Gray Chronicle

Chapter 13 Underfoot

Lynn stood still.

On the crystal slice, the percentage of "Rule Record (Perception)" jumped from 0.3% to 4.8%. A new gray entry also appeared:

【Rule Imprint (Basic)】Not activated.

Note: Requires [Rune Awakening - Initial] to reach 50% or higher to unlock.

"Look," Kirk said, his voice trembling.

After the stone tablet rose above the water, the bottom of the icy pool began to glow. It wasn't a pale blue, cold light—it was a strong green light emitted by countless needle-like, etched crystalline minerals being activated simultaneously. The mineral layer at the bottom of the river was so thick that the bottom was invisible, and each mineral looked like a drop of congealed green blood.

The ore the guild needs.

Not just a few samples—it's an entire vein of ore. Pure, gray-eroded crystalline ore, buried deep within the icy pools of an underground river, guarded for countless years by the remains of seven generations of a dwarven observer family and a stone tablet.

Suddenly, a sound came from outside. It wasn't a whirlpool, flowing water, or knocking. It was footsteps. Quick footsteps, more than one person, coming from the direction of the tributary at the crossroads.

Lynn drew his Holy Iron Sword.

Under the blue light of the cold pool, the gray etched patterns on the blade revealed their full color for the first time—not dark green, not murky green, but a blue-green close to that of the deep sea. It was as if this knife had been waiting for water at this temperature.

Ellie had disappeared behind the stalagmite on the left side of the cave entrance.

Kirk gripped the iron bar tightly. The sharpened end of the bar was aimed at the opening of the hole.

The footsteps grew closer.

The blue-green light of the Holy Iron Blade spread out in the mist of the icy pool.

Lynn didn't look at the hole. He looked at his feet.

The footsteps coming from the direction of the five-way intersection belonged to five people. Their steps were uneven—three people's steps were heavy, the soles of their leather boots slamming against the dark river's stone surface with a dull thud; one person's steps were light, their shoes having softer soles, the only sound being the scraping of gravel pressed into the mud; the last step was the most distinctive—not fast, but each footstep landing on the same type of stone. It wasn't that they were avoiding the gravel, but rather that they were deliberately stepping on the exposed, hard rock edges, as if they knew the texture of every inch of the ground.

Five people. Three with heavy steps, one with light steps, and one who knew the way.

Lynn's fingers loosened and tightened on the hilt of the Holy Iron Sword.

Not Rice. Rice's gang wouldn't be able to operate at that pace—they can run and hide in the alleys of the lower city, but they'd be in disarray in the underground river. The gravel, the puddles, the reflected light from the eroded crystals—these things would make anyone who's never been in the underground river before feel unsteady on their feet.

These five people are not arrogant.

“Three of them are wearing leather boots, one is wearing cloth shoes,” Lynn said, his voice low enough for Ellie to hear, “and the other one is very familiar with the terrain of the underground river—not that he’s been here before, but he’s been to similar places.”

Ellie didn't answer. She had already retreated into the shadows behind the stalagmite. When Lynn glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, he saw her figure blur—not disappear, but the edges of her silhouette began to blend into the gray, crystalline patterns on the stalagmite's surface. Like water seeping into a crack in the rock.

It wasn't learned. It's instinct.

Kirk stood on the other side. He wasn't hiding. The iron rod was across his waist, the sharpened end pointing outwards, and his breathing was a beat slower than usual. He stared at the cave entrance.

Randall remained motionless on the opposite side of the icy pool. The chains around his ankles dragged on the ground, and his two empty eye sockets faced the direction from which the sound came. His head was tilted slightly to the left—tilted so that his right ear was pointing precisely at the crossroads. The ears of someone whose eyes have been gouged out become pointed. This isn't something written in books; only those who have survived in the dark river know it.

The footsteps stopped outside the tributary of the eye.

It's not that we've arrived. It's that we're making a judgment.

The silence lasted for three breaths.

Then a man's voice came from the cave entrance. It wasn't a shout, but the kind of voice someone used to giving orders indoors kept just loud enough to penetrate the stone wall—not too loud, not too soft, not too fast, not too slow.

"Public Third Surveying Team, in accordance with the Guild's surveying order, is conducting the second section of the underground river reconnaissance. Torch bearers in the tributary ahead, please declare your identity and commission number."

The surveying team. Not from the temple.

Lynn's sword remained sheathed. He had seen the commission document the clerk had given him—a survey of the underground river, five days' deadline, payment in the form of guild registration. But he had also seen the clerk's expression when he mentioned the "surveying team." Not hostility, but something more complex—the wariness between colleagues.

"What is the Third Public Surveying Team?" Kirk squeezed out the question through clenched teeth.

"Competitors," Lynn said.

Ellie let out a barely audible breath from behind the stalagmite—not out of fear, but out of understanding. The scavengers of the lower city understood what competition meant. It wasn't a life-or-death struggle; it was about taking what you found first.

Lynn raised the Holy Iron Sword a little higher, letting the light from the blade illuminate his face.

"Graymite City Adventurers' Guild. Commission Number—"

He recited the number the clerk had written in the upper left corner of the document. Not by pulling the document out of his pocket to check—he had memorized it. He had glanced at the document the day the clerk gave it to him, and that was enough. Before his transmigration, he couldn't memorize anything. Now, he still couldn't memorize most things. But rules-related content didn't require memorization—slices of text would reappear in the corners of his vision, as if the document were laid out before him again, even the water stains on the paper were there.

"—Surveying of the underground river section of the canal, five-day commission period. Commissioner: Clerk Rico. The commissioner's signature is in blue ink, and the guild's bronze seal is affixed to the lower right corner."

Silence fell outside the cave entrance. It wasn't hesitation—it was comparison.

Then the voice rang out again. This time it was one step closer.

"The commission is valid. We hereby notify you in accordance with Article 3 of the Surveying and Mapping Regulations—when two teams meet in the same mission area, they shall, in accordance with the Surveying and Mapping Regulations, exchange information on their equipment levels and operational intentions."

As soon as he finished speaking, the first person walked into the cave.

He wasn't wearing the ragtag leather armor of an adventurer. Instead, he wore a uniform, dark gray short robe, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing rings of bluish-green markings on his forearms—not tattoos, but skin discoloration left from prolonged contact with etched gray crystals. A ruler hung from his belt. A copper ruler, its edges worn into a curve.

It's not for combat. It's for measurement.

The second and third people followed him in. They all wore the same grey short robes, and their forearms were all discolored. The fourth person wore cloth shoes—a girl three or four years older than Lynn, wearing a faded leather vest over her short robe. The vest had four pockets sewn onto it, each stuffed with measuring tapes, graphite sticks, and rolled-up tracing paper. She was the one with the lightest steps.

When the last person came in, Ellie moved slightly behind the stalagmite.

It wasn't because the other person was carrying a weapon—he was carrying a staff. Embedded at the top of the staff was a thumb-sized piece of gray-etched crystal, its facets so perfectly regular that it didn't look like it had been chipped from a mine. It looked as if it had been precisely cut in some way. The end of the staff was encased in brass, engraved with the emblem Lynn had seen on the walls of the Adventurers' Guild—an open book with a hammer on it.

Not a battle mage. A survey mage.

This is the fifth person. The one who is very familiar with the terrain of the underground river.

His steps were different from the previous four—each step landed on the exposed, hard rock face, avoiding all the rubble, mud pits, and reflected light from the eroded crystals. It wasn't caution; it was habit. His eyes, illuminated by the torchlight and the holy iron sword, were a pale gray, with a thin silver ring around the edge of his pupils—a color usually associated with prolonged exposure to eroded crystals.

He glanced at Lynn's knife.

Then look at Randall.

Then look at the cold pool.

"You've already reached the Cold Pool." His voice wasn't as formal as the previous leader's—it was slower, as if each word had been mentally reviewed before being uttered. "You see the stone tablet."

It's not a question.

Lynn didn't reply. He lowered the Holy Iron Sword, making the tip point downwards. Not surrender—it was moving the light away from the other person's face. The rule in the Dark River—you shine it on someone else's face, they'll shine it on yours. Whoever moves the light source first indicates they don't want to fight for the time being.

The surveyor nodded. Very lightly, as if this was the gesture he had been waiting for.

"Public Third Surveying Team, Captain in preparation. Nox registered as an apprentice surveyor, Klaus Wald. Call me Wald—there is no 'Captain' position in the guild's structure. We don't lead teams."

He paused.

"Being able to see the stone tablet doesn't mean you can understand it. Nor does it mean I can—I've walked through this underground river for seven years and only understood the first three lines of the first paragraph of the inscription."

Lynn's fingers tightened their grip on the hilt of the knife.

"The first three lines of the first paragraph discuss the first condition for the observer—not the eyes, but the 'willingness to see'."

Wald didn't speak. He looked at Lynn. He looked at her for a long time.

Then he said something that made Lynn's back muscles tense up.

"You have a copper key."

The light from the cold pool cut the shadows on everyone's faces in two.

Lynn didn't ask you how you knew.

The brass key Randall had given him was now resting against his collarbone—strung together with the leftover rabbit skin from Ellie's shoelaces and hung around his neck, hidden inside his coat.

"The standard key to the fourth archive of the temple," Wald said, his gaze shifting from Lynn's collarbone back to Lynn's face. "Copper core craftsmanship—the core is mithril. Mithril resonates under the intense light of etched crystals. Not by making a sound—it affects the luminescence frequency of the surrounding etched crystals. The light on your knife flickers every seven breaths. Seven breaths is exactly the resonance cycle of the mithril core within a four-step distance."

He slammed his staff on the ground. The gray crystal at the tip of the staff flashed once. The light on Lynn's knife flickered at the same time.

"Resonance".

Lynn didn't take off his keys. He looked into Wald's eyes—the thin silver rings around the edges of his light gray pupils looked as if they had been drawn with a needle tip in the cold light of the pool.

"The Third Surveying Team surveyed underground rivers for seven years and encountered countless blind archivists."

“Three.” Wald’s quick reply surprised Lynn. “They’re all in this waterway. The first one is dead—the chains are rusted through, and the bones in her hands are still stuck to the rock face. The second one is still alive, but she won’t speak. The third one is the one behind you.”

He gestured with his chin in the direction of Randall.

"When the Third Surveying Team first drew the distribution map of the Wuchakou tributary, the Eyes tributary was labeled 'no surveying value.' The following year, it was changed to 'possibly has the potential for gray erosion vein exploration.' By the fifth year, it was changed to 'outer edge of the temple restricted area.' Each time the label was changed, it was because we found something new and realized that this was something we shouldn't have been looking for."

The girl in cloth shoes pulled out tracing paper from her pocket. The scroll was densely covered with surveying lines—not a map of the underground river, but portraits. Three sketches. The first was of a person sitting on a pile of ore, chains around their ankles, their eyes hollow. The second was the same. The third was unfinished.

Lynn looked at the sketches.

"You're looking for them too."

"It's not about finding—it's about surveying." The leader, dressed in a gray robe, spoke up. "Surveying is recording. Recording everything—the vein's direction, hydrological data, ash erosion concentration gradients, and the location of the people locked in the underground river by the temple. The guild's surveying order is authorized to 'survey the underground river.' Are people the subjects of this survey—"

He paused and glanced at Wald.

Wald took over the conversation.

"If we draw people's locations on a map, then the map becomes evidence of guilt. If we don't draw them—"

"Then we're like blind men with open eyes." The girl rolled up the tracing paper again. "There are blind men in the underground river, and there are blind men outside the river. We've been surveying for seven years, but we dare not submit the maps we've drawn. If the map marks the coordinates of the temple imprisoning living people, the guild must report to the temple—Article 72 of the guild charter. If we don't mark them—our surveying is helping the temple hide evidence of its crimes."

Quiet.

Lynn could hear the humming sound of the mineral vein deep within the icy pool. It wasn't the sound of water—it was the low-frequency vibration emitted by the high-concentration aggregation of etched crystals. The [Rule Record (Perception)] on the crystal slice flickered in the corner of his vision—4.8% became 4.9%.

Then he heard another sound.

Not outside the cave entrance.

It's underfoot.

It was very faint. It sounded much like the first person to discover the fissure in the underground river—countless tiny feet moving down the rock face. But this time, it wasn't coming from upstream. It was coming from below.

From the bottom of the icy pool.

Lynn lowered his head.

My reflection on the surface of the cold pool is becoming blurred. It's not the water surface that's swaying—the water is as smooth as a mirror. It's the outline of the reflection itself that's trembling. It's as if I, the reflection, am moving. Looking down.

Then the water surface cracked.

It wasn't a real crack. It was a sudden burst of intense light from the eroded crystalline veins at the bottom of the water—brighter than ever before. Not blue-green, but white. The white light pierced through the icy pool's surface, casting shadows clearly visible to everyone on the dome.

A shadow is not the shape of a person.

It's a spider web.

Countless fine lines radiated from the bottom of the icy pool, extending into every tributary and every crevice in the rock. Lynn could see that he was stepping on one of these lines—thinner than spider silk, winding along the rock surface and extending all the way to the gray etched patterns on the holy iron sword at his waist.

Not only him, but Ellie and Kirk both had them. Randall's ankles were wrapped in chains several times. Every member of the surveying team had one or two chains under their feet—only Wald's feet had the densest chains, so thick they looked like they were rooted to the ground beneath his staff.

These lines have always been there.

No one could see it before the white light burst forth.

Wald uttered a sentence that Lynn hadn't had time to organize.

"Rule lines".

For the first time, his voice lacked the slow, deliberate quality of one that comes out after being mentally prepared.

"The first level of the Deep Vision Path Observation Technique—'Seeing the Flow of Rules.' You have activated the stone tablet."

—This is not a question.

Because everyone saw it.