Though the mood lightened up, Jack still carefully led the way forward, tapping the tiles of the ground all the way, but even after the duo arrived at the central area, nothing happened.

  “Safe? Am I overreacting?” Jack grumbled to himself and relaxed a little.

  Xiao Shuling blinked her clever little eyes then casually looked around. “Eih! Uncle, there’s nothing here. Hum, did uncle lie about the treasures?”

  Jack chuckled and gave her a pat on the head. “Don’t be so impatient, little missy. We’re getting there.”

  After saying that, he squatted down and knocked on the floor with the back of his ax. “According to the game template, below here should be a secret room filled with chests, but…”

  “Here, unlike the game, the floor’s not made from wool, but actual sandstone. It sounds pretty solid and even if I chop from morn till night, we ain’t digging through all of this anytime soon.”

  “Even if we can… there might be quite some dangerous stuff waiting down there. One mistake and we’ll go boom.”

  “Hum? So that’s a no-go?” Xiao Shuling poked the floor and pouted. “Fuu~ Then what did this miss walk all the way here for?”

  Jack chuckled again. “Aight, no worries, little missy. Our adventure doesn’t end here…”

  “If I’m not wrong, there should still be another secret treasure room in this pyramid. Somewhere in this atrium, there should be a secret passage leading down to it. Perhaps buried in sand. If we can find it…”

  “Yay! Little Ling’er will get right to it! Ehehe~”

  Seeing the little missy forget all about his warnings and cheerfully skipping off, Jack could only sigh. “Hey, little missy! Don’t go too far! And be careful, yeah?”

  “Got it~”

  No more words were needed. The two explorers scouted the interior…

  Going around the outer rim of the atrium, Jack discovered even more weathered skeletons, many with scars on their bones and some bore holes on their skull like they got skewered through by something.

  The death angels, maybe?

  But the dead didn’t interest him that much. Instead, he found the faded murals on the outer walls much more interesting.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Humans worshiping the sun, fighting unknown strangely-shaped dark creatures that covered both land and skies, and what appears to be double moons.

  “Hmm… a story of some war? Or a warning?”

  Jack wasn’t sure about the specifics. He wasn’t an archaeologist or historian.

  Just when Jack was about to move on to search somewhere else...

  Clunk! “Eih! Uncle, uncle! I found it! This miss found it!”

  Hearing the rumbles of a mechanism, Jack’s heart almost leapt out of his chest! What did the little missy do?!

  He hurried over and found the little missy proudly standing over an underground stair passage that opened up below the corridor.

  The first thing he did was give the careless adventurer a knock on her head. “What did I tell you about being careful, little missy? What if you triggered some dangerous trap!”

  “Ehehe” Xiao Shuling rubbed her little head with an aggrieved face. “Uncle, it was an accident”

  “Don’t tell me finding that mechanism is an accident, too!”

  “Fuu?! How did uncle guess?!” Xiao Shuling is shocked.jpg.

  Looking at the little missy blinking her pure and innocent eyes at him, Jack felt stifled inside, but could do nothing.

  After all, this lucky charm did help find what he couldn’t even after searching the place twice!

  “Aight. I won’t preach anymore on this matter. Just remember, don’t do this next time, little missy.”

  Xiao Shuling raised a little paw. “Hai Little Ling’er knows Ehehe~”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Jack helplessly led the way down. “Follow up, let’s see what we can find down there. Remember to watch your steps.”

  “Aye! Aye! Capitan Jack!”

  Down the narrow stairs they went…

  The stair passage here was much, much longer than what appeared in the game and Jack suspected…

  “Looks like we’re heading all the way down to the center below the atrium… little missy, remember, don’t mess around.”

  Xiao Shuling pouted. “Hum. Little Ling’er never messes around.”

  No more words were said. The thin, stale air in the passage didn’t afford them that luxury.

  Soon, the duo arrived in a small chamber, brightly-lit by a single torch on the wall.

  Jack wasn’t sure how that torch stayed burning here for heavens knows how long, but his main attention was attracted by the ominous object at the center of the room.

  It was a lone sarcophagus surrounded by cubic-shaped chests on fours sides!

  “According to the game, this should’ve been an archaeology-focused loot room filled with suspicious sand or a chest room with a single booby-trapped pressure plate. But…”

  “Looks like reality is full of surprises. Sheesh. This kinda gives me the creeps.” Jack felt cold inside but those familiar-looking chests beckoned!

  Give up the loot just because this scene looked like some cliché trope right out of a horror film? No way!

  What’s there to be afraid of? Besides, even if something crawls out, he’s not powerless!

  Meanwhile, Xiao Shuling didn’t care so much about taboos.

  Noticing no traps around the room, she skipped up to give the sarcophagus two knocks. “Uncle~ whatever’s sleeping inside won’t crawl out if we open the chests, right?”

  “Haha. Good one, little missy.” Jack joined her side and patted a chest. “Aight, we’ll find out once we open em…”

  The chests were naturally not locked and Jack didn’t hesitate to access it...

  Creaaaaak~

  The chest’s opening seemed to trigger some unseen magical disturbance in the dark...

  Off to the side in the main atrium upstairs, the skull on a skeleton creaked and slowly turned to stare down in the direction of the tomb raiders.