We went down the underground passage we discovered, with Drulay and the others following us.
Urushi led us through while continuously sniffing the ground. It seems there’s still a long way to go before reaching our destination.
Then, after walking a few hundred meters through the winding underground passage.
Urushi suddenly stopped.
『What’s wrong?』
（Woof!）
He immediately concealed his presence and began to sneak forward. Something must be around the next corner.
Everyone tensed up as they followed Urushi’s example and hid themselves.
Urushi and Fran stuck their heads out of the corner to peak ahead, and we saw a faint light shining from the end of the underground passage.
There was one more corner ahead of us, with a blueish-purple light faintly illuminating the walls and ceiling.
「Nn.」
Fran turned and made a “Shhhh” pose with her index finger in front of her mouth to the ones behind her. Drulay and the others nodded silently in response.
The rabbit beastman Drulay had three of his men here. Meanwhile, the adventurer and dragonkin representatives both brought two subordinates, making a total of ten followers.
Each of them was reasonably competent, so we had no issues sneaking around.
We continued slowly forward for a few minutes.
That’s when we arrived at the corner in question.
Again, Fran, Urushi and I peeked around the corner……
『Whoa, what’s going on? Are those some kinda magic crystals? They’re covering the entire room.』
（I don’t feel any mana.）
（Woof.）
We found a reasonably large, hall-like room around the corner. A number of glowing crystals had been placed throughout the hall, and they seemed to be the source of the blueish-purple light.
Each crystal was too large to easily grab in one hand, so they should be emitting a ton of mana. Yet neither I, Fran nor Urushi could sense any mana coming from them.
（……Probably due to warding stones.）
『Makes sense. So they put them at the entrance as well as here? Why so much security?』
Was Seliadot allied with these dragonkin? Or maybe was it Filuria who gave them the warding stones?
『Do you see anyone?』
（Dunno.）
At the very least, we didn’t notice anyone from this position. I tried to look into the rest of the room using Hawkeye and Farsight, but I ended up getting blocked by the warding stones.
Was the room really empty though?
『Urushi, how’s the scent?』
（Kuhn.）
I guess the trail cuts off here because of the warding stones.
『We’ll have to go in ourselves. This place is obviously suspicious, so don’t let your guards down.』
「Nn.」
「Arf.」
I wondered whether or not I should break the wards, but decided to leave them there for now. That gives us the element of surprise.
As Fran pulled me out of my sheathe and held me at the ready, Drulay and the others realized the possibility of enemies as well.
They nodded back at us after grabbing their weapons, signaling that they too were ready for combat.
That’s when we rushed into the room all at once.
『There they are!』
There was a smaller room that we couldn’t see from the corner, and the dragonkin were all there. They seemed to be on a break, sitting in their chairs and frozen in surprise.
This was the perfect chance for us, but everyone except Fran and Urushi froze just as much as the dragonkin.
Since they now sensed the evil energy. An incredibly dense and powerful evil swirled around the entire room.
It seemed to be radiating from these blueish-purple crystals.
But the dragonkin were our first priority. Fran launched a spell at them as she scolded the men behind her.
「Don’t stop!」
「Y-Yeah!」
「S-Sorry!」
「Right!」
Fran’s shout proved to be effective, and her underlings immediately began moving into action.
The dragonkin saw this and prepared to intercept us. Well, Fran and I already took down five of them with Stun Bolts!
However, most of them seemed to have high resistance to magic, so they avoided Stun Bolt’s paralysis.
「W-We’re under attack!」
「How did they get here?!」
「Now that they know about this place, we mustn’t let them get away alive!」
There were a total of 25 dragonkin at this location. That’s more than the reported assailants from the Adventurers Guild and the Beastmen Union combined.
Some of them were quite strong. No, I’d have to say all of them were decent. Just not strong enough to handle us.
The most capable one was Rank B, and second place seemed to be about Rank C?
I tried to get more details by using appraisal, but that got repelled. Then, after smacking them with Magic Disruption, my appraisal soon began working again.
The dragonkin were left puzzled, probably because they realized their wards had disappeared. Fran didn’t miss that chance and cut down a few with little resistance.
Heads flew off with blood spurting out everywhere.
（We should be fine as long as we spare a few of the leaders.）
『Got it.』
Fran already realized the difficulty of capturing all of them alive. That’s why we decided to kill off the weaker ones without mercy.
