The passage after the mural started to branch off, like an ant's nest, making it difficult to traverse. Rather than a crypt, it felt closer to a maze! Of course, since they had no clues, they had to check out each path one after another, which took up a great amount of time.
"Woah!"
And of course, mazes with multiple paths would have measures to eliminate intruders who take the wrong one. Traps activated one after another whenever they lowered their guards, endangering their lives a lot of times already.
Traps like arrows from the walls, pitfalls, ceiling drops, and many others.
It was almost a miracle that they survived through those traps, but all that trouble was more than worth it, at least. Half of the trap-riddled passages were dead ends, but the other half led to a storage room.
"This is... an artifact!"
And each of those storage rooms was filled to the brim with weapons and artifacts, each worth at least 300,000 Tels on the market!
Twelve hours passed, and from the myriads of paths, only one remained.
By then, the amount of artifacts that they found was already reaching 500 million Tels in value, roughly estimated. Even divided between the six of them, that was still quite a large amount!
"Let's rest here for now." Aster declared.
The time was already near 9 p.m., so it was obvious that they would be tired. Although the only fight they had was against the golem statues, exploring while being wary of traps still sapped their mental strength. Fatigue was visible on the faces of half of them already.
Of course, after they finished setting up the tents in the hall connecting the many passages, Aster didn't hold back his skills at all. He prepared the best meal he could from the ingredients they had, allowing the girls to enjoy their meal and recover faster.
And since they were inside the crypt, they didn't need too many on watch duty. As such, they decided to have two shifts with two people each. The method of selection? To draw lots!
"Yay~! I'm safe!"
{... Fucking useless! Then what are you planning to do now? We need that man here as soon as possible!}
"Don't worry, officer. I'm already working on it." Lory's smile turned even sweeter as she explained.
"I have infiltrated their party, and am working on gradually exploiting his subconscious mind through minor adjustments every time we meet gazes. My job should be done in a month, at most."
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{That's too slow! Two weeks—that's the limit I can give you!}
"..."
Lory's smile twitched, but she quickly recovered, not allowing the other party to notice. "As you command, Officer Lubbot." She bowed gracefully.
Right then, the hologram disappeared, but the heat in her left eye remained the same. It was so uncomfortable that she wanted to pull her eye out and throw it away. However, the chip behind her eye would explode if she tried to do so.
Tears streamed down her left eye as she endured the pain while cursing in her mind.
'You fucking fatty! As soon as I get rid of this chip, I'll make sure to kill you in the most painful way possible!'
The pain subsided only after half an hour passed. She heaved a deep sigh before turning to Aster's tent.
Her initial plan was to use Aster to pinpoint and freeze the chip behind her eyes, destroying it in the process. However, after learning that his ability to freeze things was thanks to his Frostfire Legacy and that it was currently sealed for an unknown length of time, she had to readjust her plans.
"Two weeks..."
It was way too short for her to succeed in her plan to free herself from her chains. However, that was no reason for her to give up. A glint flashed in her eyes as she stood idly, keeping watch of her surroundings while thinking of other things.
Soon, morning came—the time for them to resume exploring the crypt.