Chapter 98 - The Motherload (3) [Bonus]
Chapter 98 – The Motherload (3) [Bonus]
“Huh?” Fredrick muttered when his gaze met a familiar face, and so did the other one in front of him.
A question struck his mind.
‘What is Cabrera doing here?’
But before Fredrick could process the current situation, Cabrera spoke, exclaiming…
“Fredrick? What are you doing over there, no, wait, I thought you were fighting the beast? How did you get here so fast?”
“Hmm…” Fredrick muttered, it seemed none of them had an accurate grasp on the situation.
‘Cabrera didn’t see me falling into the mountain before the snake came out, and since Ezra personally said only a Master-rank could kill it…he thought I was the one!’
It was a logical hypothesis, but couldn’t be concluded upon, after all, they were just assumptions.
This, plus the fact that another Master might be heading into the mountains soon, made Fredrick deem it to be best that they took as much as they could before getting out as soon as possible.
Getting too greedy would do no one any good, and of course, he would know, because it was greediness that led to him to end up with a curse on his body for the past seven years.
These thoughts were processed at fast speed as Fredrick replied…
“I’m not the one who fought the beast, and I think another Master is outside, but nothing is for certain. Still, I think it best if we take the most valuable things and make a hasty retreat. Exposing ourselves too much could cause problems”
Cabrera didn’t immediately reply as he thought for a few seconds, before saying…
“Let’s do as you have said. Also, I found some eggs, presumably laid by the beast. Do we have any way of taking it along? Oh, what about this tree? It seems to be a treasure. Can we take this too?”
Fredrick’s eyes glimmered at those words as he swung from a branch, completely forgetting his exhaustion, and landed right before Cabrera with a slight bang.
“Point me towards those eggs, we’ll be taking them all. You should hasten your extraction of those stones, I’ll hate to leave it to anybody else”
Cabrera turned and pointed to where he came from.
“It’s over there”
“Ok” Fredrick said and dashed in the pointed direction.
Cabrera quickly took up another pickaxe, this time with both hands, and swung it at parts of the walls that still had mana stones lodged in.
Exerting and amplifying his muscles to the extreme, Cabrera hit the walls, causing many big web-like cracks to form.
But Cabrera didn’t have time to savor it as he hit the walls immediately after, and again and again, till sixteen pickaxes were quickly turned to scrap.
Such scrap though, Cabrera made sure to put every piece of the damaged tips and handles back into the ring.
What a joke. Did you expect him to purposely leave clues for others to track him down? Of course not.
This happened within two minutes of rapid swinging. The cracks on the particular part of the cavern were enlarged to the point that Cabrera could easily pull pieces out.
In fact, some mana stones fell to the ground by themselves.
With quick hands and a regulated breathing helping him ease his stiff body and hard muscles, Cabrera pulled out the mana stones and put them in the space ring.
At the same time, Fredrick arrived as he said “It’s done”, and then turned to look at the lush tree situated in the pool of glistening cerulean water.
“Now…how do I go about this?”
Before he could think further, Cabrera spoke, providing a simple but effective solution.
“Just dive into the water, uproot it and store it in your space ring. It shouldn’t be that difficult” he suggested, before taking out another pickaxe as he continued mining.
Fredrick had no words, because he didn’t think he’d be able to come up with a better plan. Without a word, he approached the pool, put one of his legs in to test the depth and got surprised when his knees reached the water without feeling any signs of the bottom.
“Hmm…” Fredrick was a bit skeptical, but quickly threw thoughts of retreat away when he remembered their time was running out.
With a deep breath, he directly jumped and dived in.
What? Why didn’t he take off his armor? Well, mostly because he saw it as a hassle to do so.
He closed his eyes expecting to hit soil…only to be shocked when he opened his eyes to see the depth as well as the beauty of the serene and calm water.
But enough of that, he didn’t have the luxury to waste time as his eyes quickly darted all around the place, before he swam to the bottom of the supposed pool, where the tree roots were.
With how big it was, you’d have to be blind to not see it.
As he held on to the tree, he looked upwards, and approximated the depth to be about four times his height. Yes, that was about it.
He quickly moved his hands and dug the dirt. Slowly but surely, the naked tree roots were exposed before his eyes.
While doing so, something sparkled among the soil, which caught Fredrick’s eye and sparked his curiosity.
Outstretching a bit, Fredrick extended his body as his hands cleared the dirt away, only to reveal…a book?
A book that looked awful, with mud all over it, but with a little scrub it quickly came off.
The book was revealed to be mostly intact and featuring a book cover that couldn’t be seen in the present age. At least, Fredrick had never seen such a language before.
So, the book was from a long time ago, guessed Fredrick. How long though, that Fredrick did not know.
“I don’t know what it is yet, but we can find out later” Fredrick thought, before sucking it into his space ring and continuing his initial objective in coming down here.
Root out the tree.