Chapter 248 — Heddy's Experiment
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Gao Yang went with Amber to inspect those hundred-odd future "intelligence elites," and on the way, Amber began fishing for information about a rumor she had heard in the domain: "So, I just heard someone say a new 'ancient archmage' has arrived in the domain?"
Gao Yang nodded. "His name is Camille. You'll be meeting him soon enough."
Amber's eyes rolled about in their sockets, and whatever thoughts were turning in her head, she suddenly blurted out: "So you dug him out of that ruin in the mountains?"
"...I wouldn't exactly call it digging him out," Gao Yang said, feeling that this half-elf's choice of words was subtly problematic. "He was trapped in a pocket dimension..."
"That means you dug him out," Amber said matter-of-factly, and then began looking Gao Yang up and down, until the latter was covered in goosebumps. "What's that look supposed to mean?"
"The domain's got another one risen from the coffin!" The half-elf lady clapped her hands together. "Did you feel like you were the only ancient one around here and had a generation gap with everybody, so you decided to dig up someone even older than yourself? But aren't the two of you still separated by a generation gap?"
Gao Yang immediately felt that he had knocked this one about a little too lightly just now...
Still, Amber's winding, nine-bend thought processes and her blunt, slap-worthy mouth were nothing new. Gao Yang had long since built up a decent immunity—so long as he paid this one no mind, she would soon quiet down on her own.
But this time, Amber's babble seemed worse than usual. Even when Gao Yang did respond to her, she kept opening up new topics on her own at his side. After being prattled at by this half-elf for most of the journey, Gao Yang finally couldn't help but shoot her a glance. "Why are you so talkative this time?"
"Am I?" Amber blinked, then shook her head vigorously. "I didn't notice!"
"You're a little nervous, aren't you," Gao Yang said, looking at her with resignation. "When you get nervous, you talk a lot of nonsense, and you don't even notice you're doing it."
Reminded by Gao Yang, Amber only then realized she had inadvertently let her feelings show. Marveling at why a knight had to be quite so perceptive, she finally nodded rather awkwardly. "To be honest... a little. But it's not me I'm nervous about."
Gao Yang had in fact already vaguely guessed at Amber's thoughts. "It's about those people you brought along?"
"Something like that..." Amber gave a dry laugh. "I just wanted to say... those fellows are all bastards who grew up in the gutter. Crooks, swindlers, thieves—that's the main part they played in the past. I know they all swore up and down before coming that they'd follow the rules, but I know what they're really made of... I hope you can brace yourself a bit, and not fly into a rage just because they're coarse and rude. Those... are actually a pretty decent bunch."
Gao Yang stopped in his tracks and looked at Amber with something between a smile and not, until the other party awkwardly turned her head away. Then he said with a laugh: "It's rare to see you speak so cautiously, and making excuses for others in advance, no less."
"We're all bound by life-and-death ties, even if it was years ago," Amber said with a curl of her lip. "I want to take this chance to give them a hand up, but their true measure really sets my mind at ease—no, the opposite of at ease."
Gao Yang shook his head, then suddenly brought up what seemed an unrelated topic: "You know about the royal shadow guards who serve the Ansuth royal family?"
Amber blinked, then suddenly nodded. "Yes, yes! Last time we went to the capital, I even ran into one—the one I kicked out of the Shadow Realm and who nearly passed out like a sap, that was a royal shadow guard, wasn't he?"