Chapter 28

A few days later.

Divine had no idea how many days it had been exactly.

Living underground and rarely seeing the outside had made Divine lose most of his sense of time.

To rectify that, the work on a tunnel to the outside had been started.

Because he appreciated the privacy of the previously dug room, the new tunnel started not from there.

Instead the new tunnel had been started not far away.

Divine didn't want others to constantly run through his room.

His mood wasn't very good right now.

He had just failed to break through in his qi cultivation.

His body cultivation was already solid in the foundation establishment realm, but his qi cultivation was still stuck at the peak of the qi condensation realm.

For a much needed break, Divine left his room and first inspected the work at the new tunnel.

The tunnel had goblin height and was wide enough that two goblins could walk next to each other, if they squeezed a little.

It was already around thirty meters deep and most of the loose earth and little stones had already been carried off.

Soon the goblins would have brought out the rest and then Divine could loosen the next section with his earth manipulation.

No one was working right now and when Divine stepped back into the cavern he noticed why, everyone was asleep.

Divine did a head count and except for the two woodcutter minions everyone else was lying in their places on their furs.

For a second he wondered where the two woodcutters were right now and what they were doing, but then he dismissed it as negligible.

Looking for a pastime, his eyes fell on the wall with his drawings.

Divine looked at his drawings and went over the words in phonetic spelling next to them. He was happy to discover that he remembered every single one correctly.

Cathalish came easier to him than he would have thought. It wasn't an especially complicated language.

A collection of pointy stones for etching on the wall was nearby. Divine carefully chose one and thought about what to draw.

He drew the sun and the moon. He drew different landscapes and the four seasons.

When he finished and the others still weren't up, he started drawing some miscellaneous items like weapons and tools.

Suddenly he heard sounds from the cavern's entrance.

The two woodcutters were sneaking back inside, whispering and giggling quietly.

When they spotted Divine illuminated by the soft light of the glowing mushrooms looking right at them, they startled.

It didn't look like they had gotten into a fight. They didn't even carry their hatchets.

Their robes looked very crumbled, like they had been roughly torn off and had lain on the floor for a while.

Divine didn't want to know what they had been doing anymore.

Divine focused on his etching again.

----------

Beorn woke up from his restless sleep and shot up to a sitting position right away.

Anxious and alert.

He hated sleeping in the cave with the goblins.

Beorn hated that he was in captivity.

Looking around, Beorn discovered the creature that called itself Divine etching on the wall with a pointy stone.

Most of the others were still asleep.

Nola was awake and just staring into space.

He knew talking with her was pointless right now and stood up to get some water.

Beorn was a little worried that the latrine pits were a little too close to the well and were contaminating the water.

But he had no other alternative, except to die of thirst.

Beorn would get out of here. He had to keep his hope up or he would give in to despair.

The work the creature had given them was a blessing of Lumos.

Damn, Torm and his constant mumbling about god was poisoning his vocabulary.

His old friends would laugh at him for talking like that. Sadly, they wouldn't have the chance anymore, because they were all dead now.

The work the goblins had for them was to scatter earth and little stones on the cavern's floor.

The goblins had built a hill especially for them.

Not only were their plant chains switched so that they could move in a bigger radius, they could even look for some stones to hack at the vines binding them.

Beorn had tried to just scratch at the vine with his fingernails, but after what had had to be days, there still had been no noticeable dent.

He was hoping to find a sharp stone, but he hadn't had the luck yet.

Most of the stones were too small and the others he found were unsuitably formed.

Maybe only the hardness of the stone was important and he could just create the sharp edge by grinding the stone over stone.

But it would look a little weird if he did that. The goblins could get suspicious.

But it propably wouldn't look weird if Nola did it, while sitting around in her absent-minded state.

Beorn hoped she would be more diligent sharpening a stone than she was helping with the work.

That female goblin, the overseer, had noticed her working attitude and wasn't happy with her at all.

But Beorn had to try.

He would defenitely break out of here.

Suddenly he felt the creature's gaze on him and for a second an ominous shudder ran down his spine.

Did the creature know?

It gestured for Beorn to come over.

Beorn was relieved when he found out it was just about the newly drawn pictures and it just wanted him to tell it the corresponding words in Cathalish.

The drawings were pretty good and easy to understand.

It didn't take long at all for the goblin to label the new drawings with his weird script.

By Lumos, the creature was so terrifying.

Its strength didn't scare Beorn that much anymore. It wasn't impossible and unheard of for monsters to gain such strength.

Its intelligence, skills and talent frightened him much more.

The creature learned the language scarily fast.

It could draw better than him.

It even knew how to write and that with completely foreign symbols.

That was what scared him most. A strong monster was killable. The dangerous ones were the smart ones.

Beorn was really worried what Divine would do, after he had learnt their language.

Beorn knew he would end in Sunless Darkness after his death for teaching the creature their language, but he didn't have a choice, if he wanted to see his family again in this life.

The creature was still etching into the wall and Beorn was just thinking if he should dare to steal one of the stones, that the creature had collected to etch on the wall, when a goblin with a bone headdress showed up in the cavern's entrance.

The new arrival looked very concerned, but Divine calmly completed etching the word it was currently working on.

Only after Divine dismissed Beorn with a wave of its hand, did it go over to the visitor.

Beorn followed up to the scary flesh-eating plant and watched the visiting goblin scraping before the creature.

----------

Divine was surprised that the new Chief Mouth came alone and without any offerings.

It was the first time Groby came back, after Divine had crowned him Chief.

It seemed like the new Chief had some trouble.

"Groby, what you doing here without offerings?" Divine said, just to remind the goblin.

Groby gulped. "Great Divine, me terribly sorry. It impossible. There are foxes on mountain at entrance of tribe. Blocking way, killing and eating goblins."

"What it got to do with me?" Divine asked testily.

Groby balled his hands to fists and ground his teeth.

The new goblin chief showed his desperation and sank to his knees. "Please, great Divine. Please. Me beg. Me beg."

When Divine showed no reaction, Groby tried something else.

"Bring more offerings for great Divine in future. Please. Me promise, if you help." Groby started crawling to Divine's feet and it looked like if Divine didn't agree, Groby would start bawling soon.

Of course Divine would take care of it. He didn't want the foxes to kill the tribe and appear in his cavern.

It was propably Flaming Paw, who was here for Divine anyway.

So he would have to take care of it in end no matter what.

But Groby begging him was much more preferable for Divine than him volunteering.

This way he would gain something for doing something he would have done anyway.

"Fine. Me take care of it. You bring much more offerings in future. Much more! Now scram!" Divine just didn't want to go the way to the main cavern together with Groby, that's why he send him off first.

Divine sighed and gathered his courage.

With the breakthrough in his body cultivation to the foundation establishment realm, he stood a much better chance against Flaming Paw than last time.

Divine checked the emergency supplies he had already pre-bought from the system shop, that were in the system inventory.

Minion Scarface came running and gave him some dry meat. "Master Divine, don't worry about anything here. Me have everything handled and watch everything."

Weirdly, Divine really wasn't worried, even though it was the first time he left, since the humans came.

Scarface had proved herself attentive, reliable and even caring in the past.

Divine nodded at her appreciatively.

He filled up his water gourd at the well, filtering it with his water control and took one last look at the woman, who was sitting against the wall and staring at nothing.

He meant he looked at all three humans and checked their status.

*cough*

Then he left.