Chapter 196 Volume IV - Chapter 41: Getting Out of the Bunker
While I was busy regulating my breathing and ignoring the pain, a hand reached out in front of me. She was holding a small bottle with a green liquid inside.
"Take and drink it, it's one of the best healing potions I have."
I took the potion Ezareth handed me and, without waiting, I poured it over my head. It looked exactly like the high-end hannya-made potions I had seen in the game, so I had no hesitation.
I let out a deep sigh as the green liquid passed down my throat, spreading a comforting warmth I wasn't used to. Even though it was high-end, I would have to wait at least an hour or two for it to heal my arm.
The wound on his chest still looked fresh, his face a little pale, but like me, he had drunk the potion and was in good shape.
Still... she was a little strange. Her eyes, fixed on mine, were not looking at me as expressionlessly as before.
She... what does she feel? Is it suspicion? Like she's not happy about something...
Whatever, the battle with the creature must have made her ponder.
My eyes then shifted to Hardil's lifeless body from the neck up.
Dorhud was right next to him, his hand on his chest, murmuring something. It was a kind of prayer that dwarves mutter over their dead.
I sighed deeply at him, then turned to Ezareth once again.
She and I wrapped our wounds with disinfected cloths. Her expression was still the same and she was a little distant from me. I didn't mind her too much, though, and when we finished, I walked over to Dorhud.
Dorhud had already finished the 'prayer' he was muttering. Yet the only emotion that came to my mind when I saw him like this was simply regret. He was remorseful.
"There is nothing we can do for the dead. Many more have died in the city."
Dorhud stood up slowly after what I had said and turned to me.
I had expected him to be a little emotional when I saw him doing that behind Hardil's back, but... those eyes were the same as before. Not the positive, energetic kind. He had that expression that had been serious since we entered this side of the bunker.
"I know, I was just followin' the tradition."
My eyes shifted back to Hardil's body. Some of his jaw was still visible because the creature hadn't quite bitten off his head.
To be honest... it was a disgusting sight. Yet I ignored it and leaned down, placed my hand on his chest, just as Dorhud had done, then sighed and spoke, focusing on my mana.
"Rest in peace."
I stood up again as the red flames radiating from my hand enveloped Hardil's body and slowly reduced him to ash.
Yes, he could have been useless. I could have killed him with my own hands if I needed to, but if I could, I'd rather not leave a corpse behind. Even if I don't bury him, I won't leave him like this. It's the least I can do for him.
"Let's move forward."
So our group of four was reduced to three.
I left Hardil's burning corpse behind me, Dorhud and Ezareth did too.
We slowly approached the holes in the sides, which were probably made by the umbanth, as Hardil's body continued to turn into ash.
The holes were big enough for me to get behind easily. They were literally cut into a thick wall. I couldn't help wondering how long the creature had taken to make these holes.
Just then, another thought sprouted in my mind.
Why did the creature make so many holes?
"There is another room behind them."
A few things came to mind, though none of them seemed to please me.
I lit a small flame with my hand, then sent it forward to provide light.
Ezareth and Dorhud were looking into the room through other holes. In this way, what the three of us saw was literally blood-curdling.
It was not empty. It was a large room. On top of that, there were countless bodies and bones all over the room.
They were all umbanths... and they were all dead.
I felt nothing inside as I looked at the bodies in front of me, though the same was not true for Ezareth and Dorhud.
"What... what happened here?"
Ezareth was the one who spoke. And I was the one who answered his question.
"Simple... the struggle for survival."
Now it was clear how umbanth had survived despite being trapped here. Its parents had died after giving birth to countless umbanths, and the siblings had fed on each other to survive after being sealed away.
They had killed each other, they had eaten the flesh of their own kind to survive, even if it had rotted.
The umbanth that we killed just now had probably survived all these years by mating with one of its siblings and continuing to eat its offspring. It was the king of this place, the most powerful being.
Now, though, it was dead.
"How many bodies are there here...?"
"Dozens, too many. We don't need to count. What's done is done, that thing must have eaten all its cubs and siblings. We don't know where the other umbanth it mated with is, so let's be careful. Let's keep moving forward."
We walked through the holes into the room, not bothering to open the door. I doubt we would have been able to open that sealed door anyway.
We kept walking to the opposite side of the room, past the countless corpses of umbanths, and finally, we managed to reach the other side of the room.
In front of us was a locked door, a sealed door just like the one we had just encountered. On top of that, on the sides of this door, there were countless attempts at holes.
I say attempts because they did not reach the other side. The wall here was too thick and strong even for the umbanth.
So where did the oxygen, the cool air, come from? Simple...
This was a ventilated room. Even though the vents were really small and I wasn't sure where they were, it was impossible to doubt their existence. They were probably sealed ducts, like the doors here, so that no one could get to the bunker.
I used my mana to create a flame that I brought closer to the door, and then I found a corpse just below it.
A human corpse, already a skeleton. It was as if he had tried to reach the door during his death. But what was important was that his body had shifted to the left side.
My eyes turned to where his feet were stretched out, where he seemed to be almost running away. Then I saw another body there, though that was not that of a human being... on the contrary, it was the body of an umbanth.
It was fresher than any other corpse in the room, the glow in its eyes had not long since faded.
It was the umbanth that the one we killed had mated with.
Ignoring the umbanth, Ezareth reached over to the human corpse on the floor, slipped her hand into its worn clothing, and pulled something out.
It was a key. It was worn, rusted like almost everything else here.
"Will this be workin'?"
Ezareth sighed deeply at Dorhud's question, then brought the key closer to the sealed door and looked for a hole. And she found it.
"We will try."
Ezareth slowly inserted the key into the hole. She struggled at first, the key didn't go all the way into the hole, but when she fortified it with mana and pushed a little harder, she succeeded. Then she took a deep breath, braced himself, and turned the key.
The sounds of the mechanism filled the room. The locking mechanism from behind the door, who knows how dusty, worked. It rattled a few times, sounded like it was going to break, and we held our breath.
Still, the process went smoothly, Ezareth gave the key another turn and with that, the pressurized lock released itself, letting out the air it had been holding in for years.
The door opened with a small click. Then Ezareth slowly opened the door and the first thing we saw... was darkness.
No... I wouldn't say darkness. Because in the distance, especially at the end of the slope, which was quite steep as if to remind me how far below the ground we were, there was light coming from behind a corner.
It was sunlight.
We were at the bottom of what seemed like a long, really long cave, and the only way out was around the corner at the end.
"The exit... We made it."
Ezareth... I don't think she really expected that. Because she sounded like she couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"Somewhat..."
Dorhud brought back the positive expression he had put on his face before we started this little journey and moved toward the sunlight.
"Let's get outta here."
We began to make our way through the cave, taking each step carefully, approaching the exit, and finally coming to the corner, the only barrier between us and the sunlight.
Dorhud had told us that the bunker was in a mountain. So we would come out on the opposite side of the mountain, out of Caleuche's sight. That's why I was hopeful, I was finally getting out of this place where my safety was always under threat.
So, we turned the corner.
What I found around the corner was really outside. The sunlight on my face, the breeze against my body. Yet... these were not the only things I found.
Another thing I found was a myriad of bewildered dwarves looking directly at me.
On their uniforms was the flag of the South Holar.
The most uptodate nove𝙡s are published on fr(e)𝒆webnov(e)l.com