The scroll was heavy, much heavier than the one he got from Sloth. It was also a bit bigger, looking as if it was made of metal and not paper.
The scroll was at least the length of his arm, with a thickness of half a metre. The outer surface was covered with lots of fine drawings and writings, looking like they were engravings on it.
William couldn't tell what these drawings were, and he couldn't open it. He tried to unfold it normally but failed, tried to forcibly crack it open and it didn't work.
*Knock!* *Knock!*
He even held it as a stick and hit the ground with it, but it didn't work as well. "How can it be opened?" William was eager to read its content, but he got no clue about how to do so.
He felt Angelica knew the right way to open it, but he never planned to share this discovery with her. He knew this was the Black Scroll she was speaking about. And as he found one, he had high hopes to find more.
He looked around but didn't find another. "It seems only one scroll is saved in one base," he muttered to himself, before damaging more of the ceiling, hoping he'd find another hidden place with another scroll or a different treasure.
"Cough! Cough! That was a bad and worthless move, cough! Cough!" he coughed and sneezed while getting out from that hidden place and returned to the ground.
He damaged a large part of the rocks forming the ceiling and ended up with nothing except for tons of fine dust filling his nose and chest.
It felt horrible, but he didn't regret it too much. He knew he'd regret it more if there was another scroll or treasure and he missed it fearing harmless dust.
William returned to the tunnel he came through, sealed it using his attacks, before thinking about his next move.
He walked away, not towards Angelica, but towards the other little places he spotted traps at. He wanted to ransack everything, loot whatever treasures here, before joining with the innocent girl.
He did indeed find stuff there, but they were just formations and rare materials, rings and life storage items. He found tons of spirit crystals, gears which were now considered pretty much useless, besides scrolls speaking about lots of ancient stuff.
There was lots of data about different things. William read randomly through these scrolls, found lots of old and worthless information there. Yet he found something that lit up his eyes.
"There are detailed records of other dark master bases at that time," William's eyes were shining with greed, as he knew how valuable this intel was.
The scrolls speaking about these dark bases were mentioning dealings and transactions happening between this base and others. Not to mention other intel that was provided by spies belonging to this base.
William never took the dark side to be this competitive, always thinking they were a coherent force and united. But from these scrolls, he could already imagine how fierce the rivalry between dark forces were.
William stored such valuable intel alongside other stuff before finally starting to look for Angelica. He already sealed any place he ransacked and shut down any access towards these.
If she even grew suspicious and asked, and he greatly doubted this, he'd simply lay the blame over the old and damaged base.
"I'm fine, I'm fine, just let me continue looking…" When he arrived where he left her, he found her not too far away from that spot. She was still looking for the scroll, yet her face was covered with a thick layer of dust, one that looked as if her face got burnt or something.
She looked miserable and seeing her like this made William try harder to convince her to drop such a task. Eventually, and after another day, she finally resigned to his words.
Her blazing will and excitement died down after a day. And she knew she'd take forever to look into this base and might even get nothing in the end.
William let her rest for a few hours, taking a shower from a nearby pod of water he found in the base, before the two returned to the surface.
"It's nighttime again," William started to hate nights in this world.
"We aren't close to any town or city, so it's impossible to meet lots of monsters…"
*Roar!*
Just before she'd continue her words, a loud roar came, followed by many others. "Damn! You jinxed us!" William turned towards the direction of these roars, spreading his spirit sense, "they are the monsters we found before, the ones lying in the middle of these hills. They are coming for us! Run!"
William didn't find this coincidental at all. These monsters were already there for a long time, and they didn't act when he dug the entrances of these bases out.
They showed the first reaction, and one in such fierceness and aggressiveness, when he came out. His thoughts drifted towards the Black Scroll or the Origin Boxes he looted from the base.
No matter what the reason was, he didn't want to waste more time or effort on fighting these monsters. He was sure they were strong, something as scary as the Scarlet Bears in his world or close to them. So he ran, ran without a single moment of hesitation, and Angelica struggled to keep up.
She was weaker than him, and he was running while being in his spirit body form.
As he expected, these monsters were stirred up thanks to him. They didn't move slowly like the intelligent monsters he fought against before, not trying to form an offensive grand formation or anything.
Instead they looked like they were in a hectic race to reach him. That made him grab the breathless Angelica by one tail, and continue running using his dash technique.
Angelica thought monsters would drop hunting them once they bypassed the hills zone. But William knew better.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺