The moment they stepped into the mine, a damp, chilling air rushed at them.
Sailin raised his iron-tipped wand high, the glowing ball at its tip casting steady white light that illuminated the deep tunnel.
On the rock walls on either side, countless pickaxe marks remained, and occasionally a few thick wooden support pillars could be seen propping up the ceiling.
Broken rails and rusted mine cart parts lay scattered on the ground, silently telling of the noise and prosperity that had once filled this place.
“Everyone, watch your step. Don’t step into any puddles.”
Balke led the way, his broad blade greatsword still sheathed, as he carefully scanned his surroundings like a dutiful guide.
For seasoned adventurers like them, who lived on the edge of life and death year-round, this shallow, abandoned mine—trampled and picked over by countless people—had a danger level close to zero. It was like strolling through their own backyard.
Leo followed closely behind Balke, the short wand clutched in his hand. His amber eyes held no fear, only the excitement of exploration.
“Wow! Uncle, look at this rock. It’s all sparkly! Is it a gem?”
Leo suddenly picked up a fingernail-sized stone faintly glowing blue from a puddle. He lifted it excitedly under Sailin’s light orb, as if he had found some rare treasure.
Balke glanced back and mercilessly shattered his fantasy.
“That’s a chip of fluorescent stone. Won’t even get you a copper coin. The real valuable veins were dug clean decades ago by the big trade associations and scavengers.”
“Huh? That worthless…”
Leo threw the stone back into the puddle in disappointment.
“I thought I could just pick up some top-grade magic crystals and go back to piss off that jerk Cedric.”
From the back of the line, Ailiya’s cold voice delivered another cutting blow.
“Young Master, reading too many travelogues affects your intelligence.”
Leo immediately turned to retort.
“Ailiya, what’s this called? Broadening my horizons! This is a field investigation, not me going stupid from travelogues!”
Ailiya ignored his excuse.
She maintained her perfect maid posture, hands folded in front of her, her steps so light they didn’t even stir up dust.
But in reality, with the Eagle Eye Art boosting her vision, her gaze was scanning every dark corner of the tunnel with terrifying efficiency.
‘It really is all just leftover trash.’
Ailiya sighed to herself.
Along the way, she had only spotted nine pieces of poor-quality waste iron ore and some completely rusted, rotten iron pickaxe heads.
Even if those were smelted, they wouldn’t yield much usable metal. The cost-performance ratio was terrible—a total waste.
It seemed like her plan to gather materials for her sub-class and grind some experience here was pure fantasy.
The group followed the winding tunnels, pushing deeper into the middle layer.
As the depth increased, the air grew thicker and the temperature dropped.
The once spacious single tunnel began to branch out. Rough wooden barricades and crude, stinking traps started appearing sporadically in the middle of the path.
Misi, the ranger in charge of reconnaissance, suddenly raised his hand, signaling the group to stop.
“Halt.”
He crouched down and carefully examined a few taut vines cleverly hidden in the muddy water.
“Goblin work. Connected to that broken wooden bucket filled with sharp rocks up there.”
Misi sneered contemptuously, expertly pulling out his dagger and flicking it to disarm this shoddy trigger trap.
“Looks like we’ve entered their lair. Judging by the density of footprints, there are at least thirty of them.”
Misi pointed at the pitch-black fork ahead and sniffed.
“Also, I smell fresh blood and roasted meat. They must have eaten recently.”
“Thirty?”
Balke stroked his beard and frowned.
“Those green-skinned bastards breed too fast. Don’t the city defense army slackers come down periodically to clean them out?”
For the Wind and Moon Squad, thirty goblins were still ants that could be crushed with a flick.
But if there were more, and they got surrounded in such narrow, structurally unstable tunnels, it would become troublesome.
“Brenda, take point. Sailin, dim the light orb a bit. Don’t be too flashy. Young Master, stay close to me and don’t wander off.”
Balke issued the battle orders swiftly. His broad blade greatsword let out a low, bloodthirsty ring as it slid from its sheath.
Everyone slowed their pace, moving silently into an extremely spacious underground natural cavern.
By the dim light, they finally saw the true face of these uninvited guests.
Dozens of ugly goblins were gathered around a campfire in the cavern, squabbling over several pieces of roasted meat from some unknown creature, making chattering, grating noises.
They held not only crude stone spears and wooden clubs, but also mottled, rusted iron swords and tattered leather armor.
A few noticeably larger goblin warriors gripped rusted iron weapons, clearly the leaders of this pack.
The appearance of humans immediately alerted these goblins, who were sensitive to smells.
“Jiggle gurgle!”
“Jiggle gurgle!”
With a strange cry from a few goblin warriors, the entire cavern erupted into chaos.
Over thirty goblins surged forward like a green tide, eyes red, brandishing their scrap metal, charging madly at the group!
“Protect the Young Master! Brenda, hold the entrance!”
Balke bellowed.
He didn’t use wide-area sword energy like he would outside.
In a structurally weak abandoned mine, a large-scale high-intensity shock could easily cause a cave-in.
He had to rely on pure swordsmanship. His great sword worked like a meat grinder, instantly splitting the leading goblins in two, green blood splattering everywhere.
“Water bullet volley!”
Leo didn’t hesitate either.
Hidden behind Brenda’s unbreachable tower shield, he swung his short wand wildly.
High-pressure water bullets precisely took out the goblins trying to flank from the sides.
Misi’s crossbow and Sailin’s small fireballs also mercilessly reaped the lives of these goblins.
The battle turned into a one-sided massacre.
But there were too many goblins.
And in the cramped terrain, instead of retreating from their comrades’ deaths, they grew more ferocious and maddened.
Balke cut down a goblin warrior trying to grab his leg, and as he watched more green dwarves pouring out of other tunnels deeper in the mine, irritation flared in his heart.
“Damn it! These greenskins are insane!”
He had been restraining his strength, afraid to collapse the mine.
But these goblins were like cockroaches that couldn’t be killed.
Not only were they charging head-on, but a few especially cunning goblin archers had even climbed the cavern walls to the top and were shooting arrows from above!
“I’ve had enough! You ungrateful beasts!”
Seeing a poor-quality bone arrow fly past Leo, almost hitting the young master, Balke finally lost his temper.
He took a step back, gripped the sword hilt with both hands, and a long-suppressed surge of green wind-element magic power exploded from the blade.
“Everyone, move! Whirlwind Slash!”
Even though he tried to control the range, the mana burst from a second-order peak was still terrifying.
Balke became like a green meat-grinding tornado, crashing into the densest cluster of goblins.
The raging wind blades turned over a dozen goblins into a rain of blood in an instant. Their screams cut short.
But just as Balke was about to pull back his sword and defend, the unexpected happened.
The surviving goblins, pushed to the brink, did not flee as usual.
A few of them, holding rusted iron picks, in extreme panic and madness, began senselessly hacking at a huge load-bearing stone pillar that had already been teetering on the edge of the cavern!
“Stop! You idiots!”
Misi saw their intent and screamed in terror, firing his crossbow frantically at those goblins.
But it was too late.
With several dull thuds, the load-bearing pillar—already cracked by the residual wind-element energy from Balke’s attack—gave out with a sickening snap.
BOOM!
The entire cavern shook violently, as if an earthquake had struck!
Rocks and dirt from the ceiling poured down like a storm!
“Cave-in! Fall back!”
Balke’s face changed drastically as he roared.
He abandoned the pursuit, turned sharply, and drove his broad blade greatsword deep into the ground.
[Fixed Tornado]
Powerful wind-element mana surged from his body, forming a semicircular green storm vortex that forcefully swept the falling debris away, creating a safe zone for his teammates behind him.
Hundreds of pounds of rock were hurled away by the airflow, crashing against the walls with earsplitting noise.
Balke dropped to one knee, gritting his teeth, veins bulging on his forehead, barely holding this deadly collapse at bay.
“Young Master! Get closer to me!”
Brenda raised his heavy tower shield, shielding Leo beneath him, and struggled to move toward the wind barrier Balke had created.
But the disaster didn’t end there.
The broken pillar triggered a chain reaction in the geological structure.
The rock floor beneath Leo’s feet, which had seemed solid, suddenly gave a crisp cracking sound.
Crack!
A massive fissure spread rapidly under Leo’s feet.
“Ahhh!”
Leo felt the ground vanish beneath him, and the sensation of weightlessness hit instantly.
The once flat floor collapsed into a bottomless black pit. He screamed in terror, his body falling uncontrollably into the endless darkness!
“Young Master!!!”
Brenda, right next to him, felt his eyes nearly split.
He lunged desperately, stretching out his long arm to grab Leo, but the weight of his tower shield and the ground’s shaking made him a fatal half-second too slow.
His fingertips only brushed the hem of Leo’s robe.
“Damn it!”
Balke, struggling to hold back the falling rocks, saw this and felt his heart clench.
If their employer died, the Wind and Moon Squad’s reputation would be ruined forever, and they might even face the mad revenge of the Casitian family.
In that split second, Balke made a swift decision. He diverted part of his wind-element mana, turning it into a gentle green current that precisely wrapped around Leo, who was falling rapidly.
[Slow Fall]!
“Misi! Save him!”
“Leave it to me!”
Misi, the agile ranger, shot through the falling debris like a black lightning bolt.
He dove toward the edge of the bottomless pit, already holding a coil of sturdy rope in his hand, trying to loop it around Leo.
But when he reached the opening and looked down, his face turned pale.
Too deep!
The pit was like a gaping abyss—pitch black, with no visible bottom.
Shrouded in the faint green light of [Slow Fall], Leo’s figure had already plunged over a dozen meters into the darkness, and was still descending at a relatively safe speed.
“No time! The rope isn’t long enough!”
Misi shouted from the edge, his voice filled with urgency.
But Misi couldn’t grab him before he disappeared from sight!
Protected by the wind-element mana, Leo wouldn’t die or get seriously injured from the fall.
“I’ll go down and fish him out!”
Balke lay on the broken rock edge, staring into the bottomless black hole, and roared.
“With my wind-element mana protecting him, he won’t die!”
At that moment, the same terrible thought raced through everyone’s mind.
A rookie young master who hadn’t even stabilized at first order, falling alone into an unknown underground abyss.
Even if he didn’t die from the fall, he would surely break down completely in that extreme darkness and unknown terror!
But in that moment of despair and panic—
Ailiya, who had been standing quietly at the back of the group, as if she didn’t exist, chose not to enter Balke’s safe zone.
She looked at Leo plummeting rapidly, and a faint, barely perceptible ripple passed through her ice-blue eyes.
‘…What a troublesome burden. Never a moment’s peace.’
The next second.
A black-and-white slim figure shot past Misi, who was lying at the edge of the pit.
Her speed was so fast that it didn’t even stir a whisper of wind.
Under Misi’s utterly horrified, ghost-seeing gaze—
Ailiya’s cold, beautiful face was completely expressionless as she leaped without hesitation into that bottomless pit.