Chapter 52 - 49 : Going Underground

(AN : I typed this with my phone and the auto-correct function is really bad so errors would most likely be present. Please alert me for any.)

"So how do we get there?" Fudo asked the question that had been on his mind ever since the two have been progressing forward, through the goblin horde.

"All those craters formed from the boss' devastating attacks. They most likely broke through the surface reaching deep and creating entrances into the main tunnel. If we can find the right crater that connects to the main tunnel then the problem would be solved."

The main tunnel here refers to the tunnel Sato and Fudo had earlier explored when they were trying to complete the Ghost Mansion mission.

"I see. If that is the case, then we have an upper hand compared to the other players." Fudo smirked.

"Correct. Unlike the others, we are the only ones who had actually explored the main tunnel as such, we are the only ones who know where it's actually located. Even if the other players figure out that the commander could be underground, they wouldn't know where exactly."

And this was exactly true. Apart from them and Sinland, no one else had explored the Ghost Mansion before the goblins took over and even among the members of Sinland, only 2 players had seen them exit the main tunnel. So even if most players realise that the commander could be hidden underground, they wouldn't know where exactly; only having to rely on their luck and explore all the craters formed. This itself is quite difficult as there are a couple of such craters, with some even formed on the mountains surface. (AN : Remember that the entrance to the main tunnel began from the clearing in between the Ghost Mansion and the unnamed mountain that belonged to the Kiro mountains.

"Aight."

Rushing through the horde, Sato and Fudo slaughtered the goblins they could and bashed the rest away, clearing a small path through the army.

Due to the fact that there was just the two of them, the goblin army didn't pay much attention to them. But due to this very same fact, it wasn't so hard for Sato and Fudo to progress through the battlefield.

With that in mind, it didn't take them that long to find what they were looking for.

"Over there."

Pointing at a crater he had managed to spot from the edge of his eyes, Fudo rushed towards it with Sato following closely.

Once they reached the crater's edge, they both jumped in and began expressing the weird sensation of freefall.

Approximately 2 seconds later, they both landed at the same time as their feet finally experienced the sensation of hard ground.

The tunnel was quite dark with bare lighting supporting their vision from the open 'roof' above their heads.

"So where do we go?" Fudo asked as he looked ahead of and behind himself, the environment looking quite different from what he had previously experienced.

"Towards the mountain."

"I have a feeling you just decided that at sput of the moment." Fudo said with a suspicious look on his face.

"What about it?"

"..."

Even though it seemed like Sato had just made a random decision, upon pondering on it more, Fudo felt it was the best choice. Most of the goblins flooded out from the mountain. If there was a command centre of such for them, it should be quite close to the mountain.

It didn't take long for Sato's decision to turn out correct as they had arrived at a hallway patrolled by a couple of goblins scouts.

The hallway wasn't quite large and was only furnished with tall lampstands and lit candles. Apart from these, there was only a closed door at the other end of the hallway.

Like the others, the goblin scouts were garbed in animal skin clothing with some of them holding bows while the rest wielded short crude daggers. If not for the flames that had been light up in the hallway, Sato and Fudo wouldn't have noticed them.

"We don't have much time to deal with these guys. I'll grab their attention while you prepare an AOE spell." Sato said as he scanned the entire hallway alongside the 10 goblin scouts present.

At this point, they had levelled up once. Together with the 5 attribute points gained earlier from their subclasses and the recently gained ones from levelling up, their strength had increased far more than when they previously faced their first goblin.

For the current Sato, handling 10 goblins would just be a bit stressful, nothing more.

Sato rushed into the group of goblins with a shout, effectively drawing their attention and focus towards himself. Once he approached them, he easily dodged their attacks and at the same time countered back. In under 3 seconds, he had successfully stabilized their agro giving Fudo an opportunity to begin casting his power.

Lifting his sword, Sato slashed at a goblin scout while kicking another with his response get foot. At the same time, one of the goblin archers had tried to nail him down with an arrow. Sadly, Sato was prepared and easily dodged the attack, letting a random goblin scout experience the pain in exchange for himself.

He easily reacted to all their movements and actions, either dodging it or being so nice as to let another goblin trade places with himself. For that, the goblins were well rewarded, either receiving a one-way 'guidance' in battle techniques from their kin or being able to experience the art of the sword with Sato. The more unluckier ones or rather 'lucky' ones, were given a free trip to their maker.

While Sato kept the goblins busy and focused on him, Fudo chanted the incantation of a large scale spell.

Flame type mana gathered around him with burning red particles floating. With his crooked staff pointed at the goblins and Sato, Fudo yelled out "[Flame shower]".

Even before Fudo had completed his chant, Sato timely separated himself from the goblin scouts.

Suddenly, a magic circle formed above them as a curtain of red flames poured down from the circle.

Accompanying the flames were the horrifying screeching and wails of the goblins which had a little bit of a skin crawling feature in it.

Such painful screams as a result of the pangs from the burning flames was really creepy and it actually made one pity the goblins a bit as their suffering was one no one would like to experience.

Despite their incessant shrieks and burning skin, th goblins didn't die that easily but they still lost quite an amount of HP.

Once the flames had slowly died out, Sato rushed in to deliver the finishing blow to the scouts, slashing his sword at either critical points, like the eye or the brain, or he hacked towards the injuries formed on their bodies by the deadly flames.

With Fudo supplying reinforcement attacks from behind, the goblins' death was inevitable and slowly but surely they eventually fell to either Sato's blade or Fudo's fireball.

"Krawww!" With an unwilling cry, a goblin Archer died with a sword through it's heart.

"That's the last one." Sato said as he swung his sword, getting rid of the blood left on it.

"All that remains is the door..." Fudo stared warily at the door as he approached it.

The door was extremely thick and heavy as such, they couldn't hear anything from the other side of it no matter how hard they tried.

"There should be a key somewhere." Sato walked over to the goblins corpses that had yet to disappear and began looting it.

At the 3rd body, he finally found what he was looking for; a grey key that looked quite simple.

Taking it with him, he walked over to the door and shoved it into a keyhole Fudo had found. With a twist of his wrist, he turned the key.

*Clank*

*Clank, clank*

Gears sounded out as Sato turned the key to form a complete circle. Eventually it budged and couldn't turn any further.

"Get ready."

"Aight."