“Master, that’s the paste!” Evelyn commented when she saw the substance produced by the orc’s experiment.

So that’s how they got the paste? But why is an orc working with hobgoblins?

Nora waited and silently watched the orc continue his experiment. She wasn’t sure why an orc was helping the goblins.

“Eve, any idea on why an orc is here?”

“Master, all the people i have taken over so far do not have much knowledge on orcs. The only thing i know about them is that the weakest of them are as intelligent as a hobgoblin and that they rape and pillage villages. They are viewed as a menace to society. Master, i don’t think we can kill him fast enough before he make a ruckus. I suggest we…”

*Roar*

*Bmmmmpppppffff*

“Or not, master, i think we’ve been found out.”

“Well, despite the bad news, it seems like i can finally go all out now. With how narrow the tunnels are, i should be fine as long as i don’t get surrounded. But first, i should deal with this orc.”

Slamming the door open, Nora faced the hideous pink monster. Thick and leathery pink skin covered the monster as thin brown strands of hair jaunted out from various places. Tusks protruded out of the lower jaw of its mouth as it stared at Nora with its red eyes. Seeing an intruder disrupt his experiments, the orc became furious.

The orc hurried to pick his staff up as Nora ran towards him at break neck speed. Nora materialized a blade from her ring and slashed it at the orc’s face. With mana coursing through her, she was like a bullet speeding through air. Her enchanted blade glowed in blue hue and formed a blue line in the air as it slashed towards the orc’s head.

*Crack*

*Crack*

The mana shield surrounding the orc cracked in various places as it just managed to stop the nearly fatal blow. The blade was just inches from the orc’s face.

The level 58 orc immediately retaliated, forming a red magic circle in front of him. The 4 circle magic circle shot a barrage of fireballs at Nora.

However, to the surprise of the orc, instead of dodging or running away, Nora stood in place and laughed, “hey, you do realize that i’m right in front of you, right?”

The fireballs flew and hit Nora’s mana shield, causing an explosion of fire to occur. However, because Nora was right in front of the orc, the radius of the blew up in the his face as well, causing the already cracked mana shield to shatter.

The orc was shocked. Seeing Nora use sword had made him reckless, he was misled by the idea that she was just a warrior. He would have never thought that a mage would learn sword fighting as well. Thus, he was using the fireballs to scare her away to get some distance.

Immediately taking the opportunity, Nora shot forward and used ‘fatal strike’. The blue hue flashed past again as the blade hacked down, decapitating the orc’s head. With the sharpness enchantment on the blade, the blade easily chopped the orc's head off.

After looting the staff, Nora stored the orc’s soul and looked around the room. Evelyn got out from the ring and started looking through the room for clues as well. Nora walked towards the desk and looked through the ingredients. She dipped her finger into the white paste and smelt it.

So he grounded up white gill flower seed and mixed it with blue weed juice to form this paste. Interesting, i would have never thought that mixing those two will create a makeshift chloroform. No wonder, they were unconscious for so long.  

After she was done researching the beakers and test tubes, Nora went to the notes to read them. However, she soon realised that all the words were gibberish to her. It was written in orc language. After keeping the notes in her ring so she could decipher them at a later time, Nora decided to search the room for more clues as to why the orc was here.

However, after searching for a few minutes, Nora decided to give up after not finding anything of use. She didn’t have the time to search. She needed to kill more before she was found. Since the hobgoblin commander didn’t know where her exact location was, Nora knew she had some time before she got surrounded. All the commander knew was the general direction of where she was. Thus, Nora wanted to make use of all the time available.

“Evelyn, continue to search the room. I’ll go off first. Come find me once you’re done,”

“Yes master.”

“And be careful, if you sense the goblin commander coming for you, run immediately. Although you’re immune to physical attacks, you can’t win against the hobgoblin commander, the commander can use mana as well.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Taking her leave, Nora rushed out of the room and entered another tunnel. This time, the tunnel was very different from all the rest. It had minecart with a track. Looking at the cave walls around her and the long pathway ahead, Nora noticed that she was now in a mine.

Nora decided to follow the track and see where it led. Since it was different from all the paths so far, Nora was certain that something good was up ahead. Nora charged ahead and used ‘stealth’. Since the hobgoblins already knew where her general location was, there was no point in her not using mana.

Soon, Nora heard footsteps in front of her. Nora stopped and hid behind a wooden support that stopped the mine from collapsing. Being in the shadows since the wooden support blocked the lights from the torches, Nora used ‘shadow cloak’.

Wisps of shadows shot out of the ground as soon as she used it. It twirled around her before slowing engulfing her in shadows. The shadows soon completely wrapped around her, causing her to become one with the shadow. Then Nora waited, sensing the footsteps getting closer to her.

Soon a small group of hobgoblins came into her view. The four of them were all running towards her. Waiting from them to pass her, Nora got ready, gripping her blade tightly.

And the moment they passed her, her sword drew blood once again, causing a ray of blue light to fly by.

*Fling*

Immediately, one was beheaded. All the hobgoblins saw was just a blue light swish by. Sensing something was wrong, the remaining three turned around to see Nora. The moment they saw her, there was only one thought in their mind. Intruder!

The gang immediately roared, causing a sound wave to reverate through the tunnel. Once they were done alerting everyone, they started to draw their weapon. However, they were too slow for the quick Nora. They took too long to alert others and draw their weapon.

The blue light flashed again, causing another hobgoblin head to fall. The two that were left glared at Nora with fear and anger in their eye. Anger at the fact that she just killed two of their buddies and fear at the fact that she killed two of their buddies in less than a second.

With a loud grunt, the front most hobgoblin charged at Nora with his axe. The other following right behind him. The axe chopped down with frightening speed. Seeing the axe coming down right at her, Nora sidestepped it and used her blade to deflect the axe to her side, causing it to miss. Once she was done, Nora move to another position and chopped his arm off. She was using the snowdrop sword techniques.

After chopping his arm off, Nora immediately spun around the first hobgoblin like a ballerina and moved on to the other one. Her blade clashed against the club that was aimed at her head. Using the force of the impact, Nora flew backwards and stabbed her blade behind her. Like a bullet, the blade penetrated the first hobgoblin and tore a hole through his chest.

Using mana to power her arm, Nora pulled the sword down, cleaving the body of the first hobgoblin from the chest down. Nora didn't even have look back to know that he was dead.

The last hobgoblin looked at Nora with an expression of dread and fear. All three of his buddies just died right in front of him and he knew he was next. After throwing his large club at Nora, he immediately turned and run.

However, the moment he turned around, he felt something hit him. Looking down, he saw that his chest had a large hole. A large hole formed from a blast of magic shooting through him. Nora had used arcane blast to finish him off.

Storing their souls, Nora immediately left with ‘stealth’, not sparing another glance. However, after running for a few second, Nora received a message from Evelyn.

“Master! The commander is here and he’s coming your way with a large group of hobgoblins! Continuing running down the tunnel, I’m already on my way towards you, I found a map! Though, i think we can win them in the narrow tunnels, i think we should check what’s ahead first.”

Taking note of her telepathic message, Nora ran down the tunnel as fast as she could, without worry about Evelyn. Nora knew she’ll be able to catch up due to her ability to phase through walls and her ability to track her with their summoner’s link.

After waiting for a minute, Nora was proven right. Evelyn shot out from above the ceiling and flew beside her.

“Eve, you know where this leads to?”

“Yes master, i found a map in one of the drawers of the mage’s lab and memorized the layout. This tunnel leads to the core of the mountain. They seemed to be searching for something down there. I think the orc are helping the goblins because of the stuff that’s down there.”

“Any other things I need to take note off?”

“I think it’s the fact that there are two levels to this cave. This path we are taking is the passage way down to the lower level. For the upper level, it’s where most of the hobgoblins stay. For below, there’s a large open space. I don’t know what’s there but i think that’s what the orcs are here for. On the map, I saw that it had a large big X there.”

“What is the orcs and goblins be looking for down there….Nevermind, let’s just head down, If there’s something really valuable down there, then that’s where i most likely need to go to complete my quest.”

Putting the thoughts of what could be down there out of her head, Nora continued to run down the tunnel, killing all the hobgoblins she saw in the way. Along the way, her exp meter slowly rose and her storage of souls slowly filled up. Her near empty soul storage was starting to increase again after using it all to escape the sea leviathan.

…..

Half an hour later, Nora arrived the place Evelyn described as a large open space. Nora couldn’t help but laugh at Evelyn description now that she finally saw what the large open space actually was.

It was a cavern. A gaping hole in the mountain, littered with tiny sparkling crystals not unlike the stars of the night sky. Inside the cavern, other than the place where torches lit the area, darkness prevailed. Entering the massive underground chamber, Nora felt an invisible force crush her body, sending a violent chill down her spine. Nora knew what it was, it was something she experienced everyday on the island.

Light reached neither the wall or the ceiling, confining vision to a small circles of flickering orange cast by the torches that lined the walls to her left. In front of her was an inky black lake that sloshed against a narrow strip of land.

While walking on the narrow strip of land, Nora saw that to her right had became engulfed in chilling blackness. As she walked, loose stones under her shifted, twisting her ankle one way and then the other, and the noise of those disturbed rocks echoed off the dense stone walls. However, right before she fell into the murky darkness, Evelyn swooped down and held on her, stopping her fall.

Taking a breath of relief, Nora thanked Evelyn after she pulled her up. Judging by the smell of the liquid, she had a guess of what it was. She knew if she fell into it, it would take a lot of effort for her to get out.

Continuing on the path, Nora could hear loud noises behind her, indicating that the party had arrived at the entrance of the cavern. However, she wasn’t scared, she knew that if they continue to follow her, they were going to be easy picking.

Checking the entrance of the cavern, Nora saw that she was right. There were only 7 hobgoblins following her, the rest were waiting by the entrance.

“Hey, Eve why don’t you go have some fun with them and give them a little shove. Once they fall in, they won’t be able to climb back up, hehehe” Nora smirked and spoke.

“Yes master, ” Evelyn smiled and replied before flying towards them.

Seeing her fly off to complete the task, Nora couldn’t stop herself from laughing. The image of the hobgoblins slowing sinking and starving to death was something Nora found absolutely funny. After letting it out, Nora turned and continued on in ‘stealth’.

She could see that she was about to reach the end as she saw a small group of orcs a few hundred meters in front of her. After moving silently for a few minutes, Nora soon arrived at the end of the cavern and saw that the small group of orcs were on a large piece of land, huddling around something.

Hiding behind some stalagmites, Nora crept her way towards them to get a better look. Silently moving her way around, Nora soon found a spot where she could see what they were looking at.

Getting a good look at it, Nora became extremely shocked. Her mind turned into shambles by the countless thoughts whizzing by while her body started perspiration in fear. What she saw was an ancient black door with a symbol of a hand with an eye in the middle. It was a symbol of something that even she was wary of offending when she was at her peak. It was the symbol of the night mother, an ancient one who served darkness itself.