Our Family Has Fallen

"Then why are you keeping her around?" Grendel rarely heard Lance evaluate someone like this, which only made her more curious.

"We’ll be needing her professional skills soon. She might be able to help us."

Lance tossed out the sentence casually, but it sent Grendel into deep thought.

Grendel just stood by the door, watching Lance finish everything. Only when he came out did she finally ask the question she’d been mulling over.

"You plan to take her down into the dungeon?"

Grendel wasn’t just talking nonsense. If the Beast Lair hadn’t been fully dealt with, she would have assumed Lance wanted to use this Tomb Robber to explore it and make use of her skills.

But now, after several rounds of brutal fighting, the Beast Lair had long since been cleared. In all of Hamlet, the only place left where she could really shine was the legendary dungeon.

Grendel knew a little more than the others. From Lance, she’d learned that the Ascension Sect had occupied the old manor, building a complex dungeon beneath it as the site for their world-ending ritual.

Right now in Hamlet, that was the only place that matched what he’d just said about using the Tomb Robber’s professional skills.

Which meant Lance was about to make his move...

On this, Lance hesitated a little, as if torn about something.

His memories were slowly fading; he could no longer clearly recall much about the Dark Dungeon beneath that old manor.

But Lance still vaguely remembered that when they finally confronted the Ancestor, there were lethal mechanisms; the squad that went deep into the dungeon, facing the Ancestor’s death throes, had to push two people out to die.

Lance couldn’t possibly send real teammates to their deaths. But if he had to put someone like Audrey through the wringer, he wouldn’t feel much psychological burden.

Still, Grendel’s words did remind him of a few things.

In the game, you could use two teammates’ lives to buy time.

But this was reality, not a game. Was it really going to be that simple?

Lance remembered that deep in the dungeon were all kinds of secrets about the Ancestor, the family, and this world.

If the Ancestor revealed the truth to those people, wouldn’t that strip him bare?

Lance started weighing whether he should kill everyone who went into the dungeon with him, or go in alone...

"What’s wrong?" Seeing Lance slip into a daze, Grendel couldn’t help asking softly.

"What’s coming next is going to be a hell of a fight~" Lance suddenly sighed, sounding a bit inexplicable.

"I’ll always be by your side, no matter what happens."

Grendel had no idea what Lance was agonizing over, but she had already made her choice, same as always.

Such a solemn statement caught Lance off guard. Realizing he’d let something show, he could only smile and take her hand to soothe her.

"It’s fine. What I mean is, this kind of case showing up is only the beginning. The real hard battle is how Hamlet’s going to handle the impact of more and more adventurers.

Right now the Ascension Sect can’t really stir up any big waves. Wiping them out is just a matter of time."

Lance smoothly diverted the topic, turning his worry about delving into the dungeon to face the Ancestor into concern over Hamlet’s ability to govern.

He was the real master at playing dumb.

Grendel didn’t say anything more, nor did she bring up the dungeon again. Call her stupid or call her smart, it didn’t matter anymore.

They were both masters at playing dumb. It was just a pity Audrey had passed out, or she’d be gorging on dog food right now.

Once the cell door closed, everything fell into dead silence. Lance and Grendel headed back to the laboratory.

Paracelsus was still busy and barely reacted to Lance’s arrival.

He’d rather spend his spare time recording the rats’ condition than pay Lance any mind.

Lance checked in with them about the progress of the various studies, but didn’t say much, merely nagged them over and over not to stay up all night. The way he fussed, there wasn’t a hint of a Lord’s dignity.

The two in the lab didn’t care at all about his Lord status. Grendel even teased that he sounded just like Susan.

Even Paracelsus looked up at that moment, his eyes full of warning.

Take your damn lovey-dovey act and get out!

Leaving the sanatorium, a tangle of thoughts surfaced in Lance’s mind.

But there was one thing he was sure of.

He knew he could never make that kind of decision.

He’d have to study the old manor business more.

Still, Lance didn’t linger long. Soon he slipped out of town, found the shovel Audrey had hidden as a marker at a grave by the old road, and, after prying open the coffin, discovered what was stashed inside.

A bag of jewelry and ornaments. Considering she came from a noblewoman background and knew her stuff with these things, out of all the grave goods in all these tombs, anything she’d chosen to keep had to be worth something.

There were also some scattered coins, much less impressive by comparison, and some food and greenish wine, probably prepped for a getaway.

It was just that the food was stored... Lance glanced at the remains inside, now nothing but bare bones. This woman really had zero taboos—definitely Tomb Robber material.

He quickly found the notebook among the stash. A cursory flip told Lance the handwriting in the front and back halves was different.

The front half should’ve been left by that nameless Tomb Robber, and it did mention a lot of interesting stuff. The back half, of course, was Audrey’s writing; looked like she’d gone down plenty of tombs too.

Only the front half focused on recording key information, special techniques, and ways to handle different situations, more like the thoughts and experience accumulated while exploring the Tomb Robber Extraordinary path.