Beyond the room with the guard was a straight set of stairs going down into another large open cavern. Sofia could not see much from the token’s vision. The glowing algae only grew on the ceiling of the cave and not the floor, so it was impossible to tell what was going on in there, but there was one thing that she could not possibly miss, on the opposite wall of the cavern, thousands of meters away.
Red light…
That’s where it was. Ah! Wait there!
Sofia told the infiltrator to stop while she disconnected from the token’s vision in a hurry because she felt a slight tremor in her real body.
The apartment Sofia was hiding in was in complete darkness, she looked around, not seeing anything suspicious. Spreading some of her mana around to create an area she could feel with her mana senses, she found the source of the disturbance. A small procession of Kidjikkiks were walking near the building she was hiding in, one of them had fallen over and hit the wall of the building.
What are they doing? They’re carrying something?
Sofia caught a small mirror from her storage and used it to look out of the window without exposing herself.
A direct view was a lot more informative than her mana senses, about a dozen Kidjikkiks were going toward the doors the infiltrator had just gone through, they were each carrying huge bins full of metallic ingots over their head. The one who had stumbled and hit the building had spilled his bin, and there were small silvery ingots all over the ground.
No wonder the path is so beaten up, they just go and carry several tons of metal like this… Looks like it is mostly iron. Well whatever, I’m still safe.
Sofia changed her vision back to the infiltrator’s.
Turn back, hide near the doors. Yes, right there, stop, good. When the group of metal carriers comes through, follow them.
It took a few minutes for the group to go through, as they actually stopped in their tracks to wait for the one who had stumbled to pick up all the spilled ingots by himself and get back into the line on his designated spot. When the first carrier opened the doors, he was met with the same wall of spears the infiltrator had faced, and the interaction went about the same way. Finally they all made it to the other side and the infiltrator just tagged along, taking the last place in line. None of the carriers seemed to notice or react, and they simply made their way down the stairs into the dark cavern.
The red light is gone!
Sofia cut the connection to make sure she was safe.
The room was dimly lit by the ambient reflection of a deep red light.
I have not been seen yet but this is dangerous… It should be fine as long as I stay hidden. As long as this thing doesn’t randomly destroy buildings, there’s no reason it would ever find me.
I’m lucky I didn’t stay near the window…
Sofia very slowly moved to a corner and sat there, knees against her chest.
This should be safe… This should be safe…
She waited there for a while. She could feel the movements of the infiltrator but she did not want to reconnect to the vision token for fear of the red light worm feeling the mana connection somehow.
The red light never directly shone at the building she was in, it only ever reflected in there slightly, sometimes disappearing before coming back. Until it completely disappeared for a while, and Sofia was relatively confident that the giant worm was gone, either back into the lower cave or into the upper city.
The infiltrator was still moving further and further away, the token was already out of range.
Stop if the red light is in the cavern with you.
The infiltrator kept moving. That did not completely reassure Sofia as the Kidjikkik skeleton seemed quite dumb, but it was at least fine at following directions until now, so she decided to roll with it, and cast the graveyard on herself.
She phased through the apartment floors one by one, then into the lower city’s ground, and made her way into the other cavern through the ground, bypassing the checkpoint room with guards.
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Not wanting to go into the light near the entrance, she let the graveyard skeletons carry her down into the dark part of the cavern, and searched for a suitable foothold in the wall where she could stop on. It was not hard to find one, the cavern walls seemed natural and pretty uneven. The place she found even had a small rocky protuberance she could somewhat use to hide.
The cavern was too big for her to see anything significant through the spirit realm as her range of vision in it was very restricted, so it was only when the graveyard skeletons let her go that she could finally see inside the cavern with her own eyes.
There were remains of a city with square buildings there too, but there was very little left of the various buildings beyond a few crumbling walls and corners still hanging on. Sofia followed the connection to the infiltrator to find him, he was still following the line of carriers, advancing at a walking pace near the entrance of the city.
Keep following them.
Sofia’s attention was then caught by the other things she could see, half-hidden within the ruins of the crumbling city. First were a bunch of Veik corpses, second were big, bloated Kidjikkik, about five meters tall, that looked like huge larvae about to burst. Sofia counted about ten of them, spread around the ruins, all of them surrounded by a bunch of dead Veik.
[Matriarch Kidjikkik - Lv. ??? - Imprint power : 0 - Effect : none]
Target found… But zero imprint power?
Are they actually weak? They don’t really look strong, to be fair, but still…
The next interesting thing Sofia found was another set of stairs going into the wall on the other side. There were also Kidjikkiks coming down from it, and they were carrying big things.
Using the zoom of her new eye, Sofia took a closer look at these carriers.
They are bringing in the Veik corpses.
Sofia spent the next while observing the happenings in the cavern, fascinated by what she was seeing. The carriers from both sides were bringing things for the Matriarchs.
She told the infiltrator to hide in a corner and forgot about him for the time being.
The bloated Matriarchs first ate the metal ingots, and quickly after, they deposited a single round metallic egg into each Veik corpse. The eggs only took a few minutes to hatch into small worms that then proceeded to eat the Veik from the inside until there was nothing left, and grow at a visible pace until they were fully grown Kidjikkiks, which then made their way out of the cave through the stairs on both sides. The entire process did not take more than ten minutes once the resources had reached the Matriarchs, about fifty new level 200+ Kidjikkik were born, just like that. The kind of Kidjikkik that hatched from the egg seemed to vary depending of the type of Veik they were birthed from.
Talk about an expedited process…
What kind of Veik must be needed to hatch a Red light worm? Maybe a royal?
Now that Sofia could stop staring at the Matriarchs, she could focus her attention on other things, and while she looked around to find the passageway the Red light worm used to enter and leave the cave which couldn’t be the guarded checkpoint, she found something else.
Are these…
Near one of the Matriarchs in particular, there was a bunch of junk. Clothes, weapons, armor, bags, small colorful rocks.
Oh… Yeah. That makes sense, does it not?
Why only use the Veik? Trial takers are also a resource that can likely be hatched into a different Kidjikkik type…
There isn’t a single bone left.
Can I…?
Sofia focused on one of the small colorful rocks and it disappeared.
Pick-up range up to three kilometers. This eye really is crazy.
The rock was waiting in Sofia’s storage, she brought it out in her hand, it was of a bright red color, and Sofia could feel no mana inside. She Identified it.
[Wasted mana heart of Speed]: An incomplete mana heart that has long set outside of its intended host. There is nothing of value left, but it can make for a pretty gemstone in the hands of a good jeweler.
Speed. A relatively unremarkable lesser god, from what I’ve read.
Death really does happen in the trials, huh. I always knew but knowing and seeing are not quite the same…
Sofia turned her eyes to that one Kidjikkik matriarch again.
Let’s just kill this one… There must be a battlefield between the Veik and the Kidjikkik if I leave through the other side, since this is where the Veik corpses come from. I’ll get my thousand kills on the soldiers and guardians there and be done with it.
I had my reservations until now, but this seals the deal. The kidjikkik are brainless worms mimicking an actual society, they’re born fast, have no personality, and they end up in a ditch when they die. I won’t be losing my head for them. Especially not when they use other trial takers as a hatchery.
Now, how do I kill that one Matriarch quickly and cleanly then make my escape?
I could just bolt it right now but that could attract-
The inside of the cavern was suddenly flooded by an intense red light.
Nevermind.
I should have just killed one and left as soon as I identified the matriarchs…
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