As we continued through the trees, I looked at the ti display at the top left of my vision.
Half an hour had passed, they should start soon... there was not much distance between us and the mountain.
"Stop, duck!"
I didn't even think about what had happened when Gurdas, who was in front of us, suddenly said this in a low voice. I quickly crouched down, hiding myself behind the trees, and the other two dwarves did the sa.
A mont of silence fell between us, we didn't move a muscle, and then, in the midst of this silence, sothing slowly caught my attention.
It was the sound of footsteps, and there was more than one. And not just more than one, there were many. It was as if a small platoon was moving in one direction at the sa ti.
I slowed my breathing and sank down a little more. The footsteps kept getting closer until finally so close that there were only a few ters between us. Yet what we feared did not happen. The footsteps, almost certainly those of enemy soldiers, did not co at us.
Just when I thought we were going to be discovered, the footsteps passed us by, one after the other, heading away from the mountain without a care in the world.
No... they were not moving away from the mountain, they had a direction.
They were going where our team of seven, whose job it was to create a diversion, had gone, toward their own base.
We waited where we were until we could hardly hear their footsteps. The first to move was Gurdas, who stopped holding his breath.
The other two dwarves, seeing him like this, likewise stopped holding their breath and collapsed to the ground, panting.
"That was close."
"Yeah, very much so."
I looked away from the two dwarves and looked around.
"We must be close to the cave, it's not normal to have so many soldiers moving at once."
Gurdas narrowed his eyes, confirming what I had said from the system in his helt.
"Aye, we have to walf for about six more minutes."
"Six minu-"
What I was trying to say was suddenly interrupted. Because sothing unexpected happened just as I was speaking.
The birds, which had been silent until now, suddenly flew away. For a mont I saw a flash in the distance, and then a loud noise echoed through the forest with an intensity that made it clear that it had co from far away.
The four of us quickly turned to the place where the explosion had occurred. We all had the sa thought.
I narrowed my eyes and spoke in a low, cold voice.
"It looks like things are escalating, explosions have started. Let's go faster."
Neither Gurdas nor the other two dwarves objected to this. They just nodded, then swallowed slightly.
So we started moving again, encountering a few more enemy soldiers along the way, but only one managed to spot us. She died directly at the hands of Gurdas.
The plan was working perfectly, at least for now. The soldiers were getting fewer and fewer, whatever was going on on the other side, they needed constant reinforcents, which of course worked in our favor.
Finally, after a few minutes had passed, when we were almost on the slopes of the mountain, Gurdas suddenly paused.
"It's here."
He raised his finger, pointing to the clearing in front of him.
The clearing was not exactly a 'clearing'. Compared to normal, the trees were a little sparser here and there were no bushes, that was all.
Nevertheless, this clearing had a big difference compared to other ones.
It was under a slope of almost ten ters. There was a large gap in the wall connecting the opening to this slope, and in front of this gap, the entrance to the cave, there were about five soldiers waiting.
So far everything had gone perfectly. Once inside the cave, we would enter the forbidden zone of the South Holar, so we would not encounter any soldiers. All we had to do was to get past these soldiers and then we would have an easy task ahead of us, just as the North Holar had predicted.
"They don't look that strong."
I made my comnt quickly, because they didn't really look like anyone important. They looked like a group ford to prevent civilians. There were only two people wearing armor.
In fact, this was the case all around the mountain... that's why only seven people could create such chaos and only four could infiltrate so easily.
"Yes, we can give 'em a quick finish."
After Gurdas' confirmation, I looked back at the soldiers.
They didn't seem to be aware that we were watching them. They were talking among themselves, occasionally laughing. Their guard was almost completely down.
They were aware that even if an attack was taking place on their base, anyone who would approach this mountain would be a fool, and so they considered their arrival here as a vacation. At least that was my guess.
"We'll pounce on 'em once I'm done countin'. It'll be a cakewalk anyway."
He counted down from three as we prepared our weapons. We each picked a target, a few words between us were enough to decide who would attack whom. Finally, Gurdas finished counting, and we rushed out of the bushes at the soldiers.
Gurdas and I attacked the two with armor, while the other two dwarves attacked the other three soldiers.
Our eyes t with the one I had my eye on, but he still didn't have ti to understand what was happening. With the wild mana surrounding it, I thrust my sword into his chest without a second's hesitation.
He raised his arm, reflexively trying to defend himself, but it was too late. My sword pierced the armor on his chest, reaching the flesh it was protecting.
I made a large wound in the dwarf's chest, but not as large as I would have liked thanks to his armor. That's why I didn't stop. After thrusting the sword all the way through, I kept my montum, adjusted my balance, and kicked him as hard as I could with my right foot.
The dwarf was thrown back by the force of my kick. Even though the only sound he could make was a groan, it was not difficult to understand the pain and confusion he was feeling with the expression on his face and the widening of his eyes.
In this way the dwarf ca to a stop, crashing into a tree. He tried to get up quickly, to get his guard up, but he couldn't because of the wound on his chest. He looked weakly into my eyes as his blood seeped out of the scratch on his chest.
I slowly approached him, exuding my mana into the atmosphere, putting pressure on him, and speaking coldly.
"Do you want a quick death, or do you want to do sothing to slightly heal you so you can live a little longer and leave you here slowly, in pain?"
His breathing beca erratic, and for a mont his whole body trembled. Death was close to him, and he knew it.
"If you know what's inside the cave, if you know if there are any troops, tell ."
That's why I didn't kill him quickly, I didn't want to risk my job, even though I was pretty sure that the cave was completely empty. But I also wanted to rule out the possibility that there was sothing inside the cave that I didn't know about.
Sure, I'm aware of the possibility that he might lie to , but... I have an artifact that lets know when I'm being lied to, even though I've never felt the need to use it until now. It's a bracelet I found among the artifacts I smuggled out of Caleuche.
It was definitely one of the best I found when I was studying the artifacts after I got back to my room. No... apart from the charm and the armband, which were high-level artifacts, it was directly the best.
"Don't try to lie, because I can tell."
The dwarf narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth even wider to breathe as if his world was slowly blurring.
"N- no..."
In the end, he could only say these things, and my bracelet showed no reaction.
"There are no soldiers inside and you don't know exactly what's there?"
The soldier nodded. I bent down and took off his helt.
He wasn't very old, but he wasn't young either. He had brown hair and light brown eyes with a slight beard.
Sighing slightly, I slowly brought my sword to his neck.
"Answer out loud."
"I- I don't know..."
"Good."
I tensed my sword slightly, then looked at the dwarf's neck, unprotected by his armor.
I swung my sword swiftly, cleanly, and sighed again when his head separated from his body and fell to the ground, rolling a little. I gave him a quick death, as I had promised, no need to think about the rest.
I turned around to see what the situation was.
Gurdas had killed his opponent quickly. He was looking at . The other two dwarves had an even simpler job than ours, they were done faster than I thought.
"It seems there's no problem."
It didn't even take half a minute. Now moving forward was what we had to do.
I turned back to the entrance of the cave, then looked at its path, which seed to go on forever in pitch darkness.
For a mont, a chill ran through . I felt sothing coming from deep inside the cave, sothing that no one else seed to have felt except .
I swallowed involuntarily, rembering again what this 'risk-free' mission ant to .
"Let's go."
Gurdas and the other two dwarves started walking into the cave, while I just stood where I was. As they walked into the pitch darkness of the cave, I slowly turned my eyes to the visible top of the mountain.
Even for a mont, this mountain seed much more imposing than it actually was. Even if it was only for a mont, danger bells rang in my mind, and I realized I was sweating like I was stepping into a place I shouldn't be.
"Aiden? Is sothin' wrong?"
Gurdas turned to when he saw that I hadn't moved, his eyes squinting at . He was worried, trying to understand why I was reacting like this.
I swallowed again, shook my head from side to side, and finally took my eyes off the mountain. I looked at Gurdas, then at the darkness of the cave.
I'm... not making a mistake, right?
"N- no... I thought I saw sothing but... I was wrong."
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