There weren’t many pieces of furniture in the wooden house. Violet and Xiao Guang searched separately for a while, and the former soon found a clue in the cupboard.

In fact, Violet had almost found it before, but Xiao Guang interrupted her, delaying her explanation for a bit.

It was a porcelain bowl stacked at the bottom. At first glance, it seemed no different from the other tableware, but when Violet took the ones on top away one by one, she hesitated when she reached this one.

After probing it with a little force, she confirmed that the porcelain bowl was made of refined iron and was connected to the cupboard, or something under the cupboard, forming a hidden mechanism.

Similar items were familiar to Violet from some decryption tasks, so she quickly figured out what to do.

She grasped the iron bowl and tried to rotate it clockwise.

No response. It wasn’t due to lack of strength. Rather, judging from the somewhat overloaded clicking sound coming from it, if she applied more force, it might just break off.

Violet quickly tried rotating it in the opposite direction.

“Click, click, click...”

This time it worked smoothly. With a slight mechanical sound, a part of the stove’s side, seemingly integrated with the floor, gradually flipped upwards, revealing the space below.

That sound...

Violet nodded to herself.

Yes, it was the same sound she vaguely heard when Mr. Side-Swept Bangs knocked on the door earlier.

“Let’s go and take a look.”

Together with Xiao Guang, Violet bent down to look down, and what they saw wasn’t the rough tunnel dug out, but rather finely crafted stone stairs, indicating that it was some sort of basement.

Descending along the stone steps, after about ten steps, they arrived at the intentionally hidden secret room.

Contrary to their expectations of complexity or strangeness, the furnishings here were still very simple. In the roughly fifty to sixty square meters of space, there was only a desk and a chair, with the nearby bookshelf stuffed full of thick books piled together.

The magical lamps in the basement provided ample light. There was still about half a cup of dark brown liquid remaining in the wooden cup on the table. Violet picked it up and sniffed lightly. Although she couldn’t discern exactly what it was, it was likely some kind of drug with at least a stimulating effect.

That was all the items in the basement.

Did Eileen come out here just to read?

And... not to mention the cost of excavating the basement itself, just the hundreds of books, which clearly were not something a girl living in the slums, without any support, could afford.

Books, especially those containing important knowledge and techniques, represented immense value in this world. Many people, even if they were wealthy, might not be able to find a way to purchase them, let alone someone like Eileen, a poor and helpless girl.

Violet walked to the bookshelf and casually flipped through it, finding that most of the books had been read and were filled with numerous bookmarks.

If all these markings were made by Eileen as...

Violet remembered very clearly that when Eileen was with them before, she always portrayed herself as similar to an early Theresa, with no knowledge or insight, even explicitly stating that she didn’t recognize the token representing the Human United Kingdom royal family.

But in this bookshelf, quite a few were actually related to various aspects of Human United Kingdom ethnic culture and details.

In other words, many of the things she showed at that time were intentionally put on for them to see.

Thinking this, the black-haired girl picked up something placed on the table, somewhat old and worn, obviously handwritten by someone rather than printed, likely a set of notes.

There were an unusually large number of bookmarks in it.

“?!?”

Opening it, Violet paused for a moment, her expression instantly becoming extremely vivid.

The text on it was actually not in the language of the kingdom, nor was it in Winged-people language or some commonly used language, nor was it the mysterious script she had seen on the stone tablet in the shrine on Omo Island.

It was a set of notes written in the language of Earth!

“Unbelievable...?!”

Even with the temperament of a priestess, at this moment Violet couldn’t help but feel excited and nervous, her steady hands trembling slightly.

A traveler, also from Earth, a traveler different from Violet, had left these notes!

“Master? Are you okay?”

“No... no, Xiao Guang, don’t say anything for now, let me calm down...”

“....Okay.”

Taking a few deep breaths, barely calming the surge of emotions, Violet lowered her head and looked back at the content of the notes in her hand.

The handwriting was somewhat bold and sloppy, perhaps written by a man, but that didn’t matter.

【Exploration Log – Illusionary Realm】

【Day 1: Haha, it’s almost here! It’s been three whole years since we received that message. Everyone put aside their own affairs and concentrated all resources and energy into searching. Finally, today we found the entrance to the Illusionary Realm, it was actually in the Ten Thousand Demons Mountains!

After waiting for so long, the gate is about to open. I can’t wait to see what’s inside!】

【Day 2: Phew, finally got a moment to rest. This place, how should I say it... is indeed full of dangers. If it were most natives of other worlds, they would probably be torn to shreds by those monsters as soon as they entered. And these are just the small monsters in the early stages.

But for us, it’s manageable. Despite being apart for so long, our cooperation hasn’t faltered much. After all, we are comrades who came here together.

Hehe, it’s quite exciting. Since coming to this world, except for occasional encounters, we’ve hardly encountered opponents this powerful before. It feels like pioneering, in a way?】

【Day 3: It’s a bit troublesome. Although the concentration of magical elements in the Illusionary Realm is ridiculously high, it seems we can’t absorb them. MP recovery is incredibly slow, and everyone can only rely on potions for replenishment.

But there are just too many monsters here, and they’re too densely packed. Almost every segment of the journey leads to a major battle. If Miss Tiyelu hadn’t reminded us before we came and provided a rough map of the Illusory World, the situation would probably be much worse.】

“Illusionary Realm, it’s the Illusionary Realm again...”

Just after reading three days’ worth of notes, Violet was filled with intense curiosity. She could now basically confirm that the person who wrote this notebook was like her, a player from the Illusory World, or game world. And it seemed like there was more than one of them.

Regardless of how these players came here, they definitely didn’t do so without reason, to explore a place that Violet had hardly heard of before, except for that one time. Moreover, it explicitly mentioned the name of Tiyelu.

Setting aside the extremely small possibility of a namesake, it meant that Tiyelu had already had contact with travelers before.

No wonder...

Almost impatiently, Violet continued to read on.

The lengthy portion of the journal afterward was written from the perspective of this traveler, describing various events that occurred to their team in the Illusory World, such as encountering various chaotic types of monsters, along with increasing complaints and frustrations.

It seemed that as they progressed further, the pressure on their team was also increasing day by day.

【Day 52: It’s getting unbearable. Our potion reserves are running critically low. We’ve almost exhausted all the high-efficiency recovery potions we brought from the game. In just over a month, we’ve used up more than in the past ten years. Now, we can only barely sustain ourselves with the magic potions produced locally in this world.

A few of us are still holding up fine, after all, combat isn’t solely reliant on skills. But Cheese Mochi, who is our priest, is barely holding on. Even with the high intelligence bonus from being a fairy, she can’t withstand such intense battles. She’s now completely drained of MP every day, and drinking potions almost makes her want to vomit.

Seeing her force herself to drink massive amounts of magic potions until her stomach is about to burst, crouching on the ground almost vomiting, everyone, who usually enjoys teasing each other, looks very solemn, including me.

Should we give up?

The resources we brought from the game are non-renewable, and the magic potions in this world not only have poor effects but also clear side effects.

They definitely can’t support us for another trip back. Everyone’s strength has also reached its limit. If we fail this time, we’ll almost never be able to reach the center of the Illusionary Realm again.

What should I do?】

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com