[This was a little... anticlimatic...] Zebellia said, still recalling his movements just now, nimble and precise, not wasted efforts.
[+30.000 Karma Points] The trial announced, surprising Constantine, those are a lot of points.
'Why am I getting points?'
[Who knows? this was an evil insurgent group of ogres, perhaps they had committed a lot of evil deeds?]
'But why didn't I get points for the ants then?'
[Those seem to have been originally from this channel of caves while the ogres came from the outside, perhaps there is a connection there... anyway, I expected something else from your fight with that ogre]
'What did you expect?' Constantine thought and released his bloodied spear from the leader's corpse, the rest of the group -who also had their bloodied weapons- approached him; surprised that not only did he defeat the biggest ogre, but he also did it so easily without sustaining a single wound.
[I thought you'd use your magic to obliterate him]
'Why would I waste my precious magic when I can do it with my weapon?'
[...] She decided to simply stay silent, it seems their trains of thought are different.
**
**
Ogres were creatures physically superior to humans, without magic a normal human would have a great disadvantage fighting one without the proper skills, skills they didn't have, they were merely mercenaries belonging to a town on the outskirts of the empire.
Zamira's eyes shone when she saw his proud back.
"Look for the blood of sandork, after getting it we're leaving..." Constantine said, believing that by now he needn't explain what his plan had been all along.
The group was silent, they simply did as he said, not daring to 'cross' him, if before they thought he was strong, that strength was now more than confirmed, he didn't even use a lot of his magic to deal with that ogre.
[You transformed the earth into mud right where he was going to step... how did you know?]
'I only knew... if you fight with an individual long enough, don't you learn his moves too? aren't you supposed to be a mighty warrior yourself? or are they just myths?' He smirked and kept looking inside the tents where there was nothing
[I... do...] Perhaps what surprised her the most was not the technique as it was indeed something very common.
It was the execution that left her in awe, everything was so automatic as if he had already fought a million similar battles enough to know what the next timeframe would be.
[I simply didn't expect you to be this skilled... this early, that's all.]
'...'
He started to search inside the tents, and the moment he did so... he came front to front with terror, now understanding why he received positive karma points upon slaughtering these ogres.
There were bones, all kinds of bones, human bones, but not only that, other races' bones too... 'Is this some sort of collection!?'
[Something deeper was going on with this group it seems]
The rest of the group had similar reactions, Anne was the one to find the Blood of Sandork beneath some debris while on the other side, Andre screamed.
"T-This!"
"What's wrong?" Constantine tilted his head at the man's sudden reaction until he saw what he had in his hands, it was some sort of royal clothing.
"That's a prince's royal garments!"
"Could it be prince Harrow!?"
"It was said he disappeared a few months ago..."
Constantine wasn't following the conversation but he could understand that this prince seems to have been the victim of those ogres.
He approached Anne and took the blood of sandork out of her hands as she had been looking at it with greed.
"Let's go, if you like those garments, you can keep them..." The conqueror said dismissively and moved to the exit of the cave where their path forward was, he didn't wait for anybody, only Zamira followed after him together with Andre who was inspecting the royal garments.
It took a few seconds for Sam and Anne to follow after they regarded one another with a mysterious glint.
**
**
"Prince Harrow was one of the youngest princesses of the Magnus Kingdom, one of the vassal kingdoms of the empire, his disappearance was announced a month or two ago and there was even an award to anyone who found him." Andre said while Constantine listened, he held the blood of sandork against his waist and walked forward through the cave, lighting it up with fire.
"I see, then you can get the award if you give them those garments, I guess..." He said dismissively, not interested.
The group kept gossiping with one another for several days in which they had little to no rest, only when he saw them struggling to keep up did he stop.
Three days later, they finally found the surface.
**
**
Constantine inhaled a deep breath of fresh air, finally outside of that accursed channels, nothing like a free world.
"I can recognise this place, it is the Southern Plain Lands, it is so far away from where we initially entered, moreover, I also don't remember this cave being located here."
"What do you mean?" the conqueror regarded the bulky guy with a glare, does he mean that these caves are mobile or something? that's ridiculous.
[It is possible, with a dimensional rift in there, a God's interference is more than assured, trust me... placing a dimensional rift in there is way more difficult for a god than creating a piece of land that moves on its own, this 'Joker God' was certainly no joke.]
'What exactly is that dimensional rift?'
[I told you, a passage to another world or dimension, it could be anything... if you don't hear tales of it, that means no one came back...]
He felt the shivers after hearing that sentence.
"How can we reach the nearest civilisation?" He asked Andre, the one who is an 'expert' in exploration.
"It would be for the best to head straight to the town of loup, it is a five days journey from here." Andre waved his hands and indicated, giving a brief explanation of where they were.
"This are the Southern Plain Lands, they're filled with creatures, to the north is the town of loup, a small town in the outskirts of the empire under the regiment of the Magnus' Vassal Kingdom, to the east you will find the capital, thought the journey is extremely long and it is best to go in the railway."
"Railway?"
"Yes, the machine that can traverse long distances that I told you about... to the south there are other towns which we are not familiar with, and to the west... it is the border with the Wolf Empire, a dense and accursed forest... as we travel we have to be careful with the scarred cult too, our faces have no scars, especially yours, s-sir..." He didn't even know how to address Constantine anymore, hence he addressed him as it is usually done to powerful magus.
"Then let's go to this town of loup, I have no problem, Zamira?" He asked the purple-haired beauty who so far had been listening and contemplating something.
"Y-Yes, that's where I usually live as well... if that's where you're heading I can show you around." She fidgetted as if wanting to say something that wouldn't come out of her mouth.
With everybody agreeing, they decided to head towards the Town of Loup to the North.