Chapter 85: The Name in the Ledger

Along the line, the boat steadily moved toward the land it had found, while the kind of land it was and the kind of dangers they would face there remained unknown to them. Feeling glad that they could take shelter on the boat and move toward the land, everyone took their respective seats and traveled quietly. Max remained seated at the piloting seat, slowly looking at all the buttons and operations that could be done with them. Sitting on his shoulder, Marlak curiously looked at all the blinking lights.

Aside from these two, Isabelle also took a seat at the controls and looked at the different things.

"I think this lever would be for acceleration of speed, and of course, this globe-like thing would be used for navigating the boat, and this one is for weapons, and I think this one is to remove the top," she said, pressing the last one. As she did that, the top cover slowly started retracting into the sides of the hull.

Buzzz!

Immediately, as the wind hit their faces, everyone panicked. Once the top opened, everyone looked around to see what was around them. Looking around, they saw that they were continuously moving across the big expanse of water, and still they could not see the land they were heading toward. Standing up, everyone curiously looked around this new place they had entered.

“Do not touch anything,” Max said after noticing that opening the top roof cost him Mana to operate.

If she were to touch something that needed a lot of Mana, his reserve would drain to the bone. He was not going to go through the suffering of Mana depletion once again, nor did he want to drink Mana Potions again.

After that, Isabelle simply sat without doing anything. Max also finished inspecting, having learned most of the things the boat was capable of doing. Surprisingly, it was a very convenient Artifact; however, because everything cost Mana, he could not do anything crazy even for the sake of testing.

There were a lot of things he needed to do once he left this Hidden Dungeon. The first thing was to find out if he could acquire some alchemical technology where Mana could be stored and used on these Artifacts. The second was to read about things he did not know, as he was ignorant of many matters, such as Hidden Dungeons, sleeping monsters, Barriers, and different kinds of anomalies, including how one should approach sleeping monsters and, most of all, why the phenomenon of higher-level monsters residing in lower-level Dungeons occurred.

Above all, he needed to level up first. With his current level, he could do very little, and he had to struggle too much just to achieve small things. Because this kept happening to him, it was simply too tiring.

Isabelle turned toward Marlak, who was sitting on Max’s shoulder. “Thanks for warning us about the monster earlier. Without you telling us it was approaching, we would have already been dead.”

“Hahaha, those were big words, young adventurer. I only played a small part,” Marlak proudly said.

“No, no, you helped save all of us. Since the monster was too powerful, we would have been in real trouble without you,” Isabelle continued.

“Hahah, very well, I did save you guys. Since the monster was too powerful, I spent all my energy detecting it,” Marlak said. “Do you have any more of that cool food with you?”

“You mean Custard Ice Cream?” Isabelle asked.

“Yes! That’s it.” Marlak jumped from Max’s shoulder and landed on Isabelle’s lap.

“I have a few; that was my personal stash, but if you want, you can have one.” Isabelle didn’t generously hand over the ice cream, remaining ready to give only one even after Marlak had helped save their lives and she had personally praised him.

Seeing their conversation, Max silently shook his head; these two were made for each other, one being blatantly obvious and the other blatantly selfish. Eventually, Marlak got one small box of ice cream and ate it with great satisfaction.

“Everyone, get ready; we have almost reached our destination,” Max suddenly said as the boat icon neared the beeping light on the screen. Standing up, he looked at the horizon and saw land. Everyone gathered in front of the boat and looked in that direction.

“I see something; it's buildings and people!” Isabelle exclaimed as the boat moved nearer to the land.

A small source note: NovelPhoenix supplied this chapter without the author's permission. The author's version there supports their ongoing writing.

“Buildings and people?” Max was taken aback as he looked at the buildings and people near the shore.

“Did we exit the Dungeon?” Max asked in confusion. Had they somehow escaped from the impossible Hidden Dungeon? He wondered if there could be a possibility that the door had led out of the Dungeon since it was an anomaly, and finding the right door might have been the key to escaping. Whatever the case, they first needed to find out where they had been dropped off, whether in a different kingdom, a different continent, or somewhere else entirely.

As they neared the shore, the full view of the land came into sight. It was not mere land, but a port, and the density of the buildings told them that they were going to enter a big city.

“Senior Paula, see if you can find what kind of location this is. If it's a different kingdom, we may have to face some issues of breaching their land without permission. If it's our own kingdom, then I will take care of it,” Max quickly suggested, having Senior Paula take the lead instead of everyone speaking at once.

“Everyone, put away your weapons, behave as casually as possible, and let me do the talking,” Paula quickly said, and everyone put their weapons into their Dimensional rings.

However, Max was thinking whether this boat would create a commotion if people doubted they were there for illegal trafficking. But he could do nothing; he wouldn't put the boat inside the iStorage right now. So, he had to manage things somehow.

As the distance shortened, Max slowly reduced the speed, and the full view of the shore came into view, with tons of big boats and ships docked along the massive stone piers. Max navigated slowly using the navigation ball and finally docked.

Everyone looked around at the crowd of people on the shore. Strangely, no one gave a strange look at them or even the boat, since there were plenty of weird boats docked on the piers. So, their boat was not as strange as they had thought.

“Let's disembark,” Paula said, gesturing for the group to move, as she could not understand what kind of place this was. Not only were the boats strange, but the people's attire and the buildings also seemed very strange, and they had definitely wandered into a different kingdom or continent altogether.

Everyone got out of the boat, and Max quickly put away the boat. Though there were a lot of strange-looking boats, his boat was special; if he left it unattended, someone might find something strange and make an issue for them.

With that, they quickly walked onto the land, and ahead of them stood a long line for security checks. They had to cross security before entering the city, so they quickly stood in line as well.

“Marlak, what do you think about this place? Did we exit the Dungeon, or are we still inside the Dungeon?” Max suddenly asked after seeing the different attire, ships, and boats.

“I don’t think we exited the Hidden Dungeon. We entered a completely different world,” Marlak said.

“Different world? That’s not good,” Max said. What was the purpose of entering a different world? They were simply there to clear the Dungeon, not travel to a different world. While he was thinking about these strange things, the line finally moved, and Paula was next in line.

Standing at the back of the group, Max craned his neck to check what kind of identification they were going to ask for. They had no identification from their own kingdom, but even if they had, what was the use if they were in a completely different world?

While Max was feeling great anxiety, the line suddenly moved, and Paula quickly passed the security check without any issue. Max was surprised by this. Despite Marlak’s warning, could they actually be in their own kingdom? Perhaps Marlak had been mistaken, or perhaps passing the checkpoint did not mean what he hoped it did.

Seeing everyone else cross the security checkpoint without any issue, Max began to wonder whether they had finally exited the Hidden Dungeon and returned to their own kingdom. He let out a big sigh at the possibility; after all the hurdles, they might finally have made it back. If they were in their own kingdom, the whole kingdom might have known about their disappearance. With him being involved as a Grand Duke’s heir, the matter could be blown up; since the situation had already been complicated, noble families considering him dead had made a lot of things difficult. If he really had returned, things might go back to normal, which meant unrest on their land.

Finally, it was Max’s turn; he came before a person who was checking names in a long ledger book.

'A ledger book?' What kind of countryside had he been dropped into? Since his own land used alchemical technology for everything, seeing the person using a ledger made him confused. Was he really in their own kingdom?

“Name,” the person asked.

“Maximus Bransford,” Max said.

“Where did you come from?” the person asked as he flipped through the ledger pages.

“I am from this kingdom, [Beusekom].” Max gave the kingdom’s name, since the way the others had passed security made him wonder whether they were in their own kingdom after all.

Upon hearing this, the person quickly flipped through the pages and found something. Looking up to see Max’s face, he checked the ledger, where a hand-drawn picture of him had been drawn. With that confirmed, he took out a slip-like sheet, stamped a seal onto it, handed it over to Max, and signaled for him to move forward.

Max took the slip and walked forward as the post lifted, successfully clearing security. However, he had almost expected people to escort him to a nice place since he had been missing for almost four days, and news must have spread throughout his kingdom; yet they did not recognize him.

However, when he checked the slip, his expression changed.

The slip had his picture, but the name, address, and other details were entirely different. According to the slip, his name was Yorick Lakemeier from Kempen Country, and currently, he was in Blaver Country.

With a bewildered expression, he went over to the group. Seeing their faces, they were also in great shock and confusion.