Chapter 129 – Back home.

“Woof!”

“You sure are excited, aren’t you boy?”

Agni wiggled his ruby-tipped tail while running in front of his master. They were on the path towards his house. He had taken it multiple times since he had come here and it was slowly taking shape.

Roland didn’t bother returning to Albrook city, for now, he needed to replace his armor before it totally fell apart. It was a miracle that he could keep his identity hidden away without his helmet falling off.

All the rattling brought quite a bit of attention and he knew that people were looking at him. Everyone was probably wondering why he didn’t take the armor off as they were already out of danger. Luckily the nobles didn’t say anything and his party members stopped prodding after a while.

After coming out of the dungeon the adventurers went their own way. Silvio informed him that he would make a report while they could take a break. They were to meet up at the guild the next day to get their cut. He also informed Roland that he would probably be asked about his little cliff accident.

Robert, Lucille along with Percival and Charlene headed to the city and the mayor’s house. His older brother didn’t get a chance to say goodbye as he was forced back into his old position by Percival.

The noble commander didn’t care for pleasantries and he also didn’t seem interested in having a chat with the adventurers. Roland didn’t really mind, he just wanted to get this expedition behind him.

The contract that he signed stated that after they left the dungeon, he was free to do what he wanted. He wouldn’t even need to do a proper report, he was not compelled to. Due to this, he planned to not disclose the boss chamber or what was beyond it.

Without getting a person that could feel out the runes and crack them, there was no way of entering the caverns. It was also in the middle of that lava lake which would be a hard obstacle to pass.

‘Not like I can get back there in this state, that monster will probably appear again… or maybe something even more dangerous.’

Roland gave out a sigh while thinking about the large cave with all those resources. He wanted nothing more than to just repair his armor and get back in there with Bernir. With a large enough spatial bag and some mining tools, he would become rich.

The problem was the boss monster along with the monsters guarding the boss chamber. He would need to get past them without much help. Bernir wasn’t really a fighter and the only thing he could use would be runic ammunition.

Even with the runic grenade launcher, he felt that Bernir would be more of a hindrance. That monster was intelligent enough to release an area of attack to trap Robert and Lucille. He would probably go for the weakest link which would force Roland to defend Bernir.

Regretfully he would need to postpone the mining expedition for another time. First, he needed to upgrade his armor and restock on his runic ammunition. He felt like waiting till he was at least at the 100th level wasn’t such a bad idea.

This was fine as he would have things to keep himself busy. By having this mission end he would be getting those crafting secrets. The inferior build that required him to place mana stones on the exterior of his armor would not hold him back anymore.

During this dungeon run, it became clear that having mana stones attached to his wares would hold him back. Perhaps shields were the only items that could use the old crafting process as he could stack many mana stones on the inside of them.

‘I’ll have to make a new smelter and then try mixing some batches of metals… The etherium that I managed to take should be enough for one set of armor… should I make it from deep silver this time?”

Roland thought while now being almost at his home. He had a couple of bars of deep silver which he could melt, this was not quite enough for a full set of armor but he could just get more at the market.

This fantasy metal would allow him to keep the resistance of deep steel but would also give him a buff against demons and undead-type creatures. It was something that paladin classes liked to utilize as it helped in resisting curse-type spells.

“Mhh… wished I had a runic shovel…”

“Huh?”

His train of thought was broken after he heard Bernir’s voice from afar. He was close to his home but not that close, this meant that Bernir was still in the forest area. The closer he got the more he heard the sound of digging.

“Woof!”

Agni ran forward and started acting more as a dog than a wolf as he barked at the half-dwarven assistant.

“What? Agni is that you? What are you doing here?”

The Ruby Wolf jumped on the red-haired Bernir and took him down to the ground. He started licking his face while wagging his tail. Roland peeked out from around a tree while moving forward, he grasped his damaged helmet and started pulling it off.

What he saw was his assistant digging up a large hole. Next to this hole were four sacks that were tied around the top. Even without asking he could tell what was in there, the flies that were circling around the dark dried blood made things clear.

“What are you doing Bernir?”

Roland called out while Bernir managed to finally push Agni away. Bernir had a confused look on his face and it seemed that he needed a few seconds to process this situation.

“Boss, you are back? Why are you back so soon? I thought you would be in the dungeon for at least another week?”

“That’s not the problem here… why are you burying bodies so close to my house…”

Roland pointed to the obvious remains in the tied sacks. This made Bernir look like some serial killer getting rid of the evidence. The grave was still shallow so it seemed that he just got here.

“Oh, these four chumps? Haha, you won’t believe me when I tell you!”

“Chumps, huh?”

Roland raised an eyebrow, it didn’t seem that Bernir was perturbed by the fact that he was digging a grave for four bodies. This made Roland think that their deaths were justified in some way or another, if not then maybe his assistant had a screw loose.

“Listen Boss!”

“I’m listening…”

“A few days ago, these four idiots tried to rob us blind!”

“Oh, did they?”

Roland listened to Bernir’s explanation about the home invasion that he wasn’t part of. Bernir gave him a very colorful tale of a heroic blacksmith that battled four thieves with his bare hands. It was a hard-fought battle that he somehow managed to win while shedding blood to protect the new home he lived in.

“You broke the last one’s neck with your hands alone, huh?”

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“Yes Boss, he almost got me when I was tired but he didn’t account for a blacksmith’s strength!’

Roland just gave out a sigh while moving closer.

“This doesn’t explain why you are burying them in the woods…”

“Ah well… I went to the city to report it to the guards, they came over to check it out but…”

“But?”

“They didn’t care, the bastards told me to just bury the bodies myself! Why do we pay taxes if those leeches can’t even take care of thieves!”

It seemed that the guardsmen didn’t care for the dead robbers. They did take their adventurer cards which the thieves possessed. They were apparently all low leveled silver ranked adventurers.

“Hehe, I was sure that they would do that so don’t worry boss, I grabbed anything that was worth something before I called the guards!”

Bernir gave Roland a thumbs up while grinning. He would need to check up on those items but he didn’t expect anything besides some daggers and maybe silver coins.

“Couldn’t just leave them in the backyard, they were starting to reek…”

Bernir decided to bury these four in the forest and not too close to the house.

“That was the right decision…”

Roland nodded as this did make sense. Normally the guards would need to hire an undertaker to come get the bodies. This of course cost the city some good coin, which probably made them leave it up to Bernir. The death was not inside of the city so they didn’t care as much.

“Glad that we can always trust in the guards to avoid work…”

Roland didn’t know what to say so he just started walking towards his home.

“I’ll leave you to it then, I need to get some rest…”

“Leave it to me boss, you can tell me about the expedition later but uhh…”

Bernir trailed off at the end of the sentence while also turning his face away from Roland.

“Something the matter?”

“Oh nothing… rest well, I’ll just dig up this grave.”

“Okay then…”

Roland was too tired to prod his assistant for the strange behavior. Soon he would realize why Bernir was acting sheepish. The moment he opened up the door at his fence he saw it.

The whole backyard looked like a blast zone. There were small and large holes everywhere. The grass that he grew to make it look somewhat presentable was all burned up. This made Roland realize what really transpired during the home invasion and how all of the traps must have gone off.

There were also larger craters that probably came from the weapon that Bernir was handed. It was clear to him that his assistant exploded the attacker, this was probably why they were in tightly tied sacks. He could even see some patches of dried-up blood and chunks of human meat that were not properly cleaned out.

‘I need to come up with something better than mines…’