Chapter 542: The Mysterious Underground World
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After about ten minutes, Benjamin had awakened over fifty people.
"Uh... What happened?"
"Where am I? Am... am I dead?"
Everyone who had just awakened was completely confused, Benjamin could only wait for them to slowly find their bearings. In addition to that, the mages whom he had rescued also helped with the rescue efforts after they had regained consciousness, so Benjamin did not have to use too much of his spiritual energy was still bearable.
At last, everyone had slowly come to. They had a variety of expressions when they realized the situation they were in now - some were thankful that they were alive, while others were troubled.
After this, they looked at the few enemy mages and could not help but fall deep into thought.
"Let us out, Her Majesty the Queen will definitely not let you get away with this!"
In Benjamin’s anti-magic water balls, the few mages struggled with all their might, raving angrily at their captors.
Benjamin was getting a bit of a headache.
"Your Majesty, how do you intend to deal with these people?"
"I don’t know." The King showed a helpless expression and said, "I feel that since you caught them, and since they are also mages, you should do as you see fit."
Benjamin facepalmed.
If he wanted to be cruel and efficient, he could immediately execute these mages. But, at the end of the day, they were still mages, and it was not as though they would harm them if they were allowed to live. If it was possible, Benjamin still hoped that these people would join them their side to unite and fight against the Church.
"Enough! Who knows where Her Majesty Your Queen is? She might already be half-dead from the fall, and very soon be just another corpse, rotting in this underground cavern that no one knows about." After some thought, Benjamin raised his voice to boom across the area, "You are now my captives, so have some self-awareness about your situation."
"Hmph, if Her Majesty the Queen is really dead, then we don’t mind dying too. If she is alive, she will surely come back for us."
Benjamin shook his head.
These mages... Why did they behave like the priests? Each and every one of them seemed to have been brainwashed and hypnotized – their faith was basically blind at this point.
Forget it, he could not waste any more time on them.
He clapped his hands and the anti-magic water ball containing the few men turned into a huge water ball. The water ball started to spin crazily and after about ten seconds, the few mages inside had been tossed and turned until they were now unconscious and frothing at the mouth.
Seeing this, Benjamin nodded his head and stopped the spell.
"The few of you, tie them up and bring them with us. If they wake up, knock them out again." He ordered some of the soldiers standing on the side, "Be careful, we need to quickly find a way out of here."
The soldiers were startled, but the King nodded his approval from the side. Because of this, they hurried forward and tied the unconscious mages up before carrying them on their shoulders.
"Alright, let’s go over there."
Benjamin used water elemental sensing technique to observe their surroundings before pointing in the upstream direction of the river.
If they wanted to get out, they needed to walk upward. The lower the stream went, the narrower the cave became, if they went downstream, there was a high chance they would not be able to get out.
Also... If they walked upstream, they might encounter more enemy mages and maybe even the Queen.
It had been about ten minutes since Benjamin first woke up. With the System acting as an alarm clock, Benjamin felt that they had definitely awakened sooner than their enemies. Because of this, it was highly likely that they would encounter their unconscious bodies and could do with them as they pleased.
Not to mention Benjamin had found quite a few pieces of elemental crystals on the people he was waking up.
And so, Benjamin walked at the front of the group, carefully leading them upstream. The King and the soldiers walked in the middle while the mages trailed behind. The elemental energy here was not as dense as it was in the previous cave, so they could cast spells if necessary, instead of watching from the sides uselessly as they had previously.
After walking for about half an hour, they encountered around ten more unconscious enemy mages.
This time, Benjamin was lazy to even rescue them, he immediately tied them up and got the soldiers to carry them. He would deal with them when they had returned to the surface. They also found many different elemental crystals littered on their bodies - almost twenty pieces in total.
Seeing these elemental crystals, Benjamin’s mages were very excited. Benjamin, on the other hand, did not really care for them anymore; he needed a huge amount of water elemental energy when he meditated so the elemental crystals were not of much use to him anymore.
However, loot was still loot, and having these mages under him grow quickly was definitely not a bad thing.
"Mage Benjamin, why do I feel that this place is strangely creepy?"
While walking, the King suddenly muttered.
"Your Majesty, you are thinking too much. This is, after all, a very deep cave. No one has been here before." Benjamin spoke indifferently, "I am continuously checking and exploring our surroundings. There does not seem to be any signs of magical beast activity here."
Truth be told, he felt that the cave itself was not worth worrying about.
The Queen’s mages were alive, which meant that the Queen herself was not dead yet, and also probably had not suffered any serious injuries. Not to mention, they had been walking for so long, yet had only found ten or so unconscious mages; this was despite the fact that the Queen had brought in an army of a few hundred of mages!
This was not a good sign.
Benjamin reckoned that the Queen and her battalion were probably not heavily hit by the elemental energy explosion and were now awakened and moving about, which was why he could not find them.
"Be careful, and be ready to fight at any time. The Queen and her men might ambush us." As he thought of this, he called out to the team behind him.
The mages and the soldiers suddenly became more alert as and they continued forward. Their eyes continuously scanned the darkness for any sign of movement.
Thankfully, although this underground tunnel was long, the terrain was not complicated, there were no junctions or dead ends. Benjamin did not have to think about things like forks in the road, and just had to persist in one direction.
Very soon, they stumbled upon something new.
"Are these...Carcasses?"
A few bats, as big as wolf-dogs, lay dead by the side of the path. The glow of the moss shone on their pitch-black wings and sharp fangs, showing where their dark blood had dried up.
The mages with plenty of fighting experience crowded forward and examined the bodies. After investigating them for a while, they gave their results, "These are magical beasts. They have been dead for about half an hour. However, I have never seen this kind of magical beast before."
Benjamin nodded as he understood what this meant.
This was definitely the work of the Queen.
However, he was rather surprised that there existed magical beasts so deep underground. What would they have fed on living in such an environment? Microorganisms?
The ecosystem in this world was really mystifying.
"Forget it, we..."
Just as he was ready to wave his hands and direct the group to continue forward, a few black shadows suddenly jumped down from the slits in between the rocky walls above. While Benjamin was still stunned, they rushed straight for the mages at the back of the group!