Mercenaries and Adventurers

Gere lay across the snow to the bottom of the petrified tree trunk and found the place where he had gone up. Here, the rope hung straight down from above, and Kil tugged on the rope, worried that this thing would be strong enough to hold him up after being exposed to wind and sun for several months.

After thinking about it for a while, Kil shook his head. He felt that the risk of climbing up with a rope was too high. If it broke halfway, wouldn't he die here unjustly?

He might be laughed to death by Wolf, the werewolf who followed him.

He rolled his eyes, he didn't dare to use the rope, maybe he could set a trap for the werewolf.

Grabbing the rope, Keel swung it hard, back and forth, left and right, and even swung the outside of the petrified tree stump back and forth against the outer wall of the stump, pretending that he had climbed up from here.

Then he climbed up from the gap outside the petrified tree stump with his bare hands.

These crooked cracks that can accommodate a thigh are very easy to climb. Even if there is snow in winter, there will be no big impact on climbing from here.

He hummed and climbed up carefully from here, and then sat on the top of the petrified rock wall to catch his breath and rest.

The power enhanced by the Harvest Festival Saturn Ceremony disappeared with his death. At this time, it seems that the impact on him is still there, and it is not small.

He gestured like he was clenching his fists and flexing his muscles, and realized that he was still not as good as before his death. Sighing, Kil crawled on top of the petrified tree stump, looking for a gap in the rock wall that he could climb down.

The elevator not far away did have a downward rope, but for the same reason, Kil didn't think that thing was very safe. For fear of falling on it, he just had to find a way to climb down.

-

Just as Kil was climbing down, outside the valley where the ruins were located, uninvited guests finally arrived.

Werewolf Wolf followed the clear traces that Kiel had walked step by step, and slowly climbed to a high point on the side of the valley. It was holding a long-frozen wild boar front leg in its hand, looking at something hidden among the unremarkable hills with a surprised look on its face.

"What is this?" Surprised, it confirmed again and again that Keir had indeed gone down from here in a panic.

"Kiel, it seems you came here specifically. Is there anything here that can help you make a comeback? You were resurrected like that for no reason. Is this the secret you hide?"

It looked at the huge petrified tree stumps with some caution, and after careful consideration, it slid and jumped from the heights of the hills and slid down along the route that Keir had walked.

The broken legs healed quickly that night after eating like crazy last night.

So even though it was delayed for most of the night, it quickly caught up this morning.

Originally, he thought he would catch up with Kil in the deserted wasteland, but he didn't expect that after Kil's resurrection, he would run away and end up in such a mysterious place.

It has been here for ten years and no one has ever heard anything about these huge tree stumps.

Judging from the appearance of these things, you can tell that they existed a long time ago, but after such a long time, what is left here will make the fleeing Kiel come all the way here.

Perhaps, instead of escaping, Kiel deliberately lured it here?

The werewolf Wolf was a little uneasy. When he came to the petrified tree stump and came into close contact with these things that existed in ancient times, he became even more uneasy.

Its intuition told itself that even if these once huge trees were petrified and collapsed to this point, something still felt wrong around them.

This is the intuition that only a werewolf can feel.

Even though everything was ordinary except for these huge petrified tree stumps, it still felt wrong.

It suppressed the uneasiness caused by this intuition and followed Keir's footsteps to an abandoned camp. This camp is right in the center of the entire valley. Looking at the footprints and some scattered new broken debris, it understands that Kiel must have been repairing here for a while.

Looking left and right, it found that Kiel's footprints had reached the roots of a tree on one side. As expected, it found a crypt here.

"I know you're in there, come out, Kil. I'll give you a chance to fight one on one."

It lay down on the side behind the cave entrance, and then shouted towards the inside of the cave.

But there was no response from inside.

Neither was ridicule.

It quietly approached the cave entrance from behind, then put its ears close to the cave entrance, and listened carefully to what was going on inside.

It shouted again, but there was no movement.

This time it was confirmed that no one was inside.

It threw the front leg of the wild boar it had been holding into the crypt to test it in case there was a fatal mechanism.

After confirming safety again and again, it awkwardly climbed in through the narrow entrance.

A little light scattered in from the hole, and its beastly eyes clearly saw the whole thing inside.

It's just an ordinary underground safe house with some debris, but if you touch it with your hands, you can find that no one has touched it for a while.

A resting place was dug out on one side of the crypt. It sniffed and could clearly smell Kiel's scent.

Needless to say, Keir must have taken something from where it was originally hidden. What could it be? After thinking about it, it felt that it was probably something Keel had thought of using to deal with it.

But the freshly dug place was very small. What was hidden inside that could help Kiel defeat it?

The cunning werewolf quickly thought of the huge petrified tree stumps nearby.

It must have something to do with these things.

When it saw the petrified tree stump before, it thought of the big moving tree that Keir and I met two days ago.

To be honest, when that thing moved, it was really frightened. Fortunately, the thing was only attacking Keir who set the fire, so it was frightened at the time, but it was still quite at ease.

It wasn't until the big moving tree grabbed it and threw it away that it realized that both it and Keir had to stay away from these unreasonable things.

Could Keir's back-up plan to deal with it have something to do with these petrified tree stumps?

The werewolf who emerged from the small crypt couldn't say for sure.

But Kiel, who has been chased all the way here, must not be underestimated if he wants to rely on something to make a comeback. Especially when it is associated with these long-lasting things.

Continuing to follow Kil's footprints, the werewolf soon discovered that Kil's guy came to one of the petrified tree stumps.

"Did you dig it in? Hey, it's quite bizarre. Who would have thought that an ordinary hunter would be related to these ancient gadgets?"

It shook its head, obviously seeing the artificial lift on the top of the tree stump. The thing hammered down a rope. The rope was clean, and it was obviously someone who had used it recently.

Moreover, he also noticed that there were traces of collision where the snow fell on the outer wall of the tree stump next to the rope.

Apparently Kiel had been up here.

"What's in it? I'm getting more and more curious."

The wolf chuckled softly. The werewolf Wolf then retracted the sharp claws on his palms, slightly withdrawing his palms from the werewolf transformation, and then tightened the rope hanging from it. He found that it was still strong, so he started to pull it with both hands. Climb up.

But after climbing halfway, Wolf the Wolf felt something was wrong.

Because the upper end of the taut rope in his hand seemed to be making some slight disintegrating and breaking sounds.

"Oops!"

As soon as it shouted, there was a bang, and the rope at the top snapped. It fell backwards and fell from mid-air.

Boom! Gululu.

The snow saved most of its life, and the remaining half was saved by its instinctive rolling after landing.

The werewolf Wolf lay on the ground, holding his chest and abdomen tightly with his hands, and breathed in nervously through the wolf's mouth. After relaxing for a while, he slowly stood up and recovered.

"Am I too heavy? Unlucky, I should have thought of it!" It rolled its eyes: "Besides, this might be a trap."

After getting up, it slowly circled the perimeter of the huge petrified tree stump, and easily discovered the actual route that Kil took.

boom!

It punched the outer wall of the tree stump. As a result, it was still angry and the pain in its own fist was unbearable.

"This junk thing looks quite shabby, but I didn't expect it to be so strong."

After complaining, Werewolf Wolf climbed up along the route that Kil actually went up.

The strength of the werewolf's body was far beyond that of a normal human being, coupled with the sharp claws on its hands and feet, it could easily climb up the cracks in the outer wall.

After going up, it had to be surprised by the incredible nature. Unexpectedly, the seemingly huge, thick and solid petrified tree stump was actually hollow inside. It is at least more than twenty meters from the inside to the bottom. This height is also very dangerous for it.

But when he looked carefully inside the tree stump, his eyes froze. On the white layer of snow at the bottom, he saw Keir crawling towards a suspended cave.

"Jo-Kill! Hahahaha, I found you!"

it shouted down.

When Kil heard the huge shout, he was almost startled, but he still kept his feet steady, used his hands together, jumped upwards, and held the edge of the cave entrance to the ruins with his palms.

With his legs stepping and pulling, he quickly climbed up.

"Hoo, ho, ho."

After taking a breath, Kil turned around and shook his fist at the werewolf staring at him from the top of the tree stump, and then made a gesture towards his neck.

"Do you dare to follow me? I'm going to get a powerful weapon that can kill you now, hahahaha. Just wait to die."

After holding this breath for a long time, Kil could no longer hold back and shouted loudly at the werewolf.

But the werewolf didn't give in. Xu made a gesture of swallowing his heart, and an angry Kil cursed at him.

At this moment, the werewolf Wolf felt a little more at ease, 'Yes, that's it, don't scare yourself. Although the young man was strange, he had nothing to fear. ’

It tells itself so.

So the werewolf moved forward on the top of the stump on his hands and knees, looking for the place where Kil had gone down before.

As for the rope next to the wooden lift, it didn't even look at it.

That's a trap! It thinks so.

-

When Kil saw the werewolf Wolf looking for a way down, he immediately felt the urgency. He took out flint and a simple torch from his backpack, lit it and ran towards the interior of the ruins.

He knew that there was nothing dangerous in the ruins. Apart from the large group of bats that had made their home here before, there were no other things.

Of course, the ancient research laboratory that was sealed inside was not within the safe range.

The seal that cannot be broken from the outside is of course another matter.

Soon he came to the gate of the ruins and got in through the gap specially reserved for bats. Kil turned around and closed the stone gate.

Hopefully the werewolf will spend some time in front of the stone door.

But when Kil closed the stone door and turned around, he was startled by the huge object coming his way.

It was a huge humanoid object that was far larger than a normal human body. It was off-white and very bloated.

He just pointed a thick head without a face towards Kil, and approached him with slow steps.

"Ah! What the hell!" Kil was so frightened that he fell to the ground in the passage.

To be honest, Kil is actually very courageous. He can even fall asleep in this dark ruins, which shows that he is not a timid warrior.

But it was because he knew so much about this ruin that had been lingering for a long time that Kil was startled by this weird thing that he didn't understand.

This fat, white thing walked toward him with small steps on legs and feet that were extremely small compared to its body, and also opened its short, white arms on both sides of its body.

Not knowing what the other party was going to do, Kil picked up the torch and waved it left and right, forcing the weird thing back in one fell swoop.

"squeak--"

The white, fat and strong thing made an inexplicable sound from the gray-brown crown that should be the head, and it sounded aggrieved.

This made Kiel confused about the situation for a while.

But the opponent is so huge, so just keep your distance.

Getting up, Kil waved the torch to drive the thing away. By the light of the torch, he could see clearly what it was.

"A fat-headed mushroom?"

Keir sideways pushed away the fat-headed mushroom that was blocking the way, and bypassed it from the side of the passage.

The opponent was obviously particularly afraid of fire, and his mobility seemed to be very limited, so after getting around it, Kil ignored it and continued walking towards the interior of the ruins.

But obviously things won't go so smoothly.

Kil soon discovered that there were many fat-headed mushrooms in the passage of the ruins.

They often gather in places where bat guano falls, and rub their short feet on the bat guano. They seem to be very satisfied with this, and make a long and contented sound of "Oh——" from their crowns.

"Where did that come from?"

He didn't know, but he could ask Ms. Apolifina later if possible. This ruins was the opponent's former research base. They must know what these ancient elves studied.

"Hopefully it's not something too bad."

But Kil still didn't dare to get too close to these things.

After some fat-headed mushrooms find him, they often open their little arms and slowly overtake him. At this time, Kil will wave his torch to force the opponent back. Amidst the regretful voices of the mushrooms, they walked towards the interior of the ruins.

In the passage, he also saw several fat-headed mushrooms lying on the ground at the edge of the passage. When you approach them with a torch, they don't move. They seem to have been dead for a long time.

On the mushrooms, Keir also found some spirited little bats gnawing on the long-dead fat-headed mushrooms.

This made Keir feel weird.

Mushrooms eat bat guano, and some bats eat mushrooms.

Biomass is recycled.

However, judging from the mental appearance of the bats eating the mushroom corpses, it is obvious that these mushrooms are not poisonous, but whether humans can eat them is still a matter of debate. After all, it is common in nature that animals are okay to eat, but humans will die if they eat plants and animals. On the contrary, humans are fine if they eat it, but there are many things that other animals will die if they eat them.

He had heard from farmers in Kendall City that there was a kind of weed in the fields that livestock could eat. If humans ate it, they would suffer from unbearable abdominal pain. I would have continuous abdominal pain for more than half a month, making it difficult to defecate, unable to get out of bed, and unable to do anything.

So after carefully avoiding the dead fat-headed mushroom, Kil came to the high platform of the ruins hall.

There was originally some firewood he had stored here, but when he came over to take a look, he found that the firewood had long since disappeared. Only some mushroom hyphae were still in place, swinging and taking root on the remains of the original fire, absorbing nutrients.

But as a result, there weren't many things on Kiel's body that could be used for lighting. The torch in his hand would soon go out. What should he use to illuminate it?

Looking at the torch with a small section of cloth wrapped around it in his hand, Kil thought about it carefully, and then he thought of something and took out a wooden box from the small backpack on his back.

When he opened the wooden box, the colorful light emanating from the wooden box suddenly illuminated his surroundings with colorful lights.

The energetic hyphae at the feet seemed to be scared and curled up one after another.

When Kil saw that these elf gems that had been in the sun for a long time were very useful for lighting, he immediately carried them carefully along the road.

Overhead, thousands of bats scratching the top of the hall seemed to be affected by the colorful light. They woke up from their dormancy one after another, making noisy noises, and some even defecated casually, sending dry and hard feces down from the top of the hall. Fall.

As Kier walked away, the mycelium that had been lying on the remains of the fire immediately moved, running towards the bat guano that had just fallen at a slow and 'very fast' speed.

Anyone who saw that firm momentum would be moved to tears.

Kil carefully held the wooden box that emitted the colorful light. The surrounding stairs under his feet were covered with a thick layer of mycelium. I don't know where these guys came from, occupying the entire ruins hall.

"Ms. Apolifina will definitely be unhappy if she finds out, right?"

Fortunately, those mycelium seemed to be very afraid of the elf gem in Kil's hand. Before he even got close, he sensed that the mycelium under the Elf Gem's feet had curled up, allowing Kil to step on it and move.

On the stairs surrounding the edge of the hall, these mycelia are not the only ones. Some half-human-sized ‘little fat-headed mushrooms’ also occupy a lot of the stairs, filling up the not-so-wide stairs.

But before Kil could get into trouble, as he approached, the little fat-headed mushrooms blocking the road crowded back one after another. You pushed me, I pushed you, looking for a place to escape regardless.

Most of them ran into the elf house that leaked before. The remaining ones had nowhere to run and could only fall down the side of the stairs with chirping sounds.

There were sounds of them falling one after another at the bottom of the hall, as well as the painful sounds of the little fat-headed mushrooms that were not killed.

Keir wasn't sure whether mushrooms would hurt. After all, they were made of many, many mycelium. It just looks like an animal with arms and legs, but whether it is or not is another matter.

He walked all the way down the edge of the stairs, being careful not to slip on the stairs that were full of mycelium and water droplets. When he walked to the sealed stone gate, Kil also checked that the seal was intact.

An invisible layer on the stone door blocked the erosion of mycelium on the ground. Seeing that the seal was intact, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, Keir continued down in small steps and reached the bottom of the hall.

After he came down and illuminated the surroundings with the light of the elven gems, Kil couldn't help but take a deep breath of the filthy air here.

The bottom of the ancient elf ruins hall is crowded with fat-headed mushrooms as tall as a person!