The place where Suya was interrogated by the Crusader Knights was not in the capital. To be precise, it was an open area beyond the Golden Curtain, nestled between the two. The chalk-white wall he had seen, like a crouching giant dragon, was the Golden Curtain itself—a single, massive wall towering 50 meters high and stretching over ten kilometers. From the inside, it appeared pristine white, but from the outside, due to light reflection, it took on a golden hue.
Just from the sheer scale of this wall, comparable to those in Attack on Titan, it clearly wasn't a normal world's wall design. However, remembering that creatures like 'Giant Beasts' existed in this world, according to Lucan and others, Suya roughly understood why the wall was built so high.
At this moment, Suya, Merlin, Lucan, and Dagonet reunited. After bidding farewell to the Saintess 'Elizabeth' who had come to rescue Suya, they were now riding in a horse-drawn covered wagon, having left the military camp behind the Golden Curtain and embarked on the direct road to the capital—a path paved with massive blue flagstones.
Suya was deep in thought, staring at the red dragon emblem ring in his hand. Just a moment ago, when the Saintess Elizabeth had given him the ring, she had playfully traced his palm with her pinky finger and then given him a rather 'suggestive' look that only he could see. This left him a little flustered.
Just then, Lucan, seeing Suya's contemplative expression, assumed he was worried about the Conqueror King's previous threats and proactively explained: "The capital is supposedly guarded by three iron walls. Of course, that's definitely flattering King Mark of Cornwall and the Archduke; Exeter isn't really an iron wall, at most it can only defend against giant beast incursions."
"The true three iron walls guarding the British capital are Plymouth, the Golden Curtain, and the capital's own Sixth Ring, the Ring of Abundance."
"The Conqueror King simply doesn't have enough forces to break through the latter two iron walls. Her claim of breaking through the capital within 40 days was just to scare people."
Hearing this, Suya's thoughts were drawn back, but after a moment of consideration, something still felt off. He looked up, surprised, and asked, "But wasn't Plymouth already breached?"
Lucan shook his head and said, "Since the battle reports from that time were received, Britannia naturally made appropriate countermeasures."
"What breached Plymouth was not an army but great sorcery; it was the manifestation of a paradox forcibly imposed on the iron wall by the legendary Aristotle and the Conqueror King working together. They used magic power superior to that of the defenders to forcefully suppress anti-magic, using a logic-based sorcery akin to magic to nullify all the alchemical giant cannons on the wall. Otherwise, just one volley would have annihilated at least half of the 50,000-strong army led by the Conqueror King."
"Essentially, it was a surprise attack."
"A surprise attack that exploited the lack of top-tier combat power on the defending side. It won't be so easy for them to continue conquering Britannia now."
At this point, Merlin pointed to a caravan approaching from the road ahead and gestured: "Those are mages from the Clock Tower's Basic Faculty."
"It looks like they were forcibly transferred from the underground labyrinth. Plus, the Golden Curtain itself has a mage regiment, so it's impossible for that woman to achieve further military success through magic."
"Hmm, Clock Tower? Underground labyrinth?"
Suya instantly caught two special terms.
He could roughly understand "Clock Tower"; just as Lyceum was the Greek mage organization, the Clock Tower was probably Britannia's local mage organization. He just didn't know if this Clock Tower was the Clock Tower he was thinking of.
And the underground labyrinth—
In the Fate/Zero worldview, there was an underground labyrinth called Altar of Albion. That labyrinth was supposedly beneath London (the Clock Tower's headquarters were also near London), and deep within the altar's depths, there were even absurd things like dragon corpses and hearts. The reason Suya wanted to detour to London was to see if this world, which was similar yet different, also had this labyrinth beneath London. For him, it was practically a natural holy land for cultivation. He instinctively felt that if he could truly unearth a dragon's corpse, he might achieve rapid power growth by extracting its mystery.
And now, was there such a labyrinth beneath the capital, Winchester?
Hearing Suya's confusion, Merlin proactively explained:
"The Clock Tower is a mage organization similar to Lyceum."
"Because there's no longer a risk of mystery disappearing, the secret principles followed by mages have also been abandoned. Mages of this era openly walk the surface, sages who analyze and utilize various phenomena."
"As for the underground labyrinth, we'll likely spend most of our time in this place from now on, whether it's for combat, earning money, increasing strength, or participating in power struggles on the surface."
At this point, Merlin paused, explaining the intricacies to Suya:
"In an environment where mystery has not disappeared, where ceaseless tides of magical energy constantly spread from the center of the continent,"
"Every human is a node where magical energy resides,"
"And cities, being densely populated areas, can be understood as vast sources of magical energy."
"Corresponding to these magic sources are ancient monsters that are constantly revived, catalyzed by the magic sources. The more powerful the monster, the deeper it is buried."
"Thus, the existence of dungeons has emerged. The larger the city, the larger the underground labyrinth beneath it. The labyrinth itself can even be much larger than the city. In the underground labyrinth, you can find a large amount of divine-era materials that don't exist on the surface, such as dragon scales, teeth, young Hydra corpses, etc."
"The kingdom needs to constantly clear out the monsters reviving in the shallow parts of the underground, and also needs the wealth obtained from these monsters, as well as to excavate the treasures existing underground."
"Because of this, a quite substantial industry has developed."
Suya immediately understood. So, this world also has an adventurer industry, huh? So, next, he's going to become an adventurer, explore the underground labyrinth, constantly grow stronger, defeat the Demon King who emerged from the depths of the earth, then save the kingdom, marry the princess, become king, and reach the peak of his life?
As she spoke, Merlin thoughtfully looked at Suya, "However, the underground labyrinth is also filled with all sorts of inconceivable dangers."
"Fifteen years ago, right after the Continental Shift event, a red dragon revived directly on the first level of the underground labyrinth beneath the capital, Winchester. King Uther led his army to battle it. After that single battle, most of the capital was destroyed, a fire engulfed the capital for half a month, and nearly a million people died."
Merlin blinked, then tentatively asked, "Suya, do you know about this?"
Suya decisively shook his head. He had only been in this world for a week; how could he know what happened fifteen years ago?
The horse-drawn covered wagon slowly advanced under the afternoon sun, crossing vast fertile fields, farmlands, and villages nestled between the Golden Curtain and the Ring of Abundance. It passed shimmering lakes reflecting the sunlight and tired pedestrians and travelers on the flagstone road.
Finally, it merged into a long procession of wagons slowly entering the capital. Suya had at last arrived at the royal capital, at the foot of this Ring of Abundance, a wall proclaimed to be impregnable.
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