"What the heck is that?" whispered Kevin.

"Like I told you before, I'm not sure," replied Branch.

The two of them were hiding in some dense undergrowth, watching what appeared to be a mine in the near distance being worked by orks.

"What the heck are orks doing this far east?" said Kevin.

"Do you want me to say it again, boss?"

"No, I know, I know. You don't know." Kevin shook his head and continued watching the bizarre scene ahead of him.

In this world, goblins and orks both had their own countries. In the distant past, they had been considered monsters but had proven themselves to be people just like all the other races, albeit with more bestial tendencies. The goblins were actually the first to become civilized a few hundred years ago. The orks had only relatively recently started their own country, carving it out of untamed wilderness to the west, about one hundred and fifty years ago. orks usually were not this far east unless they were part of a trading caravan or had some sort of business in a human city. But these orks were still at least two days' travel away from the nearest decent-sized human city that Kevin was heading to–Clearmine.

At first glance, after Branch had told him about this group after scouting ahead, Kevin assumed they were just miners. But that didn't exactly make sense since there was no good way to remove ore from their mine.

At one time in the distant past, there might have been a road here, but it had long since been overgrown and the orks hadn't put any effort into fixing it. On top of that, it didn't look like they had any wagons or any way to haul out ore. However, they were busy digging…something, and as Kevin had watched for over an hour, he'd seen several of them pulling carts up out of the tunnel, then get help by another ork to painstakingly carry their load somewhere else to dump.

"This is really strange," whispered Kevin.

"Strange how? I don't know anything about mining."

"Well, I don't know tons myself, but what they're doing here looks like they're trying to remain undetected or not call attention to themselves. There's no trail out of here, they're not piling any dirt in front of the mine, and all of them are weirdly fairly quiet too. They're not quite whispering to each other, but it's not much louder than that."

"Oh, that's true," said Branch with a nod.

"I've been meaning to ask you, Branch, can you actually turn invisible?"

The little fairy frowned and said, "First of all, that's kind of a rude question, just to ask somebody what their powers are like. Second of all, if the answer is not a big no, I don't like where this is going. It's bad enough I’m always scouting for you all the time, but I'm not going into some nasty dark hole just to satisfy your curiosity, Your Majesty, Mister Prince."

"I thought you were going to stop calling me that."

"I'll stop calling you that when you start acting like it.”

“What about you? Where's all this attitude coming from?"

"I'm a fairy. This is the most I’ve worked before in my life! What's your excuse?"

Okay, he's got me there, Kevin admitted privately to himself. He frowned again as he watched the orks in the distance. Normally, he wouldn't have anything to do with a random group like this out in the wilderness. After all, it had nothing to do with him. While they were acting weird, it didn't look like they were doing anything actually bad.

But something about the situation was tickling the back of his mind. It was instinct, maybe, or a premonition. He'd gotten plenty of them in his past life as a knight, and even back on Earth. Some people claimed that they always followed their gut, and that their gut was never wrong. That was definitely not true for Kevin. His gut had been wrong plenty of times…especially with women and relationships. However, he knew that if he just walked away from this situation, it would bother him for weeks, almost like getting a song stuck in his head. And this early on in his cross-country adventure, he really didn't need that kind of distraction.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Okay, fine. I'm going to take a look," he muttered. "It's self-defense."

"Self-defense how?"

"Too hard to explain," he said. "Anyway, if you don't want to go in the cave, that's fine. I'll go by myself."

"You're just going to walk into the cave with orks going in and out of it? There's probably like twenty in there."

Kevin thought that was a bit more than the actual number of orks, but he just shrugged. Branch, taking flight until he was eye level with Kevin, said seriously, "If you're just going to possibly throw your life away like this, you should have told me before so I wouldn't have traveled with you."

With a sigh, Kevin explained, "I'm not going through the front of the cave. I'm not that stupid, Branch. Give me some credit. Even at the best of times, goblins and orks aren't always exactly friendly with each other, and if I polymorph into human form, it's not going to be much better. But I have other options."

After saying so, Kevin polymorphed into a chipmunk.

"Oh, that's right," Branch made a fist and theatrically knocked himself on the forehead. "You were even running that way earlier."

"That's right," said Kevin. "I'm still not going to go in the front this way, but if it's a cave system, and it's decently large, there might be ventilation holes or other ways to get in. And I have a skill that I've barely used that would help a lot with that."

As he was saying this, Kevin pulled up his de facto character sheet and looked at the list of new skills again.

-Lion Iguana Neurotoxin Venom

- Wall Climbing Fingers

- Ambush Camouflage

- Uncanny Balance

- Beastly Stamina

- Poison Resistance, Minor

When he'd first gotten [Lion Iguana Neurotoxin Venom], his very first skill, he had no idea how handy it could really be. After verifying that it was potent enough to kill a large monster like Baron Titus, he was feeling even more happy to have it.

After all, fighting in a mine with his sword, if it came to that, even in self defense, would be a good way to die. They outnumbered him and they could just throw rocks or tools at him. His first inclination would be to run away in most circumstances, but Kevin still hadn’t forgotten his lesson after almost dying on a monster hunt.

It helped to be prepared, even mentally.

As Kevin ran near silently through the undergrowth, moving around the hill that the mine was situated on, Branch followed, his appearance turned semi-translucent. If Kevin hadn't been looking for the fairy, his eyes probably would have passed right over him. Branch was flying more and more erratically, though.

While fidgeting and obviously upset, Branch said, "I'm really sorry, Kevin, but I really can't go with you. Going down into the dark…I just can’t."

"It's okay. I'll be careful.

Branch became more easily visible and looked like he was about to cry. “I’m sorry. But I just can't go with you. I don't like the dark and small places like that." Branch abruptly flew into some nearby undergrowth and began to bawl.

Kevin glanced under a fern, and eyed the fairy with equal parts compassion and annoyance as Branch had a melt down.

He had to wait a few minutes for Branch to calm down a bit, or at least take breaths between crying. Thankfully, he wasn’t being as loud as he could be. The fairy’s freakout was thankfully muffled as he held a clump of moss to his face like a pillow. Finally, Kevin got a chance to speak. "I'm not being passive-aggressive, Branch. I'm serious. It's okay. Just wait for me up here and maybe be ready to help if I need it, but I don't think I will. Everything should be okay."

"Do you promise?" Branch's eyes were huge, and his lower lip quivered.

"I promise. Just wait up here? Remember how I escaped from the human village? I'll be fine. And it’s possible I might not even find a way in, he added.

Branch made a little sniff and agreed, "Well, that's true." He nodded and then followed quietly as Kevin began moving again.

At first, he looked above the hill to see if there was any vertical way to enter the mine, but didn't find anything and wasn't exactly surprised by that. After all, with a mine like he’d seen, miners would usually shore up the earth to make sure it wouldn't collapse. To find an entrance from outside, it would have be further back in the tunnel–perhaps an intentionally dug air vent or maybe a crack into a natural cave system.

He began searching as efficiently as possible by polymorphing into a chipmunk to climb trees, giving better vantage points to search. Luckily, after about fifteen minutes of searching, Kevin found another cave. It was a small one under an overhang of rock, definitely not something that a human would pay attention to, but in his polymorphed form, it was easy for him to scope it out and verify that he could fit. On top of that, he thought he heard voices far, far down the steep tunnel.

"Good luck," whispered Branch behind him.

Kevin nodded in his chipmunk form and moved deeper into the cramped, creepy cave. Once he was about twenty feet in, he utilized a dragon life skill, [enhanced sight], so he could see better. If a true dragon knew how he was using this ability, they would snort in disgust.

Dragons already have the best eyesight of any creature on the planet. They could see in the dark, they had incredible binocular vision, and could almost see bacteria if they really focused on it. However, there were some things the dragons still wanted to enhance their eyes for, like tiny rune work. But the same ability that gave dragons eyes almost as good as some gods’ allowed Kevin to see in the dark. or look in the distance like he was wearing a pair of binoculars. Using [enhanced sight] was a bit like using a nuclear bomb to start a fire, but it worked and it didn't take too much energy, so it was just another tool in the toolbox.

[Wall Climbing Fingers] helped him easily travel headfirst, even down steep portions of the tunnel.

If he was a real chipmunk, he probably would have been completely freaked out by now, considering snakes could be lying in wait inside a natural like this, but he wasn't too worried. After all, he still had the constitution of a relatively large, extremely healthy goblin, and on top of that, he had his venomous bite, and [Poison Resistance, Minor], which he was sure worked on venom, too. The only thing he was slightly concerned about at this point was the tunnel actually coming to a dead end. Even though he was small, the tunnel had been getting narrower up until this point. If he couldn’t continue any farther, he'd have to back up for quite a distance in order to turn himself around, even with his flexible chipmunk body.

Luckily, the tiny little tunnel he was in actually widened. Then he spotted some torchlight in the distance, just a tiny speck, but it was enough to give him a new shot of motivation.

"I swear, if these orks are just mining for something simple, minding their own business, and I'm being a Karen, I'm going to be pissed at myself," he thought.

Kevin continued forward into the darkness.