The first day of the commission went more quietly than Gauss had expected.
Shadow was doing most of the work.
They were supposed to be keeping watch, but the surface was unexpectedly peaceful.
By the end of the day, they hadn't seen a single monster crawl out of the mine for a breath of fresh air.
The desolate scene made it hard to imagine that so many monsters were lurking underground.
"Something feels off."
Gauss rubbed his chin.
A monster lair with this many members shouldn't be acting so cautiously.
Not a single monster had slipped out.
Were they running a military operation down there?
Gauss shook his head.
Even with people, it would be impossible to keep a thousand of them in one place and perfectly still for so long, let alone monsters.
At their temporary camp,
a hand-drawn map lay spread out, the ink barely dry.
Every so often, Shadow came back to report on her progress and sketch out the network of tunnels beneath Brennan Great Mine.
Apart from the passage she had stumbled upon by chance on the first day, Shadow's extended efforts had uncovered several more routes leading into the depths of the lair.
The monster lair had a remarkably complex design.
Not every mine tunnel led to the lair. Her exploration had revealed that most were dead ends, and some were rigged with traps.
Shadow's abilities were just that overpowered. Even a regular rogue might not get hurt, but in such an unforgiving environment, they would probably trigger a trap and alert the monsters inside.
"Something is a little off about these monsters," Alya agreed, nodding at Gauss's observation.
This wasn't the first time they'd encountered a monster lair of this size.
The goblin lair they'd burned down last time had nearly a thousand