Secret: The undead do not die in the fire

Chapter 247: Skipping Class Will Pay the Price

Audrey hesitated and said:
"Um, Carla..."

"Please call me Fire Keeper," Carla interrupted her and corrected her.

Audrey noticed that Carla seemed to have a deep obsession with this word, and nodded slightly:

"Okay, Fire Keeper."

Carla smiled and said softly:
"Lord Ember, what do you want to ask?"

"where is this place?"

Audrey thought for a moment and asked.

A trace of nostalgia flashed in Carla's eyes, and she said softly:
"This is the Firelink Shrine, where the thrones of the Cinder Kings stand."

"And what you have to do is to bring the kings who have abandoned their thrones back to their thrones."

"Transmit the fire..."

Audrey fell silent. She remembered that Yu Jin once told her that passing on the fire was his destiny.

Does this mean that everything she is experiencing now is likely to be the past of the ember? And why did Carla spend so much energy to create such a dream? What does this have to do with the ember?
Audrey was full of questions, but she didn't say them out loud. She just asked softly:
"Ka... Fire Keeper, what should I do next?"

"You can try to explore the Firelink Shrine, or communicate with other people in the Firelink Shrine to collect useful information, but the most important thing is..."

Carula made some constructive suggestions, but then pointed to the extinguished brazier in front of her:
"You need to retrieve the Spiral Sword and reignite the campfire."

"Spiral Sword?"

Audrey was a little confused, but soon thought of the bonfire she had encountered before, which also had a spiral sword stuck in it.

In other words, the fire can only be ignited if there is a spiral sword inserted in it?
But where would she find the spiral sword?
Audrey suddenly remembered the tall knight half-kneeling on the ground she met in the square, with a spiral sword stuck in his chest.

Audrey asked hesitantly:

"So, I have to go back to the square, pull the sword out of the knight's chest, and bring it back here?"

"Yes."

Carla smiled and nodded, "We generally call your behavior skipping classes."

Audrey blinked. So she shouldn't have used psychological invisibility to skip class? Then should she clean up all the zombies she encountered along the way? With the help of psychological invisibility, it shouldn't be difficult to sneak attack and kill those zombies from behind.

But the knight looked so strong that Audrey, who had never had any combat experience, was a little nervous.

So she just kept all this in mind, but did not immediately return to the square to try to pull out the spiral sword. Because she remembered what Carula said, she could explore the Firelink Shrine first and communicate with others.

The Firelink Shrine is circular in shape, and all areas inside it can be connected to each other.

On the second floor of the Firelink Shrine, on the back of the five thrones, the names of the throne owners are engraved, from left to right:
The Deep Church——Saint Eldridge.

Rhodos the Exile.

The End of Bloodline——The Holy King of Lothric.

Watcher of the Abyss.

The city of sin——Giant King Youm.

The five thrones are symmetrical from left to right.

Except for the throne of 'Rhodos the Exile', which had a skinny old man on it, the owners of the other four thrones were not on their thrones. The owners of these thrones were the 'kings who abandoned their thrones'.

What Audrey has to do now is to bring these four people back to their thrones.

In addition to this, although the placement of the thrones seems to follow a certain pattern, they are not strictly symmetrical in size.

The throne belonging to 'Exile Rhodos' is the smallest, followed by 'Abyss Watcher', then 'Saint Eldridge' and 'Holy King of Lothric' whose thrones are larger and located on the far right, and the throne belonging to 'Giant King Yum' is the largest.

Audrey guessed that this might be related to the size of these "Cinder Kings". She had seen "three" of them in her dream.

Eldridge, Giant King Yum, Abyss Watcher.

Youm is a giant, so his size is naturally much larger than that of ordinary people, so it is normal for his throne to be the largest.

Only the Abyss Watchers, like the Feysac people who were said to be descendants of giants, were taller than ordinary people, but they were also of normal standard.

But even so, it couldn't explain the doubts in Audrey's heart.

For example, there seem to be a lot of Abyss Watchers, and one throne doesn’t seem to be enough for them all?
There was also the giant king Yum. Although his throne was the largest, it was still nothing compared to his huge body. Even if he was brought here, he probably wouldn't be able to sit on it.

Since Carola had spent so much effort to create this dream, she would definitely not make such a low-level mistake.

So, is there any reason that she doesn't know?
Audrey really wanted to ask Carla about it, but before that she thought she could ask someone else first.

For example, the exile Rhodos, the only one sitting on the throne.

Audrey searched the entire Firelink Shrine, but she only found five "living people". In addition to the fire keeper Carula, there was only the knight with his head bowed at the beginning, Rhodos on the throne, an old woman, and a blacksmith.

The one with the highest status among them should be 'Rhodes the Exile', the Lord of Salary sitting on the throne.

Audrey stood under Rhodos' throne and asked politely:

"Hello, sir, are you Mr. Rudos?"

"Oh, polite little girl."

Rhodos seemed to finally notice her, and said with emotion: "Before becoming the Fireless Ashes and the King Seeker, you must have been a well-educated noble lady. It turns out that not only dwarfs like me, but also people like you are cursed and bound..."

"Ah, sorry... I was a little distracted, but you guessed it right, I am Rhodos of Courland."

"You may not believe this, but I am the Fire King who once passed on the fire, and this body that is still burning with a tiny flame is irrefutable proof."

"If you look closer at this broken body, you should be able to see it clearly, right?"

Hearing Rhodos's self-deprecating tone, Audrey subconsciously glanced at Rhodos's lower body.

There was nothing there. Yes, although he was the King of Salary sitting high on the throne, Rhodos had lost his legs.

Audrey actually has some guesses about this.

Because in the scene she saw when she entered the dream, only three of the five new kings appeared:

Saint Eldridge, Abyss Watcher, and Giant King Youm.

The Holy King of Lothric and the Exiled Rhodos were not among them, but perhaps that was not absolute.

For example, Rhodos the Exile.

The other four Cinder Kings abandoned their thrones, but only Rhodos sat on his throne. This does not mean that he did not abandon his throne, he may have been forced to return to his throne.

Because in one of the pictures, Audrey saw a knight dragging a person with only the upper body back to the Firelink Shrine. And that person with only the upper body might be Rhodos...

In other words, Rhodos' legs might have been broken by the 'ashes' and then dragged back.

He might want to give up the throne like the other Cinder Kings, but his luck doesn't seem to be very good...

Although this was most likely the truth of the matter, Audrey was wise enough not to ask it directly.

Even if it was a dream, even if the Rhodes in front of him was just a product of fantasy, it was never good to poke at someone's scars in person.

Audrey carefully chose her words and asked:

"Do you know anything about the other Salary Kings?"

"Other salary kings..."

Rhodos glanced at the other thrones on both sides and said in a complicated tone:
"Although we are both Fire Kings, we passed on the Fire at different times and had no interactions before that, so my understanding of them is quite limited. I have only heard some stories about them. Of course, if you really want to know more, I can tell you some."

Audrey immediately showed an attitude of humbly seeking advice.

Rhodos looked at the throne on his right and said softly:

"Eldridge, it is rumored that he was once a priest of the White Church."

"He was originally an agent who was researching the Fire of Sin in the City of Sin on behalf of Lothric. His mind was affected by the Fire of Sin and he developed a habit of eating people. Therefore, he was dismissed and imprisoned in the Deep Church as a tool to deal with the undead. Those undead will be sent to Aldrich's mouth as 'sacrifices' along the Road of Living Sacrifice."

"Years of cannibalism and the influence of the Deep caused him to lose his human form and turn into a pool of mud, but the accumulation of souls also gave him the power to become the Lord of Cinder. Lothric named him the 'Saint' and used him as fuel for the First Fire. After passing on the fire, he was buried in a coffin deep in the Deep Church."

"Cannibalism?"

Audrey immediately felt a chill, such behavior was simply intolerable to the world! In the Kingdom of Loen, he would definitely be sentenced to death a hundred times! But in this world, in order to let him pass on the fire, such a person was named a "saint", which was absurd and bizarre.

Rhodes didn't seem to notice Audrey's strangeness and continued to introduce:
"Giant King Yum, he is a descendant of the ancient conquerors."

"With the giant's body, Youmu was invincible and helped the people of the City of Sin to repel foreign enemies and expand their territory."

"But the people of the City of Sin are not grateful to Youm for this. They are full of fear towards Youm because they are afraid that Youm's great power will threaten their safety."

"Until one day, the fire of sin fell from the sky, and the unextinguishable flames burned everything around. In order to resolve this crisis, people elected Youm as the king of the City of Sin."

"Even though Youm knew that the people who nominated him as king were not sincere, he still agreed to their request. However, even Youm was powerless against the unextinguishable Fire of Sin, until he heard a rumor: The Fire of Sin appeared because the First Fire was about to go out, and as long as the First Fire could be rekindled, the Fire of Sin could be extinguished. So Youm, who wanted to save the people of the City of Sin, resolutely chose to embark on the path of passing on the Fire."

"The watchers of the abyss, the Farran Undead Squad."

"They are the successors of the will of the Abyss Walker Artorius. They have signed a contract with the old wolf Faran and share wolf blood. They are a group of warriors who monitor the Abyss and eliminate any signs of Abyss erosion."

"In order to stop the erosion of the abyss, we will not hesitate to destroy a country. The Undead Squad alone is not enough to become a salary. Their strength comes from the power of the group. After sharing the wolf blood, the Undead Squad has the qualifications to become a salary."

"In order to continue the First Flame, Lothric used the Undead Squad that suppressed the Abyss as firewood to pass on the flame."

"at last……"

Rhodos cast his gaze towards the throne at the top and said in a complicated tone:
"Lothric has two princes, the eldest prince Lorian and the second prince Lothric who was given the same name as his country."

"Prince Lothric was expected to pass on the fire before he was born, but he was weak after he was born and failed to become a hero wielding the platinum sword as the royal family expected."

"In order to protect his brother, the eldest prince Lorian even resisted the mission of passing on the fire, believing that it was a cursed path. This led to civil strife in Lothric. The knights of Lothric fought each other because of their respective ideals, while the two princes hid at the top of the Great Library of Lothric, waiting for the day when the flames would go out and the era would end."

"It is precisely because Prince Lothric resisted the mission of passing on the fire that we, the ancient fire kings who have passed on the fire, were awakened by the bell and fulfilled the mission of passing on the fire again."

Audrey hesitated to speak. Is this what you mean by 'limited knowledge' and 'only heard some rumors'?
This 'some' is too detailed!
Of course, Audrey also knew that this was just a dream, just a reappearance of a legend from the past.

It may not even be a complete reproduction.

For example, Audrey always felt that Carla was full of hidden agendas, otherwise why would she assign herself the role of the Fire Keeper?
The real Rhodos himself might indeed have limited knowledge of the other Salary Kings.

But this was a dream, and the 'Rhodos' in front of him was just a product of the dream. And since the dream was constructed by Carla, then everything Rhodos said might just be said by Carla through him.

This also gave Audrey a new guess about Carla's purpose -

It is obviously impossible to pass on the fire.

This is just a dream, and there is no point in passing on fire in a dream.

Perhaps what Carla is pursuing is just to retell the past story and reveal the truth of it all to the world.

And everything that happens in the dream is just serving this goal.

After realizing this, Audrey stopped dwelling on the 'person' who provided the information and began to analyze the information itself.

Judging from the experiences of these five "fire kings", passing on the fire itself does not seem to be as glamorous as its literal meaning. Instead, it is full of all kinds of dirty deals. The superiors unscrupulously named those with powerful souls as "fire kings" and naturally used them as tools for passing on the fire. Even the undead team that suppressed the abyss was used as firewood...

In order to pass on the fire, even the abyss is abandoned. Is passing on the fire really that important?
Even though she hadn't really started to experience all of this, Audrey had already begun to question it all.

Thinking of this, Audrey suddenly had a feeling——

Perhaps the doubts she had were exactly what Carla expected.

Carla wanted her, or rather, wanted everyone who entered this dream, to have the same doubts.

(End of this chapter)