Regnum Aetern: Dual Rebirth

Adrian called out.

"Alisardarc."

The moment he did, mana condensed above his shoulder and materialized into a black bird.

Seeing this, Xion tilted his head.

"An Eternarch? I didn’t know you had one."

Saria had a curious expression on her face. Meanwhile, Evangeline’s eyes widened in realization.

"Ah, right, why didn’t I think of this?"

Adrian glanced at the bird and commanded in his usual tone.

"I want you to scout this island. You can use as many incarnations as you need."

Hearing his command, the bird flew away, disappearing into ‌the distance.

’Alisardarc might not be too useful in combat, but the bird really has a lot of other uses.’

The black bird was the perfect scout in these kinds of situations. Being an eternarch, it couldn’t die under any circumstances. So even if it was attacked, the only loss Adrian would suffer would be a small amount of his mana that went into creating that incarnation.

Moreover, Alisardarc’s ability to divide itself into multiple incarnations made scouting a large area even easier.

They waited by the coast for about half an hour before one incarnation returned.

Adrian looked at the bird sitting on his shoulder.

"So? What did you find?"

The bird scratched its neck with its beak.

[There are a lot of things that I have found. In all honesty, this place is a lot weirder than you think.]

All four of them furrowed their brows as they heard that.

Adrian asked in a somewhat serious tone.

"What exactly did you find?"

[This island is quite big, about the size of a small kingdom. And although it looks to be filled with trees and vegetation, it’s actually filled with stone buildings of ancient architecture. There is even a large castle in the middle of the island. Of course, I found no signs of any humans or humanoid races still inhabiting this place. In fact, the buildings aside from the castle look to be on the verge of crumbling, as though left untouched for hundreds of years.]

’I see...’

So, if Adrian were to summarize the information, it would mean that this island had once been a kingdom where people had lived. But there was no sign of them now, which suggested that either they abandoned this place for whatever reason and migrated, or something happened to them.

Saria frowned.

"We already knew that there was a high chance that people had once inhabited this island. In fact, we had chosen this island specifically for that reason, so what is so strange about that?"

Alisardarc scratched its wings with its beak.

[The strange thing about it is that the castle in the middle has a presence. Oh, make no mistake, it’s not some living being pretending to be the castle.]

Adrian paused.

’Not a living being, but has a presence...’

There was only one explanation for this.

Xion muttered.

"The castle is a fragment relic of at least Grade Two..."

Indeed. Grade Two fragment relics had their own mana reserves, which meant they also had a presence. But for an entire castle to be a Grade Two fragment relic....

’Either this place had been abandoned for quite a long time, or that castle had been a fragment relic even when this island was a kingdom filled with people.’

Adrian took a deep breath and looked at his teammates.

"I believe we should head into the island and have a look ourselves." He turned to Alisardarc. "What about beasts or monsters? Did you find anything?"

The bird nodded.

[I detected a lot of presences that supposedly belonged to Phase One creatures. There was only one noteworthy presence I picked up, which seemed to belong to a Phase Four being. And it’s near the castle.]

’Only one Phase Four... It didn’t mention anything about Phase Three and Phase Two either.’

If this were true, then they would have a far easier time exploring the island than he had initially imagined.

Saria glanced at the forest, as though trying to peer into the distance, and calmly stated.

"I believe we should take down the Phase Four threat first. We will then have an easier time exploring the island and won’t have to worry about being attacked. And since it’s near the castle, we will be able to inspect that as well."

Xion and Evangeline nodded in agreement.

"That’s right, we really should deal with the threat first."

"Indeed, then we will be able to explore at leisure."

Adrian nodded.

"Fine, it’s decided then. We will go and kill the Phase Four creature first."

With that, they entered the dense forest.

Alisardarc flew ahead, guiding their way. And they followed the bird while staying on guard for any possible attacks. After all, just because they couldn’t detect a threat didn’t mean that there was no threat at all.

As they walked further into the maze of trees, they finally saw it.

Houses made entirely of grey stone. Their structure was rather different from the houses in the empire. The building had a flat roof that extended in all directions like an umbrella. Four stone pillars were on the four sides of the building at a tilted angle, as if to keep the building from falling in any direction and keep it in place.

The houses were filled with small and large cracks. Weeds and saplings were growing out of those cracks, widening them further. The state of those houses was a rather telling sign of the hundreds of years they had endured in abandonment.

The deeper they went, the more of those buildings they saw, until they were finally inside an abandoned city.

The streets of the city were made entirely of stone bricks. They even spotted sewage systems near the buildings. The buildings were rather organized, as if planned. The city was also covered in vegetation and looked extremely worn down by the passage of time, but it was relatively less worn down compared to the houses and buildings they had seen on their way here.

Adrian scanned the city with a thoughtful look on his face.

"Hmm... if we leave aside the primitive aspects of the city, then this kingdom must’ve been rather prosperous in the past."

Xion nodded from the side.

"Indeed. I am quite fascinated that they were able to build all this on an island in the middle of the sea. I mean, where did they get all the materials from? Based on the writings I have spotted here and there, it seemed that they used the ancient language as their mother tongue, which would suggest that this kingdom may even be a thousand years old."

"You might be right." Saria joined their discussion. "Based on what I learned in the academy, the Era of Terror was the time when the ancient language was ‌most prevalent. Maybe some of the humanoid races had decided to flee from the continent in order to escape the tyranny of the mythical rulers and ended up on this island. Here, they established the kingdom that we see now."

Evangeline giggled from the side.

"Wow, it’s like Saria has become a completely different person since we arrived on this island."

"I told you before, didn’t I?" The duke’s daughter frowned. "I hate it when weaklings drag me down. And I would hate it more if I were to become someone who drags others down, because that would make me no different from those weaklings."

And so, they moved forward, guided by the black bird.

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