Night Ranger

Chapter 41: Frightening Mine

Panda Novel

The adventurers had nothing to do for now.

There was one rule for the loot distribution for fights in the wilderness.

It was pretty simple: those who contributed would get benefits.

In the previous fight, the adventurers didn’t contribute, so they didn’t get to take the loot.

But under Anna’s directions, they began to tear apart the gnoll camp, using the logs to surround some mine tunnels with simple fortifications.

"Why didn’t those gnolls make a camp on the edge of the mine? It would have been easier to defend."

Cat raised a question somewhat doubtfully.

No one was able to answer him, and the gnolls were already dead. No one knew how those packs of animals thought.

After the bloodbath, the rage of the White River Valley garrison was vented to some degree.

They meticulously piled up the gnoll corpses and burnt them, and started taking care of the loot afterwards.

In fact, these gnolls were very poor. They had nothing worthwhile on them. The camp only had simple and crude items too.

Most of it was food.

But that food… Only gnolls, kobolds, goblins and such races would eat that kind of food.

During the second era, mankind was the same as them. In order to adapt to the poor conditions, they would eat any kind of food they could get.

But after the rise of mankind, and them becoming used to fine food, they couldn’t eat tree roots and those kinds of things any more.

At least, no one would eat those during peaceful times.

Anna had two garrison members make suitable logistics preparations.

They carried enough food, consisting of fragrant and sweet bread, dried meat and enough water.

The gnolls’ things were discarded.

The only useful things were the logs.

Those logs could make a few simple fortifications. If the gnolls were really fooled and fell into the trap, these fortifications would take some pressure off everyone’s shoulders.

...

Time flew by quickly. The sun set and it was now evening.

Everyone worked together to set up the new camp. At least, it looked a lot more decent than the gnolls’.

"Seems like I have to take the first shift."

Taking turns for the night shift was a must. Who knew whether that sly gnoll shaman would launch a night attack or not.

Everyone drew lots, and the pugilist Rock ended up with the first shift.

At that time, Marvin suddenly walked over and sat on a stone at the mine tunnel.

"I’ll keep guard with you."

Rock’s complexion changed. He didn’t know what to think.

Everyone was looking strangely at Marvin.

But in the end, due to Anna prompting them, most of them went to rest.

They knew that there would definitely be a large war tomorrow.

Even though Marvin promised that he was able to deal with the gnoll shaman, the other gnoll fighters were not to be trifled with.

Even if they weren’t a match for an adventurer in a one on one, it would get tricky once there were enough of them.

They had to keep enough energy to be able to react to any sudden change on the battlefield!

...

Crackling noises could be heard from the campfire.

Rock and Marvin were silently sitting opposite each other.

Rock was carefully watching Marvin’s movements.

To be honest, he couldn’t see through that guy. Last time at the inn, Rock had let that guy know that he was interested in his head. That was really asking for trouble.

Three blows would probably have been enough to kill Green who was a bit stronger than himself in a fight. This kind of strength was extremely frightening.

If there was medicine for regrets, he would definitely not have provoked this frightening guy.

But in fact, Marvin hadn’t even bothered with Rock from the start.

His motive for taking a turn as a lookout was only for safety reasons, and nothing more.

‘It’s a bit strange. Those gnolls are not fools, why wouldn’t they build their camp on the edge of the mine tunnel?’

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to defend?’

The others might have brushed away their suspicions, but Marvin felt that he had caught onto something.

He felt like he had experienced something similar somewhere before.

But he couldn’t remember right now.

This kind of feeling made him feel quite annoyed. He sat there, motionless, trying hard to remember.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work.

‘What’s going on?’

Just when Marvin was thinking hard while frowning, he heard a faint sighing sound next to his ear.

‘That sound!’

Marvin suddenly felt his blood run cold.

‘Is this something like a fear skill?’

He reacted right away.

It was clearly written on the battlelog: he just experienced a fear check!

The outcome was obvious, since he had the headless girl’s gift. He easily resisted the fear.

And at this time, Marvin noticed a dark shadow floating in the mine tunnel.

‘So it was like that…’

Marvin finally understood!

He knew what was going on!

‘No wonder those gnolls didn’t build a camp by the mine tunnel.’

‘It’s not that they weren’t willing to, rather, they didn’t dare to!’

‘If I go inside the tunnel right now, I might be able to find a few gnolls bodies!’ Marvin suddenly realized.

As for Rock sitting in front of him, it seemed like he didn’t notice anything.

That was normal. His sense of hearing wasn’t sharp enough to sense those subtle movements inside the tunnel.

‘It was actually those guys ah… Ahahaha! Looks like I’m quite lucky.’

As Marvin thought, he opened his character window. In the ranger section there were still 46 class skill points unused.

He put 25 SP into [Listen] in an instant!

In fact, he wasn’t quite willing to upgrade this skill, but thinking of the current situation, without [High Perception], [Listen] was one of the most important skills of the stealthy classes.

25 points in listen was enough to let Marvin become sharper.

Those barely audible sound he’d heard became more distinct!

A row of fear checks appeared on the battle log. He smoothly passed all of them.

Those things’ fear effects were quite weak. It didn’t even pose a threat to Marvin.

On the contrary, Marvin was interested in them.

...

"What are you planning to do?" Rock was startled by Masked Twin Blades abruptly getting up.

"I’ll go take a look inside, you keep watching. Gnolls might still be digging tunnels. I’ll make a quick check."

Marvin casually lied, leaving Rock by himself besides the campfire. His shadow quickly disappeared in the mine tunnel’s darkness.

"Going in a mine tunnel in the middle of the night? Is he not worried about running across mine ghosts? A weird guy indeed…" Rock mumbled but didn’t care.

The campfire kept burning.

...

In the dark, gloomy mine tunnel, Marvin was lifting a torch with one hand and carrying a dagger in the other.

The air inside the tunnel wasn’t too bad, and the torch’s flames were quite large.

He bent down from time to time to pick up some soil. He would then go in a certain direction.

He was already sure that something was in this mine.

As soon as Marvin took over White River Valley, miners had reported that there were monsters in the mine.

But the garrison didn’t find any monsters during their inspection.

Afterwards, when miner were working, they would occasionally meet some strange circumstances, but nothing that would make them lose their lives.

And thus, things were set aside at the time.

Until today.

Marvin had already guessed what was in the mine. After all, he knew of almost every monster in Feinan.

‘But… It’s odd.’

‘They normally wouldn’t actively attack humans or other lifeforms.’

‘If I’m not wrong… Could there be a source of corruption nearby?’

Thinking of this, Marvin accelerated.

A source of corruption usually meant benefits.

Just when Marvin took a turn.

A huge strange face came out from a hole in the mountain, rushing toward Marvin to ruthlessly bite him.

There was no change in expression on Marvin’s face. He moved back half a step and swiftly thrusted his torch forward.

But that strange face was actually unafraid of fire. It directly opened its mouth and ate the torch!

"Pffffff!"

The only source of light in the mine faded away.

Pairs of dark red eyes shone through the darkness.

Every pair of eyes was on another strange face.

Marvin calmly leaned closer to the ground. He slowed his breathing and took something out from the void conch.

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