Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1249: Chapter 1248: Face to Face with Adventurers

Gawain walked down a long corridor, with wide windows on one side. A barrier condensed from magic served as the glass on these windows, allowing those in the corridor to see the scene outside—he and Amber paused at the window and looked into the room, where they saw Duchess Victoria Wilder, dressed in a snow-white gown, and the elderly man across from her, wearing a black short robe and a black soft hat.

They were conversing inside the room, with no sound reaching the corridor, but it was clear that the elder appeared a bit nervous, constantly asking Victoria something, while the Duchess on the other side answered patiently. The ruler of the northern parts of the Dark Mountain Range, who seldom shows emotional variation, even had a faint smile on her face.

Amber was surprisingly startled by this sight and exclaimed in a low voice, "Hey, hey, look, that ice-cold face’s paralysis is cured!!"

Gawain glanced at this Commonwealth Alliance embarrassment after hearing this, "Would you dare say this to her face?"

Amber suddenly put her hands on her hips, looking justified, "Nonsense, of course not, I’m not stupid."

"He looks in good shape, better than I expected," Gawain disregarded Amber’s babble and turned to Heragor beside him, "Does he know I’m supposed to meet him today?"

"He knows, which is why he seems a bit nervous—this Great Adventurer normally possesses a mindset better than anyone," Heragor said with a hint of humor, "You know, he sees you as an idol—even now when he has lost his memory."

"I know about this. Back then, he went to sea searching for the ’Secret Routes’ to follow ’my footsteps’," Gawain laughed, his tone carrying a hint of sentiment, "And because of that voyage, he ended up lost in the Arctic Ocean and was confusedly taken to the Tower of the Inversion Tide by Melita at the time... everything in the world is truly connected by cause and effect."

"The world’s everything is connected by cause and effect... A certain sage from a past cycle of civilization also said this, very intriguing, and worth pondering," Heragor remarked, then nodded towards the direction of the room, "Are you ready? Go meet the Great Adventurer who has idolized you for hundreds of years—he’s been looking forward to this for quite a while."

"To be honest, I’m the one who’s starting to feel a bit nervous." Gawain said with a laugh, but he still proceeded towards the door, with Amber and Heragor following behind.

Upon reaching the door, Gawain paused, slightly adjusted his facial expression and thought process, and took a gentle breath—he genuinely wasn’t joking about feeling nervous. After all, this situation was a first in his life; plenty admire him now, but someone who idolized him since six hundred years ago, risking life to search the sea for his ’Secret Routes’, and still unwaveringly retains this admiration after six centuries, well, there’s just one such ’Great Adventurer’.

Thinking of this, he felt a bit like meeting a fan offline for the first time.

But surely, the Great Adventurer inside must be even more nervous than him, so Gawain quickly composed himself, relaxing his facial muscles, and lightly pushed open the sturdy wooden door before him—accompanied by the soft sound of the door turning on its hinges, both Victoria and Modir in the meeting room turned their heads simultaneously.

Victoria was the first to stand, bowing to Gawain and then reminded her ancestor beside her, "The King is here."

Modir’s reaction lagged for a beat, but he quickly caught on after hearing the reminder near him. Like sitting on hot coals by accident, he suddenly stood up, wearing a smile yet immediately becoming flustered, instinctively stepping towards Gawain seemingly wanting to reach out a hand, but retracted it halfway as if shocked, rubbing it forcefully on his clothes while mumbling awkwardly, "Ah, wait, Your Majesty, I just finished chatting with Victoria and haven’t washed my hands..."

Equally ready to take two steps forward to shake hands with the elder, Gawain found himself thrown off track by the sudden series of random movements from the other, standing awkwardly in place, watching Modir’s actions with amusement and helplessness before finally finding the chance to speak, "You don’t need to be so nervous, Mr. Modir—I’m here specifically to see you."

"Ah, now I’m even more nervous hearing you say that!" Modir finally finished wiping his hands, but immediately summoned a water element to scrub his hands intensively again, while muttering as he approached Gawain, "I... I honestly never dreamed of seeing you in person one day! You are the greatest pioneer and adventurer in my heart! I could hardly believe my ears upon hearing you would personally come, the Goddess of Magic can testify! I practically thought I was falling into another ’strange dream’ then..."

Listening, Gawain couldn’t help but display a peculiar expression, internally recalling that the Goddess of Magic likely couldn’t attend to this testimony, given she was continually cornered inside the neural network by online admin Nariteer and her associates, or playing cards and chess with the other two retired gods. The most recent testimony given was proving Amon indeed didn’t hold a pair of Jokers...

Nevertheless, after a hectic sequence of scrubbing, the Great Adventurer finally somewhat relaxed, releasing the now dizzy water element, and earnestly looked at Gawain a couple of times, as if confirming whether the ’King’ before him matched the face of the ’Pioneer Hero’ in history before finally extending his hand to shake the hand of his ’idol’.

A moment later, after Victoria reminded him, Modir finally released his hand, sitting in a chair beside a low table with an immensely cheerful smile, while Gawain seated on the opposite chair didn’t wipe away the droplets of water from his hand.

Amber stood behind Gawain, Victoria behind Modir, Heragor glanced around the room realizing the atmosphere was set, and as the ’outsider’ at this point only occupying space, joked about retreating, "I will leave this time to you all; I have many matters to attend to, so I’ll step back for now. If there’s any problem, feel free to call Koleta, she’s just outside in the corridor."

Gawain nodded with a smile, while Victoria added, "Thank you very much, Lord Heragor."

The Dragonkin leader left, leaving only Gawain and others in the meeting room. Before initiating conversation, Gawain first pointed at Amber standing behind him and introduced to the elderly gentleman before him, "This is Amber, my intelligence advisor and also a Shadow Realm expert. We suspect what’s happening with you might relate to Shadow Realm’s ’authority,’ so I brought her along."

"Oh, oh, alright," Modir nodded repeatedly, clearly indifferent to who Amber might be. He then gestured towards Victoria beside him, "You know her, right? She..."

"Of course, I know her," Gawain laughed, "She’s an excellent official of the Empire."

No sooner did he finish speaking than Victoria’s voice directly sounded in his mind, "Ancestor, he doesn’t know my full name yet, and for obvious reasons I cannot reveal my true identity..."

"I understand," Gawain mentally responded, subtly nodding before looking at the Great Adventurer before him, "Mr. Modir, you should know why I’ve come to see you personally, right?"

"Well... They said it’s because you are very concerned about the ’anomalies’ that have happened to me," Modir hesitated a moment before speaking, "They said the unusual circumstances involving me might relate to the gods, and perhaps involve even more ancient secrets. These secrets are enough to alarm the upper echelons of the Empire, but to be honest, I still hardly believe it, here is Talronde, lying across the vast ocean from Loren, yet you personally came all the way..."

"Mr. Modir, you may not fully understand your own uniqueness," Gawain interrupted before the other could finish speaking, "The ’anomalies’ happening to you are enough to make the leader of any member nation of the Commonwealth Alliance personally step in, and apart from that, you yourself are worth me coming over personally."

"Me?" Modir pointed to his own nose, a bit at a loss, "I’m just an ordinary old man, honestly I have some magic strength but apart from that, I possess no special skills, even my mind is often unclear..."

"You are a great adventurer," Gawain said solemnly, "Perhaps some things you’ve already forgotten, but the contributions you made to the human world, in my view, are no less significant than many pioneer heroes from my era. If Charlie the First had met you, he might have personally awarded you and toasted you."

Modir evidently did not expect to hear such an astounding evaluation from Gawain’s mouth — a standard compliment he could treat as polite rhetoric, but when Gawain compared him to Anzu’s founding monarch, the great adventurer was clearly deeply shocked. He stared in wide-eyed wonder, not knowing what expression to make, and after a long while only blurted out: "You... You’re saying the truth? I could have made such accomplishments back in the day?"

Gawain’s expression became serious; he stared into the eyes of the elderly man in front of him and nodded solemnly: "Absolutely."

He knew his words were rather unimaginable for an adventurer who had forgotten who he was, but he also knew that not a single sentence of his was exaggerated.

Modir Vealt, while seen as an irremediable madman and nontraditional oddball by aristocratic standards, is, from a pioneer’s and adventurer’s perspective, someone whose presence would warrant a full page in history books.

The outcome of his lifetime of adventure is innumerable, and among them, Gawain finds the most noteworthy and profoundly touching excerpt in Modir’s Travelogue— a passage he still vividly remembers to this day. It’s not about thrilling and dangerous expeditions to exotic lands, nor does it involve bizarre terrifying supernatural creatures or ancient legends; it contains just a single sentence that could be inscribed in history books — at the edge of the swamp north of Grey Mountain, I discovered tuber plants; the leaves are grey-green, cold-resistant, and robust. I believe they can be widely cultivated in cold zones, have already been taste-tested, and can sate hunger, being non-toxic.

Modir was active a hundred years after Anzu’s founding, but at that time, all of Anzu was built upon a wild unknown land, with its small initial population and the new magical system being slow to establish, leading to a nation that a century post-establishment still had many regions lying in the unknown. Many flora and fauna seemed unfamiliar and dangerous to humans then.

It is adventurers like Modir who measured the land with their feet, turning each inch of the unknown into safe havens for future generations amidst the primeval environment. Modir was undoubtedly the most outstanding one among them — centuries have since flown by, with the land once wild now filled with smoke and fire, and that Grey Leaf Potato briefly mentioned in Modir’s Travelogue now supports a quarter of the Cecil Empire’s grain supply.

Modir’s Travelogue holds many thrilling contents; the wondrous adventures are countless, alluring enough to capture the eyes of playwrights and bards, yet between those glorious Chapters, there’s more mundane documentation — where food can be found, where herbs grow, where mines lie, what non-human monsters ordinary armies can handle, what requires special tactics, forest distributions, river courses... He may not have embarked on his first adventure with a grand purpose, but that didn’t prevent his lifetime adventures from becoming a marvelous legacy.

However, this great adventurer has now forgotten all of that.

He doesn’t even remember the things he discovered, which were worthy of memory; he merely perceives himself as an adventurer, driven by this feeling to venture into one far-off place after another, then forget those adventures and set off again on new journeys...

Modir chuckled, still not knowing what earth-shattering deeds he accomplished back then, yet the fact even Gawain Cecil said so convinced him of its truth.

He received acknowledgment from the greatest pioneer hero and adventurer in the world.

"You are the greatest adventurer," the white-haired old man joyfully smiled, as if stating a truth to Gawain, "Perhaps I did achieve something back then, but I started my journey within the peace that pioneers established, while you blazed trails in the chaotic wave wastelands..."

That is the achievement of Gawain Cecil.

Gawain felt a touch of embarrassment and couldn’t help but shake his head: "That is all in the past."

"But even now you are on the path of pioneering," Modir seriously remarked, "The Commonwealth Alliance, the continental routes, the era of exchange and trade, as well as those schools, factories, and the Administrative Office... These are all your contributions. Your pioneering and adventuring continue, while I... I know deep down I’ve been standing still."

"No one is truly standing still; we all just pause for a bit midway in life’s journey, though everyone’s pause varies in length."

"...You’re right, a competent adventurer cannot afford to be too pessimistic," Modir blinked before looking downward at himself, "But what exactly has happened to me? My ’pause’ has lasted far too long..."

Gawain didn’t answer directly but instead turned towards Amber standing at his side and rear: "Have you found anything?"

Amber’s gaze fell on Modir, displaying a rarely seen seriousness; after a moment, she stepped forward half a step: "I do indeed sense a very, very faint connection with ’the other side,’ but some things remain uncertain. I need to conduct a test, old gentleman, please cooperate."

As she spoke, she lifted her hand, gently rubbing her fingertips.

A stream of grey-white sand appeared out of thin air, flowing down like water.