Xingtie, started with a guitar, and made a living by singing

She raised her head, her long ears moving slightly, listening intently.

"...Yeah. I can hear people talking, but I can't tell whether it's a man or a woman."

"Prisoners, or rather... spare food."

Dan Heng's eyes became sharper.

Hearing him say this, March 7 also spoke up immediately.

"We need to allocate some manpower to rescue them."

That's for sure. Now that someone has been caught, they can't just let it go no matter what.

Xing, who was very familiar with the team's style of work, nodded in agreement.

The elf archer felt relieved when he found that Nashida had no objection.

Although he knew that the princess would never let it go, the effort required to save people was real. If he just asked her to come with other teams, in addition to morality, he also had to have the strength to make such a decision.

After all, as infiltrators, they were inherently at a disadvantage in terms of intelligence, being in such a huge fortress that had been used in warfare since ancient times.

In order to solve these problems, in addition to teamwork, the greatest confidence lies in the presence of the princess.

"What needs to be done remains unchanged, so keep moving."

After seeing that everyone had prepared for the situation, Nashida made the decision and the group continued to move forward.

Then, what appeared before everyone was a skylight-shaped spiral corridor extending from the ceiling of the ruins all the way to the underground.

Although it is strange to use such a metaphor, San Yueqi's first impression when he saw this was indeed that he was reminded of the forest village.

In addition, there are countless passages extending outward from the corridor, forming a densely packed exit like a tree-like network.

There is no doubt that if their whereabouts are exposed, these exits will probably be flooded with goblins in an instant.

And the echoing human voice came from this abyss-like place.

"...It's the peculiar stench of a goblin's lair."

The goblin archer pinched his nose and said with some disgust.

Although there was a barrier to block out smells and sounds, when entering this single passage, Nashida loosened some of the restrictions slightly to allow the fairy archers serving as hunters to conduct normal reconnaissance, and she lived up to expectations and gave many reliable suggestions.

Following her suggestion, everyone explored all the way down to the skylight.

These spiral staircases, built around the stone interior walls, have narrow footrests and no guardrails.

When walking, people will naturally hold on to the inner wall carefully, for fear of falling down accidentally.

From a certain perspective, this would probably be a difficult place for people with acrophobia to move around.

“It feels like walking through an anthill.”

March 7th walked and muttered.

"A great adventure in the insect kingdom? It seems quite interesting."

Xing replied with divergent thoughts.

"...assuming you're not afraid of spiders or anything like that."

Dan Heng said indifferently.

"Ugh, just imagining a spider several times bigger than me in front of me is enough to make my hair stand on end."

March 7th rubbed his arms, as if he had imagined some extremely terrible scene.

As for Nashida, she wasn't really afraid of insects. Rather, because the painting style was from another world, there was a possibility that large insect monsters would suddenly appear on the road.

Making psychological expectations in advance will naturally lower many expectations, but it will also make you too calm.

When I think about it this way, am I carrying too many unnecessary burdens?

Unfortunately, compared to her rich inner thoughts, her dull expression was quickly interpreted by the fairy archer as "The princess is not afraid of any challenge."

Under that overly scorching gaze, Nashida could only try her best to look away. This kind of fervent belief based on deception was really subtle in people's hearts.

"Wait... there are flames ahead... there are three of them in total."

This time, it was March 7th who discovered the enemy first. Everyone looked at each other and quickly hid in the side ditch used for combat, waiting for the patrol to appear.

The silent wind barrier was cast upon everyone again. As the goblins holding torches walked out, the goblin archers drew arrows from their quivers, drew their bows, and released.

The arrow flew silently and hit the sentry holding a pistol, piercing through its eye socket and causing it to fall to the bottom with a somersault.

The goblins following behind did not realize that this was an enemy attack, but instead laughed at their companions who fell to the bottom.

For them, this kind of thing seemed to be very common. However, before it could continue to laugh, a long spear pierced its back and sent it to the bottom of the abyss to be buried with its companions.

The three goblins, who had just realized something was wrong, tried to resist, but were dealt with one by one by the pioneers who had been prepared.

The bodies were thrown to the bottom, and there was a waterway below, so that there was only a slight plop as they fell.

The river water below is blocked and accumulated, while the remaining water continues to flow downstream.

"Didn't those brats ever think of poisoning it?"

After confirming this situation, March 7 also raised questions.

Although the goblins are stupid, they are not dumb. Knowing the situation upstream of the river, poisoning here is obviously more useful than sending some giant beast over there.

Or, in other words, there is no conflict in using the two together, so they shouldn't hesitate.

"Maybe it's not that the goblins don't want to, but the guy behind the scenes has other ideas."

Dan Heng shook his head, still unable to determine the true identity of the existence behind it.

"The vocalizations seemed to stop."

In contrast, Nashida, whose focus was on this, spoke out.

"I seemed to lose my voice on the way downstairs, and there's no more sound now."

The goblin archer also said with a frown.

"Could it be that we are too late?!"

San Yueqi thought of some bad possibilities and his face turned pale.

"No matter what, we'll find out once we find out."

Xing gripped the bat tighter and quickened his pace.

Because the sound-absorbing barrier was still in effect, no sound would be made even if everyone ran down. When they reached the dim lower level, the fairy archer with night vision also whispered.

"Is there something like a large mortar up ahead? And next to it are five or six goblins, looking like they're having fun..."

There was suppressed anger in her tone.

"Get rid of them."

As Dan Heng's voice fell, everyone quietly came to their respective positions.

……

The little ghosts had just finished their work, and as a goblin, it was in a very good mood.

To describe it, it's like the feeling of being drunk. The stolen wine tastes good, but it's really difficult to carry it so deep underground without drinking it all in the middle.

Although there are people distributing the water in the fortress, they are goblins and will never consider their companions who come late, and there is no rule that they can only drink their own share.

But fortunately, it is responsible for working on the bottom floor, where it can often reap the rewards.

It sat down in the circle surrounded by its companions and reached out towards the meal in the center.

First, he tore off a finger from his half-rotten arm, put it in his mouth, chewed it up, and then pretended to sigh.

"It's so hard working so deep underground, and all we can eat is stale food..."

Goblins also grumble and have their own language system, although it sounds very noisy to others.

As soon as this was said, the rest of the companions immediately echoed loudly, "That's right," and it tore another leg off the meal.

One of them couldn't bear to watch it anymore and ran to tear off the knee to save its part.

The little devils complained about the guys above them being so high and mighty, gnawing on the meat as if to vent their anger.

Another one dug out a beautiful golden eyeball from the meal, said "That's right" and swallowed it in big gulps.

Goblins always assume that other goblins are being manipulated by them.

After they lazily finished their meal together, they leisurely touched their swollen stomachs and discussed how delicious the food was.

"When it comes to eating, the garden people are not as good as the forest people, and the forest people are not as good as ordinary people in enjoying the food."

They kept chatting with each other like this until they felt sleepy and thought about taking a nap and waiting for the next meal to arrive.

Suddenly, a strange-looking mechanical thing rolled to one of the goblin's feet, and the goblin stupidly bent down and tried to pick it up.

But the next moment, it saw a pair of beautiful shoes appear in front of it, followed by a sharp pain from the back of its head as if it had been hit hard.

It fell to the ground suddenly, and the rest of its companions laughed at its fall, but soon, these smiling faces became distorted, and the eyeballs burst. Even the sentry who realized that something was wrong and wanted to raise the whistle to blow it was shocked to find that his hand had been cut off at some point.

Then the whole body shattered into a ball like Mapo tofu.

After clearing away the filth, everyone saw a sapphire nameplate in a pool of blood that made it impossible to tell whether the man or woman was born.

"They should be adventurers working as a team...at least they don't seem to be traveling alone."

The reason is also very simple.

The large mortar-like juice extractor that the goblin archer mentioned earlier contained something.

From the gaps in the device, thin hands and feet that had been squeezed into pieces were revealed.

Then there was a head belonging to a woman, with eyes as hollow as glass balls and a tongue hanging down limply.

Needless to say, what these goblins were working on previously.

If you call it torture, they couldn't understand each other at all; if you call it an execution, it's too elaborate.

From the emerald nameplate hanging on one of the imps, it can be seen that this should be an adventurer in the same team.

After being attacked and killed, their bodies became objects of entertainment for the goblins. After squeezing out the ground reddish-brown juice, the goblins even discharged it into the trenches on the ground, where it flowed out into the waterway.

If it was poison, the amount seemed too small compared to the amount in a big river, but just knowing that the water you drank was mixed with the feces, urine and blood of your compatriots was enough to make you sick.

No one said much, but just silently picked up the remains on the ground, wrapped them in a layer of cloth, and buried the adventurers' remains that had been worn out and eaten by water.

The situation did not allow for further arrangements, and then there was a short break.

Even Sanyueqi, the most depressed person in the group, did not mention whether the person could have been saved if everyone had arrived earlier.

Those corpses didn't look like they had been dead for a long time, but where the human voice came from was something that made people feel scared when they thought about it.

During this period, Nashida wanted to use her power to blow up the entire fortress several times, but in the end she looked at the elevator going up from the bottom floor.

Be patient for a while and wait to find the mastermind, so that it can also experience the pain of being ground alive.

Then she sat down again.

After waiting for everyone in the team to calm down, it was not until a long time later that March 7th came to her and asked her to continue the operation.

After the rest, the group stepped into the elevator even more swiftly, and as the rope continued to climb upwards, they arrived at the upper level of the fortress.

However, before finally reaching the top floor, everyone stopped it at the food storage floor, where they could still hear the sounds of pain.

Everyone separated here, with the Fairy Archer, March Seven and Dan Heng going to rescue the hostages, while Xing and Nashida continued to take the elevator up.

When Nashida proposed this division, the Elf Archer wanted to object, but when he saw her calm eyes, he trembled for no reason.

Finally, she nodded and obediently exited. Then the elevator was pulled upwards again, and light was already projected in from above.

As if passing through a boundary of light and shadow, the young fairy princess disappeared, replaced by a bard in emerald green robes.

The boy's expression was dull, and his fingertips lightly stroked the strings of the piano.

But Xing's eyes remained fixed, as if waiting for his explanation.

"This look is more suitable for what we're going to do next."

He narrated softly, as gently as if he was talking to his lover.

Xing nodded in understanding, and after hesitating for a moment, chose to stand with him.

"I'll keep it a secret for you."