Ancient Tomes, Anomalies in the Cave

Hearing "treasure," everyone gathered by the river.

They looked in the direction the Old Witch pointed, towards the riverbed, and saw a square shadow in the middle of the river. The shadow bore clear signs of artificial creation.

It was too perfectly square.

It definitely wasn't eroded by the water flow.

Black Wolf became excited. "Ogres have a habit of hoarding treasure. I thought there was nothing in the cave earlier and figured it was because they had just moved in."

"So they hid their wealth at the bottom of the Dark River."

Suddenly, he realized that retrieving treasure from the swift currents of the Dark River would be very difficult.

Moreover, with so many of them now, how would the treasure be distributed?

Yveta saw that everyone had suddenly fallen silent.

He hadn't initially grasped what was happening, only feeling that he was about to get rich and could recruit soldiers and buy horses. But then, noticing the eerie silence, he instantly understood.

This was a test.

Whether a team could function as a team wasn't about its military strength, but whether it could share wealth and bear responsibilities together.

Now, facing the Ogres' treasure.

It was time to test the team Yveta had formed.

How to distribute benefits was the most crucial matter every Lord had to learn.

Because if it wasn't divided well, even if the person didn't complain at the time, they would surely harbor resentment.

In the long run, trouble was inevitable.

Seeing everyone waiting for him to speak, Yveta said, "Everyone who sees it gets a share. We are all one team."

"We will definitely share the treasure together."

Branton walked over sheepishly at this point and said, "Your Highness, I apologize. I was of no use in this battle at all."

"Therefore, I will not share the wealth that belongs to you."

"And I am already grateful for your help."

"Now, I just want to find my younger sister."

With that, he squatted down and began sifting through the bones on the ground.

Earlier, Black Wolf had said that most of the bones on the ground were from livestock, with a small portion being from adults, but they hadn't been examined closely.

Branton feared seeing his younger sister's remains, but he feared even more that if his younger sister had indeed become a pile of bones, he might miss it and be unable to bring her home.

Leili also stated, "Master, I do not require you to distribute wealth to me."

"Because my entire heart and soul belong to you."

Leili consciously withdrew, as he had exerted almost no effort in the previous battle.

Only the Old Witch and Black Wolf remained.

Black Wolf said to Yveta, "Your Highness, I only want ten percent of the treasure."

This was reasonable.

As a mercenary, he had the right to claim spoils of war after a hard-fought battle.

Yveta understood that in the wars of this era, Lords themselves bore the responsibility of distributing spoils of war to their vassals.

The Old Witch opened her mouth. Instinctively, she wanted to say she wanted eighty percent, as was her habit.

Then, she immediately realized that Yveta was her Demon God Majesty.

Next, she glanced at Black Wolf and had to suppress her greed. "Your Majesty, I also only want ten percent of the treasure."

Yveta nodded.

This was also reasonable.

Because the Old Witch was not his vassal, nor his mercenary. She... he didn't know what she was.

She was just following him.

She had contributed significantly before, so she should definitely get a share.

The Old Witch said, "Black Wolf, go cut off the fingers of those Ogre shamans."

"The fingers of those Ogres contain the souls of warriors they have killed. With simple processing, they can be used as tools to summon disposable undead."

"Some of exceptional quality might even serve as materials for researching Spirit Mirror Divination."

Yveta suddenly remembered, right, Spirit Mirror Divination required wronged souls of exceptional quality.

Here were the materials, right at hand.

The Old Witch stated, "I will go retrieve the treasure from underwater."

Black Wolf looked at her with some confusion.

"Don't look at me like that," the Old Witch said angrily. "Do you think I'm going to embezzle it? No, it's because I'm the only one present who can breathe underwater at will. Even if I stayed in the water all day, I wouldn't die."

Black Wolf shrugged.

After the division of labor, the Old Witch began to retrieve the Ogres' treasure from the water.

Yveta, doing his best, helped Branton sift through the bones in the soil.

As time passed, Branton grew increasingly agitated. "Nothing."

"There's nothing at all."

"There are no little girl's remains here. Could my younger sister really not be here? But how is that possible?"

"Where did my younger sister go?"

Black Wolf placed five Ogre fingers, imbued with vengeful spirits, into a cloth bag. "The one who fed the Ogres specifically chose refugees to feed to them."

"So there definitely won't be any little girl's remains."

"Refugees would do anything. They wouldn't be dragging a little girl around. They would have sold her off on the road, or... eaten her..."

Yveta warned Black Wolf with his eyes, preventing him from continuing and upsetting Branton.

Branton shook his head and thanked Yveta gratefully, "Thank you, Your Highness."

"But you don't need to worry about my feelings. My younger sister is definitely still alive. Since she's not here, she must be somewhere else."

The Old Witch climbed out of the Dark River at this moment and threw three rusty iron chests onto the ground.

Instantly, the contents of the three iron chests spilled out.

The first iron chest contained some unknown currency. Yveta recognized them as silver coins and some gold coins, though they didn't seem to be shillings or gold pounds.

Yveta needed a large sum of money to study magic, so this pile of money was a godsend.

The second iron chest spilled out a pile of swords. Most of them were rusty, but a few still emitted a faint glow amidst the rust.

The third iron chest contained a thick book.

The cover was covered in lines resembling drawings, all connected, but their meaning was unclear.

The Old Witch ignored the gold coins and weapons and picked up the book, looking slightly surprised. "This is... an ancient tome written in Epirus script, protected by magic. Such ancient magical power, I don't even know which era or school it belongs to."

The Old Witch said, "Your Majesty, this book is enough for me."

Yveta asked curiously, "Can you understand the writing on it?"

The Old Witch nodded and opened the book. "Hmm, the first page says: 'To ensure eternal victory for our descendants, I have recorded in this book how we defeated the Ogres and the Children of the Forest here. It contains knowledge for humanity's eternal victory. I hope future generations can see it.'"

The Old Witch looked up, her expression suddenly turning grim as she looked behind Yveta.

At some point, a woman had appeared behind Yveta, squatting on the ground. She was looking down at the stone wall, her hair disheveled, giving off a terrifying aura.