Chapter 290: Cave Exploration (4)

Romian placed his map back and slowly approached the wall and began to search for something.

“I found it.”

Finding a secret trap, Romian smiled. He pushed the wall, and a square area sank into the wall.

Then the wall began to move, and a new path appeared.

“Now, it should only take one day or at most two.”

The path that appeared is a shortcut. The book mentioned that the shortcut would take half of the original time.

It didn’t mean that the shortcut magically shortened the actual distance between the current location and the destination. The shortcut is free of obstacles, so the time won’t be wasted on monsters and traps.

The trap path was supposed to take two days, but now with the shortcut, Romian could arrive in a day.

Romain thought of Soo Hyuk, who went to the monster path. The monster path was not actually shorter than the trap path.

This was the information Romian hid from Soo Hyuk. To be more precise, he lied to him.

The path was of the same length.

“I can probably arrive a day earlier than Soo Hyuk. I need to finish before that.”

Romian thought a day should be enough and smiled as he walked into the shortcut.

***

‘I wonder what’s gonna appear,’

Soo Hyuk just finished clearing the sixth group of trolls and was walking towards the next monster territory.

The monsters the book mentioned, No, that Romian told Soo Hyuk ended at trolls. Soo Hyuk did not know what the next monster would be.

‘Besides that. It has been 15 minutes already…The trolls couldn’t be the last…Did I pass them without noticing?’

Checking the time, Soo Hyuk frowned. He has walked for 15 minutes, and it shouldn’t be possible that the last pack of monsters were trolls.

‘That’s not possible…’

Soo Hyuk thought as he shook his head.

At that moment, a strange sound came from ahead.

– Roaaarrr!

It was a monster’s roar. Hearing the roar, Soo Hyuk thought of a monster.

‘Ogres?’

Soo Hyuk thought the roar was from an ogre, but he couldn’t be sure. There were a few monsters that made the same roar as an ogre, but Soo Hyuk only heard an ogre’s roar before. That’s why he thought of an ogre first.

For the last few minutes, Soo Hyuk just walked thinking about random things. 

But was it because of the roar? Soo Hyuk began to focus.

‘It’s an ogre!’

In a few steps, Soo Hyuk found the source of the roar. And the source was as he expected, an ogre. 

Two ogres were blocking the path.

Unlike before, Soo Hyuk stopped before approaching the monsters.

An ogre was a strong monster despite its level.

Noticing Soo Hyuk, the two ogres roared and dashed towards him.

“Fire Strom.”

Soo Hyuk cast Fire Storm, and the two ogres were engulfed by the spell.

‘As expected of an ogre.’

Unlike the previous monsters, the two ogres yelled in pain but did not die instantly.

It didn’t take long for the ogres to die.

– Ogre’s Tendons x2

In about 6 seconds, the drop window popped up.

Soo Hyuk accepted the items and began to walk forward.

‘The difficulty seems to have risen quite a bit.”

Honestly, Soo Hyuk expected the ogres to last 4 seconds.

‘I’ve also become stronger, but…’

The proficiency of the Firestorm rose, and his magical damage increased after unlocking the Wisdom stat’s special effect.

But the ogres withstood the attack for more than 4 seconds. Even though ogres were strong, this just seemed too absurd. The difficulty curve rose way too fast.

Soo Hyuk opened his character window.

Class: Archmage’s Descendant

Level: 202 

Experience: 19%

Health: 111600 

Mana: 75500

Satiation: 65%

Strength ： 40 (+10)

Agility ： 35 (+16)

Stamina ： 1108 [554 (+10)]

Wisdom： 3775 (+10)

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Checking the window, Soo Hyuk was surprised.

‘The exp rose by 8%?!’

The exp only rose from 10% to 11% after defeating the six groups of trolls, but now it rose to 19% just by two ogres.

‘Their levels must have been insanely high.’

By being able to withstand Soo Hyuk’s spells and the amount of exp, the two ogres must have been high-leveled. They were incomparable with the previous monsters.

‘Why all of a sudden…’

The difficulty curve rose all of a sudden. It wasn’t a slight rise, but a sharp one. 

‘With this difficulty…I don’t need to worry about the scale of the reward. It should be fine.’

Soo Hyuk was worried about the reward because of the low difficulty, but now, seeing the ogres, there was nothing to worry about. The reward wouldn’t just be fine, but great.

Closing the window, Soo Hyuk started to cast spells for proficiency again and continued walking.

***

‘Hmmn, the footprints end here.’

Carten looked up and saw a cliff. The footprints stopped in front of the wall.

‘They didn’t climb up…’

There were no marks of the group climbing the cliff.

‘And there’s nowhere else to go.’

Scanning his surroundings, Carten did not find any marks anywhere else.

‘That means… There’s a hidden entrance?’

The clues pointed to the existence of a hidden entrance.

Carten thought of the possibility of a hidden space behind the cliff.

Carten approached the cliff and knocked on the walls. Checking the resonating sound, Carten moved sideways and kept knocking.

‘It’s different!’

There was a slight difference in the sound.

‘There something behind here. Is this the cave?’

Carten was sure there was something behind the cliff, which was related to the Kelta’s secret cave. There was a high chance, it wasn’t just associated with Kelta, but the actual entrance to the cave. 

Carten returned to the place the footprints disappeared.

He took out a small bottle that contained green powder.

“It’s regrettable to use it here, but…”

The green powder is a magical item named “Traces of the Wind.” It was an expensive item that cost 120 gold for 10 grams. 

Carten opened the lid and slowly took out a pinch of the powder and sprayed it at the wall.

The powder didn’t fly towards the direction Carten sprayed it but flew in various directions and then stopped somewhere on the cliff and began to glow.

Staring at the glowing powder, Carten thought,

“Is there a space behind the cliff?’

The glowing powder showed traces of an entrance. 

That entrance was definitely indicating there was an empty space within the cliffs.

‘The entrance is probably there.’

There was one spot where the traces concentrated. That was probably where the entrance was.

Carten placed his hands at that spot. 

‘A small gap. It looks like it can fit something. A key?’

Staring at the gap, Carten realized that it looked like a keyhole.

‘They shouldn’t have the key…’

Carten shook his head and denied that thought.

Heron had the key to the cave, so it shouldn’t be a keyhole.

‘Wait. What if there were two keys?’

At that thought, Carten frowned. There was a high chance there was more than one key. If they didn’t have the key, they wouldn’t have even come to this place.

Carten was considering two options.

‘Should I break in or return to report this…?’

Silently thinking, Carten began to think.

‘It’s too dangerous to break in. I should return first.’

Deciding to report the situation, Carten walked into the forest to hide the traces of using a warp scroll.

Checking the surroundings, Carten took out a scroll and ripped it.

As soon as Carten ripped the scroll, a magic circle appeared on the ground and sent Carten to Parville Merchants’ Corps residence area.

Arriving, Carten headed straight towards Ross’s room.

Translator and Editor Notes:

eyyyy ~ McTavish

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