Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 1799 1771. Old Man's Palace
"So," Lan said to a bald old man standing outside of Pestus the next morning, "the key to the labyrinth that Swordfish mentioned, which is a stone disk, is in your hand?"

Pestos was a prosperous village that almost had the potential to develop into a town. There was even a small theater in the village.

But as the Peloponnesian War continued and tensions escalated, the place was looted and burned.

Now, all that remains in the village are the ruins that have not been burned down but have been blackened by smoke.

Human corpses, old and new, were scattered throughout the ruins.

The older bodies were those of locals who had been burned in looting and fires long ago.

As for the relatively new corpses... they were really fresh, because Lan En had just killed a dozen or so cult guards stationed here half an hour ago.

The bodies lying on the ground, the blood flowing from the old man's mask, had not yet attracted the flies.

The cult guards set up camp in the small theater, the only relatively intact building in Pestus, as a sheltered camp.

When Lan En had dealt with the small group of cult guards, he searched almost every place in the camp and every corpse's belongings, but he could not find the round stone plate that matched Swordfish's description.

Instead, two captives captured by the cult guards attracted his attention.

Two people were tied to a pillar with iron chains. One of them had been dead for several days and his body was stinking.

Another bald old man was frightened at first when he saw Lan En's killing, but then he saw that he seemed to only target the cult guards and had no ill will towards him, so he immediately realized that he was a savior.

He quickly called out to Lan En after he had dealt with the dozen or so people.

"I thought he had the disc, but after all this fuss, he just caught you?"

"His brain has been damaged by fear," the bald old man took the water bag given by Lan En and swallowed it in big gulps, "Gulp~ I guess he thought that catching me is equivalent to mastering the stone plate."

"So, who are you...?" Lan En stretched out his hand, motioning for the other party to introduce himself.

"I was originally a servant of the adventurer Nikios, and also his friend." The bald old man put down the water bag and sighed, "Ever since he died in the Minotaur's Labyrinth, I have been taking care of his son."

Nikios was the leader of the expedition that Swordfish participated in.

"Did they really find the Minotaur's Labyrinth? Just like in the story?" Lan En was very interested. "What is going on in there?"

The bald old man looked at the demon hunter deeply and said, "Ah, you also crave honor and fame, right warrior? Yes, who can refuse that?"

"But I want to tell you: the last adventure of the great adventurer Nikios was not false. There is only death in that maze!"

Lan En was not surprised by this. Even an ordinary demon hunter would be used to hearing such statements when accepting missions. Not to mention him.

"Were you present at that adventure?"

"Yes, or maybe not. It's under the ruins of an ancient palace in Messara." The bald old man looked depressed. "I'm neither stupid nor crazy, so I didn't go down at all. I just waited on top of the ruins. Nikios asked me to take care of his son."

"I was up there praying, and then I heard... the Minotaur! Two of the team ran out, one of them was the damned swordfish, but Nikios... oh, gods."

"But in my opinion, can Swordfish really be considered to have 'escaped'? Haha."

The bald old man was captured by Swordfish. It has been more than two years since that adventure, and he probably knows that Swordfish's mental state was abnormal before.

"I did secretly take the stone disc that was left unattended after the expedition team escaped."

Since he already knew Lan En's purpose, the bald old man had nothing to hide and just told everything.

In fact, Lan En was even relieved when he saw him. He had refused to go under the ruins of the ancient palace when he was in the expedition team, and now he had no such idea. The stone plate as the key was even a thorny problem in his mind.

Lan En saw through his thoughts, so he simply reached out to him and motioned for him to hand over the stone plate.

But the bald old man looked at Lan En's outstretched hand and pursed his lips: "Now... the stone plate is not in my hands. Otherwise, these people would have taken it away long ago."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Lan En stretched out his finger and scratched his chin, sighing, "You're not going to tell me where you put the stone disc, and then I have to solve the problem in that place before I can get the stone disc?"

As for serial quests, he had seen quite a few of them when he was still working on commissions for demon hunters.

Life is not easy, and everyone wants to find someone capable of solving their problems, so naturally they will use the opportunity as soon as they find it.

But since landing on Crete, Lan went all the way to the port of Pephka, then to the town, and then rushed to the cult guard stronghold of Zakros to rescue people.

After that, I got the information to determine the location, went north to the lighthouse pointing to the fishing port to find the "Swordfish", and learned the location of the stone plate from him when he was dying... Aren't you all a little too much?
Lan En was somewhat speechless, but the bald old man looked at him strangely.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He shook his head. "I mean the stone disk should be at the ruins of the ancient palace in Messara."

"Huh?" Lan En looked at him in surprise, "You hid there at that time?"

"I didn't hide it." The bald old man continued to shake his head, "It was Nikios's child... I have been taking care of him since his father died. He kept asking me about his father. But what can I say?"

"Do you want me to tell him in person that the person he admired the most, his only relative, his father, had died in the Minotaur's labyrinth, with his body torn to pieces?"

The old man took a deep breath and said, "I can't tell him about his father. He may hate me because of this. Two months ago, he stole some things from me and ran to the ruins to set up camp and live on his own."

"So, the stone disc was among the things he stole?" Lan En understood clearly. He patted the old man on the shoulder and said, "But it's not your fault, man."

"Aldous has no idea what he stole." The bald old man grabbed Lan's hand that was patting his shoulder and said earnestly, "You can go to the palace ruins to find him and get the stone plate."

"But I only ask you not to let him go with you! Preventing Aldous from getting into danger like his father is the last thing I can do for my old friend Nikios!"

Aldos appears to be the name of the son of the adventurer Nikeus.

"I have no reason not to agree to you, don't worry."

Lan's sincerity and smile made the exhausted bald old man feel trustful.

He kept thanking Lan and told the witcher the location of the palace ruins, which was quite conspicuous, saving Lan some effort.
-
Head west from the Pephka region of Crete to Messara.

Logically speaking, the Minotaur legend should have its roots in the Mesara region.

However, after the trip to the maze, Swordfish was frightened by the supernatural things and only dared to hide under the pointing lighthouse of Pefka. All the fraud business was carried out in the Pefka area.

In a short time, the legend of the Minotaur of Pefka became famous, and it seemed to be confusing the collective cognition of the Greeks.

Today is a sunny day with bright sunshine, which is common on the Mediterranean coast.

Although the ground in Messala is still mostly khaki due to its latitude, green shrubs and colorful flowers can be seen from time to time.

Lan En crossed the hills and finally headed west to the palace ruins that the bald old man had mentioned.

"Knossos." The demon hunter walked into the ruins, looked around and nodded, "The palace of King Minos in the legend."

There are still many ancient monuments in Greece at this time. In Lan's opinion, the style of this palace ruins is not much different from other ruins.

"Are you willing to go down and kill the Minotaur?!" A little boy looked up at Lan who came to find him with an incredulous expression. "I mean... wow!"

Halfway through his speech, he was still a little bit incredulous.

Just as the bald old man said, Aldous came to live in the ruins of the ancient palace. He built a small tent for himself among the ruins of the palace.

Lan En looked at him and thought that he looked a lot like the little tour guide that Pefka wanted to knock out, and also a lot like Phoebe back then.

Maybe most of the children in the Aegean Sea at this time are not much different.

They were tanned and thin by the sun, but their eyebrows were thick and their eyes were sharp. They wore a short skirt made of a piece of linen with three holes cut in it and tied with a belt.

"Of course, of course." Lan En scratched his head and briefly told him how much effort he had put in to find you. "I found the swordfish and the old man who took care of you. They said that the key must be inserted into the stone tablet to open the door to the maze."

"If it weren't for the Minotaur, no one would spend so much energy for nothing, boy."

"Wait, I know where the stone tablet is." Aldous looked confused, "But the key you mentioned is...?"

"A stone plate." Lan En saw that he really didn't know what he had stolen, so he reminded him, "You stole it from that old man."

"Oh!"

The little boy suddenly realized what was going on, and immediately turned around and started rummaging through the drawers in his little tent.

He pulled out a round plate the size of a plate and turned to hand it to Lan.

The demon hunter took it and flipped it over, and found that it was about three centimeters thick. If it was made of stone, then Aldous would not have been able to hand it over with one hand like he did just now.

(End of this chapter)