123 A Big Harves

Badum! Badum!

Jacco was busy beating his drum to empower his companions. They were having difficulty cutting open the flesh of the dead giant crocodile lying on the ground. Its skin was very thick and strong, so they needed to put in extra effort to even make a cut on it. The weird scales attached to the rear part of its back were also very difficult to detach. Graham was drenched in sweat from all the hard work.

"This thing is very tough..." he complained while wiping the sweat off his forehead. His dagger had finally made a small cut on the creature's hard skin.

"Why does a crocodile have scales anyway?" asked Luuk.

He was pulling a grey scale the size of both his palms combined together with all his strength. He grit his teeth and his face turned red from the force he exerted.

Snap!

The scale finally got detached. He put away the giant scale for now and repeated the process. Agatha approached Luuk and helped him with collecting the scale. Surprisingly, she could remove a scale from the creature's body more easily than Luuk could.

"How strong are you??" asked Luuk in surprise.

Agatha smiled meaningfully and then answered, "My strength is boosted by my Deity's power,"

"Finally!" exclaimed Graham when blood started dripping from the cut he made.

He took out a small empty vial from one of his pockets and let the red blood flow in. Agatha needed twenty milliliters of it but right now he couldn't be bothered to measure. He just gathered as much blood as the vial could hold, and when it was too full, he took out another empty one. The wound on the creature's neck kept leaking blood and in the end, Graham managed to collet eight vials of its blood. He put all the blood in the briefcase that he had been strapping to his back the whole time.

When he got up, he could see that both Luuk and Agatha had finished descaling the dead creature and managed to get a total of twenty-three intact scales. There were some that were still growing on the creature's lower back, but it was impossible to take them out.

"We have everything you need. Now let's go back," said Graham.

Luuk put all the scales that he could fit inside his backpack and the rest of them were tied around with a rope and he let Jacco carry them. Those scales were much heavier than Tsuchinoko's scale, and judging from its hardness, much sturdier as well.

Before the group left the underground lake area, Luuk suddenly stopped. He noticed something in the distance hiding behind a pillar of rock. His spiritual intuition told him it was something useful.

"Wait. There is something I need to check," he said.

"What was that?" asked Graham.

"It's a kind of pink flower. I don't know what kind. I'll appraise it later," he replied.

The group then left the area and quickly returned to the fork, where they took the path where they had come from. The reached the area where the spider was and stopped there. It was the room with the most dead creatures, so they should be able to gather a lot of materials.

"No need for War Drum this time. Just help us," said Luuk to Jacco and the latter nodded.

Graham lit his lighter to help him see in the dark chamber. He and Agatha went to the spider and observed its dead body carefully while Luuk and Jacco were going around the spacious chamber to collect materials from the spider's prey. The spider was lying upside down with the whole outer skin was burned to crisp, but the inside should be intact except for its head. Graham focused on the lighter flame in his hand. While concentrating, he repeated a question in his mind.

'Which part of the J'ba Fofi is valuable?'

The flame burned brighter and slowly formed an image that got bigger and bigger. There was an image of the dead spider in front of him but the organs were visible from outside. There was a gland that was connected to its fangs. Graham took it as the venom gland. There was also another kind of glands connected to its spinneret which he understood as the silk glands. Both types of glands were glowing red, so they were both valuable.

"Let me a hand, will you?" he requested his employer while approaching the creature's carcass.

"Why don't you use your ability? It will make it much easier," asked Agatha.

"I'm saving it in case we need to fight another unexpected creature," he explained.

Agatha nodded in understanding and then approached the creature as well.

Both of them held knives in their hands and started cutting open the spider's underbelly. That part wasn't as hard as the carapace on its back, so their knives went smoothly into the spider's flesh. Graham cut around the silk glands and separated them from the other organs, and once he did it, he picked it up. It was as big as a human newborn and smelled of iron.

He put it aside and with Agatha's help, cut open the spider's underhead. There was only one venom gland intact, so they quickly cut it off and took it out of the spider's head.

Graham then opened his briefcase and took out some cloth and wrapped it around all the glands. After that, he put them securely inside his briefcase, squeezing them a little bit.

"Luuk, we're done here. What about over there?" he shouted at his companion.

He couldn't see them clearly but he could see Jacco's headlight going around. His shout echoed in the spacious cave interior.

"Yes! Let's meet up!" shouted Luuk in reply.

Graham and Agatha went over to where the other two were and saw that Luuk's backpack had gotten even bulkier and Jacco's small bag was also filled to the brim. Luuk must have stuffed smaller materials there between the giant scales. There were supernatural creature carcasses that had been cut open by them; mostly Tsuchinokos, including the ones fighting the spider before.

"Let's go. We still have two dead Olitiaus and four Tsuchinokos waiting for us," he said.

Luuk hauled his backpack and the scales that were tied with a rope with difficulty. He seemed to be over-encumbered.

"I don't think we have enough storage space for that," he replied.

"Doesn't matter. We'll just carry them by hand if we have to. I'm not going to leave those valuable things behind," said Graham.

Jacco also nodded passionately.

The four people then walked towards the exit and stopped on the way to harvest the organs of Olitiaus and Tsuchinokos that they had killed previously. Graham stuffed a lot of materials inside his numerous coat pockets and tied a rope around Tsuchinokos' scales. In the end, they were carrying so many items that it was impossible for them to run back. Even Agatha was not spared; she had to carry some bundles of items as well.

They made it to the exit without much problem except the heavy burden they were carrying.

"Let's take a rest first I'm not looking forwards to the walk back..." said Jacco while panting.

Luuk handed everyone a pouch containing stamina powder, but since it was already their many times taking it, it wouldn't be as effective anymore. They quickly inhaled the powder and a little bit of their stamina was recovered.

"!!"

Suddenly, their sense of danger was triggered. All of the four people looked at the cave simultaneously. There was something extremely powerful coming to their location slowly.

"Let's get out of here quickly!" urged Graham.

They all stood up and with the little stamina that they had recovered, they quickly ran back until they arrived at the cliff. They dropped all the items that they were carrying down to the bottom and climbed down quickly but carefully. The source of danger was still approaching and they could feel it getting very close.

Jacco was the last one to make it down the cliff and when he looked up, he saw the thing that was triggering their source of danger.

"What the fuck!!"

Up on the cliff where they were before, there was someone-- or something looking down at them. It was a human with a fiery body! Its whole skin was charred and its face was almost completely melted. The fire burning its body was still burning strong, but it wasn't dying. Instead, it was giving off a very dangerous aura that could probably burn anything near it. Its melted eyes were staring right at the group with malice.

"Quickly, grab everything and run!"

Graham knew that they had no chance of winning against whatever it was. The feeling it gave off was similar to the danger they felt from the right path in the fork inside the cave but much stronger.

All of them grabbed the items that they had dropped and didn't waste time. They all ran as fast as they could towards the street where they parked the motor vehicle. However, it would still take them long because of the distance. They didn't even dare to look back because it would only slow them down.

They made it back to the motor carriage and only then did they feel that their sense of danger had calmed down. The burning creature didn't seem to follow them, so they could relax a little.

Pant... pant...

They were sitting on the pavement while breathing heavily. They felt very tired from running while carrying heavy things at the same time.

"What the fuck was that?! That was scary!" exclaimed Jacco.

"I don't know. *pant* But I'm glad we got away," replied Luuk. He looked the most tired out of them all because he was carrying the most items.

"Anyway, let's put all of these inside Agatha's motor carriage and get out of here before the thing changes its mind and comes here," said Graham.

They all stood up and Agatha opened the trunk of her motor carriage. They put all their loots there and got into it. Once everyone was ready, Agatha drove off right away.