CH.42

The next morning, Johanna was woken up by Ethan. Johanna was still very confused, and she still felt hungover, even though her body is way stronger and more poison-resistant than a normal human body. She also wondered where the goblins got the alcohol from since they didn't have any in the cave and they didn't bring any with them, but she didn't give that thought too much attention since they had to move on quickly; otherwise, the army could be spotted by feudal lords of this region. So Johanna, Ethan, and Noah had to wake up the goblins, who were even weaker against alcohol than Johanna. What also puzzled her was how none of the slaves even tried to escape at all. Johanna asked this question while waking up the goblins to Noah, who didn't really want to respond, so she let the matter go. 

Once every goblin was woken up, the camp was packed up, and the army marched back to the cave with enough mining equipment for a village ten times their size and enough slaves to make even the biggest plantation owners in the 18th century jealous. Overall, the operation was a big success with only a few minor problems, but if the cave isn't found, they will never have a problem. 

As the army marched through the forest, Johanna's excitement grew with every second since she had anticipated the expansion of the cave for a long time, and finally she didn't have to crouch down to walk from her bed to the exit. Johanna explained to Ethan and Noah the basics of digging tunnels. Not that she was an expert, but she was probably still more knowledgeable than them, so she still tried her best since she didn't want the cave to collapse. They agreed that they would have to build some kind of support beam in the bigger tunnels. And since the goblins had no idea how to use and build them, Johanna agreed that she would build them.

When Johanna and the goblin army had finally returned to the cave, she didn't want to wait any longer and commanded the goblins to send their slaves or go mine themselves while she went over to a tree and started ripping it out of the ground so that she could turn them into support beams.

The goblins opposed the idea since they wanted to rest at first, but it was their own decision to drink and party yesterday, so they had to suffer through the work just like Johanna had to. Aiko and Amanda were very relieved once they saw that they had returned and agreed to help Johanna, even though they too had no clue how to work with wood. 

The work was harsh, even for Johannas improved body, but she couldn't even imagine how straining it would be on Aiko and Amanda, so she let them take many breaks and noted to herself that they should do so much work. But they still got the word out and installed the support beams while the goblins mined at an astonishing pace. They were able to use a very clever and thought-through process and were able to stack up hundrets of kilogrammes in mere minutes, and at the end of the day, they had mined at least 30 tonnes of rocks and soil out of the cave.

To get a better overview, Johanna decided to check on the cave with Noah while the workers and the rest were resting and going to sleep. Johanna enjoyed the increased size of the tunnels, but she also noticed the increased number of rooms varying in size in these tunnels. It looked like some goblins decided to use their slaves to dig their own rooms, and it was easy to spot the goblins who had more than one slave since some rooms were just goblin-sized holes in the wall while others were big enough to be called a small apartment.

But this wasn't the thing that Johanna was curious about; it was still interesting, but what really spiked her curiosity was how deep the goblins were able to dig and what was down there. If they were lucky, they could stumble upon rare resources and make a lot of money since Johanna already knew a few things she could invest the money in. That's why she has high hopes.

Once they got down to the lower levels of the cave, the tunnels got smaller and thinner again. Johanna had to duck again, but that didn't matter to her since she was already analysing the ground and the walls carefully. To her disappointment, she didn't find anything valuable at all. And once she had to crawl on the floor to get any deeper, she was about to give up hope until she saw a little dark spot that she could reach if she crawled in a little bit deeper. Instead of giving up hope, she decided to squeeze in the last few centimetres, but as she tried to touch it, her hand grabbed emptiness. The rock wasn't even a rock; it was just a small opening to another cave. As Johanna realised this, she tried to crawl out backwards, but Noah was blocking her way out.

And as she began to panic a bit, she made rapid movements, and sadly for her, it didn't look like the floor could support her weight any longer as it just collapsed right under her.