Hidden Clues

"Uncle Merian died?!"

"Yes… He was the one who activated the Portkey, but only his corpse came back. Uther returned with him, like this…"

Holding Uther’s hand, Tuya shook her head, unable to continue.

Adam tightened his grip on the Wand of Darkness again and again before finally managing to make his legs move forward.

Uther lay on the bed with his eyes tightly shut, no different from the way he used to sleep in at the dormitory.

But now his upper body was bare, and a huge hole had been cut into his chest. Where his heart should have been sat a scarab carved from emerald.

Uther had returned, but his heart had been left behind there.

The only reason Adam could still think calmly was that he had discovered Uther had not died despite having no heart.

"What did they encounter?"

"I don’t know…"

Tuya wiped away her tears.

"Merian only said he’d made a discovery, then took Uther and the priests into the desert. Things like that were common before, so I didn’t ask much…"

"Auntie, do you know where Uther and the others were originally headed?"

"…I remember it was Hamunaptra."

Tuya thought for a moment.

"Merian and I had explored that place many times, so I didn’t pay much attention to it this time."

There had been times when she led the priests on explorations herself. This time, Merian had taken their son to a place that had already been thoroughly searched countless times, so she had assumed it was just another ordinary expedition. Who could have expected such an accident?

Adam nodded and asked again.

"What’s the situation at the Ministry of Magic now…?"

"Don’t worry. Nothing will go wrong."

Thinking of the letter she had received that morning, Tuya felt even sadder, yet warmth also rose in her heart.

"Thank you for coming all this way… By the way, how did you get here so quickly?"

Less than an hour had passed since she received the letter and Adam arrived. Even if he had traveled through the Ministry of Magic, he should not have been able to get here so fast.

"That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about next…"

Adam told Tuya how he had rushed to Egypt with magic and proposed going to save Uther.

Then, as expected, she refused him.

"I don’t agree! Your plan is far too dangerous."

Tuya said firmly.

"I’m grateful that you want to save Uther, Adam, but he’s already…"

"I can feel that Uther hasn’t died yet. If we can find out what turned him into this, he can still be saved!"

Tuya froze as she looked at Adam’s resolute expression, then sighed.

"If it’s possible, of course I want to save him too… Fine. I’ll do everything I can to help you."

But when Adam saw the help Tuya offered, he fell silent.

"Hamunaptra has been cleared out countless times. I alone have led more than twenty expeditions there. It could be said that we’ve searched every place that can be entered. For something to happen to them this time, they must have made a new discovery."

Looking at the four stacks of papyrus before her, each taller than a person, Tuya felt a wave of despair.

"These are the materials Merian came into contact with before he left. I need to find that new discovery among them, figure out how Uther and the others encountered those dangers, and why they ended up like that… The amulet’s protection will only last one day. Less than half a day remains, and I haven’t even checked a quarter of these yet."

"…Can’t you ask someone else for help?"

"The only people who understand Hamunaptra, aside from Merian and me, are the priests who never came back."

Tuya shook her head.

"I don’t care if others read these now, but they won’t know which things were discovered before and which are new discoveries."

"…Take your time looking. I should be able to extend Uther’s protection for a while."

Adam returned to Uther’s room and cast a protective spell over him.

A protection that could even block time stop should be able to prevent that unknown danger from taking Uther’s life.

"You’d better hold on until I get there and bring you back, brat…"

Sitting beside the bed, Adam reached out and took Uther’s hand. It was still warm, which eased some of the dread he felt whenever he looked at Uther’s torn-open chest.

"If you want to say goodbye to Bernard and the others, go yourself. Who cares about your pile of junk? If I want money, I can become richer than any country in minutes… Hm?"

Adam suddenly remembered that Uther’s decisions seemed to have constantly changed.

For example, when he left the letter for Adam, he clearly had not planned to write to his mother. He only wrote that letter to Tuya after returning to Egypt.

So after returning to Egypt, but before truly setting out, might he have left behind clues he had not yet decided to leave when he wrote to Adam? If so, where would he have left them?

Naturally, it would be the place he had told Adam to check in his letter!

With that thought, Adam hurriedly bent down and dragged a box out from beneath Uther’s bed.

A pair of Eyes of Horus was carved on the lid. Adam did not pay them any heed and opened it directly, immediately seeing a folded sheet of papyrus.

"This is… a map?!"

Perhaps he should count himself lucky. The clue Uther left him was not some riddle or proverb requiring interpretation.

Adam immediately brought the papyrus to Tuya. With one glance, she recognized it as the first underground level of Hamunaptra. It also marked a passage that Tuya did not know existed.

"Where did you find this?"

"In the box Uther mentioned in his letter to me."

Tuya looked at the map her son had left behind, then at the four stacks of materials her husband had left behind. Wiping away her tears, she said, "That bastard. He wasn’t even as reliable as his son… We’re leaving now!"

"Auntie, tell me how to get to Hamunaptra. I’ll go alone. You can’t leave this place right now."

Tuya instinctively wanted to object upon hearing Adam’s words, but she fell silent as she looked at the map.

Since Uther had chosen to leave the clue to Adam instead of her, then… perhaps in her son’s heart, if something really happened to him, Adam was the one more likely to bring him back?

In the end, Tuya still sighed. Her husband had died so suddenly, and she truly could not leave this place.

"Be careful!"

Finding a map of the area around Egypt, Tuya drew a circle on it.

"Hamunaptra has been hidden by an Unplottable enchantment. Come to this location on the map. There’s a patch of quicksand there. Once it swallows you, you’ll be sent to Hamunaptra… During that time, you’ll have to find a way to survive the quicksand yourself."

Tuya looked into Adam’s eyes. If she saw even the slightest hesitation or worry in them, she would reveal nothing more and make him go back.

If he could barely handle the first patch of quicksand, sending Adam to save Uther would be nothing more than sending him to his death.

Fortunately, what reassured and worried her even more was the confidence filling Adam’s eyes.

"Then what?"

"Then…"

Taking a deep breath, Tuya finally made up her mind and explained each point he needed to watch out for on the way to the passage marked on the map. Adam memorized every one of them.

Before he left, Tuya could not help grabbing Adam’s hand.

"Whether or not you can save Uther, you must keep yourself safe. Even if… Uther certainly wouldn’t want to see you enter the underworld with him."

"Don’t worry, Auntie. I’ll definitely bring Uther back."

Egypt’s situation was surely somewhat unstable at the moment. To avoid trouble, Adam first used the Illusion Card to conceal himself before leaving Uther’s home.

Around Uther’s home, he spotted many people hiding in the shadows. Perhaps they were secretly protecting the place, or perhaps they were waiting for an opportunity. None of that mattered to Adam.

If Merian had once been a Pharaoh, then Tuya had once been a high priest. Adam believed Tuya could easily handle these matters.