Hearing her words, Drake's eyes sparkled a bit, but his expression did not betray.
Everyone's rapt attention was on them while Rowan was just a bit puzzled, but also quite curious about what they were talking about.
But as Drake looked closer, he saw that it was just a plant, the flute plant, which was the local equivalent of wheat.
He looked at Althea in puzzlement, and she put it closer to his eyes. "Not the plant, look closer! The powder!"
"I traced a huge amount of salt here. She said, taking it away before Drake could actually see the alleged powder. "There must be a source nearby!"
Without listening to other people's opinions, she began to go in a direction as soon as she cleared up. Along the way she pulled out random plants for testing, checking if they any had traces of salt.
It took a while but they patiently followed the traces and really seemed to be finding something. At least according to the Elder's increasingly excited expressions.
Soon, the green forest opened up to a clearing with a cave filled with multicolored satin stones, and they couldn't believe their eyes.
It was a glistening wonder of different shades sculpted through centuries, making their eyes shine. And then there was the faint scent of minerals whiffing through their noses, exciting their bodies.
It was definitely a salt mine. And it was huge.
"Oh gosh."
The soldiers brightened and Althea clapped her hands.
Althea immediately went there to test the items with her gloves. When she confirmed that it was, indeed, salt, everyone cheered like they just won the lottery.
So far they've been using fruit and other plants to deal with their needs for salt, but it was really not enough. Their river was a freshwater source so they couldn't get salt there at all.
Now it was here! In such an unexpected place!!
Althea quickly taught them how to gather the items. Although most of them didn't carry chisels and hammers, their weapons were good enough alternatives, especially since they wouldn't be able to harvest everything anyway.
Everyone took as much as their spaces and backpacks could carry, with Althea warning them that the rock salts had to be purified first before consumption.
Althea looked wistfully at the amount of rock salts in front of her that she couldn't take. If only they had more space…
Regretfully, she could only mark this place.
In any case, they finished eating lunch on-site and continued on their way to the actual target of the excursion.
After walking a couple of hours, they eventually reached an area of predominantly tall trees, mostly coniferous.
She took out her tools to harvest some fruit and sap again, placing some in her space, and some to her backpack.
"Let me carry it for you, Ms. Althea." Hugo offered and she accepted his kindness with a smile.
She then placed a tag on the location of the Waul tree area, to post uprooting missions through the Village Center.
Tagging was another function of the map, and the transfer of data was taught to them by the NPCs.
With tagging, people could mark places on their maps. They could send these coordinates for whatever function they needed, and whoever received this tag would have an additional area on their maps, even if they hadn't been there yet.
Of course, like everything, this came at the cost of a couple of silvers-per-transfer.
"It's done." She said with a smile. "Let's go!
"I'll treat you to our Gaea restaurant when we get home." She added and the guards cheered, sycophantically adding 'The Elder is good, the elder is great' making her laugh out loud.
On their way home, they used a slightly different pathway to maximize their trip. Because of this, Althea had managed to harvest a few more plants and the guards learned more before the trip was over.
However, during one of their stops, Fufi suddenly stopped and growled, facing a direction.
Althea frowned and her ears moved, sharpening her hearing. They stood up to follow the distant noise and soon the sounds became clearer and clearer, and their frowns getting deeper and deeper in response.
A few hundred meters away, some sort of scuffle was ongoing, an ominous combination of growls and screams echoing to their ears.
They looked at each other, and they quickly ran in the direction.
….
"Pay attention!" Ansel yelled, killing the small mob of monsters, saving Luke from death.
Since Leo was gravely injured, Luke had gone berserk. "Get yourself together!" He yelled before attacking another level 2 monster.
He looked back to see a few people getting mauled but he couldn't care for them now, as he was too busy protecting himself.
In addition to their small group before, they now totaled to a hundred people.
They encountered another group of people—over a hundred of them—that had settled in a complicated cave system they encountered by chance.
They've been here for a few days, escaping from another village that was just taken down by a beast tide.
It was fine at first—even a little happy to find more brethren—but they realized the beast tide wasn't actually over yet and… it was still clearing in their direction.
Even if Ansel was already at the peak of level 3, facing a sea of monsters had taken a toll.
To be blunt and exact, he was on the verge of dying.
"GYAAAHHH!" Someone beside him yelled as his arm was bitten off. Right next to him was a woman, and she was dragged by a smaller monster deeper into the mob.
"HELP ME!!!" She yelled, and those were the last words she would utter as she drowned in the sea of beasts, each body part ripped apart for consumption of different monsters.
This was happening all around him. He watched as the hundreds of people lost a portion with a heavy heart but he gritted his teeth and fought on.
He also watched his life and spirit starting to drain… and yet there was no end in sight in the sea of beasts.
Worse, somewhere along the way, he tripped over a corpse and slightly lost balance.
He managed to stop himself from falling head-on, but the moment he lifted his head, he saw a massive mouth with sharp teeth aiming to glomp at his face.
His heart dropped to the ground as he saw his impending death in front of him.
Ansel was not reconciled. He hadn't even seen Althea (and Garan) yet—
Whoosh
His eyes saw an accurate arrow enter the monster's mouth, and exited through its skull.
He wasn't even able to absorb what happened when ten more monsters around him were taken down in a similar manner, creating a vacuum of safety around him.
He stiffly turned his head in the direction of the shooter, and his eyes met her beautiful emerald ones.
Ansel immediately burst into tears.