The Castle in the middle of nowhere.

Ian whistled merrily, walking slowly through the meadow buried under the snow. Almost two months ago, he would have been exhausted after walking about ten metres in such snow. Now, he was unbothered by the snowdrifts, though they were taller than he was. Heavy footprints in the snow traced his path. He was walking, feeling lonely, but he was not alone. After a few trials and errors, they decided that the best course of action would be for him to go solo, but the stronger snow beasts were a hassle to fight alone, and waiting for the Flower Girls always took a bit too long, so they made a compromise. The archers and the trio of girls waited in the distance while in his shadow, ten shadow wolves hid.

Taming was fun as well. He just had to approach the creature and use his tame skill while touching it. Sneaking for a bit while approaching the wild buffalos was necessary. He was not a hunter or pathfinder, so it would be rather hard to find the woolly buffalos if not for the Avalon wolves. With them helping, however, it was almost too easy. Once they captured the scent, they moved from buffalo herd to buffalo herd without fail. As of now, Ian had managed to tame about thirty buffalos, which was nice, but he wanted even more of them. As a bonus, they managed to tame fifty-six ice rabbits. The girls liked them so much that they asked Ian if it was possible to domesticate them as pets. Well... He could do that, but they had to convince Ragnar to make them some kind of cage.

The cold wind changed its direction and blew straight into his face. Ian fixed his snow mask and his hat. The things that Wendy crafted blew his mind; she had created every single piece of clothing he was wearing, and they were all incredible. He was basically impervious to the cold. Two months ago, even in his wildest dreams, he would never have thought of having not only such clothing but also such incredible weapons. On his back was a falchion with a machete-like blade, which he could use with his skills since the World Worlds recognized this weapon as a machete, not as a sword, which it obviously was. King Theon gave Ragnar an entire list of different types of swords to forge, and, to their surprise, they fell under many categories. But... This was not his primary weapon.

He was an engineer. Smiling the thought of one of many of King Theon’s quotes, he drew his big compound crossbow and aimed at the lonely winter monster that wandered from the forest. He pressed the trigger, sending the bolt towards it, and murmured under his nose while the monster exploded, smearing its insides over the nearby vicinity.

"You are not a true engineer if you don't like your toys... Well... I love mine, Your Majesty."

He suddenly heard the most impossible sound in the middle of a snow-covered wasteland: a child's scream. He bolted towards the sound, and using his storage ring, he changed his compound crossbow to his smaller, repeating one as he drew the falchion from his back. Ian swiftly reached the forest edge and saw a six, maybe seven-year-old boy hiding behind a tree trunk. Near him were the frozen bodies of three adults who tried to create a shelter for the boy and four other children. Ian, without thinking, called the shadow wolves, but when they emerged from his shadow, they immediately attacked children and even the frozen adults. He couldn't move, frozen in terror, but just after a moment, Ian realised his stupidity when the illusion was broken. There were no people here, no children, no tragedy. It was just a very dangerous and rare strangler tree, a monster that baits its prey with illusions and strangles them with nooses made of vines.

"Ouh' ya. That was close..." He quickly jumped back, while one of the shadow wolves was not that lucky.

The wolf's rear paw was caught in a noose, which tightened rapidly. The tree sensed the danger and opened its trunk full of sharp wooden stakes and splinters. In an instant, the level 50 shadow wolf was pulled inside, and the tree closed its wooden maw on him, spraying the wolf's blood out of a few small hollows. Ian, still stepping back, gulped in fear and pulled out his bigger crossbow. At the same moment, a scorching hot fireball hit the strangler's tree, marking its trajectory with melted snow. It was Lilly's spell that ignited the monster, burning it from the roots up. The nine remaining shadow wolves fell back, and Ian jumped back for the first time, trying to separate himself from the danger. He aimed his crossbow anyway and squeezed the trigger, sending an explosive bolt into the inferno.

"Ian!? Are you all right?" The Flower Girls reached him a few moments later.

"Yes. Thank you, Lilly. That one was close." He looked at the cracked trunk that withstood the explosion. However, it had cracked nonetheless, and through that crack, Lilly's flames had reached inside the monster. Suddenly, the wooden maw started opening and closing in rapid succession, as if the strangler tree was trying to extinguish the scorching flames. A prolonged, high-pitched shriek pierced the air, forcing them to duck down to the ground and cover their ears. It lasted for about five minutes, causing excruciating pain that almost made them faint. They needed ten more minutes to recover as they looked at each other with pained expressions.

"What was that?" Rose asked in a near scream.

"That was a strangler tree," Ian replied.

"WHAT?!" Iris yelled. "I can't hear you!"

Ian focused his blurry vision and noticed a narrow stream of blood dripping from Iris's ears. He took out the runic scroll and quickly used it on Iris, who had been standing closest to the tree when it had started screaming. The scroll burned with golden flame as soon as he finished incantation, and a golden ray engulfed the women. The scroll was prepared by Queen Irene herself and contained an incredibly potent Regeneration spell. They had about ten such scrolls and were instructed to use them only in situations like this or life-threatening emergencies. Iris snapped out of her stun and looked around more attentively. After drinking five health potions, they sat in silence until the ringing in their ears stopped.

"Everyone ok?" Ian asked, slowly looking at the girls. "I'm so sorry. I should be more careful."

"What was that?" Asked Rose, looking at the burning husk.

"That was the strangler tree. A cursed monster that ambushes and kills everything that approaches it. It will even create illusions to lure unwary travellers to them," Ian explained as he went closer to the monster's corpse to look for loot. "Help me, girls. Somewhere nearby should be its loot chest. In my village, we had an old wizard who told me about them."

"I never heard about such a monster..." Lilly reluctantly stood up. "Wait!"

She raised her hands and hummed a pleasant melody. The snow melted under everyone's feet and the water droplets started rising in the air. The water formed an external armour that floated in the air a few centimetres from their bodies. Lilly was still in the middle of the casting as the armour she was creating became enchanted with her mana.

"AQUARACENA!" she exclaimed and clapped her hands. "All right... Now we can go. This armour will absorb most attacks, but it's not perfect, so watch out! With every hit it takes, the water in it will be dispersed, but it will rebuild itself by using the water around us. As long as there is water around, this armour is very potent. Also, forget about sneaking with it."

"Thank you, Lilly," Ian said, looking around at the Avalon knights who had started combing the area in search of more threats. "I learned about these monsters the hard way when a similar one killed my older sister when I was ten. The villagers managed to burn it as well, but as you can guess, it wasn't as easy as it is now, even with the help of that old wizard..."

"People?!" Iris was hunched over something in the bushes, ignoring Ian's tale almost completely.

"You found the chest?" Rose moved quickly towards Iris in surprise, summoning one of her tigers.

They approached her and saw a wooden hatch built into the ground. It was fairly big, two metres wide, and closed with a massive iron padlock. Ian tilted his head and carefully touched it. Nothing happened. He tried to use his engineering skills to assess the lock.

"It's a fairly high-level lock, but besides that, it's just a big, plain lump of metal," he said under his breath, clearly confused by the lack of any enhancements.

By the look of the girls, they were as surprised as he was. To be honest, it was suspicious. A powerful and dangerous monster attacked them, and then they found this. It was as if that strangler tree had been guarding this place. Ian took out his steel cutters from his spatial storage and tried to cut the padlock shackle. It gave up after a while with a *clang* and he was able to open the hatch. With a puff, he lifted the hatch to access what was inside. Four arrows struck his water armour, but nothing else attacked him.

"A trap?" Ian asked the air, looking into the darkness. "I think we will set up camp here... I'm curious what's there..."

Rose gave the signal for the fairies to come closer with the wagons. In the meantime, Ian affixed the hatch to the ground to make sure it would not somehow close itself. He made a crude torch and tossed it into the darkness after lighting it from the still-burning monster. The pit beneath the hatch was about ten metres deep. The torch illuminated a stone-tiled floor and a bit of wall made of the same type of stone.

"Ian... Are you doing this on purpose?" Rose asked, pointing at his Aquaracena, which started turning purple.

"You mean triggering traps?" He asked quickly, shaking off the poisoned part of the water armour on his arm.

"Yes?!" Iris looked at him with concern in her eyes.

"Oh... That's nothing really dangerous. I'm using my skill, which allows me to disarm any trap permanently. In addition, there is a 70% chance to make a triggered trap malfunction, and I can't be killed by any instant kill effects. However, I have to trigger them myself by stepping right into them." Ian grinned.

"Ummm... What about not instant lethal things? Like these arrows or poison? They still can kill you!" Lilly tilted her head and pointed her finger at him with an accusing gaze. "What do we tell Sally if you die on us? Oh, sorry Sally, Ian just wanted to disarm all traps by stepping on them?! She will kill us!"

"Hey! Trust me, okay?" He straightened up and looked at them reproachfully. "I'm an engineer!"

•••

It was a dark, empty cellar containing seven fairly big rooms. All except one were empty. Not exactly empty- every single room contained hundreds of traps. Each room you entered contained even more traps than the previous one. Mechanical and magical traps were placed literally at each step, and only Ian was able to disarm them by using his crazy skill.

"It’s as if these traps were meant to keep whatever there is inside..." Ian looked at the path he cleared and the Flower Girls that followed him. Behind them all, twenty skeleton knights of Avalon followed, holding torches to light the rooms.

"It's creepy here, Ian..." Rose shivered.

"I don't like it here either." Iris agreed and fixed the grip on her swords.

"We shouldn't be here..." Lilly raised her staff and shined a bright light at the ceiling, but nothing was there.

"You know what? I think I agree with all the above..." Ian was not that sure that exploring this place was a good idea anymore.

Some traps activated on their own after a set time, like one that almost boiled away all of Rose's Aquaracena in the previous room. It was a tedious and dangerous road, and they were not sure why they even bothered. They moved slowly forward anyway until a fairy arrived, flying at full speed, stopping them right in front of the next room. She was hovering in the air, careful to not touch anything.

"You must stop at once! Right behind me is a barrier meant to hold untold monstrosities. We shouldn't be here!" she yelled.

Suddenly a trap was activated and a strong gust of wind hit the fairy, like a hammer, throwing her right into the barrier that was broken and engulfing them all with incredible mana pressure. They were hit by the overwhelming stench of rotten corpses from inside the room. The Avalon knights dropped their torches and drew their swords in unison. A loud *click* sounded from all around them, which must have meant that every trap in the room was deactivated. The skeletons ran in front of Avalon residents, while two Fenrirs arrived in the room from the outside with four other fairies. Behind them entered Thor, who must have just returned from the meeting with the King.

"What's going on here?!" he yelled.

From Ian's shadow jumped out all nine remaining shadow wolves, who started snarling towards the entrance to the last room. Before anyone could answer Thor's question, the fairy who had warned them before flew out of the last room, screaming in terror as she hid behind one of Fenrirs. Right after the fairy, from the darkness emerged a disfigured hand with long talons that gripped the door frames. It was oozing something thick and black that reeked of death. The rest of the disfigured, once humanoid creature escaped the room that must have been its prison. It was easily two and a half metres tall, but its skeletal demeanour made it look quite weak.

The creature wore a black robe enchanted by some formidable runes of protection. Once, it could have been human or elf, but now its features had already faded away, leaving only dried lumps of skin over meat and patches of bare bones visible over its body. It wielded a strange, short wand, but when it emerged from the doorframe, still obscured by darkness, it transformed. The short wand was now the core of a staff made from pure darkness. The creature started coughing as it eyed everyone in front of it.

"An Elder Lich..." Thor sighed before snarling at the dark figure.

Thor's Frost and Power Auras clashed with the darkness of Lich, who boomed with prolonged, dry, and vile laughter. Ian decided to hell with this setup, replacing an explosive bolt with the consecrated bolt blessed by Saintess Irene herself. He aimed it at the chest of the monstrosity in front of him, and without waiting for anything, he pressed the trigger. The bolt hit its target with incredible power, illuminating the entire room with a gold light in the process. It embedded itself in the foul body of the monster, and golden-like veins started enveloping Lich, who dropped to its knees in terror.

"YOU?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

"Hmmm... Isn't that obvious? You are undead, so I'm using holy relics to fight you?" Ian said, activating the reloading rune on his big compound crossbow to set the crossbow string back to the firing position.

The lich, with a painful gasp, raised his hands, trying to conjure something, but the second bolt from Ian's crossbow hit his head. Instead of killing the creature, it just nicked a fragment of the skull, interrupting his casting. The deflected bolt flew deeper into the darkness and a sudden flash of holy light abruptly sealed whatever was inside. The flow of dark magic stopped, which made Lich look back. When he turned around, he was looking at the tip of yet another holy bolt behind which rested Ian’s clearly angry face.

"Now we can talk. Hands up, and don't try anything funny!"

Thor sighed and, with a short nod of his head, ordered the knights to enter the Lich’s lair. However, the Fenrir was very impressed by Ian. While the girls prepared very formidable defences, Ian's first instinct was to attack. Normally, he would fail at that because any Lich was an incredibly tough opponent. This Elder Lich was an even worse enemy to fight due to the sheer power it commanded at level 80. But Ian seemed to be ready for such an encounter since he had obtained very powerful, blessed bolts. Thor could only be impressed by the young Human since he had not only thought about obtaining different types of projectiles for his weapon, but attacked at the moment when the Lich was occupied with offence, not defence.

"Are you a prisoner or a guardian?" Thor snarled.

"What are you doing with puny mortals?!" The Lich asked Thor, making him even angrier.

"It's not your business. Respond to me now!"

"I was not a prisoner here..." The Lich replied begrudgingly, holding onto the bolt in his chest that started smoking.

"You don't seem to be powerful enough that someone would invest so much trouble into containing you here," Thor growled with anger.

"Humpf... If not for this holy weapon this mortal wields, you would all die! I'm Res'zael the Scourge!" the Lich proclaimed with pride, looking at the unimpressed people around him and the clearly bored Fenrir. "You must have heard of me..."

"No." Ian shrugged.

"Never..." Rose looked at Iris and Lilly.

"Sorry... Not even in fairytales." Iris shook her head.

"No..." Lilly shrugged as well, looking at the Lich.

"That's... Ekhem... That's not cool..." The Lich was clearly sad. He sighed and sat down near the wall. "I was the scourge of Cridia, you know? I was the sole hero who held the advancement of the dark tide, and what? I'm not even mentioned in the books? What do the Cridians teach their kids these days..."

"Hmmm... Who closed you in here?" Thor asked after a moment of silence.

"*Sigh* My Kitsune, Katia, who tried to protect me after a lost fight against the champions of this continent. She sealed this place and sacrificed herself to give me this undead form. That allowed me to fight the darkness in the future... But you destroyed me, soldiers of... The Righteous Dungeon?!" Lich was clearly shocked. "You are all serving a dungeon?! My Emperor has to learn of this!"

Res'zael quickly raised his hands, sending a dark bolt towards Ian, but his water armour absorbed it, vaporising it in the process completely. Without a second thought, Ian fired his crossbow, pinning the ancient hero to the wall. The Lich tried to move, but the smoke on both bolts changed to golden flames that started burning him. Thor tried to extinguish the flames with his ice and water magic, but his actions were in vain. Holy flames engulfed the Lich, who vanished with terrified screams, leaving only a few things behind. Thor sighed and looked at Ian dismissively.

"What? He was an enemy! You first shoot, and then you ask the questions! That's what the King said!" He tried to defend himself. "Besides, he shot me! I would have died if not for Lilly's magic!"

"Well... True... But I don't think that King Theon will be pleased with this outcome. That Lich might have been a very important source of knowledge." Thor sighed. "I must send an eagle with the report..."

"Let's return to Avalon for now, ok? I have to apologise to the King personally..." Ian sighed as well, recognizing his fault.

"Guys? You must see this..." Rose shouted, who had entered the Lich's lair.

•••

There were a lot of corpses in various stages of decomposition, and the stench was almost unbearable. When Ian, Thor, Iris, and Lilly entered the room, Ian and both of the girls almost puked. The girls covered their faces with scarves, but that helped only a little. Ian quickly used his second storage item, a pouch he had on his belt, and started storing all the bodies inside. After a few minutes, all the bodies were gone, and Lilly used wind magic to refresh the air in the chamber, which allowed them to join Rose. How Rose could bear that putrid smell was beyond anyone. She was standing in a smaller room with the mummified remains of a Kitsune who was donned in incredible armour, holding a staff in her hands. Right near her was placed a large, black grimoire.

Rose pointed at the large bookshelf full of various books. Some of them were magic books, and some looked much more mundane. On one shelf were stacked various scrolls made from more typical material than the scrolls from Avalon. However, for them, Avalon’s scrolls were normal, while these seemed so crude and impractical. Rose moved aside, took out a napkin, and cleaned her nose. A sudden change in her facial colours suggested she immediately regretted doing so, explaining her immunity to the stench. Near the bookshelf stood two big chests, most likely full of loot. Ian very carefully stored everything in his ring, hoping it would be enough to quench King Theon's anger for killing that Lich...

"How did she manage to lock the hatch with the padlock?" Ian asked suddenly.

"Now that you mention it..." Iris looked nervously around. The cold aura was still in the air, and she traced it to something that looked like a summoning or sacrifice circle in the previous room.

Four fairies flew over the circular structure, trying to identify it or read the enchantments placed on it, but judging by the sound of their frustrated voices, everything had failed so far. After a prolonged moment of debating, they used an incredibly powerful barrier skill that sealed the structure behind a wall of blue light. They proceeded to set up some alarm spells throughout the entire chamber. Lilly observed them in silence, and by her stiffness, everyone could tell how alert she was.

"We should seal this place for good," one fairy said, looking at Thor. "This is a summoning circle, but we can't figure out what it's supposed to summon."

"Wait... Lord Sigismund said that the Dark Empire waged war against this continent about three thousand years ago..." Lilly looked at the part of the room where previously the corpses were stacked.

"That's right." Rose, who had regained her colours, nodded.

"So how the hell were these corpses so fresh to rot? After three thousand years, they should have crumbled to dust long ago!" Iris stared in dread at the summoning circle.

"You think that Lich was summoning people to feed on them?" Ian looked at the fairy in terror.

"That's... Probable..." The fairy, as a dungeon monster, couldn’t see such an action as a bad thing, so she just shrugged.

"But that would be strange, as this circle has no origin point," a male fairy argued, pointing at the sealed circle.

"Dunno..." The previous fairy shrugged.

They all looked at the red, shining runes in silence. Whatever it was, it had to be sealed or destroyed. However, this was King Theon's decision and his only...