In the grand library that was filled with all sorts of books and ancient tomes that were arranged neatly together in countless rows of bookcases, Zarba, who was standing at the deepest section of the library, could be seen sliding aside the well-preserved ancient oil painting of Altra Zigma, a stern-faced brown-skinned man with long brown hair and brown eyes who is a founding father of the Great Golden Empire, and revealing a plain-looking stone tablet protruding from the stone wall with a single keyhole in the middle.
Zarba then pulled out a simple-looking bronze key from his pants' pocket and inserted it carefully in the keyhole before a clear click sound could be heard as he reached the end of the hole, and then he twisted the key around a couple of times in a specific pattern until the stone tablet was suddenly glowing with magic light for a brief moment as the ancient mechanisms groaned behind the wall before the wall in front of him split open, revealing a stairways and well-lit space from the fist-sized glowing stones that were placed along the wall like a bunch of hanging lanterns that led downward to the treasure vault.
Zarba then entered through the opening in the wall after he pulled out the bronze key as the split heavy stone walls started slowly sliding back, sealing the entrance to the treasure vault shut behind him with a dull thud echoing in the narrow passage and causing some dust to fall from the ceiling.
Zarba waved away the floating dust in the air with his hand in front of his annoyed face while he walked down the stairways. The closer he got to the treasure vault, the more he could smell the centuries-old wealth that had never seen the light of day for centuries lying in wait at the bottom of the stairs.
Miraculously the Great Golden Empire's financial balance was never ever turning red, even in Zarking's reign, so the great wealth here is just sitting around, uselessly gathering dust.
It might sound unbelievable, but Zarking the Mad is really not fond of spending gold and always hoards the wealth in the empire's official treasury like a jealous toddler, so the tax money is being used so sparingly that it makes the empire seem like it is about to go bankrupt every year despite the fact that the gold coins are plenty and just about to burst out from the official vault at any moment, so much so that even the mad emperor is considering building another treasury just to store the gold.
It frustrated many people, but you can't really reason with a crazy guy; only sometimes could you trick him into spitting out some more coins from the treasury without his insanity acting up. Who knows what Zarking the Mad is going to do to you if you touch his gold without his permission?
Zarba continued to walk down the stairs in silence until he finally arrived at where all the treasures were stored. The glowing stones, or what people commonly call Glowstones, that were embedded in the ceiling flickered to life when he set foot in the vault room, revealing all of the chests overflowing with gold coins, precious metal ingots, beautiful jewelry, magic and mundane artifacts, and variety of luxurious items.
Zarba didn't pause to admire the greed-induced pile of treasures, as time was a luxury he couldn't afford right now with how he just sicced his daddy on his enemy, which will probably kickstart the civil war way earlier than the game's plot, and no matter the outcome of the conflict, the Duke of Karo will lose a significant amount of his powers and influence in the empire regardless.
With most of what he needed already arranged and the fact that Zarba had already picked out the items he might need from this treasure vault beforehand—Xin, his beautiful slave and the only person in this damned empire that he wholeheartedly trusted, had seen to that weeks ago—he also allowed her to pick the things she liked from the treasure vault as well, so there's really nothing he needs from the treasure vault anymore.
Zarba moved past glittering gold coins, the crowns melted down from conquered kings into an obscene statue of a woman, gemstones pried from the eyes of toppled religious idols, and many items with forgotten origins with indifference while thinking that history here in this world was quite brutal, just like Earth, which is filled with pointless wars that are waged just for conquest and plunder.
It's not always like this, though, as the situation has gotten this bad gradually through the centuries ever since Altra Zigma eradicated the Demon, the mortal enemy of mankind, and sank their continent down to the sea somehow. No one knows how he did that, sinking the entire continent, or if there is even a demon or demon's continent to begin with; it's just a myth to the people nowadays.
Zarba ignored all of the shiny things, heading straight for the far corner of the room, where a single, unadorned iron chest sat apart from the other ostentatious chests in the room.
Inside the iron chest lay a mechanism to open the escape tunnel: a small lever disguised as a rusted bar of iron among the random junk. Zarba pulled it with some effort before a groan of mechanisms below could be heard as a section of the floor near him slid away, revealing rough stone steps descending into darkness, and the smell that wafted up was damp and moldy, making him wave his hand to disperse the smell with a frown even if it did not really help much.
He descended the steps two at a time with a magic lantern he took from his rucksack in his hand, the damp chill of the tunnel staved off by his cloak. The glowstones here were almost nonexistent, like this tunnel was left unfinished. The air tasted of wet earth and something older, metallic—like blood long dried into the bedrock. Zarba boots scraped against the rough surface of the steps, the sound unnervingly loud in the confined space.
At the bottom, Xin waited for him patiently; a petite silhouette of a woman could vaguely be seen standing in the pocket of open space with a bunch of luggage and wooden chests with a pusher attached to them and little wheels like a shopping cart at the bottom.
When Zarba finally arrived, as he walked up to her, the woman also turned to him with a small curl at the corner of her lips.
Xin is a beauty carved from moonlight and shadow. She is a petite woman with pale white skin, with her long, raven-black hair cascading over the shoulders of her gothic-style black dress, a stark contrast to the soft lavender color eyeshadow that swept across her slightly droopy eyelids, making her amber eyes seemingly glow like captured embers in the low light. Her full lips, painted in a lavender color that matched her eyeshadow, were now turning into a full-bloom smile as she saw her husband was here. There's also her distinctive pair of long elfin ears from her half heritage of elven lineage, making her a half elf, a pretty rare existence since elves don't usually mingle with other races. And lastly, the intricate slavery magic tattoo on her forehead and the soul-bonding magic tattoo with Zarba on her chest that she proudly exposed like a wedding ring.
Xin looked utterly out of place in this grimy tunnel, like an exotic and beautiful orchid blooming in a sewer. A comparison that might make her less than flattered with him, as Zarba wisely did not inform her of his thought either.
"My, my, you are finally here, my husband," Xin said softly, almost purring, her melodic voice always pleasant to hear. She then gestured with her hand, her lavender-painted nail drawing a circle in the air lazily towards all their luggage, showing him that she has done what he requires of her perfectly.
"And even though your empire is on its way to ruin, you actually choose to flee like a thief in the night so decisively... how are you so delightfully… pragmatic?" Xin asked teasingly with a small smirk as her amber eyes flickered with something unreadable—admiration? Sarcasm? Both, perhaps. She didn't wait for the lip-twitching Zarba to respond, though, as she turned to cast a spell at their luggage to reanimate them to move by themselves so they could follow her around like a group of ducklings.
You didn't actually think that she carried them all here by her own hands, right?
Zarba watched the purple magic circles materialize around all of the luggage and glow for a couple of seconds before the luggage itself started to stir while coming to life as the wooden wheels began to rattle on the uneven stone floor by themselves and the rest of the luggage also moved as they waddled cutely after Xin to the exit of the escape tunnel.
"Hey now, wait for a minute!" Zarba quickly stopped Xin in her tracks as she was about to go out of the tunnel with the reanimated chests and luggage.
"Oh my, is there anything else?" She turned her face towards him with a curious expression as Zarba walked towards one of the chests and opened it up before he pulled out a short sword with a red handle that looked very well crafted. This is his personal sword that he ordered from the imperial smith years ago, and it was magically enchanted with durability and self-cleaning. He named it "Excellent."
"We need to get ourselves some bodyguards first." Zarba said while he strapped the sheath of Excellent on his belt.
"Bodyguards…? And pray tell, who are you going to hire and from where?" Xin asked, her eyebrow arching skeptically as she watched Zarba continue to pick up more things in the chest, a pair of daggers this time, which he strapped onto his belt as well. These two daggers are also magically enchanted with piercing and swiftness. He named them "Good" and "Great," and the one with the red ribbon is Great.
"You do realize that we have no one else that we can trust, right? The kind of people who would agree to guard us are also the kind of people that are unreliable and would not hesitate to stab us in the back for some small benefits, you know?" Xin tilted her head as she wondered what her husband wanted to do.
"Hahaha, have some fate!" Zarba laughed a little as he pulled out another thing from the chest. It's a beautiful white bow that looked like it was made out of bone and a quiver of arrows. This bow is a magic artifact that is capable of enchanting the released arrow to become more deadly and far-reaching than normally possible. Zarba doesn't know its original name, but he decided to just call it "Alright."
"I'm not going to hire anyone. We're going to manifest the most loyal, fearless, and strongest bodyguards the world will ever see!" Zarba with some excitement as his answer made Xin stare at him as if he'd finally cracked. "You're going to... manifest…? What does that even mean? Or is it like the time when your crazy father tried to make a nonsense ritual to summon a wife for his pet sock?"
"No, I'm not! I'm going to summon them, but not like that!" Zarba rebutted; the image of his daddy jumping around naked in the circle of cow blood still haunted his dream. Zarba then opened another chest that was filled with black armor pieces and quickly got them out one by one. "But first, help me put these on. The summon will require these on me."
Zarba then tossed her a gauntlet as Xin caught it, her lavender-tipped fingers tracing the cold metal. "This looks so grim and dreary. Where did you even get these?"
"It's custom-made; I ordered it from the smithy." Zarba said, already strapping on a greave on his boots. "Quite expansive but definitely worth it."
Xin then began to help Zarba in the armor with magic as she put the chainmail on him and then a cuirass before the pauldrons on his shoulders as the metal bit into his black cloak. The armor felt light from the magic enchantment on Zarba's body as each armor piece fit well and clanked a little against each other. Lastly, a black, featureless armor face mask is equipped on his face with only two lines of slits for eyes.
"Alright, all set and ready!" Zarba declared, his voice muffled slightly within the confines of the black featureless mask he now wore. He flexed his gauntleted fingers with excitement as he pulled up a hood on his head. "Time to manifest our bodyguard."
"How exactly is this going to work? Are you not… what did you call it again… a normie without much mana?" Xin asked, her voice tight with skepticism as she watched Zarba make some space around him in the cramped tunnel.
"How will I do it? Well, just like this?" Zarba cried out while he was navigating the system that was only visible to him as he selected a unit to summon from his SSS, and then a second passed before Xin almost jumped in fright as there was another person who appeared out of thin air and looked almost exactly like Zarba as the so-called manifest bodyguard suddenly stood in front of them, and the only difference between Zarba and this summon is that there's no sign of life from it at all. and its body is stiff and still like a statue. It's also wearing the exact same clothes and equipment as Zarba, with the same weapons as well, he noted.
"Hahaha! How's that?" Zarba said with a smug expression as he looked at his summon like it was his greatest masterpiece.