Our Family Has Fallen

You could only say that the Novice Aura was downright broken. What she walked into wasn’t a looted main burial chamber, but an open coffin, with grave goods inside enough to drive her insane.

The strange part was the corpse sitting in the corner by the wall, long since dried into a mummy, covered in all sorts of weird stuff. Only the odd pendant on its chest caught her eye.

She didn’t know what had happened here, but she did know that now everything belonged to her.

She took everything, including everything on that mummy.

She roughly restored the dug-up grave and erased any trace of herself.

As for that Tomb Guardian’s corpse, when she got back there she discovered a few stray wild dogs from who-knows-where, currently gnawing on the body.

The constantly torn-apart corpse left the scene in total chaos, all the original traces long gone—practically heaven’s help.

Only when she returned to the empty manor did her restless heart finally quiet down. She counted tonight’s haul; that treasure was enough to pay off her debts.

Until she turned her attention to the things she’d taken from that strange corpse.

Among all sorts of bizarre tools and props, she fished a small notebook out of the bag, and the contents of that notebook revealed the identity of that mummified Tomb Robber to her.

This also led her into a world she had never touched before—mysterious powers, dangerous tomb chambers, all kinds of mechanisms and traps, all sorts of strange tools and rituals; all of this pulled her in, deeply addicted.

By the time she came back to her senses, she was lying in the hall, bursting into wild laughter as if out of control. Her heart was full of joy, the light in her eyes outshining even the stolen treasures.

It was only because everyone in the manor had already been dismissed; otherwise, her little bout of madness would have spread across the whole city by the next day, with rumors that she’d gone insane under the pressure of debt.

Only Audrey herself knew that all these years she’d basically been living in vain. All that gorgeous manor, all those exquisite clothes, that noble status, that luxurious lifestyle...

All of it had been nothing but a prison!

When the officials in full gear showed up ready to evict her, they were stunned to find the manor’s front door half open and lifeless, the luxurious carpet in disarray, piled with dust and fallen leaves.

On the hall floor, a pile of treasure glittered brilliantly, yet the lady of the manor was nowhere to be seen...

So what had she gone off to do?

Obviously, she was digesting that notebook and practicing by opening "treasure chests" elsewhere.

Back in reality, Lance mulled over Audrey’s story.

Roughly, it was about a rich girl marrying into an even richer family; she thought she’d married into an elite clan, cue the music and dancing, only to run into a ruthless bastard.

Raised in silks and brocade since childhood, how could she take that? She poisoned him straight up, cashed out the old man’s Gold Coins, and used them to keep a boy toy.

But she had no ability to run a business, and after a few years of wallowing in pleasure she burned through the entire fortune, then turned around and went tomb-robbing.

By sheer dumb luck she scavenged a bargain, getting her hands on the inheritance of a Tomb Robber who’d died for reasons unknown, and from there began to pursue the thrill she craved.

The whole thing was pretty surreal too. That Tomb Guardian was actually that timid, didn’t even dare to go in and check, just shouted a few times at the graveyard entrance.

If Lance had been on the scene, he’d probably have caught that clumsy idiot on the spot, opening with a classic "My lady, you wouldn’t want to..."

And then somehow her first big tomb had all its dangers already cleared, she walked off with a score, and even got a Tomb Robber’s accumulated stash, directly solving the hardest part of the startup phase for her.

Lance also understood why, after hearing about all that, she’d think of challenging Hamlet—it was clearly a psychological issue.

She had wanted for nothing since she was a child; any desire she had was met. After her husband died she had even more money to squander. She had no real goals or ideals, and the more she indulged her desires, the emptier her heart became, the harder it was for her to feel satisfied.

That tomb-robbing experience gave her an enormous jolt; all those complex emotions—fear, unease, and so on—built up pressure inside her.

Until the moment she left with the treasure and escaped successfully, all that pressure was released in an instant and transformed into intense pleasure.

Simply put, her numb body could only feel pleasure through the intense stimulation brought by constant risk-taking.

And "risk-taking" here is literal—chasing that tightrope-walking kind of thrill.

Lance preferred another term for it: seeking death!

The amusing thing was, when she unconsciously described those events, she constantly made excuses for herself, pinning everything on her ex-husband and everything around her, convinced that the one in the wrong wasn’t her, but the world.

Lance disagreed. This was purely Audrey’s own problem.

Margaret, also born with no worries about food or clothing, turned out honest and kind; Audrey, meanwhile, turned into a "little fairy." The individual difference between them was huge.

You couldn’t deny that an unhappy marriage and domestic violence played a part, but Audrey’s viciousness was impossible to hide.

The Tomb Guardian never offended her, didn’t even know her, did nothing at all—and she killed him anyway.

Likewise, just now when Audrey faced arrest, she went straight for lethal intent. If Lance hadn’t sent experts to catch her, a lot of regular officers would probably have died trying.

One vicious, greedy, hedonistic, wasteful, brainless, blame-shifting, textbook "little fairy."

One alcoholic, wife-beating hypocrite with a twisted need for control.

Lance could only hope the little fairy and the wife-beater stayed locked together for good, so these two wouldn’t get out and harm normal people.

Unfortunately, the wife-beater just wasn’t up to it—not as ruthless as the little fairy, and straight-up turned into Gold Coins.

She took his money to splurge and keep a pretty boy, then in the end even opened his grave like a treasure chest and hauled off the grave goods to plug her deficit. You could only say the two were really made for each other.

"Where’s the notebook? Where’s that thing?"

Lance searched her all over and still didn’t find that most important item. Sometimes knowledge was the most precious thing.

"Abba abba..."

"A crafty rabbit has three burrows~"

Once he got the answer, Lance couldn’t help letting out a sigh.

Because before entering Hamlet, she had already hidden part of the important stuff in some wild grave outside town.

If you want to enjoy that brush-with-death thrill, of course you make the corresponding preparations: food, potions, weapons, and naturally money as well.

Under normal circumstances, even if she really got hunted in town, she could kill the officers, then head northwest as per her prior plan, grab part of her stash and escape out of town, and finally swing by the wild grave to pick up supplies, making sure that even if she lost everything and only had herself left, she could quickly recover.

Sure enough, this troublemaker still had some skills; otherwise she wouldn’t have survived to this day.

As for why she didn’t carry the notebook, that was because it could identify her. Thieves and Tomb Robbers might both steal and differ by only one word, but the difference was huge.

The Touching Gold Talisman gave a huge boost to her strength, and it was easier to hide on her person, plus most people wouldn’t recognize it.

No one expected that hiding it in her underwear let her slip past Laura’s cursory pat-down, only for Amanda to fish it out directly, recognize it at a glance, and identify her as a pure-bred Tomb Robber.

"Sleep. After a good sleep you’ll forget everything."

Lance guided her into a deep sleep, then straightened the scene and sat back down to deal with the business at hand.

Very soon, the teams that had gone out searching brought back the Blood Garment wrapped in cloth, completely intact.

Now, with her testimony, the missing item located, and other clues like footprints and wax drips all lining up—

With both witness and physical evidence in hand, how was this case to be judged?

"So how are we going to handle this?"

As William spoke, everyone turned to look at the Lord. Only Amanda glanced down at Audrey on the floor, a bit puzzled.

The drug shouldn’t have worn off this fast. How was she sleeping so soundly?

"This isn’t suitable for public disclosure, or it’ll likely provoke copycats to keep provoking the police." Lance already had a rough plan. "Lock her up in a sanatorium, starve her for a few days first, and once this blows over we’ll deal with her slowly."

"But we caught her. Shouldn’t that deter those people? How would it provoke them?" Dismas was confused.

Lance wasn’t surprised by their doubts and patiently began to explain.

"Because..."