Dark Castle (2)
The system warning had been clear:
System Prompt:Cursed Heihe River – Active dark curse field detected.Death Chance: 70%. High lethality. Proceed with caution.
Translation:You're probably going to die. But go ahead, genius.
Dawei exhaled, the water rippling in front of his lips. He had no way to quantify what +3 vision actually meant underwater, but it was clearly helping. He could see—blurry, green-tinted shapes weaving through the sludge and darkness.
Visibility was up. Survival chances? Still garbage.
But he wasn't dead yet.
That had to count for something.
Deep beneath the river, Dawei glided cautiously, hugging the shadowy bed of the current. Minutes passed, the silence only broken by his breath and the groan of distant stone. Eventually, his instincts flared—and so did the system.
System Prompt:Player has discovered a hidden entrance: [Sewage Conduit – Dark Castle]Warning: High threat zone. Players are advised to leave immediately.
Dawei paused at the mouth of the conduit, water swirling in its jagged stone maw.
Even the system was getting nervous.
"Perfect," he thought. "The more scared the system is, the more likely I'm on the right track."
He waited. One minute. Two. Three.
No follow-up alerts. No forced teleport.No Count Hindlow instant-death mechanics.
That was good. Or bad.
He smiled grimly and moved in.
To his surprise, the sewage tunnel was massive—spacious enough to walk upright without brushing the ceiling. The dark stone glistened with centuries of slime, and the air carried a thick, sour tang of rot and chemicals.
He advanced carefully, every step echoing with metallic splash.
Then—
System Prompt:Beast Intuition triggered. Unknown object detected nearby!
Dawei froze. A few steps ahead, something glimmered beneath a spill of mossy runoff. Wedged in a drainage grate was a metallic object, roughly fist-sized, dull grey with faint alchemical inscriptions.
He fished it out carefully, examining its texture—dense, unnaturally cold, and unmistakably not junk.
"This has to be something discarded by the castle scientist," he thought."Which means it's not just valuable. It's potentially classified."
No way he was leaving it behind.
He stashed it in his single-slot inventory space, cringing at the limitation.
"If I had more storage, I could practically farm the Count's garbage into a business model."
And the discoveries kept coming.
The deeper he went into the twisting underbelly of the castle, the more "unknown objects" he uncovered.
Alchemical vials. Scrap components. Molded fragments of failed constructs.
Clearly, the scientist hadn't just been experimenting—he had been mass-producing.
"This guy flushed more high-level resources than most players see in a lifetime."
But Dawei's one-slot inventory meant he had to make hard choices.
It wasn't enough to find something rare—he had to guess what was most valuable. Most reactive. Most likely to unlock a class, a quest, or a breakthrough.
It was agonizing. Like mining diamonds with a spoon.
He navigated the labyrinthine pipeline for over an hour, driven more by gut than map.
The system pings continued like popcorn, until finally—
System Prompt:Light source detected. Player approaching exit.
Dawei slowed.
The tunnel had opened into a vast, dimly lit drainage vault. From above, moonlight filtered through broken grates. The exit.
But this was the moment of hesitation.
"What if I pop out right under the Count's throne?"
He bit his lip.
If Hindlow caught him here, he'd have about as much chance as a balloon in a bonfire.
"Do I just stroll in and tell him I'm here to fix the plumbing?"
He crouched just beneath the drainage lip, eyes scanning the space beyond.
No movement. No sound. Just flickering torchlight reflecting off damp stone.
Watching. Waiting.
This was the game now—not a battle of stats, but of nerves.
He narrowed his eyes.
"Observe first," he whispered. "Then decide if I run, sneak, or bluff."
He had no power. No skills. Just a cursed bloodline and a head full of improbable ideas.
But that had gotten him this far.