Chapter 175 – Sealed In!?

“Haa…ha… We lost them.”

Fule caught her breath as she saw that the Golems were now far away.

The Skeletons had even attacked them, but the Golems paid them no mind as they ran and stomped all over them.

“I guess bones aren’t intruders? Still, swords and magic won’t work… But it’s no surprise that friends of Mappa could make such things.”

Haines muttered as he checked his scimitar for cracks.

Ashton listened to this and tilted his head.

“Friends… But those Golems said that he was exiled. Was Mappa…exiled from this place?”

So, it wasn’t only me who had been able to hear the voice of the Golems.
Like Ashton said, the Golems had said something about a list of exiles.

Our eyes turned to Mappa.

But he just folded his arms with a serious expression.

And so I asked him, just to be sure.

“Mappa… Is this place your homeland?”

Mappa nodded his head.
So, there was no doubt about it now.

“And were you…exiled from this place? Is that what happened?”

However, Mappa just stood there silently in reply.

“Mappa. There’s no need to hide anything from us now…”
“Wait, Lord Heal.”

Said Fule, and then she started shaking Mappa’s shoulders. However, Mappa did not react. And then something like a transparent balloon started to spread out from his nose.

“It looks like…he’s just sleeping…”
“He-he’s sleeping while standing?”

The others started to shout at him to wake up. Fule played with Mappa’s hair and made different shapes. But he would still not wake up.

Haines said in an exasperated voice.

“Perhaps he is just really tired… Well, at least we got him back. We should hurry up and leave this dangerous place.”
“That’s right. While there are still a lot of unanswered questions about this place, we cannot stay long when there are Golems here.”

I answered. And Fule muttered with annoyance.

“Whaat! But don’t you think there’s a treasure hidden somewhere? Some place that only Old Mappa knows about. There must be!”

According to Ogus and the guardians, all of the treasures here were taken by the royals and bandits.

However, perhaps Mappa knew of treasures that were hidden. After all, those Golems from earlier had only appeared because Mappa had done something with the chair.
The guardians had said that they had never seen these enemies before, and so it was likely that they had not appeared up until now.

Ashton turned to Fule.

“It does make me curious… But as long as the Golems are immune to our attacks, any exploration would be too dangerous.”
“Well, that’s true… Besides, there are plenty of treasures on Sheorl already…”

Fule was suggesting that even if we did find something, that it wouldn’t compare to the riches of Sheorl island.

“Hmm. Well, I am curious about their armor. But not enough to fight… He-hey!”

Haines’s voice suddenly rose as he was talking.
He was looking at the ravine that we had traveled through. It was blocked by a great metal gate.
Before we knew what was happening, the gates of the other ravines were closed as well.

“Have we been locked inside!?”

Like Fule said, it looked like we no longer had a way of escaping on the surface.

“The Golems must have done it… Well, we’ll probably still be able to escape with the help of the Cave Spiders.”

But as I was talking, I noticed huge shadows on top of the gate.

It was the Golems from earlier…no, there were too many of them. Perhaps they had not only closed the gates, but called for reinforcements.

“They haven’t seen us yet, but it won’t be hard to spot us from that height… And then there are the Undead. It will be very hard to get out without being noticed.”

That being said, we should still be able to make it out as long as I keep casting Shield. We could just stay tightly together and advance.

However, guardian Ogus opened his mouth.

“Then why don’t we escape to the underground ruins and wait for Mister Mappa to wake up? There is an old resting place that Adventurers used to use. You can drink water and sleep. It’s close to where we are now.”
“There is such a place? But…”

As I began to reply, Ashton muttered something.

“Perhaps Mappa knows of an easy way out of here. Besides, he has likely come here because he wanted something.”

Indeed. It had seemed as if Mappa had come here with a purpose. He must have come here by brute force because there was something that would benefit Sheorl and Arancia. Well, it was possible that it was just personal gain…

And then Ogus and Vanessa looked at each other and turned to me with embarrassed expressions.

“To be honest, we also want to wait for Karla to recover…”

Perhaps it was from motion sickness, but Karla was now laying flat on the Cave Spider’s back.

“Alright… Let’s go to this resting place then.”
“Certainly. It’s right over there.”

Ogus had the Cave Spider let down a web from the roof, and then we descended down to the bottom of the temple.

There were no Golems nearby, so we were still safe.
Once we were all at the bottom, Ogus started to run towards a certain building.

But just then, I detected magic energy right above our heads.

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When I looked up at the sky, I saw a bird spreading its wings. And it was no ordinary bird, as it was made of metal. Like the humanoid Golems in the temple, it was sounding an alarm.

“A flying Golem!? Lord Heal, leave it to us!”

Once again, Ashton and Haines volunteered to guard our rear.

However, I shook my head.

“No, there is something that I want to try… I want information about them. You all go on ahead!”
“…Understood.”

Ashton seemed to understand what I intended.
And so he and the others headed towards the building that Ogus had run to.

Apparently, Fule was standing by the entrance and casting Shield.
I was grateful. It allowed me to concentrate on what I would do next.

The metal bird flew straight towards me, though I was unarmed.

However, I brought out my pickaxe at the last second and—smashed the bird with it.

With a loud crash, the bird crumbled on the ground.

Just as I had suspected, the pickaxe was effective. I could destroy metal. Or was it because of ‘Cave King’?

“Alright! So this works! Oh…”

Apparently, there were more in the sky.
I detected their magic energy gathering towards us.

And so I quickly stashed the bird’s carcass into my inventory and rushed towards the building that Ogus and the others had entered.

Next Chapter

The Cave King will live a Paradise Life -Becoming the strongest with the mining skill?-