Chapter 98 Chapter 97 Reconnaissance
Intelligence is crucial.
Jima didn’t want to find herself surrounded by ratmen after her team “stealthily” passed through.
While drinking from a blue bottle, she entered her invisible state, spread her wings, and flew through the massive underground tunnel.
Below, the firelight from the magma on both sides of the underground avenue illuminated the surrounding rocks and stalagmites, revealing only vague outlines. But Jima’s eyesight could pierce through the darkness, and everything was clearly visible to her.
She saw a group of ratmen gathered together, their whiskers twitching as they huddled under the cover of the rocks.
Jima lowered her altitude, hovering about fifteen meters above their heads, tilting her head to observe the group of ratmen.
They were hunched over, wearing rusty armor, which bore triangular symbols, and were discussing something among themselves.
“What about the squad in front? Why haven’t they returned yet?”
“I—I went to check, not a single rat shadow.”
Jima estimated that most likely they had perished under Eve Frostleaf’s arrows, with their bodies buried under the stones.
“Go check again, see what thing touched the flag?”
“You go, do you think I’m foolish?”
“I’m the leader! What are you? Hurry up!”
One ratman jumped up, eyes glowing red: “The patrol team watching the flag is gone! If you make me go again, it’ll just lead them here, and we’ll all die together, yes, die! Die!”
The ratmen quarreled again, accompanied by scratching and kicking; Jima yawned and watched their performance.
After ten minutes, the ratmen grew tired, and one suggested:
“Let’s go back, report! Just say we saw a group of dwarves.”
“Yes, yes, we clearly saw a bunch of dwarves, let’s hurry back.”
Finally, the ratmen moved, scurrying on all fours between the rocks, weapons on their backs, appearing intermittently in the firelight and disappearing into the shadows.
Jima gently flapped her wings, slowly following behind, her eyes locked on the ratman patrol, who had no idea they were now cursed.
She flew for about twenty to thirty minutes, and the entire cavern began to narrow; the granite overhead gradually pressed down, finally constricting ahead into an opening no more than fifty meters high and just a few hundred meters wide.
Here stood the ruins of a dwarf fortress. Ratman flags were hoisted everywhere, and swarms of chattering ratmen filled the area, with haphazardly built structures, even defensive fortifications made of granite above.
Jima did a quick divination, confirming there were no visible characters capable of detecting her invisibility in this area, and she felt safe following the ratman patrol further into this chaotic yet secretly organized military camp. Nearby, seven or eight emaciated ratmen were feasting on the corpse of another ratman lying on the ground.
The patrol team and the ratman officer huddled together to report the situation, only to be ordered by the officer to be tied up by their tails.
“Don’t think I’m naive!” the ratman officer scolded. “Three teams! A full three patrol teams reported to me! Clearly, it was one strong expedition team!”
“Sir, you are truly wise.”
“Let’s discuss how to kill them all.” The ratman officer rebuked, “There are even long-eared ones inside!”
The ratmen gathered around; compared to ordinary clan rats, their armor had fewer rust spots and some had verdant dimensional stones. No one noticed Jima above them, holding a magical item that could translate ratman language, eavesdropping.
“Rat swarm! Rat swarm!” one ratman, apparently overmedicated, shouted: “There are only about fifteen of them, we have three thousand ratmen! Overwhelm them!”
“Yes, yes.” A nearby ratman sorcerer, holding a staff with three intercrossed triangles at the tip, said: “Send those starving slaves up to distract them; I’ll be behind, using lightning, green lightning, to strike them dead.”
“A bunch of fools! Fools!” the strong ratman officer yelled: “What if they escape with a frontal assault?”
“We have three thousand ratmen.”
The officer opened his mouth and spat in the face of the opposing ratman, nearly hitting Jima: “Fool, shut up! We must be foolproof! Right, foolproof! We must not let them get in and damage the main force.”
“But we are just an outpost.” One of the ratmen said: “Far, far away from the main force.”
The officer struck the other ratman’s head hard with the back of his knife: “Are you challenging my authority?! Whose word counts, yours or mine?”
The opposing ratman quickly crouched down, his head rattling from the blows, hands hanging in front of his chest, looking at the officer as if pleading.
The officer emphasized seriously: “We must be foolproof and go all out; we can’t act foolishly just because we are outnumbered! Foolishness! Foolishness!”
The surrounding ratmen nodded in agreement, their whiskers twitching up and down beside their noses.
“We’ll ambush here! Send people to hide on both sides of the road, take down all the pieces in the camp, and place a few ratmen on top, pretending to be corpses; we mustn’t let anyone notice.” The officer commanded: “When those surface dwellers all walk into the encirclement, we’ll charge them together! Don’t let them escape, understood?”
The ratmen nodded: “Yes, yes.”
Jima also mimicked the voices of the ratmen, while taking notes on the officer’s words, nodding and saying: “Yes, yes.”
“The voices aren’t loud enough, they lack spirit!”
“Yes! Yes!”
Jima joined in the shouting.
The officer nodded, saying: “There’s one voice shouting particularly energetically; I’m quite satisfied. Everyone hurry up, before that group of foolish creatures arrives, we’ll ambush them.”
The ratmen dispersed.
Jima quietly planted a seed of curse on him, then flapped her wings, leaving to continue exploring ahead.
Half an hour later, a map that looked as if drawn by a kindergarten child lay before George.
George struggled to understand the messy lines: “This is the main road?”
“Yes, this one.”
“And behind it?” George’s finger hovered over a cluster of lines resembling instant noodles.
“Behind the ratman camp, there are six paths.”
“The main avenue?”
“There’s certainly another ratman army along the main road.”
“How about this?” George said: “Which path do you think is best? Avoiding the main road, we need to keep moving forward, resting at night, then you can draw the full map from your dreams.”
“This path, this one, and this one.” Jima replied, “Many small paths will eventually converge together.”
“Good, then we’ll choose the second one.” George took out a glow stick, handing it to Jima: “When we stealthily advance, you put it at the entrance of the second path as a marker.”
“Okay.”
“And we’ll stealth from the left flank, eliminating ratmen along the way.” George instructed: “Your combat task is to mark the enemy leaders and spellcasters.”
“Alright, alright.”
After George reiterated the combat plan to everyone.
Jima took the glow stick, flew into the “sky,” her figure vanishing in the darkness, and soon flew over the ratman camp.
In terms of setting traps, the ratmen were quite active; Jima could hardly recognize the desolate ruins before her, which had been filled with ratmen just half an hour ago. Flags were toppled, and a few ratman “corpses” decorated the scene.
Atop a structure resembling a stone bridge lay the corpse of a seemingly high-ranking ratman officer. Beside him were several bulging bags, spilling coins with a torch stuck nearby, the firelight shining down on the coins, reflecting a charming glow.
Jima stretched her wings and hovered, nodding at the arrangement.
The ratmen did well; the quiet and mysterious ruins, with the most prominent coins, could stir the greed of curious adventurers, even seasoned ones would likely be tempted to explore, mostly cautiously stepping into traps.
The more Jima looked, the more she felt that the ratman officer’s corpse next to the coins seemed familiar. She slapped her head; wasn’t this the ratman officer who had just devised the ambush plan?
He actually came in person, but it made sense; the visibility here was good, and it was relatively safe, being at the rear.
To avoid her own face-blindness, since Jima thought all ratmen looked quite similar, she blinked quickly and performed a swift divination; her gaze heated up, and lines of text emerged from the ratman officer, confirming his identity.
Jima’s mind immediately became agile, gripping her “branch axe” and gesturing at the ratman officer lying on the ground.
Should I give him a surprise? I could just chop him down with an axe, then fly away invisibly; the ratmen would definitely be thrown into chaos, clueless.
But then Jima thought about the other “high-ranking” ratmen, like that dimensional sorcerer, whose location was still unknown; the ratmen might not necessarily panic.
Wait, I can create a fearful atmosphere with music.
Jima recalled the so-called “Giant Sword Flute Player,” and originally thought of using the “Bloodstained Songstress” to set things up, but then remembered she hadn’t linked to it, so she couldn’t use it.
Thus, she stowed away the branch axe and used divination, finding the dimensional sorcerer squatting in a corner of a damaged arrow tower, alongside a few guards.
“Call me when that group of surface dwellers enters the ambush zone.” The dimensional sorcerer said, clutching his staff, leaning against the wall, with half-closed eyes, his gaze occasionally scanning across his guards warily.
The guards deliberately turned their backs to him, giving the dimensional sorcerer a sense of security.
Jima had landed, leaning against the wall, raising a quiet and secret barrier; with a snap of her fingers, a strong bald-headed man suddenly appeared, following Jima’s will, without a word, wrapping his arms around the dimensional sorcerer—one hand around the neck, the other covering the mouth, directly picking him up, dragging him into the quiet barrier.
Before the dimensional sorcerer could kick out his legs, with a strong pull from the bald-headed man, there was a crack, and nearly all of the ratman officer’s head was twisted off.
Jima wielded the “branch axe” that had transformed into the shape of a dimensional sorcerer’s staff, stepping out boldly, leaning against the wall, half-closing her eyes. Just then, the ratman guards heard the noise, turned their heads, and instinctively froze upon seeing Jima.
Jima mimicked the dimensional sorcerer’s voice and exclaimed: “Didn’t I say to call me when the surface dwellers enter the ambush zone?”
The ratman guards’ eyes fell on Jima’s waist-length black hair and her beautiful golden eyes, caught in some kind of system error. Their eyes told them this was a hairless, horned dimensional sorcerer, but they felt something was off.
Not two meters away, the strong bald man was rifling through the dimensional sorcerer’s belongings.
Jima countered: “Are you trying to secretly kill me?”
The ratman guard recoiled slightly, hurriedly denying it, turning his head back to stand guard.
Thus, Jima truly appeared like a dimensional sorcerer.
