They were clearly startled by the question.

Anna especially looked stunned. Her mouth was hanging open.

To her, the title Mediator was basic common knowledge. Even a three-year-old could accurately name every Mediator in history.

So for her, Noah's question hit like a mental blast spell.

Luckily, Anna was quick on the uptake. She immediately realized what was going on.

"Right, I almost forgot. You died too early. You probably don't even know about The Spire, let alone the Mediators..."

Died too early...

It wasn't wrong, exactly. But why did it sound so weird?

And there was another detail in Anna's words that caught his attention.

"The Spire?"

Noah had heard another new term.

For some reason, though, this one gave him a strange feeling.

The feeling vanished almost at once, as if telling Noah it had only been an illusion.

He frowned slightly and thought for a moment. Instead of directly asking about all those complicated terms, he circled around and asked something else.

"What year is it now?"

Anna answered, "New Calendar Year 3326."

Even though Noah had already forced his face to stay tense and controlled, the number still made the corner of his mouth twitch.

Because his memories were still stuck in the year 2115.

To put it simply, it was like jumping straight from the 22nd century to the 34th.

So he'd been buried underground for over twelve hundred years?

No wonder so many strange new terms had appeared. The Spire, Mediator, things like that. They sounded impressive enough, but he had no idea what they actually meant.

Still, Noah felt a little relieved.

After all, even after twelve hundred years, the continent's language hadn't changed beyond recognition.

If you tossed someone from the seventh or eighth century into the modern age... who knew how they'd make sense of abstract, convoluted internet slang?

Anyway, Noah couldn't picture Li Bai understanding meme-speak, sitting at a computer, tapping on a keyboard, and asking some dumbass netizens for a couple of lewd pics.

That was way too damn character-breaking.

Noah shoved those messy thoughts aside for now and tried asking Anna, "So after twelve hundred years, has the Pulwen Clan become a world-famous great family?"

As he said it, he couldn't help feeling a little hopeful.

Waking up in a corpse wasn't exactly the best opening.

But Noah Purwin was the father of that legendary Mediator. In a sense, every living member of the Pulwen Clan today ought to respectfully call him honored ancestor.

If he could prove who he was in front of the other family members, then even if he couldn't take over the whole clan, cashing in all those years of offerings burned for the ancestor should at least let him live in comfort and luxury for the rest of his life, right?

Though come to think of it, did people in this world even burn paper offerings for the dead?

"Well... world-famous is definitely not wrong..."

A bashful look appeared on Anna's pretty little face. She quietly looked away, not daring to meet Noah's eyes.

"After all, the Pulwen Clan's name is known from south to north, from duchies to empires."

"It's just that... the details are a tiny little bit different from what you're imagining."

Anna pressed two fingers together. An awkward smile hung on her face, and her bright eyes blinked innocently. She looked exactly like she was trying to act cute and muddle through.

Noah wasn't stupid. He'd only just revived, but his mind was already perfectly clear. In just a few seconds, he realized the red-haired girl's words probably hid something important.

Shirley, who had been silent the whole time, directly tore the mystery open and said it out loud.

"The Pulwen Clan's glory ended more than six hundred years ago... By now, there probably isn't a single Pulwen Clan member left on the entire Ayn Continent. If nothing unexpected happened, you're the last one."

"Shirley!"

"...Why are you glaring at me like that? Mr. Noah asked."

Anna was helpless against Shirley's bluntness. She could only turn back, put on an apologetic smile, and bow to Noah again.

She seemed to have learned some noble etiquette. Even though Shirley had clearly thrown her off, her posture hadn't slipped once since the beginning.

"My deepest apologies, Mr. Noah."

Anna looked at Noah with regret.

"Lord Belial once said that no family prospers forever. It's unfortunate, but the Pulwen Clan really did go extinct more than six hundred years ago."

Noah raised a brow when he heard a particularly jarring word.

"Extinct?"

Extinct?

Not declined or fallen into ruin?

He couldn't help wondering whether Anna's language teacher had also died young like him, and just wasn't very precise with word choice.

To his surprise, Shirley popped up again and explained in a bright, crisp voice, "It means all your descendants are dead!"

Noah: "..."

Anna: "..."

Why did this girl look so lacking in basic manners?

Shirley wasn't slow-witted either. She quickly realized she'd phrased that badly, so she added another line—

"I mean, not just your descendants. Your cousins of the same generation and all of their descendants have also been laid to rest."

Noah: "..."

Before Anna could step forward and shut Shirley's foul mouth, Shirley thought of something else and muttered, "Actually, half an hour ago, you were in the ground too..."

"Can you say less for once!?"

Anna finally snapped. She moved behind Shirley and locked an arm around her neck in a textbook chokehold.

Ignoring Shirley's struggling, she spoke to Noah with a face full of apology.

"We know you're still very confused right now, and we do want to explain things more clearly, but... we'd better leave first."

Anna cast a look behind Noah.

Following the direction she indicated, Noah turned and looked into the dark, gloomy forest. Several bright white lights were flickering there.

They were moving very fast, heading straight toward them.

"The revival ritual made too much of a disturbance," Anna explained helplessly. "The nearby night watch has already noticed. If they catch us..."

Whatever else happened—

Noah, a dead man who had come back to life with no identity papers, definitely wouldn't come out of it well.

Noah looked at the two girls in front of him, both clearly used to clowning around. He felt following them was still better than getting caught and interrogated.

Besides, they were the ones who had brought him back to life. Staying with them would also help him figure out the current situation faster.

"Which way?"

"This way, Mr. Noah."

Anna let Shirley go for the moment, told the silly girl to behave, then led Noah toward a pile of grass not far away.

With practiced movements, she pulled the grass aside and revealed a square wooden hatch. Once she tugged it open, a passage leading underground appeared before the three of them.

"This is a tunnel to the town. It's very well hidden. I've used it several times and never got discovered."

Noah looked inside for a couple of seconds. Torches were burning along both sides of the passage, and they hadn't burned out yet.

Anna and Shirley had probably not taken the mountain path when they came. They must have entered from the other end of this tunnel.

Shirley had just been choked pretty hard, but now she looked completely fine again. Looking into the distance, she reminded them, "Hurry up. The night watch will be here any second."

Noah had no other choice. He followed Anna into the underground passage first.

Shirley casually pulled some dry grass around, then climbed in too and shut the hatch behind her.

"That's enough?"

Noah didn't believe the night watch were idiots. Shirley's concealment work was worse than a child's. Anyone with eyes would spot it at once, and the tunnel would be exposed with it.

Anna seemed to read what Noah was thinking. She smiled proudly, then snapped her fingers.

Snap!

A crimson circular array carved into the inner side of the wooden hatch suddenly lit up.

Right after that, Noah heard the sound of dry grass shifting outside the hatch. Rustle, rustle. It lasted less than three seconds before everything returned to silence.

Clearly, the grass had moved on its own and hidden the entrance again.

All of that was thanks to the magic array Anna had carved onto the hatch beforehand.

"Digging and concealing tunnels is a required course for every Ritual Mage."

Anna proudly puffed out her chest, patted the soft curve in front of it, and declared with complete confidence, "And I got full marks in that subject. Even the Rockrat Clan's professional tunnelers can't beat me when it comes to digging!"

Noah looked at her and genuinely couldn't figure it out.

Why was a Ritual Mage competing with rockrats over digging holes?

And winning.

And being proud of it.

"Mr. Noah, what's wrong?"

Anna noticed Noah staring at her and asked, "Did you leave some burial goods behind?"

These two girls really were reminding Noah every second that he used to be dead.

Noah came back to himself, suppressed the urge to complain, cleared his throat, and kept up the dignity of a legendary chairman's father as he asked, "Where are we going now? To the town I used to live in?"

Anna thought for a moment.

"Although the location hasn't changed, more than a thousand years have passed. What you'll see next is probably very different from the town in your memories."

Noah didn't feel much about that. He simply nodded.

"What is it called now?"

Anna turned her head and followed the bright flames in the tunnel all the way to the farthest point of light.

"Arvin. It's called Arvin Hamlet."

Anna said, "Our guild headquarters is there."