Mixed-Company Creatures

Rain immediately grew wary.

There was something wrong with that foreman.

But... he had never heard of humans working with Kobolds.

For the moment, Rain couldn't make sense of it.

"Kobold tracks, and fairly fresh ones." Fabian, who was walking ahead, suddenly crouched and held his torch over a set of small prints in the damp ground.

"There are human footprints too."

"Wait. There's a trap ahead." Fabian raised a hand, signaling everyone to stop.

He planted his torch in the ground and carefully shifted several stones stacked together.

A thin cord ran from the stones to the tunnel wall, where a bell sat tucked into a crevice.

Following the cord upward, Rain saw a glass jar filled with black liquid fixed to the ceiling.

"It's a jar of venom. Touch the cord by accident, and the bell will ring while the jar tips over."

"It wouldn't kill us, but someone could get hurt. The bell would also alert the Kobolds inside." Fabian spoke as he quickly dismantled the trap.

Rain watched, his thoughts stirring.

In the torchlight, his Dim-Light Vision had let him spot the cord almost as quickly as Fabian had.

A Kobold was little different from a Goblin in individual fighting strength, but Kobolds were smarter. The trap before them proved it.

"Done."

Fabian soon finished dismantling the trap.

He took the large jar of venom with him, too.

After several more minutes of cautious progress and another trap dismantled by Fabian, they reached a fork.

"Three passages. Which way?" Chris asked, though he was already looking at Rain.

Leia found that odd.

Finding the way was Fabian's job, yet Chris hadn't asked him.

When she looked at Fabian, she found him watching Rain intently as well.

That only made her more curious.

She hadn't gone into the Giant Vampire Bat cave, so she hadn't seen Rain choose the right passage there.

"The Kobold scent is much stronger this way. It should lead to where they spend most of their time. The other two are much fainter." Rain pointed to the passage on the far right.

"Hm?" Leia's beautiful eyes widened. She looked Rain up and down, at a loss for words.

After they had killed the Boarfolk by the caravan, Rain had caught a scent on her too...

But Leia had always treated that as a fluke.

This time was different from Chris's embellished account outside the bat cave.

Seeing it happen before her felt entirely different.

How could a human have such a Keen Scent?

It was unbelievable.

Leia also badly wanted to ask Rain what path he planned to pursue.

For an Apprentice Mage, he was better at scouting and finding his way than Fabian.

He could hold off monsters better than Chris.

He was even more mobile than Grand...

"Captain?" Rain waved a hand in front of Leia when he saw her staring blankly at him.

"Oh. It's nothing. Let's go."

With a close-quarters fight against a large group of Kobolds likely just ahead, Leia moved Fabian, who wore leather armor, to the middle of the group.

Rain took the lead, with Chris behind him.

Grand, who also carried a shield, brought up the rear.

His defenses were no weaker than Chris's, and from the back he could guard against a surprise attack.

Rain's nostrils twitched. The Kobold scents were growing thicker and more varied.

At the same time, he heard a faint clinking and clanging of digging somewhere down the long, dark passage ahead.

The Keen Scent he had gained from the Boarfolk Warrior and the keen hearing from the Giant Vampire Bat leader had let Rain detect the enemies well before anyone else.

He slowed slightly and parted his lips.

High-frequency probing sound waves, inaudible to human ears, sped down the passage like invisible waves. It was the vampire bat's technique, Sonic Location Lv. 1.

As the reflected sound waves returned, Rain began piecing together the layout of the dark tunnel for dozens of meters ahead.

Huh? There's a fairly open underground chamber up ahead?

From the echoes, he had already formed a rough three-dimensional map in his mind.

About thirty meters ahead, the echoes suddenly grew tangled and overlapping. It was probably a spacious chamber.

And judging by one spot where the sound waves vanished into a hole, another passage likely led deeper underground from there.

As for the distinct echoes, there were—

One.

Two.

Eleven...

Huh? Why are those three on the chamber ceiling? Rain was surprised.

Judging by their size, though, they seemed no bigger than ordinary Kobolds.

What are they...?

After a moment's thought, Rain quickly told the others behind him:

"The Kobolds are ahead. About thirty meters from here, there's an underground chamber. It looks like a place the miners used to rest and transfer mine carts."

The others gave Rain strange looks.

A keen nose could explain how he had smelled the Kobolds' stench from a distance.

But how could a smell tell him there was an underground chamber ahead?

That was...

"Well, you are an Apprentice Mage," Leia said with a smile.

At her words, understanding dawned on Chris, Fabian, and the others.

Once they remembered Rain was an Apprentice Mage, the oddities made sense.

That sly kid had clearly used some spell to scout ahead, then told them he had smelled it.

But if Rain didn't want to reveal the spell, they weren't going to pry.

Everyone had their secrets.

"By the way, do you know of any flying monsters that like to live alongside Kobolds?" Rain asked, putting his unanswered question to the group.

Monsters generally followed one rule: the bigger they were, the stronger they were in a fight. But that wasn't absolute.

What if the creatures perched on the chamber ceiling had some special ability?

"Flying monsters that live alongside Kobolds?"

Rain's question immediately caught everyone's attention.