Chương 81: Princess Anna's Tomb

"Master, how much longer are we going to keep driving?" Inside the luxury motorhome, Neon rolled back and forth across the wide bed, her face full of boredom.

"Master, we've been out for almost a week already. We just keep driving and driving. We don't even go out to play. Neon is bored." To be honest, Neon was close to reaching her limit. Every time they reached a town, Aren only asked around for information, restocked the motorhome, and left again almost immediately. That was not the trip Neon had imagined at all. Aren did not have an answer either. He really did not know how to answer her question. The first and middle sections of Neon's fortune had already come true.

That proved the fortune was accurate. The problem was that the poem only told him to go east. It did not say how far east, or for how long. With no better option, Aren could only keep moving like a man following a blind compass.

"Mr. Aren, there is another town ahead. Should we stop there?" the driver's voice came through the speaker from the front cabin. Aren picked up the handset beside him.

"Go there." Then he turned back to Neon.

"All right, all right. This time, we won't leave right away. We'll stay in the town ahead for one night before moving on. Is that enough?" Neon's eyes lit up at once.

"Really? Master can't lie to Neon."

"Really. When have I ever lied to you?"

"Yay! We can finally go down and play!" Neon sprang up on the bed, bouncing with excitement.

"Neon, be careful. Don't fall." The town ahead was called Feykon Town. It had no large population and no special tourist attractions. Its location was terrible as well. There was no railway nearby, and it was nowhere close to the sea, so it did not even have a port. In a town like this, young people usually left to seek work elsewhere. Most of the people who remained were elderly residents and children whose parents worked far away. For some reason, however, the town was crowded when Aren's motorhome drove in.

Normally, a place with no real economy, landmarks, or market would not attract many outsiders. Yet Feykon Town was full of noise. Aren observed the crowd and noticed that most people seemed to have come from other regions. After the driver finally found a parking space across from an inn, Aren entered the lobby with Neon, who kept looking around curiously.

"Hello. What rooms do you have available?" No matter what, since he had promised Neon they would stay at least one night, they needed a room. From the outside, the motorhome's facilities might have been more luxurious than the inn. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. But if they kept sleeping in the motorhome, there would be no sense of travel at all. Aren thought his attitude was polite enough, but the owner behind the counter waved him off impatiently.

"None. Nothing left. You're another treasure hunter, aren't you? I'll tell you straight. There isn't a single empty room left in the whole town."

'Treasure hunter?' Aren noticed the key phrase. He raised an eyebrow, then asked, "Sorry, boss. I'm not a treasure hunter. Just an ordinary traveler passing through your town. What treasure are you talking about?" When the owner heard that Aren was not one of the treasure hunters, his expression eased slightly. He studied Aren carefully for a moment. The young man truly did not look like the rough, lawless type currently flooding the town.

"A few days ago, a typhoon hit us. Somehow, it exposed a tomb in the nearby mountains. They say it belongs to Princess Anna. After that, treasure hunters, grave robbers, and every stray dog with a nose for profit rushed over." The owner's face twisted with irritation.

"If the official guards were here, they might still be able to control things. But those people are all lawless. Our little town guards are no match for them."

"Worse, the typhoon caused a landslide on the main road and blocked reinforcements from nearby districts. These past few days, the whole town has been suffering because of that crowd."

"Young man, take my advice. Leave early. This place is no good right now. Once night falls and those people start drinking, they can annoy a man to death." After hearing the explanation, Aren's eyes flickered. Treasure. A tomb. Both words caught his attention. If he had guessed correctly, the east mentioned in Neon's fortune likely referred to Feykon Town. Aren smiled at the owner.

"I see. Thank you."

"No problem. I thought you were another treasure hunter, so I was rude at first. Sorry about that. Take an old man's advice and leave while you still can." The owner truly seemed to resent the scavengers who had overrun the town.

"It's fine. In that case, I'll take your advice. We'll go now." Aren waved as he left. Seeing him do it, Neon copied him and waved to the owner too. Watching the two leave, the owner could not help sighing. That young man was genuinely handsome, and the little girl was adorable as well. Perhaps they were siblings.

'I did a good deed today. I talked two good kids into going home. How kind of me.' After returning to the motorhome, Neon ran over to Aren with a conflicted expression.

"Master, what did that old man mean by a tomb?" Aren did not answer directly. Instead, he gave her a mysterious smile.

"Neon, do you want to go on an adventure with Master?" Neon's eyes sparkled at once. All thoughts of the tomb vanished from her mind. Cartoons, treasure maps, secret caves, and heroic explorers filled her imagination.

"Yes! Neon wants to go on an adventure with Master!" The Princess Anna mentioned by the inn owner had once been the consort of a destroyed kingdom called Frankfort roughly eight hundred years ago. Her life had been unusually tragic. Anna had been born into nobility and married the crown prince of Frankfort for political reasons. That alone was nothing unusual. The problem was that Frankfort's crown prince was a depraved, rotten man. Because of the excesses of his youth, his body had become weak.

Ordinary pleasure no longer stirred him. He needed more extreme stimulation to feel anything. That stimulation was watching his wife be degraded. From then on, Princess Anna's life became hell. To satisfy himself, the crown prince arranged for all kinds of people to violate and humiliate her. Again and again. Until Anna was completely broken. In the Hunter world, aside from Nen, there also existed a force that stood almost opposite to it. Resentment.

After Princess Anna died, her suffering gave birth to an intense Resentment that swept through Frankfort like a bloody storm. The first to die, of course, was the crown prince. His death was bizarre and miserable. An unknown force twisted his entire body like rope, yet left his head intact. His face remained frozen in a grotesque expression, half crying and half laughing. According to the records Aren found, Princess Anna's tomb was not truly a tomb. It was a seal.

The Frankfort royal family had found a powerful Nen user of that era and used the so-called tomb to seal Princess Anna beneath the mountain. The location of the tomb had always been a secret. No one knew where it was. Inside, aside from Anna's body, the royals had placed everything she had treasured in life to anchor her soul. Among those objects was said to be the last and rarest of the Seven Great Beauties: the Great Sky Stone. It was a gem as clear as the open sky.

Anyone who looked at it was said to feel as if they were standing beneath an endless blue sky, peaceful and free. Snap. Aren closed the information booklet he had just bought from a street vendor. Naturally, the booklet did not mention Nen or Resentment. Aren had filled in those parts using what he knew. From the look of it, the scavengers gathering here were all after the Great Sky Stone. Everyone believed they were special. Everyone thought that perhaps they would be the lucky one.

What bothered Aren was the way Princess Anna's tomb had appeared. The reason the discovery spread was that after the typhoon, a local apprentice apothecary went into the nearby mountain to gather herbs as usual. There, he found one of Princess Anna's burial objects. And not just any object. He found a crown that clearly proved her identity. It felt far too deliberate. Almost as if something had wanted people to come.