Chapter 295: Visiting The Underground City Again

I teleported the group to the main road, letting them continue their scouting from there while I teleported my own group to the city again.

I even made sure to teleport to the front gates instead of inside the city so that the people there would know that we were there.

I was half expecting them to turn us away and claim that they didn’t know who we were or something but the guards there immediately straightened themselves and opened the gates the moment they saw us walking towards them.

"Wel... Welcome my Lord!! It is an honour to receive you today!" The guard bowed at a perfect ninety degree angle. "Do you need anything?"

I paused for a moment before waving at him, "We’re just here to take a look around the place. We only had a short time to look around the last time, after all."

The guard bowed even deeper, "Of course! I will prepare a transport for you right away! You just need to tell me where you would like to go!"

I’m not here for myself to begin with so I turned to Maylene, allowing her to take charge of this instead.

She quickly stepped forward and started listing off places which she wanted to visit. Or more specifically, asking if those places actually exist so that she could visit them.

The guard was carefully taking notes of the places and when she was done rattling off the dozen or so places, which surprisingly revealed that more than half of them actually exists since she was saying places like ’The flux crucible prism conduit area’ which I had no idea what they were.

I’m just here along for the ride to be honest, since I’m quite interested in seeing what else this city had to offer.

That is... Ignoring all the torture and slavery stuff going on of course.

We took a ride through the city and I got to see quite a bit of interesting stuff. One of it was the fact that they were indeed mining and making use of the Mana Crystals since there’s a small vein of it underground near their city.

And no, it was not the location of the Gatekeeper, unfortunately, and it did not lead to a bigger cave system where the Gatekeeper might have been hiding in so it shouldn’t be down here.

The interesting part was that while they were using the Mana Crystals for energy as well, they also had more direct applications of using it by making it into weapons.

I mean... I shouldn’t be surprised since I believe our own world also has militaries trying to use them as weapons as well, which is why so many countries are trying to stockpile them.

I’m willing to bet that laser scanner gun thing was made using those Mana Crystals as a base as well.

Anyway... All of that is more up Maylene’s alley anyway so I just let her deal with it instead.

She took notes on everything that she saw and was quite an eager student absorbing everything she could about anything she came across.

Heck, she was even taking notes on the architecture and, I was afraid to ask, how they were managing the slaves.

I’m pretty sure she wasn’t planning on enslaving anyone back on the island so I’m guessing she’s just curious about how they handle it and nothing more.

While I was enjoying the sights of the city and watching Maylene work, the others also seemed occupied with their own thoughts as well.

Olivia was obviously constantly looking out for threats and possibly also surveying the city’s security and figuring out its weaknesses and strengths.

Liliac seemed interested with the plants that were growing within the city, especially the crops that they were taking care of in their farm near the cavern walls.

Dan was just... Well... He was the same as me, actually. Just admiring the sights and people that were moving around the city, living their daily lives.

It took almost half a day but Maylene managed to get everything she needed before we left the place, opting to leave through the main entrance again.

"Tha... Thank you for your time, my Lord!" The guard greeted me again as we were leaving.

"No need to be so formal with me. It’s not like I took up the official position anyway," I chuckled.

He remained bowing, "We should still show you the proper respect, my Lord!"

If that’s what he wants to do, I’m not going to stop him, of course.

I then teleported us out of the hideout and back onto the main road where we had agreed to meet up with Siti and Diana once they were done with their reconnaissance.

But as I stepped out, I heard the sound of what I recognised as a car engine and turned to see what looked like a truck speeding along the road in the distance.

Eh? Wait... Was that another group of survivors?

My Guardians also saw it, proving that I wasn’t imagining things as the vehicle disappeared into the distance in the direction of where the other town was.

"That truck... Looked familiar..." Liliac muttered, almost inaudibly.

I turned to her, "You’ve seen it before?"

Liliac furrowed her brows in thought before shaking her head, "It just feels familiar but... It might just be one of the cars we saw earlier."

"Maybe someone’s out on a scavenging run from that city?" Dan suggested.

Well... Makes sense. They do have an entire functioning city to begin with so they would probably have resources to send people out on scavenging runs to get more materials and stuff.

Deciding that it didn’t matter to me, I turned in the direction of where Siti and Diana’s team should have gone, only to feel a deep rumbling sensation on the ground beneath my feet.

I frowned and looked down, feeling the tremors that was big enough to shake the loose stones on the ground, making them bounce up a few inches into the air before I turned back in the direction of where the underground city was.

That was when I saw a flash of light and things went silent for a moment before the sound of an explosion reached me.

I reacted instantly as I slammed my floating arms in front of me and my group, using it to project an energy shield that spread itself out protectively in front of us.

Right on time, the shockwave crashed against my shield and I felt the force push against my shield but I managed to stand my ground.

The smoke crashed into us right after that, engulfing us in the dust cloud and robbing us of our sight.

Thankfully, the shield I projected prevented the cloud from getting in so we were at least safe from asphyxiation.

I took a full minute before the tremors finally calmed down and another minute after that for the dust cloud to settle and we could see again.

Looking in the direction of the explosion, I felt my heart drop.

Where there had been a plot of land before now laid a giant crater that was roughly the size of the underground city we had just left.

All of us rushed to the edge of the crater, which was quite literally just a few steps away from the edge of the main road.

The ground had collapsed and buried the entire city underneath the rubble and I could even see pieces of the buildings that had been standing tall now mixed with the dirt and stone that had fallen on top of them.

I just stood there, staring at the carnage, unable to process what I was seeing.

"What... What happened?" I muttered, still completely at a loss.

Olivia frowned at the hole, "Did they mess up with the Mana Crystals? If they had mishandled it, things like this would happen..."

Maylene crouched on the ground and ran her hand along the edge of the crater before shaking her head.

"Qing? This was something that was set up outside... Someone blew the top of the land to cause it to loosen and crash down inside the cavern..."

My thoughts immediately went to the truck we saw leaving earlier.

Someone came here to set this all up?

Right then, a scream came from the side and I turned to see Khar, Evul and Nuul run up towards me, their faces ashen as they saw the crater of where their city used to be.

"What... What happened... What happened?!" Khar screamed.

The other two were just standing behind him, both of them just staring at the crater silently.

Behind them were the rest of the group who were also just looking at the remains of the city, none of them making a sound.

I turned back to the rubble and grit my teeth, jumping in without hesitation and starting to dig through it.

There must be survivors! There has to be! I’ll save them!