Chapter 591 - A Lucky Escape

After a few more minutes, the door was finally opened by the strange robot. It entered the room without a problem, moved down the stairs without a problem. As it reached the bottom, it scanned the room and as its head turned to the tunnel it was welcomed by a sledgehammer. 

It was clearly a very advanced combat droid, but it still succumbed to a sledgehammer wielded with Eldrian's inhuman strength, with ease. To make sure it would not get back up, Eldrian hammered its chest to bits before returning to digging the tunnel. 

The soldiers had lost sight of what happened after its head was smashed, but Eldrian using a sledgehammer somewhat reassured them that there weren't any traps. And that Eldrian wasn't waiting with a bunch of spells at the ready. 

Following behind the robot their entrance was anything but as smooth. 

As soon as six had passed through the door, Eldrian had let the first rune on the door do its thing. They didn't all die, but none of them were in any condition to continue. 

"Move it! He can't have many traps!" The general shouted and the second squad made their way down, only to be met with the same trap. 

The third squad was more hesitant, but being unable to disobey a direct order they rushed into the basement -slowly- while fearing for their lives. Reaching the end of the stairs on shaking legs, they sighed in relief.

Eldrian, unfortunately, only had so much mana and had to ration between traps and escape usage. Luckily, it seemed to have worked out as the third group had moved too slowly, checking every single thing with fear before moving on. 

This had allowed him to finish his tunnel to the surface, climbing out and collapsing it through stopping to support the runes plus the one explosion rune had added, he quickly scanned his surrounding. 

He was midst an overgrown mess of plants in an abandoned alley. The coverage was good, but he couldn't stay here. 

'I think I can make it.' Eldrian mumbled as he looked at the dead end and tried to calculate how to climb the wall. Moving back a bit, he made sure he had a proper runway through the plants, jumping onto the wall he kicked off of it and grabbed onto a vinelike plant and used that to get himself to the top.

Eldrian didn't waste any time, jumping over he immediately started running while staying in the shadows and observing his surroundings. Making sure to avoid any soldiers and to head to a populated area. 

'What did I miss?' Came Two's voice as soon as Eldrian made it through the barricade.

'Just my grand escape.' Eldrian replied, 'What happened, why didn't you return?'

'Mana body pulled me back, it seemed that the merger wasn't perfect. I needed to sort it out first, which was quite troublesome with the network still being so sensitive and raw mana now missing. Had to stabilize everything.'

Sighing, Eldrian simply kept running. Knowing that the soldiers couldn't act brazenly in the populated part of the city, that was where he went to give himself some time to think.

On his way, he also made sure to get himself some food. A simple gust, plus his inhuman speed, always made that an easy task.

Enjoying the energy bar, Eldrian reflected on all that had just happened, including the network upgrade and problems they had run into with it all the way to being surrounded. 

Strangely enough, Eldrian was keenly aware that things would not have gone so smoothly if the soldiers had been more reckless. It was them assuming that they had him trapped and fearing what he might be able to do that allowed his escape. 

Eldrian was keenly aware that next time they would be aware that they could pursue him far more aggressively. Through this, they certainly would have learned more of the limits regarding the usage of magic. 

...

For now, Eldrian didn't have another plan as to where he would call home. He wanted to stay in the city to make sure Jen was safe, however, the recent encounter reminded him that that wasn't as simple as he might want it to be.

He realized that his staying might even have the opposite effect if Miracle decided to discard appearances and used Jen as a captive. Eldrian didn't exactly have an answer to it. He would certainly be able to do some massive damage in that case, but he would rather not place his sister in such a situation. 

'Might be best if I take Elizabeth up on her offer.'

'You do know that she's in another country, right?'

'Yeah, it's only a few days run if we maintain an average pace.' 

'Of course it is...' Two sighed as he suddenly got the feeling that he was going to be the one doing the running. 

'I'm glad we are on the same page.' Eldrian smiled and Two sighed even more. 

'What about-'

'He made himself clear, and considering what just happened I'm not sure how good he would be at this. Plus-'

'Don't, it's not the same.'

'Alright, we have a deal?'

'Don't have much of a choice.'

...

Back in ANW, Eldrian felt slightly weird without Two. Shaking off this feeling, he decided to take a bath to properly clean himself and then headed to enjoy some breakfast with the others. 

"Maia," Eldrian indicated for the beastkin to move closer. "I have something I would like to ask your help with."

She nodded seriously, "I will do my best."

Nodding in return Eldrian explained, "It's about something called verticle farming. It is a complicated topic considering everything, but I want to get started with it as soon as possible."

From the name, everyone had a different image of what this might be, with some having truly epic and insane magical images in mind. 

"To start, I want you to gather the blacksmiths, alchemists, and formation masters who aren't busy with the cannons. We need a controlled manner to transport water. I also want to know how magic is used to increase crop growth."

"Eldrian, I can answer that," Aspen said, Eldrian having made it clear that he did not want to be called sir or lord in informal settings such as this. 

"You have a lot on your plate already, Aspen. Point Maia in the right direction, I'm going on the mission with the Chosen to exterminate the undead, thus I don't have enough time to get caught up and it wouldn't help even if I was caught up."

With that said, the breakfast slowly returned to normal. Eldrian left first, heading to the guild he met with Elizabeth in private and caught her up on what had happened. 

"Is it a problem?" She asked, referring to both him not reaching Tier 5 and being found. 

"Two's currently piloting my body and were heading out of the country. As for the Tier, it was more for security. It wasn't a necessity."

"What about the leak of information?"

"Can't be sure it was due to the guild, though all players in Kynigo are part of it. They might have sent a few game testers or something to observe and report. My surveillance interference also only has so much range and it doesn't affect the avatar itself. They might also simply be spying while I am not near enough to you guys."

The last sentence gave Elizabeth the chills and made her wonder how much they might spy on them, and if they even watched them in indecent times. 

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