Hera stormed into the palace. A few of the Harpy guards did try to stop her, but due to her position, they were not willing to use force, especially since she wasn't being outright hostile to anyone. Sure, she was moving with purpose and telling people to get out of her way. But during the entire march, she never once was rude to the people who were only trying to do their jobs. Even when saying move, she would add a sorry or an apology in the mix.

She stormed into the meeting room, taking advantage of the fact that the alliance itself was in the middle of one of their meetings. As soon as she walked in, everybody stopped and turned to watch her, the council members all surprised by her presence.

"Hera? Is everything okay?" Typhera asked.

"Yes, no, actually. I mean, I just came back from Deakoshara, and things are not good there," Hera walked over to a spot on the table where the other members of the council would be able to see her. "The entire room is overrun by undead."

"Yes, we received that report," the elf councilwoman replied.

"I know, but that's not all. The main problem is that the Coiled Serpent, the Naga capital, is swarming with undead. Thousands upon thousands, maybe even millions of them, are just roaming the streets. And whatever is causing them to exist seems to be spreading. Worst of all, this effect is not being caused by the city. It's actually coming from a different room. I saw a doorway that was turning gray inside the city."

The council members stopped and stared at her for a moment, their expressions loosening from that stern faces of people in power being disturbed to people who understood why such a disruption happened.

"This is a very troubling situation, and we should look into this. However, that's not a reason for interrupting the meeting like this. It is not urgent, and we have certain proceedings that must be followed," Chieftain Wilmanue, the female leader of the beastmen, said.

"I'm not done," Hera replied, her voice in a commanding tone that no one was really expecting her to have. "The real problem is what's beyond that room. I went there with a few of my friends, and we found skeletons. Not monster skeletons, just skeletons that were moving. I couldn't find their level, so they maybe are part of a curse or spell. I'm not sure, or they might be monsters who have some way of stopping us from seeing their information. Once we were attacked, it quickly became clear that we were poorly equipped to handle the situation. That's why we decided to flee and go back to Deakoshara. When we did that, the skeletons followed us across the doorway."

The moment she said those words, all council members stopped taking this as just a random interruption. Even Nereus, who seemed to be enjoying the show, sat on his chair properly before trying to understand.

"But you said they are not monsters, right?" the Triton Sovereign asked.

"Depends on your definition of monsters. They move, they attack, they can hurt us. But according to the system, they are not classified as monsters per se. They are not classified as anything, as a matter of fact. I tried using [Observe] and even [Identify] on them, but it came out blank."

"Blank as in the notification was empty?" Hera shook her head.

"Sorry. There wasn't even a notification."

"That's less worrisome but still a problem," King Thrain said. "Actually, no, Hera, if this is a skill that is allowing skeletons to go from one room to the next, it likely means that the person or the creature that is controlling them can do the same. I would like to confirm one thing. Are you really trying to say that you believe we are dealing with a Devil?"

Typhera paused, speaking very slowly, giving a chance for Hera to withdraw her statement or to back down.

"I do, or at least there is a strong possibility that we are dealing with one."

"Hera, I know you know this, but the last time we saw a Devil was a few hundred years ago," Elara Silverfe, the elf High Councilor, added.

"I know that. But we also have never seen another species in the MAZE, and yet the centaurs appeared. Even if I'm wrong, which for the record I hope I am, I don't think it's a good idea not to consider the worst-case scenario. Because if we don't and it ends up being a Devil, it's going to be much worse than anything else, especially if we think about how close it is from large population centers."

Hera glanced at Typhera, who gave her a nod.

"Yes, but do you think you might be precipitating your assumptions a bit?" Elara asked.

"If there's even a hint of a possibility that it really is a Devil, it is way too close to my home for comfort," Typhera said.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"But still, already saying that this is the work of a Devil seems premature," Chieftain Wilmanue crossed her arms.

"Then what else do you think it could be?" Hera asked.

"I don't know. The MAZE is weird. It could be just a strange monster, some effect that happens in that room. Maybe a Legacy, I don't know."

"Let me ask you this, Chieftain Wilmanue. If this possibility were close to your homeland, would you ignore it or would you try to investigate it?" Typhera asked.

The beastmen frowned for a moment but then nodded. "Fair point. I will help however I can. Some of my warriors are excellent scouts."

Typhera nodded. "I appreciate the offer, but I believe your efforts would be more suited for research. Not because I don't trust the expertise of the beastmen, but because we cannot afford to wait that long to send a team. And I assume you would send someone from your homeland, yes?"

Chieftain Wilmanue nodded. "Well, yes, the best of the best aren't here. It would take at least a week for them to arrive, and that is if we use some of our faster routes."

"Exactly, so I will have my own people being scouts," Queen Typhera turned to Hera. "Unless the room beyond Deakoshara is unsuited for flying, it's not underground or inside a cave or anything like that?"

"I don't know how dangerous the skies will be. We didn't attempt to fly when we got there."

The queen nodded. "That's fine. As long as the sky is open, we can work with this."

"Okay then, what would you have us do?" Chieftain Wilmanue asked.

"I would appreciate if you could focus on research. I am not entirely sure if this is the first time anyone has ever encountered something like this in the MAZE and would very much like to know what has been done in the past. After all, if we already have a solution, there will be no need for us to spend time and effort trying to come up with a different way of solving this issue. Does that work for everyone?"

Typhera looked around and got a nod from the rest of the council. But when she turned to Hera, the Empress was just staring into a random spot in front of her.

"Hera? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, no, that works. I just didn't think that we could handle that ourselves. It was too dangerous."

But there was still something that Chieftain Wilmanue said that was bothering her. A Legacy. That wasn't something that Hera even considered, but now that she thought about it, it could be possible. As a matter of fact, a Legacy that dealt with zombies, skeletons, and other undead felt familiar, but she couldn't quite wrap her finger around it.

"Then, if that's the case, I'm going to set up everything, and hopefully we'll be ready to send the scout team in a day or two. Would that be okay?" Typhera asked.

But Hera was still struggling with that strange recognition and just nodded absentmindedly. "Yeah, yeah, sure."

She turned around and started to leave the meeting room, not even saying goodbye to the rest of the council, who understood that she was frazzled and took no offense at that.

But after she walked a few meters away from the meeting room and the doors were already closed, something clicked in her mind. Something that she hadn't thought about in a very, very long time. Rushing back to the meeting room, she interrupted their conversation, which was trying to get back another topic once more.

"An Undead Legacy!" Hera said.

"What are you talking about?" King Thrain asked.

"Sorry, I just remembered something about an Undead Legacy. It was with an emperor who was evil, and it took a lot of people to kill him. I don't remember his name, but I remember the name of who killed that emperor. King Gwendolyn. He was an assassin who got rid of the evil emperor, and he was even part of my assassin role test."

Hearing that, the council members paused for a moment, and they all turned towards Elara, the only assassin on the council.

"She's not wrong. There is a version of the assassin role test where you talk to King Gwendolyn. But I don't remember him mentioning anything about keeping the Legacy."

"Yeah, because, well, I'm not sure if he did. I know that my test I did when I just started to become an explorer, before I got my role. That one test you do in the guild that was kind of a dungeon, it was against some skeletons. And King Gwendolyn was the main boss of that test. We had to defeat him since he was now a skeleton because of the Legacy or something like that. I always assumed that was just a setting the guild created using their servers so we could test things out in a real dungeon. But does that have any truth to it?"

The council members glanced at each other.

"I don't think anyone here has that information, but it's a good clue. We can look into things and see if the idea that King Gwendolyn is still around and still has a Legacy holds any value. Now, Hera, we were discussing some things that we need to go over. You're free to join, after all, you do have a seat on this council. But you're also free to go about your day and continue doing what you were doing," Typhera replied with a smile that Hera understood as get out of here and save yourself.

"Then please, let me know if you find anything."

"Of course."

With that, Hera left the council room. But while she was still in the corridor, she sent a message to Bonnie asking about King Gwendolyn.

The Ophidianite was positive that this really had something to do with the Forgotten King, even if it was very weird to think about it. She not just had her first real explorer quest related to that king. But there was also a hidden mission in her assassin role test was all about following the footsteps of the ancient king. The fact that she was now possibly going to interact with the real version of him felt like fate, almost.

She was never someone who truly believed in that kind of thing, but the coincidence was too big for her to ignore. This could even be related to what Timber, the Guide of the Fields of Elysium, had told her. 'I'm sorry for making you deal with something like this again.",'

He might not be referring to a curse but instead to the undead emperor and his Legacy, which was something that was universally hated by all those who came into contact with it. And maybe that was why the Guide was apologizing the way he did.

With that in mind, Hera went after Alex, Bonnie, and Shane, who were in the city looking for tools and gear that could help them deal with the undead. They were not that confident that they would finding anything, but at the very least, they could be a bit better prepared the next time they went there. Because one way or another, they had to solve this problem before even starting to think about continuing their exploration of Deakoshara.

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