Green took the hand Integar offered him.
“Was I unconscious for two hours?”
“Only one hour. I felt uneasy, so I came down early. I didn’t think I should sit by and watch you enter such a dangerous place alone.”
Integar pulled Green up. His gaze fell upon the bark scroll in the other man’s hand; anyone with even a modicum of strength could not ignore the foul aura emanating from it.
Green had indeed come down here to retrieve a dangerous item.
“How do you plan to handle that dangerous artifact?” Integar asked.
“I’m taking it away so it doesn’t become a breeding ground for plague here. I’ll keep it until I can deliver it to someone I trust for proper safekeeping.”
Green had to take this item. Aside from the system’s task requirements, this was the source of a future plague—a dangerous artifact that could be exploited by those with ulterior motives.
“I plan to leave the royal city next and resign from my job as a guard.”
Integar nodded. He then showed Green a gray, palm-sized crystal and spoke. “I saw an undead-like monster at the entrance when I came down. I got this after killing it.”
“That is an Undead Gem. Its grade is at least rare, valued at about 200 gold coins. If you need travel expenses, you can choose to sell it at the Chamber of Commerce. The price won’t be lower than that.”
“It’s of no help to me,” Green added, worried Integar might try to give it to him.
Integar indeed had that thought flash through his mind. He was grateful to Green, but he had nothing else to give him.
The armor he wore belonged to the royal family, and his strength belonged to Prince Suclan. Originally, he had been nothing more than an ordinary man.
Integar withdrew the gem, but after a moment’s thought, he tossed it to Green.
“Please help me sell it and donate the money to others in need. I can earn my travel expenses for leaving the city by taking on commissions.”
Green had no reason to refuse this simple request. Afterward, Integar led the way, clearing the path as the two of them returned to the surface.
Only after reaching the surface did Green feel the strength flowing through his body again.
This was the result even after he had used an item with mental protection effects in advance, warned by the system. If he hadn’t taken the risk, the ritual beneath that cursed artifact would have eventually caused tens of thousands of casualties.
Green could harbor hatred toward Dolores and Silverbell, but that hatred would not be projected onto unrelated people.
Since he had seen it, he could not remain indifferent.
Next, Integar bid him farewell. He planned to try his luck at the remaining sinkholes in the city, clearing monsters along the way and continuing to search for survivors.
As he left, Integar handed a crude holy emblem to Green as a gift.
It was made entirely of brass, triangular in shape, and engraved with the symbol of the Holy Church.
Integar held it in his palm and bumped Green’s chest with his fist.
“May the gods bless you,” he said.
He let go, and Green caught the emblem.
Green tucked it away carefully. Neither of them mentioned the fact that Integar had saved him.
After all, in the weakened state Green had been in upon waking, it would have been difficult for him to handle that undead monster.
Green could tell that Integar didn’t want anything from him.
Integar wasn’t a bad person; one could even say he was a bit too kind.
From their very first conversation, Green could sense that the man might have self-destructive tendencies due to his sister’s death. Green couldn’t persuade him otherwise, so he could only pray that Integar would eventually find peace.
If a powerhouse close to the Transcendent stage harbored malice, it would only make the royal city’s current situation worse.
But if he possessed goodwill, he could give this battered city a chance to breathe.
After all, Integar alone was enough to handle the monsters in several of the sinkholes.
—
Green leaned against the wreckage of a building, thinking about his next move.
He began to consolidate the information currently in his hands.
His purpose for coming to this sinkhole was completely fulfilled. Even though Integar had performed the kill, the task [Undead of the Kingdom of Eli]—which increased Dolores’s favorability—was counted as completed by Green.
The favorability reward had brought Dolores’s favorability to 80 points, reaching the [Like] stage.
From this, a new favorability task was derived:
[Dolores Favorability Task: (Like)]
Task Requirement: Kiss Dolores and receive a sincere “I love you” as a response.
Task Reward: Unlock favorability stage [Beyond Words] (100), Dolores [Repentance] Memory ×1, Dolores Like stage favorability ×10.
Furthermore, to Green’s surprise, the [Punishment] memory had not disappeared. Instead, it was displayed as (1/3), with a cooldown time of 23:35.
In other words, in another day’s time, he could enter that memory again. He could enter this specific memory a total of three times.
Dolores’s every move in that memory had delivered such a powerful shock to Green that he had temporarily ignored a large number of details about her.
‘If the Dolores in that memory really is the Dolores from my past life, then she has the same thoughts as her.’
As he revisited scenes from more than thirty years ago, past memories began to resurface in Green’s mind.
His memories were almost entirely filled with Dolores’s gentle appearance. With the passage of time and the matter of her betrayal, Green had nearly forgotten what Dolores was like at the very beginning.
She was a child more assertive than he was. His romantic journey with Dolores hadn’t been smooth at first either; she had displayed a mysterious resistance to his advances.
According to Dolores’s own answer, she loved him because she had overcome her inner barriers.
It had taken Green five years to marry Dolores. For four of those years, Dolores had been “overcoming” those so-called inner barriers. Once they were together, the time it took for Green to gain her father’s approval was almost identical to the time she took to accept him.
During their travels of nearly forty years, it was almost always Dolores who strategized for him, planning their adventures and battles… The only time she had ever made mistakes was when it involved other women.
Looking at it now, those might have even been intentional acts on her part.
When the gentle filter was torn away and he reviewed Dolores’s past behaviors, it wasn’t hard for Green to realize that she was actually intelligent and capable.
She didn’t just plan itineraries or handle clothing, food, and shelter during their travels. Nor did she only comfort him with words and her body when he was injured.
In many dangerous situations—perilous places they had fallen into because of him—Dolores had the ability to back him up and lead him out.
After the underwater city of Meleresgren, Dolores had gradually ceased these proactive behaviors. The impression she left on him was mostly just gentleness.
“Dearest, I’ve never had any talent, so I can’t lose it,” Dolores had comforted Green like that when they left the underwater city.
Dolores must have been lying when she said that.
Green had always viewed Dolores through a thick filter of a “virtuous wife.” Now that he had doubts, he suddenly realized that Dolores wasn’t some decorative vase or a wife who only knew how to comfort him.
She was even smarter than he was; she had simply fulfilled the duties of a wife since their marriage.
But if she loved him that much, her betrayal couldn’t have been a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was premeditated.
As early as thirty or forty years ago, she already knew everything that would happen today…
Green’s hands began to tremble. He found this fact difficult to accept.
He didn’t want the Dolores in the memory to tell him any clues or nonsensical words about the future, betrayal, or systems.
He would have preferred it if the Dolores in his memories remained the gentle wife who knew nothing and understood nothing.
He wished this perfect filter would never shatter.
The current Dolores no longer had this filter, and the Dolores who had accompanied him for decades had also lost the filter he had relied on to comfort his soul…
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The Dolores of old knew something was going on.