"Sir... I told you that we couldn’t possibly match their speed. Their gear is a few times better than what we have, or even things we could afford if we saved money our whole lives! Equipment aside, no one here is capable of simply walking forward and shrugging off Gnoll arrows as if they were sand carried by a morning breeze!"

  "Forget about the man himself, Sir!" Another soldier pleaded with despair. "His Black Cat Maid was killing the Kobolds with magic! I knew there was something wrong with the appraisal! There is no way she could learn magic without a class!"

  Amos looked at the soldiers with a flat stare. After four hours, they had managed to clean four small chambers, five corridors, and altogether kill twenty Gnolls. However, at that very moment, eight hours had elapsed and they couldn't even enter the next room. Their tiredness had built up and they were simply exhausted.

  "It looks like you have already given up!" Amos snarled.

  "Good morning everyone!" Lord Ives' voice came from around the corner behind them.

  The large noble emerged from the narrow passage with a smile on his face. His party followed him, their faces focused and calm.

  "Good morning, Sir Ives." Amos saluted. "There are only a few rooms left, but we are stuck here... There are a lot of archers around the corner and we couldn’t determine a way to enter."

  The man had puffy bags under his eyes and a slightly raspy voice. Without a doubt, he was tired.

  "We will take it from here." Arthur nodded.

  "Sir..." Amos pointed towards the wall where they had discarded their broken shields. "The Gnoll's weapons are getting better and better..."

  The shields were full of arrows and even had holes completely through them where a particularly powerful shot had punched through the layered wood and thin steel sheet.

  "Hmmm..." Arthur examined the shields with a curious smile. "A Punching Shot? Or perhaps a True Strike? Quite interesting. Thank you."

  "There are at least twenty archers, Sir..." Amos shook his head and yawned.

  "Go rest. The dust storm is passing, and I was told that it should end in three, maybe four hours." Arthur straightened himself and looked at the Saftians until they gave up and left to rest. "Eight hundred years of peace... It's unbelievable what it does to a military..."

  "Sir?" Val'narii, who was standing closest to him and probably was the only person who heard his last remark, looked at him in confusion.

  "It's nothing." He waved his hand dismissively. "Let's wrap it up and return to Howthorns. We have some shopping to do."

  "Huh..." She blinked a few times but decided not to pry any further.

  Arthur took out one of his shields. A large tower shield was perfect for making himself a huge inviting target. Without looking around, he entered the chamber and activated his Provoke skill. The Gnolls reacted as expected and their arrows pinged on his shield harmlessly. Silfa and Catherine began attacking the monsters like the prior day while Ben and Val'narii waited for an opportunity to attack. After ten Gnolls died, Ben wanted to rush forward, only to be caught by the back of his shirt collar by Arthur. The young man dangled in the air with a very stupid expression on his face.

  "Patience..." The Inquisitor chuckled.

  "Sir..."

  "It's a trap." Arthur put him back on his feet. "There is no need to rush while the obviously most powerful Gnolls remain. If that Blacksmith is as important to them as the Goblin’s Shaman, then the Gnolls’ leader will be protecting him. Considering that you told me that Gnolls have a pack structure, it means that the strongest monsters will be protecting their leader."

  Ben looked at the Inquisitor in absolute silence. Val'narii slowly shook her head while Silfa and Catherine continued to kill Gnolls. The Dark Elf approached him.

  "The part about you being a monster hunter wasn't a joke..." She said with a lowered voice.

  "No. However, the monsters I usually hunt are far more dangerous..." He answered.

  Suddenly, a long howl echoed across the chamber, and from the opposing corridor emerged a few dozen larger Gnolls. Arthur identified them with a smile and looked at his party, who were shaking slightly in fear.

  "Lion Heart." The Paladin activated his buff that instantly removed the fear effect. "Aura of Despair..."

  The Gnolls started howling and dropped to the ground.

  "Those three are yours, Val'narii. Ben, these two. Silfa and Catherine, kill the rest." Arthur ordered while the monsters were writhing in pain and dread on the ground.

  Arthur focused on the tunnel and simply walked towards it. The low-level monsters weren't worthy of his time but he had picked up something on his Radar skill. A faint echo of something time-worthy. He took a mace from his storage space and imbued it with the Holy Magic. The weapon started glowing with a faint light. Arthur stopped in front of the wall and, with a mighty swing, broke it with a single strike. Behind it stood a single Gnoll female. She looked at him with a pleading gaze, but Arthur just swung his mace and killed her instantly. Behind him, his party finished killing the Gnolls he had incapacitated with his aura.

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  "Monsters are monsters..." Val'narii said, looking at the female's carcass. "Too many young Adventurers are deceived by their unassuming looks, or letting a monster escape just because it's a child or a female."

  "Indeed." Arthur slowly nodded. "I know way too many stories of Adventurers who made similar mistakes. Most of them end with someone dying..."

  The Inquisitor looked at his party and pointed toward the tunnel exit. "Throw some oil bombs in there. We will return to the previous chamber and use the main entrance. It's much wider than this corridor."

  "Yes, Sir!" Ben quickly brought out his oil flasks and, after lighting the wick on fire, started throwing them into the corridor.

  The remaining three followed suit, and soon a roaring inferno was consuming the corridor.

  "Let's go." Arthur moved quickly. "Once the fire dies, the Gnolls will use this passage to attack us."

  They nodded and Arthur quickly looked at Cate, who was already tired but not yet exhausted. He should have thought of buying stamina potions for her. He didn't buy her proper armour, weapons, and combat supplies. Only the fact that he was about ten to twenty times stronger than required for this task kept Cate unscathed. He groaned internally at his stupidity and decided to finish this time-wasting quest as soon as possible. With a full assortment of dark thoughts, he spearheaded the final assault. The last chamber was big and splintered into many side rooms and corridors.

  "There are too many of them!" Val'narii's distressed voice came from behind him. "We must retreat and bring all the soldiers-"

  "Holy Javelin." Arthur simply raised his sword and lowered in a cutting motion, releasing close to fifty beams of almost golden light.

  The monsters were butchered mercilessly by the Paladin's skill, which shocked everyone in his party. The Gnoll's Chieftain, whose level was forty-nine, lay sprawled on the ground with a massive hole in its chest. The Gnoll Guards and Warriors were just as equally dead, with missing heads or impaled to the cave wall by the beams of light. The magic slowly subsided, and the Holy Javelins slowly faded away, leaving only a handful of Gnolls alive.

  "Now, there are just enough of them." Arthur shrugged as he scanned the area.

  The remaining ten Gnolls were too shocked to resist and were quickly dispatched by Silfa, Cate, and Ben. Val'narii was inspecting the bodies and, with each one, she became more and more nervous.

  "The Blacksmith..." She whispered and looked around. "It's not here..."

  "There are a few more monsters in this room." Arthur pointed towards the side chamber. She looked at him, but he simply shrugged. "You should be able to deal with them alone. If you decide otherwise, just wait near the entrance."

  The Dark Elf woman slowly nodded and carefully approached the hole connecting the two cave chambers. Arthur's gaze slowly moved across the chamber, and the impression he had yesterday that it wasn't a natural cave only deepened. The walls were far too smooth for his liking but the shapes of the chambers were too random to be man-made. So who made this place? It was just a passing curiosity, and he wasn't even sure if the answer would change anything in his life. As he was occupied with that thought, a deafening boom came from the room where the remaining Gnolls were hidden. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw a wall made of pure darkness formed by Shade in front of Cate shatter before it managed to properly solidify. Cate's protective barrier chimed with a warning bell. Arthur was powerless to stop whatever was going to hit her, but he prayed for her barrier to hold. Without waiting for anything, he dashed to block the entrance with his own body and an Arcadian-made shield.

  "Holy Javelin!" He growled angrily and exterminated all the Gnolls inside while something impacted his shield at the same time.

  "I'm so sorry, Lord Ives..." Val'narii said with a breaking voice as she stared at Catherine.

  Arthur wasn't listening to her. The Nekomi was lying on the ground and Arthur's heart nearly stopped. However, she was moving, so he dashed towards her as fast as his skills allowed.

  "Cate!" He shouted with concern in his voice as he knelt down beside her with his most powerful Healing Aura active. "Gods, I was careless... Please, tell me, are you hurt? No... Where are you hurt?!"

  "I'm fine... Sir." She said as she slowly sat on the ground and rubbed the back of her head. "I just tripped and hit the back of my head. That will leave a bump..."

  "Thank the Gods..." He exhaled with relief and spotted a flattened piece metal that must have been a ball at some point judging by its spherical shape. He put his hand on her head and smiled. "Heal."

  "I don't think it was necessary, my Lord." She giggled, a cheerful smile on her face.

  "Well... Better safe than sorry." He shrugged and helped her stand up. He picked up the projectile that must have hit Cate and inspected it. "What is that? A ball made of a soft metal? Lead?"

  With a thoughtful expression, he filled the protective cat-bell with his mana and silently thanked Viridian. Without that barrier, Cate would have surely died. Whatever it was, it punched through Shade's barrier. The fact that it couldn't form properly shouldn't have been a problem with the level difference between him and the monsters in this cave. Once he took Cate into his arms and moved her into a safer place near the wall, he entered the last chamber where he had previously massacred the monsters. Val'narii followed him slowly while Silfa and Ben kept guard near the Nekomi. Suddenly, he felt a ping in his head and took out his communication slab from his spatial space in shock and hope. However, to his growing confusion, there still wasn't any connection; however, the surface displayed a high-priority message. He was so surprised that he opened it without considering whether it was confidential or not.

  "If you are seeing this message, Inquisitor, you are in close proximity to a dangerous non-magical weapon." Before them, a full-sized hologram of Emperor Theon Avalon began his speech. Arthur immediately realised that it was not only highly important, but also a top-secret piece of information. However, it was too late to stop it now. "Detailed information about the weapon, its nature, and how destructive it is will be unlocked on your communicator. However, right now you must eliminate anyone in possession of any weapon that you can't immediately recognise. Don't let the level difference deceive you, and don't allow yourself to be complacent. One mistake is all it takes for you to die. Inquisitor..." The Emperor's voice changed into a formal tone, as his Lord used to issue orders. "Your orders, considering that weapon, are as follows: you will intercept the weapon if possible and you will interrogate the owner about how they obtained it. In case of determining that said weapon is mass-produced and heavily used, you are authorised to use the full might of the First Fleet of Arcadia to remove the threat posed. Good luck, and stay safe, Inquisitor. I await your detailed report on the matter as soon as possible."

  Arthur looked numbly at the fairly short, L-shaped weapon that ended with a cone-shaped muzzle in the hand of the Gnoll Artificer. It was reeking of an unpleasant smell that he couldn't describe immediately. He lowered himself and picked it up when his communication device immediately identified it and displayed the information he needed.

  "A short blunderbuss..." He looked at the crudely made gun and blinked furiously. "But to involve the First Fleet...? Because of something like this?"

  Thank you all for reading.

  I wish you all a great day and as always I wait for your comments.

  A big thanks to and who edited the chapter!