The Master of the Strange Realm

"Four? Isn't it three?"

"Sorry, adventurer, what did you say?"

"No, I didn't say anything. Okay, four monsters. Can you tell me their specific locations?"

Jenkins looked up at the castle, trying to distinguish the auras with his eyes, but looking outside, the black auras everywhere were all the same:

"Like you said, I actually don't want to break into other people's rooms."

Chapter 2134 Chapter 2103 Maps and Partners

"As a steward, I do have a map of the castle, but adventurers..."

The old butler finally stopped rubbing his hands, and instead made a gesture of twirling his fingers to Jenkins. Jenkins was stunned:

"Did I make a mistake? You are hiring me to 'clean' the castle. Why do I have to pay for the map?"

"You can choose not to use the map, but I want to remind you again that this castle is very dangerous."

After saying that, he rubbed his hands again. At this moment, this person was like the physical embodiment of the word "greed".

"Well, if I want the map, what do I have to give? Which is, what do you want?"

Jenkins thought the other party would want to ask for the crime coin.

"In addition to the intruding monsters, there are actually other troubles in the castle. If you want a map, you need to solve an additional trouble besides the four monsters."

The old man pointed to the castle:

"This old castle has a long history, and many rooms are not opened all year round. It is not because the servants who clean the rooms are lazy, but because some rooms cannot be opened."

"In other words, if you want a map, you have to increase the difficulty of passing through the treacherous environment. This is quite interesting."

He was thinking in his mind and asked again:

"So besides the map, can I get other help from you?"

"Of course, but to get help, you have to solve the trouble for me. Including the map, I can provide you with a total of three additional kinds of help."

"So three is here."

Jenkins muttered in his mind.

"To obtain the map, you need to enter the hidden room on the second floor of the castle and bring me a painting. Some of the servants in the castle also have combat capabilities. I can ask one of them to help you, but accordingly, You have to enter the tower on the right side of the castle and pick up the scarlet gem in the tower. In addition, as an additional reward for clearing the castle, in addition to telling you the way out, you can take out any item from the castle, and some rooms. It can't be opened unless you have my butler's 'master key'."

"As the steward here, you have a master key. Does your lord really trust you so much?"

Jenkins interjected.

"The so-called master key can only open a few fixed doors. And as the price of getting the key, you need to clean up the big spider in the basement. What do you think, do you need these help?"

"The map is convenient for exploration, the servants are additional help, and the keys can increase the reward for completing the level. At the same time, these help will also increase the difficulty of exploration...it becomes more and more like a role-playing game."

Jenkins thought in his mind and asked again:

"Before this, am I lucky enough to know the name of the lord here? Speaking of which, I am actually a descendant of a noble."

This is not a lie. As a descendant of the Middleton family, he is indeed a descendant of the aristocracy.

"No, you don't have the honor."

The old housekeeper resolutely refused, so Jenkins didn’t ask any more questions:

"Well, forget about the master key. I don't intend to offend the lord here. I need a map, and I need the help of a servant."

Jenkins believes that among the three help given by the old housekeeper, there will definitely be a trap set by the difference engine. Therefore, the easiest choices of "all of them" and "no of all" must not be chosen. Among the remaining options, theoretically speaking, what Jenkins needs the least is "servant's help", although he is worried about the possibility of setting traps. Guys would have thought of this too, but it's more likely that with Jenkins' intelligence it would have thought of it, so this one must be picked.

For the remaining two options, the map was required anyway, so the master key was rejected.

"No problem, but please note that if you cannot complete the two additional tasks, I will not tell you the way to leave."

As he spoke, the old butler first took out a brown parchment roll tied with a straw rope from his loose robe and handed it to Jenkins:

"This is the map."

Then he shouted into the darkness near the castle:

"Come here quickly."

Three humans with dull eyes came over, two men and one woman, and they didn't look like servants in appearance.

The oldest man wore typical priest robes, and the younger man wore leather armor and held a sword. He looked more like an adventurer than Jenkins.

And the remaining lady turned out to be an elf. She carries a beautiful blue long bow on her back. The bow is engraved with complex vine-like runes. Even in such low light conditions, the bow can emit little glimmers of light. Because she was an elf, Jenkins couldn't tell her age very well from her appearance, but at least she looked young.

"Are you sure these are servants of the castle?"

Jenkins suspected.

"Of course they are servants, but they were originally adventurers like you. Because they failed to complete the mission, they were left to eat."

"Are they all outsiders of the strange realm? But didn't Dad say a long time ago that the strange realm would collapse after being used once... I have experienced so many strange realms, and I understand that humans don't know anything about strange realms. Various strange realms are formed for different reasons. There should be repeatable ones like this, but because the interval between each appearance is too long, the church doesn't know anything about it."

Thinking of this, he nodded and asked:

"If I can't complete it..."

"You will stay too. Don't worry. The food here is very good. Which one do you want to choose as your partner? You can only choose one, and if you successfully complete the task, you can choose not to take the extra rewards in the castle, but take the partner you choose."

Jenkins looked at the three people one by one. The three of them were definitely not extraordinary people under the system of the gifter, so they had no ability points and could only judge their strength from the aura. The strongest among them was of course the man in the priest's robe, and the elf lady with the blue longbow was stronger than the young swordsman.

Considering Jenkins' own situation, he did not need additional healers and divine support, and he could also support close combat by himself.

"This one."

He pointed to the elf.

So the other two returned the same way and stepped into the impenetrable darkness again. The elf trembled suddenly, and finally there was a look in his lifeless eyes.

With a sharp creaking sound, the two iron doors of the castle that were originally tightly closed slowly opened in front of him. The old butler hunched over and made a gesture of invitation, but that expression looked malicious.

Jenkins looked at the elf lady. After she regained consciousness, her eyes were scattered as if she was recalling, but she quickly understood the current situation.

Chapter 2135 Chapter 2104 Castle Exploration

The elf lady carrying a longbow took a deep breath. After regaining consciousness, perhaps the long-term ignorance damaged her health. This deep breathing action made Jenkins very worried that she would faint because she couldn't breathe out.

Fortunately, she quickly adjusted her breathing frequency and turned to look at her companions on this trip, adventurers who broke into this damn place like herself before:

"Oh, half-elf!"

She said in surprise in Elvish.

The Elf Lady's Elvish language belongs to the more ancient one, and her voice is very gentle, with the feeling of a breeze blowing through the treetops. Maybe in the eyes of humans, the difference between half-elves and humans is not that big, but elves can always see through the identity of half-elves at a glance.

"Since we are of the same race, then I will tell you some things here..."

Her speech speed became faster and faster, and she gradually recovered her ability to speak, but she stopped talking halfway and looked at the young elf in front of her with a little doubt.

She smelled a strange smell, the smell of nature, the smell of her hometown. She was very familiar with that smell, and whenever she smelled this smell, her instinctive reaction was-

The Elf Lady bowed slightly to Jenkins. The bloodline of the World Tree Priest could not be distinguished by smell. After all, elves were not vampires, but another smell would not be wrong:

"World Tree, good day."

The name of the young elf girl was Leonie Syluff. When she entered the strange world, the elves had not even migrated from the material world to the world of flowers, which could also explain why her grammar was ancient.

Miss Sylph's last memory was that she failed to defeat the monster in the castle and died unexpectedly on the way. When she woke up again, the world tree that looked like a half-elf was already standing in front of her.

In fact, Jenkins was different from the original world tree, not to mention that his power was far weaker than the world tree itself at any time. In order to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, he also explained his situation, but Miss Elf didn't care:

"Since you are the second world tree recognized by the world tree, then to me, you are the world tree."

Before entering the tower, the world tree consciousness in the dream gave Jenkins a green leaf, which was enough to prove his identity, so no matter what he said, it didn't matter.

The elf Leonie Syluff knew about the end of the era. She was very surprised when she heard that the material world had reached the 18th era, but she adjusted her mentality and decided to help Jenkins:

"It's been so long... Since I can accompany you to move forward, please use my power. Maybe I can't go to the end with you, but even if I can help you a little, my life that should have fallen here has been rejuvenated."

The elves' respect for the world tree is beyond Jenkins' imagination, and when he confirmed that the other party was indeed an elf, he completely trusted Miss Leonie Syluff. In fact, he was more curious about what role the Lord of Flowers played in the eyes of the elves before they left the material world, but now was not a good opportunity to ask this question, and he didn't want to make his companions who were supposed to be traveling with him dissatisfied because of his curiosity.

What the elf Syluff experienced in the strange world about ten thousand years ago was almost exactly the same as what Jenkins encountered now. After entering the strange realm, he also met the old butler - at that time the old butler did not have a metal body structure. He also received the task of defeating four monsters and also received three additional helps.

However, of the three servants the elf faced at that time, only the oldest church member was the same as the one Jenkins had seen, and the young swordsman was someone the elf had never seen. In other words, the young swordsman should have entered here between Leonie Syluff and Jenkins, and then stayed here completely.

In the story of the elf Leonie Syluff, she was more cautious than Jenkins, and did not even choose a map, but only chose a companion. Miss Elf has a very powerful ability, and can track powerful "prey" even in the strange land. Of course, she also paid the price for her carelessness. Even though she successfully defeated the first three enemies, she lost her life when she was looking for the fourth enemy because she mistakenly entered a corridor that she should not have entered.

"If the content of the strange land has not been changed, then the first three enemies should be the Envy Banshee, the Arrogant Executioner, and the Heart of Wrath."

The elf said, but added:

"But it will definitely not be the same. The companion I chose at the time also provided information. He only defeated two enemies, but those two enemies were similar to the ones I encountered, but they were different."

"Will the locations of those enemies be different?"

Jenkins asked again.

"Yes, it will be different."

Hearing this, Jenkins opened the map in his hand. The map was hand-drawn, but it was quite detailed. Not only were there annotations, but there were also icons of various colors to indicate the location and danger of different rooms. The map depicted most of the terrain of the castle, and a small part was blackened and marked "unexplorable".

From the map, it looked more like a dungeon full of traps than a castle. Jenkins couldn't imagine what kind of person would set up a rolling stone trap and a pressure-triggered black powder trap in his own home.

"Go as soon as possible. You need to complete the task before the lord comes back, otherwise the lord's anger is not something I can bear."

The old housekeeper urged.

"Do you know the information of the lord here?"

Jenkins asked the elf again, and the latter shook her head. She died before the time limit was over.

"So when you came here, was there this moon in the sky?"

The elf raised her head in the direction of Jenkins' finger, groaned, and immediately lowered her head. Jenkins immediately reached out to help her calm her restless spirit, and then roughly understood:

"Oh, sorry, I forgot that you are different from me... You didn't have this when you came?"

"Yes."

The elf lady groaned in pain, but Jenkins' treatment was very effective, and the brief gaze did not cause her much harm:

"I really can't think of what this strange place has to do with the original moon. That should be the original moon, right? I only heard about it in childhood stories, a bright yellow moon~"

This at least proves that the so-called lord is not the moon-swallowing spirit cat, indicating that the fourth strange place will not be like the previous one, where there will be a real disaster beast.

After understanding the basic situation here, the two officially set off. The elf had no luggage besides the small bag hanging around his waist. Only the beautiful longbow was the most important weapon. It was a pity that the bow was not a numbered item, otherwise this trip might be easier.

The musty smell in the castle was stronger than outside, and the power of the shadow was stronger.

Standing in the hall, the two iron doors behind him closed with a harsh sound. Jenkins took out a candle for lighting, and the elf also took out a bottle from his bag. There seemed to be a firefly in the bottle, which could provide sufficient light.

The light from the candle and the bottle illuminated the road ahead. Jenkins and the elf looked up at the furnishings and paintings in the hall. The paintings were mostly covered with spider webs, and the visible areas were dark and dirty, and it was impossible to tell what was depicted in them.

"Let's go to the kitchen on the first floor first."

Jenkins pointed to the map and said:

"This is the closest place. I need to know the enemy's strength before I can make the next plan."

"The enemy is not strong, but very strange. They can not only affect the emotions and consciousness of adventurers like us, but also have some special abilities."

The elf lady explained, and then stretched out her slender finger to point to the map:

"There is more than one way to the kitchen. Which one should we choose?"

The castle is not a corridor connecting all the rooms, but a complex maze. There are not only rooms with unclear meanings such as "half-floor" between two floors, but sometimes to enter the room on the first floor, you need to go to the second floor first, and then go from the second floor to the first floor.

This is still the most basic terrain. From the map, there are even phantom walls here, and the specific location of the phantom walls is not marked at all, just indicating that such walls do exist.

"Let me see."

Jenkins looked at the "maze map" in his hand. The two were now in the center left of the first floor, and the kitchen was probably in the upper right corner. In order to avoid unnecessary battles, he first excluded some rooms that would encounter other monsters, and then removed some roads that looked unsafe, so there were not many options left.

"Why do I feel that finding monsters may be more difficult than defeating them."

Jenkins complained in a low voice, and then motioned the elf to follow him.

"Your feeling is completely correct. After all, I didn't die at the hands of monsters, but died on the road."

The elf had a regretful expression on his face, but he quickly adjusted.