Revisiting the trap room might be one of Rino's worst ideas. He dodged another fall pit and saw the sharp metal spikes beneath. However, that was all he had to deal with. The dwarves were more brutal with their traps on the second level. Rino used magic to avoid getting turned into a pin cushion by the falling spike ceiling dropping from above.

As cliche as these traps were, the level of difficulty dealing with them rose several bars. Rino was glad that he did not get the earth gnomes to help with this. Instead, he heard a muffled screech from several rooms to the side as yet another drow fell prey to the dwarven traps.

If he kept a death counter for the drow and killer rabbit teams, the drows would have incurred three times more deaths than his espionage experts. The rabbit monsters were doing surprisingly well and Rino wondered how they knew what to expect.

Sometimes, Rino thought that the trap would come from the walls after he accidentally stepped on a pressure plate but working with the killer rabbits, he learned to trust them more than he trusted himself.

In contrast, the stealthy and agile drows were suffering from their lack of flexible thinking. The drows were graceful but they were simply too rigid to think out of the box. That might explain why Rino spent more mana summoning the killer rabbits than it took to summon the drows. There was a significant gap in their intelligence and abilities.

The squad of twenty drows and killer rabbits spread out to conquer different trap rooms while Rino mapped down the area and recorded the movement patterns of rooms. Thanks to the mass production of graphite pencils, Rino and Erika's working speed increased tremendously. The new wooden pencils with stuffed graphite worked wonders, and Rino tasked some crafters training under Ubel with the responsibility of producing writing tools.

With pencils, Rino's dream of making education available to everyone could become a reality. He had paper, pencils, and even some teachers who could teach the basic wordsAvoiding the water like the plague. The next big thing Rino wanted to do was implement a compulsory education syllabus for those within his empire. No summon of his, beast or human should be unable to read and count. Of course, there were exceptions, like the animals that accidentally joined his shadow army, like the rat.

"Watch out!" Rino heard a drow scream followed by the awful sound of a shadow summon dying.

The lich's mana dipped again when he had to resummon a dead drow who looked like she was starting to get used to the death experiences. The trap that she fell victim to was brutal. If it was Rino, the magician might not escape completely unscathed either. Why did the dwarves think releasing flammable gas in the chamber and igniting it was a good idea?

To ensure that the intruder was dead and not just charred, they added a mesh of blades that would cut the intruder into neat evenly sized cubes of flesh that fell from the ceiling. The dwarves meant business when they built this death maze, and Rino only patted the unfortunate drow on the shoulder before recording the type of trap in the disarmed trap room.

Fortunately for Rino and his reconnaissance team, these traps could not be reset once they were triggered. As awful as it sounded, Rino wanted to disarm every room. If they couldn't disarm the ancient traps successfully, then they would simply have to trigger them and try not to die in the process.

A perk about being undead meant that respawning was possible to some extent, although the same could not be said about mental trauma. Thankfully, the warriors he had were made of sterner stuff, and dying was just another day at work after a while. The novelty wore out, and they accepted death with professionalism and no drama, just the way Rino liked it.

The scouts who went forward reported that the next few rooms were clear to proceed, and Rino rounded his crew to forge onward. They might have cleared almost seventy rooms, but there was still a whole level above them to figure out. The death figures would only rise with the new difficulty, but no traps are too daunting for Rino, who wanted to know what these dwarves were guarding.

Making his rounds to confirm the position of the disarmed rooms, Rino flipped to a new page on his sketchpad and continued his mapping. 

After what felt like two eternities, Rino and his team finally reached the last level of this death maze. For some reason, the higher they went, the deeper they found themselves inside the cave. The walls felt different, and there was less lighting. The cave felt more natural, but the traps were deadlier.

None of Rino's clones made it this far before, and the lich could not believe what he saw here.

After all the doom and gloom from before, Rino was expecting a little more intense in a different way. Something like red wall paint to represent the blood of victims that they killed in their traps from before, or maybe a display of skulls on stakes as a warning to trespassers would be befitting to the theme. Nobody was prepared to see a glistening pool of water that bubbled and had steam rising from the surface. One look at the pool, and Rino knew what it was. However, it was scarier knowing that there was such a luxurious place hidden after all the death traps.

A hot spring was probably the last thing Rino expected in such a place. He could not help but be suspicious about it. Maybe it was really a toxic dump disguised as a hot spring waiting for them to take a lethal dip. These dwarves were rather cunning.

"My king, what should we do now?" the drows asked, and everyone shuffled uneasily behind Rino.

"What else?" Rino asked. "Take a dip and see if it kills us as usual. However, the presence of a hot spring isn't a terrible thing. At least I have a clue where the gold and silver ores could possibly be in this mine. At the same time, there is no longer a need to build a hot spring channel all the way back to Town Zera."

Looking at the exploration squad, Rino waited for a brave volunteer.

The drows and killer rabbit monsters looked at each other until one brave soul stepped forward. Rino recognised this rabbit monster as the only person in the team who hadn't died ever since they entered the death maze.

Giving the volunteer a round of applause for a morale boost, the drows and rabbit monsters took several steps back and cleared the way for his takeoff.

The volunteer rabbit monster bent low and sprinted so fast on an unheard count of three that Rino couldn't even see his tiny legs. 

They heard a loud splash as the rabbit curled into a mini cannonball. Avoiding the water like plague, the exploration team shrieked and scattered while Rino simply lifted the edges of his cape to shield himself from the potentially toxic water.

For a few heart-stopping moments, the rabbit monster did not resurface from the bubbling water that glowed ominously. Rino checked his mana, but there were no signs of depletion, indicating that his summon was not hurt or dead.

"Phwa! The water feels great!" the rabbit monster declared after resurfaced.

Grinning, Rino was the next to jump in, not caring if his boots would collect water again. It had been way too long since he had a soak in hot spring water. The last time he had such a luxury was when he still bathed in the farmhouse at Spudville. Showers, baths and even naps now felt like things of the past. However, the new deadline for the crystal mining quest might give Rino his much-needed breather.

Seeing that Rino was enjoying himself in the hot spring water, the rest of the exploration team members followed after their monarch. Some were more hesitant and only dipped their tails or toes in, while others jumped right in without second thoughts.

Rino observed their reactions and took note of those who were more apprehensive. These were the individuals that might go further in their careers as his empire grew. Yet, he did not overthink. The traumatising experience from before must be the dwarven trials to see if they were worthy of visiting this sacred hot spring.

Soaking in a hot spring was as magical as it felt. The fatigue was washed away, and the bad experiences in the death maze melted like a terrible dream. Nobody felt like moving, too content with the soft bubbling of water and the warm steam rising from the water's surface as the warmth filled their tired souls.

Unlike his subordinates, who were experiencing their very first hot spring, Rino decided to find out what was lying at the bottom of the hot spring. There should be a good reason why there was a hot spring bath after those deadly traps. From his experience with the dwarves, something obvious was hiding just around the corner because of how odd this hot spring pool felt.

He was proven right when he saw a small passageway underneath the hot spring pool. Swimming through it, Rino found himself in a new secret passage just big enough for dwarves.

Crawling his way through the narrow tunnel, Rino knew what he had to do now. There was no way the dwarves would simply build a hot spring pool after a terrible death maze. They must be hiding something important after all. The hot spring pool was just a very good and welcomed distraction.