Mythical Creatures Strategy Guide

Chapter 39 Gray Domain Amulet

"Snapped!"

Chu Sheng slammed the note on the table, and the glass oil lamp illuminated the four faces sitting around it.

Yinye had just been woken up; her bright green braids were half-undone from sleep, her left ear was drooping, and her right ear was standing up. She rubbed her eyes while reading the note, and after reading it, the drooping ear slowly stood up.

Ella was quite energetic, her dog ears twitching back and forth, but since she couldn't read, she could only pretend to be deep in thought.

Arthur was the last to finish reading, his expression grave.

"The handwriting." She lowered her voice. "Can you confirm it's Amber's?"

"How am I supposed to confirm this? I've never seen her write anything." Chu Sheng felt she was still half asleep, yet she managed to ask such a pointless question. "But didn't you notice the chains on her? One on her ankle, one on her wrist."

Arthur's ahoge twitched: "How did you see that? She was dressed so conservatively."

"The one on her wrist was peeking out from her sleeve, and I could see the one on her ankle when she was sitting down." Chu Sheng paused. "As for whether there was any elsewhere, I don't know."

Arthur rested his hands on his chin, his ahoge (cowlick) slowly circling above his head.

Chu Sheng has learned to judge her anxiety level by the rotation speed of her ahoge (cowlick). It is currently rotating at about 20 times per minute, which is considered moderate anxiety.

"If this note is real," Arthur lowered his hand, "Amber is being held captive."

"If the note is fake," Yinye continued, "then it's a diversionary tactic to lure us away so they can continue their wicked deeds here."

"That's right." Arthur nodded. "So the problem now is that we have no way of determining whether the information on the note is true or false."

Ella finally couldn't help but raise her hand: "What exactly did it say on the note?"

Yinye leaned close to her ear and whispered the contents of the note.

"It's fake! It's definitely fake!" she grinned, "That elf queen, the way she looked at Chu Sheng was weird!"

"What kind of look is that?" Chu Sheng asked with interest.

"It's like, um, I want to mate with you!" Ella said with certainty.

"Thank you for your analogy." Chu Sheng decided to end this pointless conversation. "We need more concrete evidence; a single note isn't enough."

He turned to Arthur: "What do you think?"

Arthur remained silent for a while before speaking.

"If there really is an Elf Queen imprisoned in the royal court, and all the other elves are not true elves, then this matter is beyond our control."

"If shapeshifters can impersonate the ruler of Cat Territory, could the same thing happen in the Sacred Tree Forest? Is it possible that all the elves in the forest are shapeshifters?"

She paused for a moment.

"Or perhaps, even that Elf Queen is a shapeshifter, and they are connected to the Cat Territory incident. I suspect that someone is secretly manipulating things behind the scenes."

"You must set off immediately tomorrow morning, the sooner the better," Arthur concluded. "I will stay behind."

"Why?" Yinye asked anxiously, "Didn't you see that group outside the window..."

“It’s precisely because I saw those things outside the window,” Arthur interrupted her, “that I can’t leave.”

"I am a knight of the Imperial Knights, and my duty is to protect the people of the Empire. The Sacred Tree Forest is Imperial territory, and Amber is the elven queen recognized by the Empire."

She raised her head, her gaze sweeping across the faces of the crowd, her eyes resolute.

"If I take you to the Empire for help, it will take at least a month and a half to go. What could happen in that time? If the note is real, can Amber hold on? If the note is fake, could those things be part of a bigger conspiracy?"

Ella's tail swished listlessly behind the chair. She didn't really understand the grand principles Arthur was talking about—empire, duty, people—these were all things that were very far removed from her.

But she understood one thing: Arthur had no intention of running away.

She didn't understand chivalry, but she knew Arthur was her comrade.

Her companions didn't leave, so she didn't leave either.

Yinye didn't speak, but looked down at her fingers, remembering many things.

I remember my grandmother's back as she made dried meat in the kitchen, I remember her saying "Playing music is a dead-end career," and I remember myself carrying a backpack taller than myself and walking out of the gray area without looking back.

Perhaps it is precisely because she cannot make the kind of responsible decision that Arthur made that she does not know how to voice her opposition.

Just then, Chu Sheng tapped on the table.

"No." He folded the note back up and put it back in his sleeve.

"Hmm?" Arthur looked up at him.

"This isn't my style." Chu Sheng held up one finger. "At least we need to figure out one thing: whether Amber is friend or foe. We need to find a way to verify that before making any further plans."

After saying that, he added, "Leaving yourself here and running away is just too damn immoral."

"How do we verify it?" Yinye raised her head and muttered, "We can't just go and knock on the Queen's bedroom door and say, 'Your Majesty, we've come to confirm whether you've been imprisoned.'"

"If only there were a way to sneak a peek," Ella suggested, raising her hand. "Just a quick peek, without anyone noticing."

After he finished speaking, no one responded.

Because everyone knew it was unrealistic. There were hundreds of elves outside, whose identities were unknown. The Queen's palace was located deep within the royal court. To sneak in under hundreds of eyes, see everything, and then sneak out again was simply a pipe dream.

Arthur shook his head: "There are too many guards around the palace. Even if you are very careful, it is impossible to sneak into the Queen's palace without alerting any of them."

"Can't I be like a cat?" Ella tilted her head. "If only Audrey were here."

Chu Sheng's eyes lit up, but then he secretly shook his head.

The trigger condition for 【Hakimi is hard to kill】 is to engage in combat, which means that stealth is completely unusable.

Just then, Yinye pulled her hand out of her pocket and placed it on the table.

"have."

She took a deep breath and looked up.

"I have a solution."

In her hand was an old, dusty cloth bag with a tree embroidered on it in faded green thread.

"What is this?" Ella brought her nose close and sniffed. "It smells like old wood."

"This is a Gray Domain amulet." Silver Leaf untied the rope of the cloth bag and poured out a leaf.

The silvery-white leaves are slightly smaller than a palm, with a gray edge around the edge.

"The leaves of the silver leaf tea tree!" Arthur recognized them.

"This isn't an ordinary tea leaf." Silver Leaf held the leaf in her palm, her pointed ears turning slightly red. "This is the one that has grown the longest at the very top of the tea tree's crown."

"In the Gray Zone, no, in the entire continent, there is only one Silver Leaf Tea Tree that can grow this leaf."

"My life tree."