Chapter 177 Route Into The Heart Of The Castle

Shaman and her group managed to make it to the castle walls, but upon arrival they found some dark elves patrolling on the outside. Coming out of the shadows by a house, they planned on what they were going to do.

'Why would they be all the way out here?' Shaman opted to circle around to the far side of the castle, where she thought there would be no elves outside the walls.

"There might be a secret entrance, or they are just patrolling the castle grounds as well." Elysia whispered into Shaman's ear what she thought, accounting for the fact that this was a dungeon and so common sense doesn't always apply.

"Hmm, let's use our fox forms and see if they attack. If not, we will investigate the wall to see if there is anything out of place." Hoping to get it done quickly, Shaman chose to try and avoid any unnecessary fighting.

"Sounds good."

"Silver, Clara, stay here while we investigate the wall while in our fox forms. If you hear fighting then come, but for now stay here." Relaying the plan to Clara and Silver, they both nodded.

"Alright Eli, let's go." Shaman and Elysia then transformed into their fox forms.

After transforming, Elysia went up to snuggle her head into Shaman's body but was dodged.

"We can do that later." Shaman using her paw smacked Elysia on the snout and caused her ears to droop.

*Sigh* "Come on, the quicker we finish, the faster we can do whatever you want." Shaman didn't quite understand why Elysia became so playful and thought it might have to do with being in their beast form, but now wasn't the time.

"Okay." Elysia nodded and her ears perked up again.

Clara, who was watching from the side, couldn't help but shake her head at the scene as this was supposed to be a serious mission.

"Heh, Mother and mamma Elysia are cute." Silver was giggling to himself, finding both his mothers rather adorable.

"Oi, don't say that to us. Anyway, we are wasting too much time." Shaman yelled at Silver, but knowing they had limited time, couldn't dwell on it.

Running out toward the castle wall, Elysia followed Shaman. As a first test they were going to run by the dark elves to see if they would get aggravated.

Waiting for the patrol to come back around, both Shaman and Elysia ran past the dark elves. Surprisingly, they did not react to Shaman and Elysia's presence at all and continued their walk like usual.

Shaman wanted to test it further and touch the guards, but seeing as they wont target them, she figured they should just move on.

Switching to telepathy just to make sure they did not alert anyone by accident, Shaman started to examine the castle wall.

"Eli, start going to the right and I will head left. Yell out if you find anything!" Shaman figured there would be a draft or some other indicator if there was a secret entrance. The only fear Shaman had was that she was overthinking and that the guards are just patrolling since it's just their job.

"Mhm." Elysia felt anxious in leaving Shaman alone, but she still listened as that's what Shaman entrusted her to do.

Shaman went along the wall, following the guards from a safe distance.

'So far nothing with the wall, and the guards are acting normal.' Shaman wanted to see if the guards checked a particular area or did something out of the ordinary.

After following the guards for about 5 minutes they approached the main gate. The guards looked around for a moment and went down into a trench that was by the gate. One of the guards then waved their hand and a secret wooden entrance was revealed.

Shaman instantly contacted Elysia about what she saw and instructed her to join her down the trench. Meanwhile, Shaman followed the guards inside, finding herself in a rather old tunnel resembling a tomb, that went towards the middle of the castle.

Having still gone unnoticed, Shaman used her stardust to create an illusionary cover on herself. She now completely blended in with the wall, masking her presence.

'I don't think Elysia will be able to catch up.' Shaman didn't know if Elysia would understand, but when she was about to run ahead, the entrance suddenly caught fire.

After it was burnt down, a little black fox with small flames at the tip of its ears and tail stepped into the tunnel.

'Damn it.' Shaman wasn't surprised, but it was so flashy that the elves noticed and turned around. Seeing Elysia and her flames, the elves went into their crazed state.

"Oops." Not expecting anyone to be on the other side, Elysia quickly prepared a fire bow she could remotely control. However, as the elves went charging at Elysia, Shaman came out from behind and shot ice spears at them.

Just like Elysia, the tips of Shaman's ears and tail became frozen to represent the element she was using.

The spears impaled the elves in the back of the neck, going right through the gap in their armour.

"Elysia, next time we are doing something stealthy be more discreet, I don't want a repeat of the noble killings we did." Shaman remembered how Elysia blew up the mansions instead of killing the target silently.

"Hehe, sorry but that's just too boring." Elysia did not like going covert so she would always lean towards the most destructive methods available.

'I'm afraid of the second element she will choose.' Shaman knew Elysia could get a new element, but hadn't bothered to or hasn't had the right circumstances to do so.

"Whatever, let's continue forward." Shaman couldn't keep being angry as there were no more immediate problems and only hoped Elysia would temper her recklessness.

"Okayy~."

Going deeper into the tunnel, they had not encountered any more elves, yet still found it rather eerie.

"If it wasn't for us being strong, I would have been terrified." Shaman wasn't a fan of quiet places, but having Elysia with her and the capability to defend herself made even things she found scary seem trivial.

"Well it's the least of our worries. After feeling the pope's pressure, nothing can really compare." Elysia could still feel the pressure that came from the pope as it left a rather strong impression.

"We will most likely have to fight that seeing as he is directly linked to the trapping of my parents." To make things worse, Shaman wouldn't be surprised if Freja threw her in the ring without warning.

"I would rather not, surely Freja could fight him." Elysia didn't want to go down the path of being the protectors of the continent and preferred to go off to live peacefully with Shaman.

"I'm sure we will fight alongside her, but we need to level up, hence why we are here." Shaman knew they were progressing at an abnormal rate, but without it, they would run out of time.

"Let's hope that's the end of it after he is dead." Elysia knew she couldn't get out of it, so at the very least she hoped that it would be the end after killing him.

"Don't forget I may have a territory to rule."

"Urggghhh, are you sure you can't continue to be a runaway princess?" Elysia was now having second thoughts about getting married to a queen.

"Aha, we'll just have to wait and see. Apparently we live for a long while, although not as long as elves, but still a decent amount." Shaman heard from Freja at one point that the fox race lives quite long lives, so she might be a hundred years old before having to take over the territory.

"I'll just not think about it for the time being." Elysia already could imagine the pressure of running a territory and didn't want to deal with it.

"Fair, we are at the end of this tunnel anyway, so make sure you stay focused." Shaman saw the tunnel opening up to a bigger room and assumed it was the exit.

Cautiously walking out of the tunnel, they found themselves in a massive open room and what looked like the trunk of the world tree they could see from the outside.

"Woah." Mesmerised by the view, Shaman and Elysia walked closer to the tree.Moving closer, they saw a pool of water at the base of the tree, and a few dark elves bathing in it.

"Looks like we ended up in the core of the castle, right where they protect the tree." Shaman was surprised that the secret path led straight here.

"Well when you never sustain any attacks, having lived in a secluded space, a shortcut to certain areas would be something you would want." Elysia assumed because the elves lived rather peacefully, that the shortcut was made just to reduce travel time.

"Either way, we have a way directly into the heart of the dark elves' castle, so we should head back now." Now having a way in, Shaman decided to head back for now and report their findings.

Elysia nodded and followed Shaman out the way they came, excited for their future raid on the dungeon.