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Chapter 620: Translation Please

It was a grueling, mind-numbing experience that inspired nausea at the thought of learning more runes. Still, it was an integral process that he wouldn\'t discard.

"Finally! It\'s over," Kieran sighed in relief, taking a seat after his celebratory outburst.

Translating the information was only half the challenge. The second step was to understand the information and make sense of how it could lead to a Hidden Dungeon.

Luckily, he was not alone in this step.

Recording the runes from his memory fell on his shoulders alone, but here, Alice\'s expertise proved invaluable. Diving in with rapt focus, Alice fingered the pile of papyrus, her mind and eyes churning as fast as her digits could glide across the rough paper.

Kieran leaned back to take in the artful sight, nodding subtly.

\'Alice is pretty adorable when she\'s focused like that. Reminds me of a bookworm who can\'t get enough of a good story, and soon... time is lost upon them.\'

Kieran couldn\'t remember when last he immersed himself in a good story, but then again, he was no reader. While he was far from foolish or a dimwit, as Agatha loved to call him, making a joke out of his designator as the Mystic Light, he preferred to be physically stimulated. He found he could last much longer when physically challenged as opposed to mentally challenged.

Meaning his current accomplishment was an irregularity. The runes were a mentally taxing challenge, but Kieran desired to overcome it all the same.

If he had to put the feeling into words...

\'I\'d call it an obsession. Definitely. That fits the bill to a tee.\'

The thought circled Kieran\'s mind as he watched Alice in fascinated silence, occasionally tilting his head to get a better view until she stopped and gave him a sidelong glance.

"Can you please stop staring, Kieran? I can feel it..."

"My bad," Kieran chuckled, sheepishly scratching his head. "I couldn\'t help myself. You looked adorable, and I kind of almost went insane... or rune- drunk, if that\'s a thing. Either way, I felt like I\'d go mad if I didn\'t focus on something easier on the eyes and alluring to me. And I chose you - my only option."

Alice\'s breath suddenly hitched, and she looked away, subtly shaking her head. "Don\'t do that," she muttered.

"Do what?" Kieran asked with a blank look. It was hard to tell whether it was a genuine question or if he was being purposely dense to get Alice more off-kilter.

"Don\'t act dumb!" Alice erupted and glared at Kieran, to which he responded with a faint smile. With a faint twitch of her eye, she continued. "Ugh! You\'re such an inadvertent jerk. I\'m trying to focus, and you\'re complimenting me, and we\'re alone and... and... it\'s overwhelming. Look away, will you? Or... be less you."

Kieran raised his hands in defeat and acquiesced. "Fine. I\'ll look away and let you focus. Although I\'m innocent and have done nothing wrong. You complimented me earlier, telling me I was doing very well, and I took it moderately well."

"It\'s not the same," Alice mumbled.

Intrigued, Kieran pressed the topic. "Oh no? How isn\'t it the same, Stella?"

Hearing her actual name roll off Kieran\'s tongue so close to her ear sent shivers down her spine. Actually, she didn\'t know why she was shuddering and frozen still. Something about this experience felt dangerous.

And when she met Kieran\'s gaze, she understood why she felt that way.

Her suspicions and concerns were cemented, subconsciously recoiling from Kieran\'s intense, enthralling eyes. They were drowning with emotion, primarily a ravenous need - an all- consuming and perhaps thought-altering desire.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Are you okay?" Alice asked. "Maybe your compulsive, nonstop endeavor to translate the journal has had a greater effect than you realize. You look a bit... scary right now. Um, maybe even demented or crazy."

"Nah," Kieran blatantly disagreed. "I feel pretty amazing right now - accomplished, more like. I\'ve conquered what I set out to do, and that\'s fulfilling."

"Right," Alice muttered, glancing back at the runes, wondering if they maybe had a hidden mind-altering security measure built in.

It wouldn\'t be completely unheard of if that was the truth. Some people didn\'t appreciate others trying to pry into their precious secrets. And the most meticulous and conniving people set traps to deter or thwart invaders and scavengers.

Finding her bearings, Alice breathed deeply and tuned out Kieran\'s devilish and distractive presence. Then, she sped through the pages of runes, combing their meanings and linking them to form coherent, legible thoughts.

The more she pieced the meanings together, the graver her suspicions became. What started as a harmless search for answers, knowledge, and novelty turned into the deranged recordings of a menace.

"What the..." Alice muttered weakly and in utter disbelief.

"What is it?" Kieran asked, leaning in close enough to catch hints of the scent lingering from Alice\'s shocked huff.

"These scribblings are insane. It gradually went from being a record of a reputed scientist annotating the results of an experiment like you would find at a health forum... to the ramblings of a psychopathic terrorist. Here, wait."

Alice separated the marked papyrus from the clean ones, re-translating the reformed runes into English. Strangely enough, though there were no written records of English on Xenith... the mother tongue of this world eerily resembled that language, so much so Kieran couldn\'t pinpoint any stark differences.

Kieran picked up each page after Alice finished the second translation, perusing the contents with a rapidly changing expression. He went from peculiar interest to utter disbelief. He sympathized with the abject horror Alice felt.

"Am I reading this right?" Kieran looked from the page to Alice, who met his gaze and nodded

slowly.

Alice nodded darkly. "Yes. If we go purely by what\'s recorded on those pages, I believe we may have stumbled across a real doozy. We can\'t be sure because of the Mad Alchemist\'s constant ambiguous wording, but he hints that all the proof one would need is stored inside the Castellan\'s Catacombs."

"Talk about having insurance policies," Kieran gave an impressed whistle. "Before losing his mind, the Mad Alchemist was a meticulous one, I give you that. He must have amassed so much dirt on whoever is incriminated in this unknown plot to save his ass. Unfortunately, he\'s

long gone."

For a moment, Kieran wore an evil, vicious, and perversely content smirk as he thought about how he had destroyed the Mad Alchemist and lab alike. Bundal had been a brutal enemy to quell, but they accomplished it nonetheless.

"Um, Kieran. Take a look at this," Alice slid the final page along the table. "It\'s the last page, yet unlike the rest, it does not give off the same deranged feel. This depiction is precise and

artful."

"A map," Kieran said. After a faint pause to take in the explicit detail, he continued. "It\'s a map of everything. Where the lab had been located, where the catacomb is located, and how

to get there from any area nearby."

"Yes, but look closer. The catacomb is inside the damned heart of the Xesian Empire! Someone was bold enough to build a secret dwelling in the heart of Nelorias!"

Silently, Kieran and Alice stared at each other, grimacing.

Then, a unanimous comment came.

"...Fuck."