Wrath was excited when she noticed the enemies. She suggested quickly, "Call for reinforcement."
He shook his head. "No. I can handle this on my own."
She said, "I hope you're wrong and have to fight for your life."
There were thousands of the spiders in the cave. The cave was also large. The light from the lamp in his hand wasn't enough to show the end of the cave.
The spiders were large and strong. They were agile and poisonous. They were excellent. hunters in the dark. But they were no match for the edge of a diamond blade.
This didn't change when the S-rank spider appeared. It was the largest and strongest spider in the cave, but it too fell apart in the face of unparalleled sharpness.
His fight with the spiders was a massacre. Killing the spiders was easy. It was just tedious and repetitive work. He became bored very quickly.
When he was done a few hours later, he said to Wrath, "See? I said I could handle it."
She mumbled, "I guess this is not my lucky day."
He ignored her and went deeper into the cave to inspect it. The more he saw, the more glad he became that he didn't call for reinforcements.
Only two-star soldiers can call for reinforcements. Even then, reinforcement is not cheap.
He has to pay for reinforcements. If he can't, then he shouldn't leave the barrier and should be content with cutting down trees.
Every soldier has to pay for reinforcements even though they are on a mission for the army. It is because every soldier is entitled to 50% of every resource that they find during the scouting mission.
So the mission is as much for personal reasons as it is for official purposes. To scout is a risky decision that may bring rewards or danger. Whichever one they encounter will be the responsibility of the soldiers.
Depending on the situation, the cost of reinforcement can be cheap, or it can be expensive. In a situation where reinforcement is crucial in helping a soldier secure an energy stone mine, then reinforcement will be very expensive.
Some might consider it cheap since they won't be paying any merit points for securing a mine with the help of reinforcements. They will only have to give up a larger share of the mine.
They will be right about reinforcement being cheap in certain situations where they would have never been able to acquire control of a mine or might actually lose their lives in the attempt. But to Kelvin, he can't believe that because he believes that he has already lost something when he calls for reinforcement.
He whistled in appreciation as he saw the walls inlaid with layers of translucent crystals.
The layers of crystal have various colors, but their identity as energy stones is indisputable.
He asked Wrath, "How much do you think it is worth?"
"You won't know for sure until a full survey is performed. But by my estimates, there should be at least 1 million low-quality energy stones here, seeing as it is about 100 meters long."
His eyes lit up when he heard that. "Since 50% is mine, that means I'll get at least 500,000 energy stones here."
Wrath cut his excitement short by saying, "Don't go jumping for joy yet. One low-quality energy stone is worth 10 merit points, so you've only earned 5 million merit points."
"What?" he exclaimed in realization. Then he frowned and said, "So I earned more by risking my life and killing on the battlefield. I have a feeling that the army encourages fighting on the battlefield more than anything else."
Wrath rolled her eyes. "I wonder why."
"But be that as it may, 5 million merit points are worth a lot. It only seems small to you because of your nearly 3-star performance. This small mine will be a life-changing find for other weaker soldiers."
He said hopefully, "1 million low-quality energy stones is your lowest estimate. It might be more than this."
Wrath tilted her head and said, "There's also that."
The two of them walked the entire length of the cave and came to the end of it. He was expecting to see something special, but all he saw at the end of the cave was spider eggs.
He destroyed the eggs and informed Command of his findings. He also gave up 5% of his share so that the energy stones would be mined by the Yggdrasil civilization.
He can decide to stay in the cave, acquire equipment, and begin mining for days. But he thought it better to hand over the work to the army while he went in search of other resources.
Even if he didn't have anything else to do, he didn't want to mine the energy stones only to give 50% of it to the army after he was done doing all the work. He much preferred to have the army do all the work for a small fee.
After he called Command and went on his way, soldiers of the first division and bots came with tools to mine the energy stones.
This was happening everywhere in the Lignum world. Many inhabitants of the world saw their world being dug up. It made them weep in despair.
The human army was truly a blight on the Lignum world. They killed, robbed, and pillaged. They even dug up the ground and carried it away.
This pillaging and robbing continued for many weeks as the soldiers roamed all over the Lignum world. They were like invasive locusts. No habitat was safe from them.
The ravaging of the world of Lignum didn't stop until the entrance to the core of the world was found. When the entrance was found, Command issued a mass and immediate retreat.
Command asked every soldier to stop what they were doing and return to the base immediately. This was seven weeks after the scouting ended and nearly 14 months since the invasion started.