"THAT SHITTY KING!!!" - Garami

Revi nodded eagerly to my righteous roar. Good girl.

"Guild Master, please stay calm." - Iron

"How can I stay calm when we wasted so much time, effort, and Silver Keys on THIS!?" - Garami

The "study" was just the former king's hiding place for smutty books!! I should have known this would be the punchline when I saw the sorry state of the rest of the library, or at least when I was told about the king's muscle-headed nature!!

Hmm? What I'm doing with the books? Taking them home. This and that are two completely unrelated subjects.

"Enough! Let's change gears. Where else could some secret, evil plans be hatched in this castle?" - Garami

After swooping up all that was in the study, I took out the Kigal-Note and turned the pages over to where I had saved the map of the castle that we had found in the kitchen.

.........But to no luck!! Revi's memory is as foggy as ever, and Iron has never been in a castle before anyway. I'm no better, but I could at least theorize some secret villain HQs... No good. All I can come up with when it comes to such a thing in an ancient castle is the ancient castle itself.

"This is ridiculous. Hey, you two don't mind if we end the 'Search' mission and join the others in '&Destroy'?" - Garami

"Wait..., this location here seems suspicious." - Iron

Iron pointed at a piece of the copied map where the lines were strangely thicker than the rest. I didn't notice that part before, but what's the big scoop?

"Maps in Tir na Nog use thick lines to show areas that are inaccessible for the public." - Iron

"What public?" - Garami

"I have no idea. But that part of the map had traces of being altered recently, so some changes must have been made to that area. Should we go and confirm?" - Iron

Now this armor's started to think Nightmare Voyager-style~.

---

Some time and random encounters with undead soldiers later, we had arrived at the "inaccessible" location on the map. A large mansion-like building placed a little away from the castle, but still within the District's border. The wall separating us from the Silver Key District is right behind the building's back.

Hmm, for some reason, the memories of those copycat dolls and that gigantic drill machine that Iron and Mira destroyed return to me when I look at this mansion. I wonder why?

"Oh, this should be the guest house." - Revi

"You've been here before?" - Garami

"No. I was told to never set my foot in here..." - Revi

Ouch. This castle is like a minefield for bad memories for this gal. Let's try not to make too much small talk regarding stuff in this place.

"Let's move on from the old rules and focus on the present. Why would this place be an 'access denied' location for common people?" - Garami

"So to not disturb the guests?" - Iron

"And from just where did those guests come from?" - Garami

"...A valid point." - Iron

Small jokes aside, it is really weird. The guesthouse looks cleaner and orderly compared to the library or the garden. If it's like with the kitchen, it means that this place is in active use.

But the big question for today is: why? Did Iron's idea be right and they do have guests here? Or maybe there's some secret ritual chamber hidden underneath this place? That would explain why Revi wasn't allowed to enter this place. On a different note, is it possible for a 300-year-old ritual chamber to still be working today? Maybe they get better over time? Is the idea of a vintage chamber, like vintage wine, possible?

Nothing will come from us standing outside here, so let's move in. No traps, no traps..., good.

I snuck in on my own first, seeing as I'm the one with the most Scout-ish skill build, and went recognizing. The guesthouse... didn't look like what I imagined it. Nor do I think it looked like this before they renewed that map.

Lots of machinery covered the whole inside of the building. It feels like I've stepped out from a horror story filled with the undead into a steampunk adventure. Or, is it steampunk? On a closer look, it looks more sci-fi than steampunk, but it's half-assed. It's as if the inventor didn't have all the parts they needed so they had to rely on an older type of technology to get by.

Despite all the gizmos, there aren't any anti-intruder traps. Well, obviously. It's a pain getting into the castle in the first place, so why need to go for the overkill in home security?

Before I called on the other two, I went a little further into the labyrinth of steamy gadgets. I'm hearing some voices I'm afraid that I might recognize...

I entered a large room that seemed to have been hastily rebuilt recently. There are traces of walls having been knocked down to increase the room's area to fit the gigantic machines. The whole guesthouse building has been repurposed into a small factory for robotic parts! And at the other end of the building, there were a pair of shadows working on the machines.

"****ing so-called princess!! She's a ****ing sweatshop manager, that's what she is!!" - Black Baron

Called it. Stupid me.

The Black Baron and his mechanical goons are here. The thin sticky-man bot, I think his name was "Scarecrow" or something", along with what looks like a humanoid power armor made out of silver is plugged into a charging station. I think that's what it is. Or whatever else you could call a crazy-looking steampunk-ish machine with Tesla coils attached to it.

"Boss, you should not curse out so loudly. What if Queen na Nog hears you?" - Breaker

That wheel-looking robot buddy isn't on the charger though. Are they using a shift system?

"Bah! Why should the great me worry about that lumping pile of rotten meat!? Gah, I hate myself for accepting that slavedriver's request!" - Black Baron

"Not much we can do about it now, boss. It was us who decided to flee into that tunnel when we crash-landed in the middle of that snake pit." - Breaker

"How should I know that the parts YOU THREE had gathered would be so useless!?" - Black Baron

A-ha~. I was starting to wonder what happened to these guys after the event with Glavras, but now I have a pretty good idea of their story. Time-wise, it would be possible for them to have arrived at this island at the new moon before the current one, so it does make sense. Wow, it's been that long now? I've been so busy lately that I didn't notice.

Anyway, these guys seem to be close to slaves in how they're forced to build machines for this "lumping pile of rotten meat". From what I can gather, it sounds like the princess who made Revi's life so miserable is still on the island and up to no good even now.

I should think about making her breathe her last if she's still capable of that. But for now, I gotta kick these guys out of town while I still can.

It's just guesswork, but those copycat dolls and that giant drill machine may have been the works of the Black Baron. The copycats I have no idea why the "princess" ordered, some part of me suspects she just wanted to use Revi's [Envy] skill for her gain, but the goal behind the drill robot is easy to deduce.

Expansion. The train tunnel between this island and Tree Sea Isle was old, so it's prolly nothing I should suspect these guys for having a hand in, but if the "princess" wished to travel to other islands, or worse, to Velantas with her undead horde...

*Brr*, that's a nasty thought. Yeah, let's beat these guys black and blue, then go for her royal pain-in-the-ass.

Should I go and ask Iron and Revi for help? Nah. Those two are strong, but a straightforward confrontation with these guys could turn dirty. They're robots, so guns and bullets are for certain. What if a stray shot hit Revi!?

Therefore, assassination is the way to go.

But who to aim for first? My first pick would be the Baron, but my gut's telling me that the silver robot is more dangerous. And since it's so conveniently connected to an ultra-charged charging station, let's see if some sabotage could give him some real voltage to his circuitry. Sneaky-sneaky~...

The charging station is placed luckily far away from where the Baron is working right now, so I could sneak to it without being detected. On my way, I came across the Baron's deskwork. And it's one messy desk! There are lots of blueprints here that I don't think anyone could ever make sense of. Oh, there's another map and some notes of it. Sweet~. Clues are always welcome.

The Baron and his wheel-shaped friend are still too busy to notice me, plus their lack of traps coming from their belief that nobody could enter the castle (strange there's been no alarm active despite Filyn's rampage) is making my job easy enough. It's so easy that I'm starting to grow paranoid. Okay, where is the "Sabotage the Electrical Charger for Dummies" manual? There are none? Eh, I'll just mess around with these buttons and cables.

*Bzz*, *zap*...

Oh, that sounds promising. Not to mention treacherous. Let's watch the fireworks from a safe distance.

"Hmm? Geh!? B-boss! The aether recharger is short-circuiting!" - Breaker

"What are you babbling about? I'm the one who created that piece of junk! It would never malfunction..., holy bolts!! It's not short-circuiting!! This feels more like it's long-circuiting!!" - Black Baron

"Jokes will not assist in calming down this situation, boss!" - Breaker

......This is starting to look electrifying, so I'm out of here!

---

"Welcome back. How did things look like inside?" - Iron

"Sparky, so we're leaving!" - Garami

"-!?!?!?" - Revi

After I exited the guesthouse and webbed the entrance door shut, I swooped up Revi in my arms and carried her away in princess-style while fleeing from the guesthouse that was starting to emit sparks all over the place. Iron looked perplexed but snapped out of it in a jiffy and ran like a man possessed.

*BOOOOOM!!*

And there goes the mansion! The guesthouse disappeared in what could be best described as an "explosion made out of electricity". I thought that me and machines went hand-to-hand. I never busted one of my game consoles back in my previous life..., I think.

"...A shooting star." - Revi

Revi pointed to the sky in a daze, where a light trail coming from the mansion glowed in the sky. The other end of the trail leads right into the night dome that was covering the island. Seeing how I didn't get any EXP, I guess the Baron and his mechanical friends somehow survived and fled. The light trail seems to be some sort of electrical energy that was left behind by their escape. Or perhaps the "explosion" somehow chased them as they fled?

In any case, whether they managed to bypass the barrier or got squashed when they collided with it, I don't think we have to worry about them from now on. The mayor of the Village District said it was easy enough to exit the city from the barrier, even if breaking into the city is practically impossible, so I'm afraid those guys survived. Tch. That silver robot looked like he could score me some sweet EXP...

Hmm? Wait, then the Baron didn't leave any men(?) behind? Weird. I imagined him as some sort of yellow-bellied crook who would easily leave his men to die if it helped him to survive. Eh, whatever.

For now, I managed to obtain all these documents. It seems like the Black Baron did some research on the castle on his own. If his whines are to be trusted, he must have planned some sort of revenge on the lord, er, "lady" of this castle. And now I have all his paperwork on it, and probably some more.

"You two, we need some cover. That flashy light show is bound to attract more undead, so let's find a place to hide. I got some possible clues on how to conquer this castle." - Garami

"Is that true!?" - Revi

"Yup. Oh, that's right. Revi, you have the most knowledge regarding this castle than everyone else combined, even if it's VERY old knowledge. I'll be relying on you for cross-referencing this stuff." - Garami

"Y-yes! Leave it to me!" - Revi

Hmm...for some reason, I'm feeling extremely reassured..., not.