"There is no way you are serious, aren't you?" Soren said with a shocked expression. He would have never expected to see the crab that would be worth 150 gold coins. Although there was a litteral gold mine in front of him, his first objective was to actually get himself and Lavenza to safety. For starters, both statuses were inferior to the crab, second, they were were much frailer than this tanky beast and lastly, even with they hit the golden jackpot of beating this thing, the noises from the battle would easily wake everything within the vicinity, including the other adventurers. If they woke up now, they would stay vigilant the entire night to hunt it and every chance for hunting at night would be gone in an instant.
*rustle* *rustle*
'Damn it. It is starting to get up. Did we wake it up or something? Or was it hiding and decided to attack us now?' Soren's head was making all kind of thoughts while seeing the crab getting up bit by bit. At that moment, Soren decided to not waut for the thing to get up, so together with Lavenza, they made like a banana and split.
"There is no way my luck is this bad, is it Lavenza?" Soren said while swimming away from the crab as fast as he could with Lavenza.
"Kyuu..." Lavenza shrugged as if didn't know the answer to Soren's question.
"Honestly, if my luck-" *boom* Just as Soren said that, a sudden explosion was heard and at the direction of the explosion, they say a big rock coming towards them while making a trail of sand. That rock was the Geis Crab and it was on hot pursuit with the duo.
"Just keeping swimming for you life Lavenza." At that moment, Soren gave up on saying anything else and focused on swimming as fast as he could.
"RrrrrrAaaaaaaaaHhhhhhh!!!!!!" The monster screamed while it was chasing the duo.
The three of them continued their cat and mouse game for a little while, until they started getting close to a camp. Soren couldn't afford to notify them, so he decided to take a sharp turn away from the camp and continued swimming towards that direction.
The crab coninued to follow as well, but the adventurers weren't notified, so Soren got away with waking the entire forest for now, but he knew he wouldn't be able to keep swimming and he would run out of stamina sooner or later, so his next plan was to confront it in battle. This plan however had two main issues. The beast itself and the location. Of course, the two of them wouldn't be able to beat that monster, so the plan of beating wasn't an option. The plan was to distract it as much as they could, until it either tired itself out, or until they managed to create a safe escape route. The problem with the location now, was to find a location for their battle and that said location needs to fullfill a few conditions. It needs to be an empty open area that is surrounded by the forest, it needs to have no camps in the vicinity and it's optimal for the terrain of the open area to have a few boulders or debris that could be used to throw off the enemy's senses.
For that plan to work though, it relies heavily on luck since Soren didn't know the layout of the forest well enough, it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. As the two of them were swimming through the forest, Soren realised that they were near an area that they had bought before. He could recognise the twin cuts and the claw marks on the trees and then, an idea just hit him like thunder. He could just use the old fort. The fort itself was military property, so chances were that very few would know about that, it was in a secluded spot, pretty far away from Crystalia City and it also happened to fullfill at least two of the conditions for Soren's plan to work.
After swimming for a full hour, they finally made it to the empty fort. The bones of the undead leviathan were still laying on the sand, while the castle itself still looked the same as ever with its cracked and broken walls and there weren't any campfires nearby or any signs that showed that someone had passed through here or that was nearby.
"I just hope this works. If not, we may have to rely on plan B and I really don't want to use plan B." Soren said with a dissatified expression on his face. That plan B, was actually to rely on other adventurers. He didn't intend to die, so if things came to worst, he wouldn't hesitate to give up on his mission. After all, for him, it was more important to lose the fight, than to lose the war.
"Let's go! It's all or nothing now!" Soren then said eagerly. He decided to put away all thoughts of 'what ifs' and 'what nots' and decided to start the plan.
"Kyuu~!" Lavenza also was eager.
After that quick exchange of words, both Soren and Lavenza swam towards the dark corridors of the castle. Ever since the battle with the undead leviathan, the walls have cracked but have also beeen widened, so that allowed for the crab to traverse through the corridors without much trouble.
Soren was a bit relieved that the corridors were big enough to allow this beast traverse through, otherwise this big guy would have destroyed the entire place within minutes.
After the three of them entered, Soren decided to swim a bit slowly, while using the shadows to hide himself from the crab. He also devided to hold Lavenza with his hands to make sure they didn't split up.
The crab was moving at the same speed as before and Soren disappear within the shadows. For a moment it was stunned, but it decided to keep moving to make sure to not lose sight of him. Of course, Soren used the shadows to take a quick turn to one of the room and hide and after the crab moved past Soren's hiding room, Soren decided to leave towards the opposite direction of the crab.
After leaving through the main gates, Soren swam upwards this time and decided to hide on top of the fort, on an area where the ceiling hadn't collapsed and decided to stay on the lookout for the crab. He had to make sure that the crab wouldn't only lose interest to him, but it wouldn't even think twice for looking back at the fort.
After a little while, there was no noise. No sounds of moving, nor anything else. Both Soren and Lavenza were silent and barely moved so they never made any movements. At that moment though, something completely unexpected happened.
"Hello? Is anyone out there? I'm scared." A voice of a young boy was heard.
Soren was completely suprised. 'Since when was there a boy in the fort?' Soren thought to himself.
"Kyuu~?" Lavenza whispered while she was confused with Soren's reaction.
"Hello? Can someone help me please? I don't want to be alone." The voice of the young boy was heard.
"Did you hear that call for help?" Soren whispered. Lavenza shook her head as she was confused with Soren's behavior.
More cries for help were heard from the young boy's voice and Soren decided to take the risk of rescuing the boy. He didn't know when or where the kid came from, but he wouldn't risk leaving a helpless child alone in a dark fort with a deadly crab.
Soren still had his doubts though, since this entire situation was a bit suspicious, so he decided to stay on guard and look for the child from its cries, rather than calling to it. As he went through the corridors, he heard which direction were the cries coming from, but he still stayed on guard. Once he got close to the sounds, he saw the crab just standing there.
'The crab is probably in the way of getting to the kid.' Soren thought. At that moment, Soren picked up a nearby rock and threw it at another corridor.
*click* *clack* *clack*
The moment those noises came out of the corridor, the crab moved towards the noise. After the crab left, Soren decided to check the area for the kid, but there was no sign of a kid there. At that moment, Soren decided to comb the area, hoping to find the kid that might have been hiding under the debris or in a small area put of Soren's and the crab's sight couldn't reach.
After a little while, there was no sign of a kid and Soren started to think if there was a kid in the first place, but at that moment, that kid's voice came from the direction that the crab had gone to.
"You are kidding me, aren't you? I have to go the lion's den?" Soren said quietly to himself. 'The crab had the kid captive in its clutches and if he wanted to save the kid, he would have to confront the crab.' Soren thought instantly.
'Wait, that isn't possible. Assuming that the crab has caught the kid, the kid would be easily seen if it was caught by the craws, or if it was on top of its head. If that crab somehow had a hidden compartment, which I doubt it, the voice wouldn't have been heard so clearly. Also the bottom of the crab is out of the question, since crab anatomy says that there is barely any place to hold on in the first place. That really leaves one final posibility, but would be possible, considering the fact that this possibility is as morbid as a talking cactus in the middle of meteor storm on the top of a volcano that spewed frozen magma.' Soren monologued to himself for a bit.
*clack* *clack* *clack*
The sounds of the crab's feet were echoing in the walls and were heading towards Soren. At that moment, Soren had the craziest idea and decided to test his theory. If this idea worked, this would definitely put a huge change in the situation, but if it doesn't, well he can always throw a couple of prayer lines before hits the dirt.
"Well, it's all or nothing now." Soren said at that moment.