearby. Both the cabinets and tables displayed many items, with rich and diverse collections.

Alice's gaze searched around the collection room, finally settling on a huge black iron key.

That key was casually placed on a wooden table. Alice pointed at the key and asked: "Is that 'Death's Key'?"

"Yes," Edwina nodded slightly, "everything placed here is some of our findings from our treasure hunts. You can look around."

Alice suddenly ran over in small steps as if having received permission, looking towards the "Death's Key."

This key was over a meter long. Even without considering its weight, Alice felt it would be too strange to lift it with her hand. She thought briefly, recalled the posture of holding a zither from TV dramas, and picked up the key in her arms.

The key appeared iron-black in color, completely dull and without luster. Alice silently memorized the pattern style on it, then began to explore the key's origins using methods that a mystic should use.

With her keen spiritual intuition, Alice didn't look closely at those unimportant scenes, focusing her attention only on the most important frame.

It was a twilight scene.

In the frozen twilight, there stood a magnificent group of buildings. Alice couldn't see the details within, but she could feel the ancient atmosphere in those buildings.

Alice let those images disappear from before her eyes, put the key back in its original place, and decided to go back and ask Little Sun.

After thinking, Alice turned her head again and said in an ethereal voice: "Twilight."

Before Edwina could speak, Alice decisively withdrew her gaze and began to search the table again.

Next to that "Death's Key" was a book bound in parchment. Its deep brown cover surface had a line of ancient Foucault language:

"Groselle's Travels".

"Groselle's Travels!" Alice's eyes lit up, "Is this the travelogue whose owners all disappeared?"

"Did Gehrman mention it to you?" Edwina nodded, "We found this travelogue in a sunken ship at the bottom of the sea. It had been soaked for 165 years and still wasn't damaged."

Alice looked down at the book in her arms in surprise, remembering her outrageous statement that "what remains after burning is the 'Blasphemy Card'."

She thought briefly, then opened a page of the book, grabbed the two halves, and pulled hard.

—She failed.

After two seconds of silence, Alice raised her head, with an innocent face asked Edwina: "Do you know what this book is about?"

Edwina didn't mind Alice's attempt to tear the book, glanced at her and said: "Perhaps you would prefer to read it yourself... it's a novel."

So it's a travelogue-style novel... Alice blinked her eyes and lowered her head to start reading.

The protagonist of this book is a giant named Grocer who decided to go to the Ice Mountain Country to hunt the "King of the North," a powerful dragon... wait, why would he do such a thing? Alice looked back in confusion, then forward again, and found that the author didn't write why.

Well, okay...

Grocer met his first companion on the journey, a female elf named Shattas, they... how did they suddenly become familiar with each other?!

Alice was greatly shocked. Alice continued reading. Alice found this wasn't an isolated case.

Grocer met many companions along the way: female elf Shattas, devout ascetic Snowman, Solomon Empire noble Mobert Zoroaster, and Loen's earth soldier Longzel.

The book didn't describe how the protagonist's team became familiar with each other; they abruptly met and then became familiar, then decided to go together to defeat the "King of the North." Alice went back several times thinking she had missed something and reread.

The story suddenly ended after the protagonist's team encountered the "King of the North." Alice looked at the last few pages stuck together and fell into thought.

...Update-abandoning dog!

She gritted her teeth, raised her head to look at Edwina. Edwina explained: "It was like this when we got it. No matter what method we use, the last few pages of this book are difficult to open."

"Looking on the bright side," Alice cursed maliciously, "perhaps the author starved to death before finishing writing."

Edwina felt she fully understood Alice's resentment and tried to comfort her: "Perhaps you can try to find a way to open it, after all, you're still on the ship."

Alice angrily closed the book, completely forgetting her previous guess that the book's former owners might have all been transported into the book, and cursed through gritted teeth: "Written without any logic! What garbage book! The author must have starved to death!"

Edwina closed her mouth.

Alice threw the Groselle's Travels back onto the table and continued searching around the room.

"This is a gold coin from the Solomon Empire of the Fourth Epoch." When she noticed Alice's gaze falling on a gold coin in a frame, Edwina voluntarily spoke to introduce it.

A commemorative coin issued by the Solomon Empire... Alice automatically translated Edwina's words into language she could understand, and went over to observe carefully.

It appeared dark gold overall, as if made from two half-circles of inconsistent sizes joined together, extremely asymmetrical. Its surface was engraved with a sharp crown.

Quite pretty... Alice looked at Edwina with sparkling eyes.

After staring at each other for two seconds, Edwina proactively suggested: "If the price is right, I can consider selling it to you."

Alice silently withdrew her gaze.

She's unwilling to spend money... but she's quite rule-abiding? Well, that's also normal, after all, it's the "Fate" pathway... Edwina looked at Alice thoughtfully and continued: "The collections in this collection room are all like this, including the 'Death's Key' and Groselle's Travels from earlier."

Alice began to consider the possibility of robbing the "Storm Lord" church again.

Maybe incite Amon to rob... no, that way it would have nothing to do with me, getting money from the Angel King of "Thief"... aha.

While Alice was letting her thoughts run wild, she glanced around the room randomly. Suddenly, her spirituality was stirred, and she instinctively looked in the direction of the spiritual movement.