Chapter 547 — Earthquake?

This world had the Shadow Realm, the Gloom Realm, the Elemental World, and many a fragmented outer plane; for those able to come into contact with such knowledge, "otherworldly visitor" was not an inconceivable concept. Yet even so, a life form so utterly beyond common sense as the Nicholas Egg was still inconceivable. When the territory had first been established, to keep it from drawing too much attention from the outside world, Gao Yang had arranged for this iron-sphere star-being the identity of "ancient arcanist," but that was merely the public story told to outsiders; as for the upper echelons of Cecil, for the core personnel who had already gained Gao Yang's trust, they more or less knew something of the Nicholas Egg's origins.

A wondrous otherworldly visitor.

Looking at this otherworldly visitor, Amber suddenly could not help asking, "By the way, would you like to find a companion?"

"...Ah?"

"Aren't you lonely?" Amber's thoughts had already begun to wander. "How about I have a word with the old dumpling and find you a companion..."

The whole of the Nicholas Egg was somewhat shocked. "Where on earth are you going to find me a companion!?"

Amber answered without missing a beat: "Turn one out on a lathe..."

The Nicholas Egg: "...Hold on, I think you've got something mixed up..."

But once Amber got going, she was not so easily stopped. "Oh, right—are you a boy ball or a girl ball?"

"No, I think things are quite good as they are. My days at the machinery works are quite fulfilling..."

Amber, however, had already worked herself into a state of excitement all on her own. This half-elf, prone to fits of periodic frenzy, had suddenly developed a keen interest in Nikolai Egg's personal affairs: "You know, I always figured you were an egg-boy, but thinking about it more carefully—you people do have males and females..."

Just then, a faint tremor suddenly ran through the air, finally cutting off the goose's endless chatter.

And accompanying that faint tremor was a rumbling sound, faint and distant, coming from somewhere beyond reckoning.

Amber reacted first. As a prowler, she was exquisitely sensitive to any faint tremor, and the sound that followed immediately made her ears snap upright. Nikolai Egg was slower to respond: floating in midair as he was, he could not properly sense the vibrations in the ground, so it was only when the sound reached him that he asked curiously, "Seems like something's stirring?"

"An earthquake...?" Amber had already risen to her feet. Her ears twitched in the air, swiveling constantly toward every direction from which the faintest sound came, while her hand was already on Gaoyang's shoulder, ready to wake the latter at any moment.

But the tremor lasted only a brief while, and that low, distant sound soon stopped as well.

"It seemed to come from very far away, and it's already stopped," Amber said, glancing at Nikolai Egg. "You keep watch here. I'll go contact the outpost."

The elf's keen hearing had let her judge that the final disturbance had come from the south, which filled her with profound unease.

Nikolai Egg wasted no words: "Understood."

Amber's figure swiftly vanished into the air, but she did not go far—a magical-net terminal for communications was installed within the Institute of Magical Technology, and she made her way to the nearest terminal room, then directly called the monitoring station established in the Dark Mountains.

Above the terminal, an image of the monitoring station surfaced, and a tall, lean soldier appeared in the holographic projection: "This is Dark Mountains Outpost One. Greetings to you, Director Amber."

"Outpost, is there anything happening on your end?" Amber asked at once. "We felt a tremor here just now."

"Yes, we were just about to report—at the southern foot of the Dark Mountains, along the Black Forest boundary, there was a disturbance just now. Possibly an earthquake or a landslide."

"Only over by the Black Forest? Nothing from the Grand Wall?"

"The Grand Wall is entirely normal, the sunwheel observation is entirely normal, the magical environment is entirely normal."

Amber relaxed slightly, but still found something odd: "An earthquake or a landslide? But I thought I also heard something like an explosion..."

"We heard it here too, but we can't see the source of the blast—possibly blocked by the mountain terrain. Also, one sentry saw an unidentified flash to the southwest, but it couldn't be confirmed."

"...I understand," Amber let out a breath. "Never mind whether it's an earthquake or a landslide for now—just raise your alert level and keep your eyes on the Grand Wall. I'll report the situation to the lord."