Chapter 560 - 500: The Origin of "Rudolph

Chapter 560: Chapter 500: The Origin of "Rudolph

He stroked the patchy stubble on his chin, sizing Roland up. Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and he suggested with a hint of mischievous interest.

"How about I give you one? You look... hmm, pretty distinguished, even if you’re covered in dust and grime right now. How about ’Rudolph’?"

He paused, then added.

"A while back, I was running an errand at a nearby market and overheard some traveling merchants chatting. They said this name seems to be pretty popular in some noble circles lately. Supposedly it was the name of some ancient hero or sage?"

"Anyway, it sounds pretty good. It fits your whole ’hero in distress’ vibe, haha!"

As he spoke, he started chuckling to himself.

"Rudolph, huh?"

Roland mulled over the unusually familiar name, an indescribable, wry smile flashing in his eyes.

He had already deduced that he and the legendary "Rudolph" from the "past" were very likely one and the same.

But he had always assumed the origin of this name would be tied to some profound meaning, a special situation, or...

At the very least, he should have been the one to come up with it at some critical moment.

He never expected that the one to suggest this name—a name that would stay with him for ages and might even be etched into history—would be this impulsive Priest, Holland, whom he had only met a few times. And moreover...

The process was so random, almost like a child’s game.

This strange sense of absurdity made the heavy Echo of destiny seem tinged with an irony that left him not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

The thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant. Roland put on a timely, grateful smile and nodded lightly.

"Rudolph... It sounds good. In that case, please call me Rudolph from now on, Mr. Holland."

"Cool!"

Holland gave Roland a firm pat on the shoulder, grinning.

"You’ve got good taste, kid! That name is way better than ’Hey, you.’"

With that, he turned to Karen behind the counter, raising his voice to be heard over the surrounding noise.

"Karen, my friend, I’m going to take Rudolph for a walk around the area where I found him. We’ll see if he can get some of his memory back or find anything he might have dropped."

Hearing this, Karen stopped wiping his mug, and a look of disapproval crossed his plump face.

"Now? Holland, look outside, it’s pitch black! You know damn well that ’those things’ in the wilderness are most active at this hour. It’s much more dangerous than during the day."

Holland waved his hand dismissively and downed the last of the ale in his cup.

"Relax, it’s just the outskirts of the Black Forest. We’re still a long way from the real danger zone. By the time we get there, the sky should be getting light. It’s perfect."

"We’ll be back and forth in no time. We might even make it back for one of your lunches."

He winked at Karen.

Karen looked at his confident expression, then at the silent, seemingly docile Roland standing beside him. He finally shook his head, muttering "Crazy bastard," and didn’t try to persuade him further, only offering a word of caution.

"Just be careful. Don’t come back having stirred up a new mess."

"I know, I know!"

Holland replied perfunctorily, then turned, slung an arm over Roland’s shoulder, and half-pushed him toward the tavern door.

"Let’s go, Rudolph. I’ll take you to see your ’birthplace.’"

The two pushed open the tavern’s heavy wooden doors, shutting out the wave of warmth, noise, and the countless auras of Transcendents behind them. Together, they stepped into the damp, cold night of Lin Ye Town.

The journey was as peaceful as Holland had predicted, and they encountered no unexpected trouble.

The only nuisance was a bone-deep chill.

The raw, damp cold bit to the bone. Even with Roland’s current physical constitution, he could clearly feel the chill trying to seep through the cracks of his simple Leather Armor and gnaw at his skin.

The surroundings were typical of the wilderness: low shrubs formed dark silhouettes in the hazy night, and exposed, grayish-white boulders were scattered about.

Looking back, the sparse lights of Lin Ye Town had shrunk to a small, dim, blurry halo, which was soon swallowed completely by the rolling terrain and the deepening Darkness.

The air was filled with the smell of rotting leaves and damp earth. In the distance, the occasional short cry of some unidentifiable night bird added to the desolation.

To break the silence, and also to obtain key information, Roland tentatively began to question Holland.

"Mr. Holland, where exactly are we right now? Also... what year is it?"

He asked directly, his face wearing a perfectly crafted expression of confusion, like a lost man desperate to find his bearings.

Holland let out a puff of white breath, rubbed his hands together, and answered readily.

"The year? It’s 487 by the Crystal Calendar. Spring just started a little while ago. As for where we are..."

He raised a hand and pointed to the silhouette of the forest ahead, barely visible and dark like a crouching behemoth.

"We’re on the edge of the ’Wandering Wilderness.’ That stretch ahead is part of the Black Forest."

"This place is like the filling in a sandwich. To the north is a buffer zone the Dawn Wind Empire can’t be bothered to manage. To the south is a disputed territory that several Races claim but none can truly control. And to the east... heh, it’s even more of a mess."

"Basically, it’s a lawless land. Law and Order are as thin as the fog around here. So, Rudolph, if you want to get by here, you’ve got to keep your eyes sharp and your fists hard. Otherwise..."

He didn’t finish, just shrugged. The meaning was obvious.

’Crystal Calendar, year 487...’

Roland repeated it silently in his mind, quickly comparing it to the historical timeline he knew.

This was indeed a very early era, even predating many of the major historical events he was aware of.

’As for the Wandering Wilderness and the Black Forest...’

These place names were completely foreign to him.

The only one that sounded even remotely familiar was the Dawn Wind Empire.

The two continued to chat idly, with Holland doing most of the talking about borderland rumors and the minutiae of adventuring, while Roland played the part of a silent and attentive listener.

Just as the first hint of dawn appeared on the horizon, the deep, inky blue gradually giving way to a grayish-white, they arrived in an area with slightly rolling terrain and denser shrubbery.

"There, that’s the spot."

Holland stopped and pointed to a spot below a nearby slope, which was overgrown with weeds and piled with rubble.

"I was taking a shortcut back to town when I saw you lying face down in that shallow ditch, not moving. I thought you were just some unlucky passerby."

"When I got closer, I saw you were still breathing and didn’t have any fatal wounds, so I dragged you back."

Roland nodded, thanked Holland, and walked toward the slope.

He carefully searched the nearby ground, the crevices between rocks, and the roots of the bushes, not missing any possible clue.

But aside from a few claw marks that looked like they were from a wild animal and some ordinary signs of weathering, he found no trace of "Bright Moon" or any of his other personal belongings.

However, in a patch of soft earth in the shade of the slope, he discovered tracks that were not naturally formed.

A few fresh, messy footprints, and a patch of dirt that had clearly been turned over and then hastily covered up.

"No need to keep looking."

Holland sauntered over, glanced at the tracks, his voice tinged with a mix of understanding and disgust.

"The ’Scavengers’ have already been here. A pack of Hyena-like bastards. They’ve got a damn good nose for this stuff, always roaming battlefields, accident sites, or the wilderness to pick—or rather, steal—valuables from dead Adventurers or other unlucky folks."

"They’re fast, clean workers. Looks like they paid this place a visit before you fully woke up. Your things... they were probably fenced at some black market for beer money a long time ago."

Roland’s heart sank.

’Losing Bright Moon is painful enough, but what worries me more is, what if Avril and the others also landed nearby? Would they have been targeted by these "Scavengers" too?’

’Or...’

’Worse?’

He frowned, and just as he was about to ask for more details about the "Scavengers," suddenly...

"SHH... RUSTLE..."

An extremely faint scraping sound—definitely not the wind in the grass—came from deep within a dense thicket to their left, a patch still shrouded in Shadow, untouched by the Dawn Light.

The sound was faint and intermittent.

Holland instantly fell silent, the lazy look on his face vanishing. His right hand quietly came to rest on the handle of the Nail Head Hammer at his waist. He turned his body slightly, his sharp gaze fixed on the source of the sound.

Roland immediately held his breath and focused, his muscles tensing imperceptibly. His left hand hovered over the hilt of his simple shortsword, his keen Perception extending like invisible tendrils, straining toward that patch of Shadow.

In the early morning of the wilderness, the chill had not yet dissipated, and a dead silence hung over everything.

Only that unknown rustling, hidden in the dimness, was disturbingly clear, like a venomous snake slithering over dry leaves.

It heralded some unknown, silently approaching danger.