Your Majesty's money, why don't you engrave my name on it?

Bella's fire spell ignited once more, and Leslaufer reappeared before everyone in his human form. After listening to Leslaufer's account, Sophia breathed a slight sigh of relief: "I see, this is truly... unbelievable. When those mercenaries recounted your deeds, I thought it was all just rumors—after all, they said you strangled three hundred knights with one hand..."

"...That part is indeed a rumor." "Oh."

“No wonder I can see in the dark,” Leslaufer tapped his head. “I thought Rose’s influence on me ended there, but it turns out it was just a side effect—she actually turned me into a dark elf!”

As they spoke, the flames on the druid's palm quietly receded from the group. When only a faint light remained and half of Raslaufer's body was hidden in darkness, everyone noticed the change in him this time:

In the dim light, those icy blue eyes turned as red as blood, their ears looked pointed with sharp angles extending outwards, and the skin exposed outside the armor turned a deep blue, looking exactly like the skin of a dark elf.

“A gift from the goddess…” Christian sighed softly, clutching his injured shoulder, “It is both a gift and a curse…”

I wonder if this gift has ever appeared on the surface of the earth. If it has, it would probably terrify many people—this is completely different from the fear that the name Leslaufer evokes.

“I never paid attention to what happened on the ground,” Leslaufer thought carefully and found that he really didn’t remember anything about it, “but it seems that no one was ever seen.”

“Perhaps it only manifests under the influence of underground radiation,” Sophia said, resting her chin on her hand. “This requires some verification, if you don’t mind…”

“I think they would mind,” Mary interrupted them. “Let’s put the steps of knowing the ‘what’ and then the ‘why’ later on. Look around us, don’t you think something is missing?”

Something's missing... what?

Leslaufer looked around: “I don’t think so… Daisy, do you still have the Daylight spell? We need light.”

"Daisy?"

A pink rapier was stuck upside down in the ground. The iconic weapon made Raslaufer and the others subconsciously think that the bard was still there. But as more light spells were cast, a matte also fell into the soil, and the bard himself was nowhere to be seen—a long drag mark was left on the ground, winding into the darkness in the distance!

"Damn it! Miss Daisy has been kidnapped!"

Big Thomas belatedly exclaimed, "She was just blasted away by those tentacles and landed not far in front of me! If only I had gone to help her up! It was pitch black and chaotic all around, and when I heard her voice, I thought she had already stood up on her own!"

Those were esteemed mages! To ordinary people like Thomas, mages were unparalleled figures, even more noble than aristocratic gentlemen! The kind who didn't even need a gold pickaxe to mine!

Who would have thought that someone like that could be kidnapped in the chaos?

As for Raslaufer and his companions, looking around at the priests and mages who were all injured but present, even a fool could guess that the enemy was specifically after Daisy!

Without spells like Daybreak, and without guidance from Sylvanas and the other dark elves—they would be trapped and killed here!

Chapter 495 A Dilemma

“None of us have the Daylight spell or a similar spell, and learning it now is probably too late…” Sophia and the other spellcasters put their heads together and finally came to a conclusion. “Learning spells is quite expensive. If we were rich enough to learn even this, we wouldn’t need to respond to Lord Dieter’s offer of employment.”

Christian's expression was also not good: "As for us... the Aston believers who follow the light are not among us—there are two above, but they have not yet been granted this level of power."

Although the combined light of so many spells is comparable to the illumination of the Daylight spell, as a higher-level spell, the Daylight spell is not only not dispelled by the opposite darkness spell, but can also dispel the darkness of magical constructs, which is something that the Light spell cannot match.

"Couldn't Dieter have found a few more mages who know the Daylight spell?" Thomas muttered under his breath, but the spellcasters could only exchange wry smiles at his complaints.

Finding someone isn't difficult, but as someone who happens to fit the bill... they'll likely demand a high price, such as a share of the profits, which Dieter probably won't accept.

Moreover, the surface world and the dark elves didn't have much interaction to begin with, so probably no one expected that a single spell like Daybreak could have such a significant impact on the enemy.

“How about we go back to the surface and discuss this further?” Christian cautiously suggested. “Although we’ve been away for almost half a day, it’s not too far. We still have a map, so getting back shouldn’t be a problem…”

"And if Mr. Dieter were to temporarily purchase some more scrolls of the Daylight Spell..."

“I’m afraid they won’t let us go back,” Mary’s assumption interrupted the priest’s reverie. “Sylvia is chasing us too fast. Although we have a map, does anyone know where we are right now?”

A map is only useful if you know your own location first; where are they now?

Once the enemy discovers they don't have a second Daybreak spell, they will turn back and shroud them all in magical darkness. Even if Leslaufer can become a dark elf and the three spellcasters have darkvision, they will be lambs to the slaughter—their vision cannot penetrate the darkness constructed by magic. And when neither side can see, the dark elves will undoubtedly have the advantage.

“And we can’t just abandon our comrades like this,” Angelita said, looking at the drag marks on the ground, when she suddenly realized something. “We need to take a headcount immediately! I suspect Daisy wasn’t the only one who was captured!”

There were only two teams of spellcasters, each with three members, and it was obvious at a glance that none were missing. However, when everyone began to count the number of miners and soldiers, they discovered that there was indeed a discrepancy in the number of people.

“One of my men is dead, one less,” Big Thomas reported hastily, looking at his colleague who had been killed by a poisoned dagger on the ground.

"Six are dead here, and one is missing as well," Elwin's voice rang out. "Damn it, those dark elves are really quick!"

Although many people had died, the crowd did not feel particularly sad—the dark elves were so busy plundering prisoners that they left the bodies of their own brethren behind, even leaving behind the body of the female dark elf of considerable status.

In terms of sheer numbers, they killed at least three times as many enemies, which was a significant blow to the Dark Elves.

However, if no changes are made, this casualty ratio will definitely be reduced rapidly.

“But something’s not right,” Angelita frowned, pointing to the drag marks in the distance for Leslaufer. “If that’s the case, there should be three or fewer—assuming they carried someone away instead of dragging them, but there are actually four.”

"One more person was taken away as well."

"You mean..." Upon hearing this, everyone quickly began searching the ground again and soon found three male drow who had come with them.

What about Sylvia Evans?

“They might have taken Sylvia,” Leslaufer mused. “Let’s go, let’s go after them!”

"Take a good look at these three pointy-eared idiots who have strayed from the group. If anyone else is eager to make a name for themselves, this is what will happen to them!"

"Chase them?!" Thomas felt his legs spinning. "Can't we... can't we not go? What if they're still lying in ambush..."

“If they were of sound mind, they wouldn’t have imagined we’d dare to continue the pursuit,” Raslaw sneered. “As for not going? Fine! You can stay here and wait for us to return.”

"—Or perhaps the dark elves will return first."

The miner swallowed loudly and didn't continue speaking.

“As for you,” Leslaufer turned to the others, who, though they had chosen to obey him, also had doubts in their eyes, “don’t think this is my selfish desire to find my companions. If you want to survive, this is the only path you have!”

“Without the Daylight spell, we will always be at a disadvantage. I will survive, but you will all die! And without Sylvanas, even if we find those dark elves of the Pirnaen family, we will have no way to prove our identities!”

"More importantly, we currently have no way to determine our location. Whether we retreat or advance directly, we may get lost and fall into an encirclement! However, there is a very easy-to-find coordinate, which is also marked on the map. Once we find it, all the problems will be solved!"

“Araji Bebor,” Bella said.

“It’s that underground city,” Leslaufer grinned. “It’s a pipe dream for us to take it down, but rescuing a few people shouldn’t be a problem. Even if we can’t rescue anyone, we can find a new path to continue forward or retreat.”

"Moreover, thanks to Toros, we now have a slight advantage! Those pointy-eared black hags have never seen my dark elf form before. With that in mind, I can infiltrate and find more opportunities!"

“Of course,” Dobler’s gaze fell on each of them, “I won’t force you! If anyone wants to be a coward after we’ve killed three times as many enemies! If anyone wants to go back to the ground and suck their thumbs, I won’t stop them! You can leave now! I’ll just say one thing: even without you, even if it’s just me alone, I’m confident I can accomplish all of this, because I, I outdone Rose’s handmaids, and even her mistress had nothing to say!”

"Now tell me, are you going to be cowards who die in the darkness, or are you going to take those hundred-plus dark elf mages back alive and join me in becoming part of the legend of someone who strangled three hundred knights with one hand?!"

Chapter 496 Crow feathers everywhere

No one wanted to leave, and no one dared to leave.

Even the most unintelligent beast could see that Raslaufer and his companions were the most reliable members of the group; leaving them meant certain death. Therefore, rather than abandoning them, it was better to fight alongside Raslaufer; perhaps there was still a chance of survival.

The group quickly readjusted their formation and followed the trail of drag marks.

As Leslaufer had predicted, the dark elves, focused solely on their return journey, had no time to continue their ambush along the way. After judging from the footprints that the distance between the two sides was widening, Leslaufer did not choose to continue the blind pursuit. Instead, he arranged for his men to rest for about eight hours before setting off again.

The spellcasters' magic power can be replenished in this way.

Those dark elves who risked capturing prisoners certainly weren't doing it to kill them for fun along the way. If that's the case, then there's no need to worry too much about their safety, and the footprints on the road seem to confirm this.

“There are fewer drag marks, but more footprints, and another set of original footprints has become deeper,” Bella stood up and gave her observations of the footprints she was following. “One set of footprints should be Daisy’s, if I remember her boot size correctly.”

The dark elves' boots differed somewhat from those of the surface artisans, making the footprints of several captives quite noticeable.

"However, apart from that, I did not see any of Sylvia's footprints."

“Perhaps she was the one who was carried away,” Leslaufer nodded. “It’s good to keep moving forward. Having these natives scout ahead for us is a good thing. At least we don’t have to worry about encountering those purple mushrooms and other strange things again.”

Continuing to follow the model used when Sylvia was there would not be wise for the group. With the dark elves having already scouted ahead, they could openly light up their path and follow the trail without encountering any danger.

The dark elves will "help" them solve this part of the problem—if they are able to.

Around noon or perhaps evening of the next day, Leslaufer, who was walking at the front, stopped and stared ahead with a grim expression.

It was an open space formed by the intersection of several caves and tunnels, much like a street in a city. Here, a large number of footprints were haphazardly intertwined, making all the traces a mess.

But this is just one manifestation of the chaos here.

Numerous black feathers mixed with bloodstains were scattered and covered the footprints, and several unrecognizable humanoid corpses lay dead on the spot. Below a rock wall, a man dressed in soldier's uniform lay dead.

His armor and the skin beneath it were torn in large pieces, and two sections of flesh were missing from his cheeks. His index finger was still pressed against the rock wall, and along the finger bone, dried blood had coalesced into a mark that was no longer recognizable—he seemed to be trying to leave some clues for those who came after him, but he lost his life before he could finish drawing it.

“...He’s from our chapter,” Erwin stepped forward, ran two fingers across his face, and helped him close his eyes. “It looks like he’s been abandoned.”

“Those dark elves are barely surviving,” Christian said, having found several dark elf corpses whose gruesome state was no less than that of the soldier. “They look like some kind of predator, with sharp claws…”

Big Thomas used his pickaxe to flip over a corpse covered in black feathers: "Hmm...like, a half-human, half-bird monster?"

A half-human, half-bird monster? Why would you come to this conclusion?

The group hurriedly searched, and when two beams of light simultaneously illuminated the darkness in front of Thomas, they quickly understood why he had said that:

A half-human, half-bird monster lay dead, its throat ripped open by a sharp weapon, having bled to death. Its body was also jet black, but unlike the elves, it wasn't its skin color; rather, it was covered in thick feathers, and it appeared that the fallen feathers around it also came from its kind.

It was only slightly shorter than a typical male of Eastern Inathas, but taller than an Imperial. Roughly resembling a giant raven, its corpse revealed a heavy, blunt axe-like beak and a pair of unclosed eyes, black with eerie dark red spots. Its anthropomorphic upper body and more avian lower body each possessed a pair of sharp talons, seemingly used to tear apart the flesh of other creatures.

And in the "hand" that Thomas found, it was still clutching a bloodstained round stone, which looked like its weapon.

“Damn, this gives me goosebumps,” a mercenary frowned. “It’s a bit like those primitive tribes in Ampiri! Those savages are like that too, they don’t seem civilized at all, but they’re really tough to deal with.”

"Perhaps we should be thankful that these monsters didn't attack us..." a mage scoffed. "They look like a kind of beastman, but they don't have real raven wings, otherwise they would definitely be much more difficult to deal with than they appear to be..."

Although this place is underground, the dome above is actually not close to the ground, so these "crow people" should still be able to take off and attack targets in mid-air.

Sophia summoned the Mage's Hand, which slowly turned over each of the corpses on the ground in her place: "No, you make that judgment because you only saw one corpse—come and see these, and then tell me your conclusion again."

The mage was slightly startled. He quickly went over and, sure enough, he saw the corpses of these beastmen in other forms: two frighteningly large ravens, and a monster that, compared to the first raven-man corpse, seemed to be a transitional form between a raven and a humanoid creature. On the back of this corpse, a half-wing had grown.

The other half of the wing was missing. The wound didn't look very clean, suggesting it was broken off by a powerful blow rather than a cut. Everyone couldn't help but think of the weapon in the leader of the dark elves: that vicious snake-headed whip.

But the problem is, the footprints here are all mixed up, so which way did those dark elves run off to?

Just as everyone was puzzled, suddenly, they heard shouts from one of the surrounding passages that sounded extremely similar to the language of the dark elves!

"That's it!" Leslaufer immediately raised his greatsword. "Form ranks! Looks like we've found them!"

Chapter 497 Glipstone Shield

Glip Stone Shield angrily smashed the Arakkoa in front of him to the ground with his heavy shield. He turned around and tackled a companion, and at the same time, the shield rang out with clanging sounds. The bolts fired by the Arakkoa's crossbows could not penetrate the old fellow who weighed ten kilograms.

However, all Glip could do was watch over the few companions around him. In areas beyond the reach of his shield, more underground dwarves were being harvested and felled one by one like mature fungi, and his height of only about one meter made him powerless to provide any support!

Why is there such a large group of crow people here?!

This was the only question Glip could ponder. He had led caravans along this route countless times over the past forty years, but had never encountered the Arakkoa! Something must have altered the course of these regularly migrating creatures, causing them to wander here!

“Black Lewin!” Glip shouted angrily at a tall figure not far away, “Is this the ‘Priestess Maries’ you were talking about? I’ve never heard of you pointy-eared people with bird heads before!”

The female dark elf used her reverse-turn blade to precisely pierce the heart of a fully-formed, half-beast Arakkoa attacking from behind, while roaring at her captain, "Shut up! If you dare insult my people again, I'll sell you all into slavery in Chou Li City!"

"Take care of your own life first!" Glip retorted. "And while you're at it, take good care of our goods! Otherwise, that hot-tempered matriarch of the Mara family will definitely not let you off the hook!"

Grip's response was a furious roar from Black Lewin, the dark elf who had always been the caravan's most capable vice-captain. It was because of her that Grip and his guild were able to open trade routes to several dark elf cities, and all he had to pay was to temporarily hand over the captaincy to Black Lewin there.

Although they always seem very rude to each other, in fact, if they weren't already married, they probably should have gotten married, or at least that's what the other members of the Chamber of Commerce think. After all, their cooperation is so seamless that it has allowed the Chamber of Commerce to continue underground to this day and deal with countless crises.

But this time, due to Black Lewin's misjudgment, they are likely to truly perish here—the number of these Arakkoa is simply too enormous, possibly several groups gathered together! This sheer number makes them even more difficult to deal with than the Dark Dwarves!

Glip could clearly hear the panting coming from his nose and mouth. The obsidian shield in his hand gave him a powerful offensive, but it was also rapidly depleting the dwarf's stamina. Although he might have one of the strongest among his kind, wielding this shield made by the dark dwarf was still somewhat of a burden.

“Stone,” he crushed another Arakkoa leg bone, uttering the sigh that all subterranean dwarves utter, “is this our final resting place? I think I see Gar's Golden Hills beckoning to me…it shines with golden light just like in the legends…”

A small stone struck Griffin in the face, blood trickling down his forehead and across his stone-like face. The dwarf's consciousness wavered; he saw that Halewin seemed to have taken a sword and an arrow, shaken off her opponent, and rushed to his side.

"Cheer up, Glip!" the dwarf heard his alien friend's rebuke. "You're still far from Gar's kingdom! That's not a golden hill, that's fire! Fire! Someone has come to save us!"

"And your cursed golden hills won't 'beckon'!"

“Hey Lewin…you shrew,” Grip smiled faintly, as if he had seen his most prized lapis lazuli, “Don’t lie to me, how could there be…”

Before he could finish speaking, the dwarf caught a glimpse of a golden-red fireball exploding behind the crow people. Dozens of flames, like octopuses lurking in the underground water system, swept countless ravens and crow people into an abyss. Following closely behind, a large patch of plants he had never seen before spread wildly with flames, attacking every enemy that attacked his caravan!

Reinforcements! It really is reinforcements!

Moreover, it was a spellcaster; no warrior could create such a commotion!

Glip shoved Blacklewin aside, his scales shielding them both from a raven-man's dagger. The dark elf snapped back to reality and, taking advantage of the raven-man's momentary lapse in attention, beheaded it. At the same time, he shouted towards the direction of the fireball explosion, "Over here! Whoever you are! Save us, and you'll get whatever you ask!"

"Damn it, what is that dark elf yelling about?" Erwin cursed. Before the ravens could recover from the explosion caused by the mage and the druid's vines, he led his soldiers into formation and charged towards the half-human, half-bird monsters.

"Who cares what she's yelling about!" Raslaufer charged alongside Elwin, he and the remaining two Dobles sandwiched between the spearmen. The moment the crowmen thought they had avoided the spears, their two-handed greatswords would burst through the gaps, tearing their bodies into pieces of varying sizes. "Maybe they're still foolishly begging for help!"

"Let's drive these monsters away first; we can't let them harm the prisoners." Mary weaved through the gaps in the group, seemingly rarely lifting a finger, but each swing of her sword precisely claimed the life of a crow-man. Although she often mocked Daisy, it was clear she was quite worried about her companion's safety.

A holy light shone through the crowd. A priest, his face contorted in pain, swung his warhammer after casting a spell and joined the battle: "I can't wait to see those bastards' faces light up with 'savior' the moment they survive! I'm going to rip their heads off!"