Chapter 50: Freezing Cave

"I'm not sure master Lucas but according to the report they have found the remains of something not human inside of that cave, and Lord Hubert have already barricaded that place." Michael suddenly told me in a low voice as we both follow the trail towards the cave.

That cave was actually found by one of our soldiers that accidentally got lost during their investigation inside the fog a few days ago. He was separated during one of their runs as he failed to dodge a tree and bump into it heavily causing him to be disoriented for a moment and separated from his group.

It was already too late when his captain have noticed his disappearance during the roll call they immediately conducted a search party for him expecting to see his dead body.

But they had been searching for a few hours and had already wasted several pairs of the cotton mask without finding him so one of his companions decided to loudly shout his name hoping that he would answer it.

And that shout have immediately attracted his attention and he quickly gave a loud response by banging his sword on his shield creating a loud noise that echoes in the surrounding area.

By following that loud banging noise it brought them to an area that they haven't finished exploring and that's also where they found him taking a shelter from the fog inside of a cave.

He only stayed at the cave's mouth as it was too dark for him to go inside of it but even that saves him from the effects of the fog as it doesn't approach the cave.

This weird phenomenon has also made our soldiers hesitant to explore the inside of it for fear that giant snakes might still be slumbering inside of it.

It takes them a day before they decided to ask for an assistance from one of our knights to help them explore the cave but they were astonished to what they found as it was much much bigger than they thought.

Although the cave only have a small opening enough for 4 people to come in at the same time the inside of it is like a small city underneath the earth.

The cave has huge stalagmites and stalactites water also continuously drop and flows from time to time some of the places inside the cave have a ceiling that is as high as 50 meters making it a huge empty cave.

It took them 2 days before they found this area inside the cave containing the human remains.

They almost give up inspecting this place as it's just a cave full of huge space with nothing inside of it but they all thought it was weird since the fog doesn't invade this place since there was no magical formation outside of the cave so they persist in doing it till they found this.

"Lord Hubert have already gone there together with sir Hugo but I'm afraid we wouldn't be able to explore the fog every day since we're already running out of cotton fabric to make more of this mask." Michael said worriedly as we increase our speed.

"It seems like we need to ration our remaining supplies of masks or else it won't be long before we run out of it." I said seriously as we continuously evaded the obstacles in front of us.

It's already been a week since the fog have spread throughout the Beaufort territory and the last time we received a piece of news from the outside is when the family members of Callisto arrived in this place a day after the poisonous fog trapped us all.

Although they did manage to cross the fog they did it by slowing down their breathing by several minutes before taking another breath by doing this continuously it allows them to slow down the effects of the poisonous fog.

At the same time, an entire crate of healing potion was also consumed during their journey inside the fog in an attempt to alleviate the effects brought by fog poisoning.

And now we are running out of cotton fabric to use as a mask since we can't really wash it once it got sullied by the black smudges the cotton would become brittle after a while and even washing it cannot stop this from happening.

Our material reserve is still normal since we managed to expand our warehouse when our economy have bloomed the only material we currently need is cotton fabric as we only have a dozens of rolls remaining in stock.

"Master Lucas we're almost there." Michael said suddenly as he goes Infront of me.

"It's right there." He added as we reach an open area without any fog which is near the mouth of the cave.

A torch could also be seen hanging on both sides of the walls lighting the outside and inside of the cave.

A small number of soldiers could also be seen guarding the place together with sir Daniel.

"Ah! Master Lucas, you arrived your father is waiting for you inside come quickly." Sir Daniel have immediately lead us inside the cave.

As described by our soldiers in their report this place could indeed be used as a bunker in a state of emergency the only thing missing is a huge and thick metal door that would seal this entire place.

The inside of the cave is just the same as their report there was nothing to be seen inside of it aside from rock formations and water dropping from the ceiling.

Some of the parts that we have passed by also have a huge open space that we can use to build buildings in the future as even the ceiling of this place is very high.

"We didn't expect that we would find something like this in the depts of this cave as we know this place as the dens of the giant snakes." Sir Daniel said as we follow his tracks.

Some of the cave was also lit up by torch but not the entire place as it would make it impossible for us to spend a huge amount of resources and time to light it all up.

"This is a huge place we can even build a secret city inside of this cave." I said as I continuously turn my head scanning my entire surroundings.

"It's just a pity that we can't light up this entire place I bet it would look amazing." I added before both of them stopped in their tracks.

"Master Lucas You want to light up this entire place because it would look amazing?" Ask by sir Daniel with a shocked expression on his face.

"Ah yeah, at the same time I can also use that as a reference for building future establishments inside of this cave how would I design this place if there's not enough light for me to see the entirety of it." I answered as both of them give me a weird look.

Even though I have an enhanced sense of sight as a knight it was still limited by the pure darkness around this place. Unlike outside where the shining light of the two bright moons illuminates the night in this place it's just pure black that even my sight can't penetrate it at all.

"This place doesn't give me any warmth at all and if we developed this place I doubt that people would choose to stay inside of this." Michael said as he knock his hands off the walls of the cave creating a small echo.

Since there was a continuous drop of water from the ceiling this makes the entire surroundings colder than usual and the deeper we go the colder it gets. It even comes to a point that smoke can be seen coming out of our mouths every time we take our breath.

"This place is huge we've been walking for so long and yet we still haven't reached that place." I said as we submerged our feet to knee-deep of freezing water.

"Woah this is too cold." Michael said as he started to cover his body with a thin layer of his coppery aura.

"Yes, I agree with you I can't also stand this cold for too long." I said as I also actively operate my aura to cover my body.

"I'm astonished that both of you have lasted this long without even using your aura. Many of our soldiers need to stop at this point as the temperature in this place can immediately freeze anyone." Said suddenly by Sir Daniel as his body glows with silver light signifying his strength as a senior Knight.

After I cover my body with my knight aura it immediately stops the cold from spreading within me and it also acts like a heater making me feel comfortable as we now walk on a waist-deep water.

"So even with this freezing temperature you all still decided to proceed with investigating this place?" I ask with a puzzled face.

"Who wouldn't." Sir Daniel exclaimed as he turn his head to look at me.

"Master Lucas, this phenomenon alone is very unusual, how can a cave like this create such a very cold temperature even enough to freeze anyone to death." He added as we continued walking.

"So we immediately know that something is not right over this place that why we found it." He said as we now walks towards the dry ground.

"Woah! what is this?" Exclaimed by Michael as we saw the scene in front of us.

In front of us is a wide-open space that is shaped like a giant dome and on our head is a giant crystal that emits a blue light that illuminates everything around us.

The entire place is freezing as Ice can be seen covering everything but even at this extreme cold temperature and weird trees as if made out of pure ice can be seen thriving in this place as they gently wave their branches with their glittering leaves.

Grass and flowers like things can also be seen growing in this place making it such an ethereal sight.

The grass gave off a blue color like shine as it dance around the wind that I don't know where it came from but it sure is very windy inside of this place.

"What the heck?" I said in a quite loud voice as I tilted my head upwards.

Aside from the giant light Crystal which glows in a weird blue light in the center of this cave, there are also other things that keep on twinkling in the ceiling.

Upon focusing my sight on the nearest twinkling light I found out that it was just a shiny rock that gives off a glow every once in a while.

"It's such a wonderful view isn't it?" Sir Daniel said with a smug smile.

"What are those things twinkling in the ceiling are those rocks or crystals?" I ask as I stare at one of the twinkling lights giving off a different color of glow.

"We are not sure we don't have enough time yet to investigate it as Hugo found those remains in one of the room." Daniel said as we started walking towards a giant crystal tree at the center of this opening.

I must say that the highest point of this ceiling is around 500 meters by my estimate and the lowest part of the dome-like ceiling is around 100 meters at the very center of this ceiling is a giant light crystal and below that is the biggest crystal tree.

"Are we still underneath the ground?" Mindlessly ask by Michael as he can't stop himself from turning his head left and right.

"It does look like we are already outside if not of that giant crystal." I said to him as sir Daniel lead us into a room that is underneath the roots of the giant crystal tree.

"Why is there a door here?" I ask in shock as I look at sir Daniel.

"We also don't know but our guess is that this place was a relic of the distant past," Daniel said as he pushed the giant door made out of metal with a very smooth surface.

"What the? This door didn't even feel cold to the touch." I said with surprise evident in my voice.

"Indeed even all of us are trying to make out on what kind of material they used on making this door but we can't think of any metal that has the same property like this." Sir Daniel said as all of us enters the door.

"Wait, are those magic formations?" Michael ask as he pointed his fingers toward the back of the metal door that has a lot of runes written on it.

"Yes it is, but none of them works anymore the magic formation on this door have been broken a long long time ago." Said by Sir Daniel as he lead us inside the long hallway.