The golem carriage continued to move North, past the abandoned monster corpses left behind by the Asura. Along the way, we encountered three more magic beast ma.s.sacres. However, the situation in these ma.s.sacres was different from the previous ones.
"This place looks terrible as well."
Mia muttered, and no wonder. The whole area was a sea of blood. The earth is covered in dark red blood, and the stench fills the battlefield. For the beastkin who possesses good senses of smell, this must be terrible. Along with Mia, Fran and Guendalfa were also frowning.
Here the appearance of the corpses is different from before. Rather than being crushed by a mysterious power like earlier, these magic beasts were clearly slaughtered by something sharp; this likely scattered large amounts of the evil beings" blood around, polluting the surrounding area.
"Asura?" Fran.
"I"m not sure. The G.o.dblade Gaia he wields certainly is shaped like a greatsword, however… I don"t think he would go through the trouble of killing like this." Kiara.
Kiara tilted her head in thought at Fran"s murmur. The Earth Sword Gaia seems to be a greatsword. However, why change fighting styles all of a sudden? It"s possible he wanted to move his body, see blood, or some other reason to suddenly fight directly.
More realistically, it"s possible something besides the Asura slaughtered the evil beings. Well, that just leaves us the question of what other things could imitate the Asura like this.
"I think weapons were used here…."
"If it was a magic beast, they might be able to do this with their claws instead of weapons."
"Ah, that"s right. Also, look at this corpse. I can"t see a human doing this."
In addition to the butchered corpses, there were beheaded corpses and corpses which looked like something forcibly tore them apart from crotch to chest.
The way they were defeated really is different from the magic beasts thought to have been killed by the Asura, just as I thought.
"These aren"t mere small fry."
"Nn. There"s a Goblin General. That"s a Goblin Sorcerer."
Apparently, whether it was a human or beast, whatever created this terrible scene wasn"t interested in anything after killing. As such, valuable materials were left untouched without being dismantled and harvested or eaten.
Not just that, the magic stones were also left behind. I had Fran pick up the Goblin General"s magic stone, and then secretly absorbed it. Though, I was only able to obtain one point from it.
(Why is this…?)
Although it"s a Goblin, if it"s a high ranking species like this Goblin General, I should be able to absorb a magic stone value of at least three to ten points….
(Fran, could you get some others?)
"Nn."
Fran then picked up the magic stones which looked like ones which would have reasonably high magic stone values, such as those from the Orc Mages and Goblin Sorcerers. I then obscured Fran"s body, pretending to be a Dimensional Storage, and absorbed the magic stones. However, the magic stone values were still just one point each.
(Strange.)
(What"s wrong?)
(I absorbed too few magic stone points from the magic stones.)
(Like the time with the Valkyrie?)
That"s right. It"s the same as that time with the Valkyrie, where the Evil G.o.d"s Stone Spear went out of control. Is the power of the Evil G.o.d involved here, after all?
Or, the Evil G.o.d"s Stone Spear could have eaten their soul. If the power of the Valkyrie"s magic stone was weakened by that, it"s possible that evil beings can eat souls as well.
(Fran, don"t let your guard down.) s.h.i.+sho.
"Nn." Fran.
I searched the surroundings, however, I was unable to find anything suspicious. Whatever did this must have moved from this area already.
"Everyone, proceed carefully from here on. There"s no telling what might be lurking." Mia.
"Indeed." Kiara.
It seems Mia and Kiara have also determined that the perpetrator of this slaughter was not Asura. While scanning the surroundings with frowns, we started the golem carr again.
The opinion that we should have Quina scout came up, but we don"t know what might be lurking. We decided to travel with the carriage concealment function turned on from here on out.
I remained on guard for a while, but we haven"t yet been attacked. Much less the perpetrator of the slaughter, we haven"t even been attacked by normal magic beasts.
Did the dungeon monsters run away last night after detecting a strong being like Asura fighting? At any rate, it was fortunate for us to avoid exhausting ourselves.
"Everyone, over there." Quina.
Quina stopped the carriage again, and called to us from the driver"s seat.
"Mn? Did you find something?"
"That, isn"t that the large boulder landmark that we heard about from the prisoner?"
Quina pointed at a strange rock that seemed to pierce the heavens. It was a pointed boulder that looked like a twisted dragon horn.
"In other words, that means that there must be a cave leading to the dungeon up ahead."
"Yes. I believe it is beyond that forest."
Certainly, it looks just like the landmark to find the entrance to the dungeon that we heard from Johan. According to Johan"s information, there should be a dungeon beyond the forest at the end of the rock.
"Let"s walk from here on." Quina.
"Right. Kiara-s.h.i.+shou, could you please lead?" Guendalfa.
"Leave it to me." Kiara.
"Quina will be the rearguard."
"Understood."
It makes sense to have the two experienced and battle tested people at the front and back. It"s a good decision.
We walked through the forest sprawling at the foot of the Border Mountains while erasing our tracks. We advanced without becoming lost. Although there is no road, the path left by traces of many traveling monsters kept us on track. By following it, we could advance without hesitation.
However, by this point, I should have been able to sense the magic energy from the Dungeon, but there was no sign of it.
It seems to differ depending on the dungeon, but if the dungeon master is intelligent, it seems that it is more common to hide the magic energy. It seems that dungeons have various facilities and functions, and there are ways to prevent magic power from leaking out. Whether to conceal the dungeon or not depends on the purpose of the dungeon master, but this time it is definitely the purpose of hiding.
After a while, Kiara suddenly stopped and hid in the nearby bushes. As expected, Fran and the others followed suit.
"Kiara-s.h.i.+shou, could this be…?"
"Yeah, we found it."