Chapter 146- Exploration part 4

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As they were walking silently and cautiously, being mindful to not attract more of the lurking shinheuh, Liu Guanyi lightly tapped the wall of the tunnel. He kept continuing to do that while they were moving as Theo finally noticed it.

"Sir, what are you doing?" The scout asked with a hint of puzzlement in his voice.

"Well, didn't you say that the death worms will hide into the tunnel walls or the ground if they are faced with a threat they can't handle? I'm sure that the swarm of snakes and especially the gigantic snake earlier is one of the things that they can't handle knowing their body size."

"Now, I am just checking whether they are hiding nearby or not." Answered Liu Guanyi nonchalantly.

"By tapping the wall… sir?" Theo asked a bit hesitantly, he didn't want Liu Guanyi to assume that he regarded him as a fool.

"What do you think you are seeing then? Isn't it pretty obvious already?" Said Liu Guanyi with a mocking tone as if he had to explain what was already obvious to a brainless creature.

Theo gritted his teeth silently as he endured the ridicule as he knew he couldn't do anything to Liu Guanyi at all, knowing his strength and connection to the princess.

Yet, if what he said was true, was he able to sense what was inside the thick rock wall with just a tap of his finger?

What kind of special ability was that? Did he have a connection to rocks or an innate shinsu gift related to rocks and the likes?

However, if that was true, why he had never shown a stone or rock shinsu control style even when they were almost buried by the avalanche and he had to dig up a tunnel with his own hands?

It didn't make any sense at all to hide his rock-related shinsu skill when they were almost dead under the avalanche and only show it right now when they were completely safe.

"Don't just daydream and become engrossed with your own thoughts, pay more attention to the surroundings! You are paid to guide us not to daydream! Also, move faster! There's nothing in here." Liu Guanyi rebuked the scout as he broke his reverie.

"A-alright, sir!" Theo quickly replied as he began to move faster.

. . . . .

After a few hours of wandering in the tunnels and finding nothing despite their efforts, the two decided to take a rest as they sat in an unassuming corner of the dark tunnels.

Well, it was more as a respite for Theo as he had exhausted himself in the past few hours.

This was natural as Liu Guanyi forced him to move faster and faster while he kept tapping his finger on the wall repeatedly to check whether something was hiding inside as they were running around the tunnels, making sure to check every nook and cranny.

Unfortunately, despite all of their efforts, especially Liu Guanyi, they didn't manage to find any traces of the death worms and only met more variants of Shinheuh that lived here.

If there were only one or two, they could dispatch them quickly and silently. However, if it was numerous or a swarm, they would have to avoid them.

Although Liu Guanyi could definitely handle even a massive swarm of dangerous Shinheuh, fighting them wouldn't benefit him at all and would only worsen the situation as it could easily more Shinheuh or even partially destroy the tunnel if it was a hard fight.

The two of them sat silently as they were busy with their own thoughts.

Liu Guanyi was fiddling with his pocket as he checked the messages from Adori.

After checking them and finding out that she also had no luck of meeting the death worms, Liu Guanyi turned to look at the scout who had the word "exhausted" plastered on his face.

"When you are ready again? It's almost half an hour already and we can't afford to stay here for too long. Who knows what will happen and if those Rankers plan something again? If you keep holding me down and become baggage, I will leave you here and now." Stated Liu Guanyi seriously.

"Please, sir, give me five minutes and I will be ready."

"Hmm, consider it your last chance. I don't want to see you desperately begging me to stop because of your own incompetence. You call yourself a top C-ranked scout when you can't even sprint straight for a few hours? Is bragging the only thing you can do?"

"I am truly sorry sir that I couldn't meet your expectation. However, finding any of the death worms takes time since their numbers are relatively small in such a vast place as the underground so it can even take days or even weeks before we can see one." Theo quickly apologized and tried to explain his failure to Liu Guanyi.

Liu Guanyi didn't say anything any only threw some kind of tiny metallic device at the scout as he quickly caught it with his hands.

"If you really are sincere and want to contribute, keep that tracker on your body and we will separate to cover more ground from now on. Staying here for days or weeks is too risky so we have to use every second to our best and if you can't really deliver your promise or act too smart for your own good…" Liu Guanyi paused as he looked at the scout with an indifferent face.

"I will kill you with my own hands. Those who stand in her highness' way and become an obstacle must perish one way or another." Said Liu Guanyi in a chilling voice.

Hearing it, Theo couldn't help but shudder as the dark and cold abyss-like eyes gazed at him. It seemed that the fisherman was extremely serious about it.

He was really unlucky to meet a monster that was a loyal follower of the Zahard princess.

After thinking about it, however. He realized that it was his greed that led him into this mess in the first place. If he didn't take their offer, none of these would have happened at all.

Although he had made a back-up plan, Theo didn't know whether it would even work.

As Theo was about to beg for forgiveness once again, he was interrupted as a loud buzzing noise suddenly sounded nearby. When they looked toward the source, they saw a gigantic rhino beetle was flying rapidly toward them.

Reacting quickly, the two leaped out of the way in time before the rhino beetle crashed right at their previous resting area.

Liu Guanyi looked at the now battered beetle as it flapped its wings to move its body yet failed horribly to do so.

The beetle was truly gigantic, around two meters tall and three meters in length. It had solid black carapace on its back on top of its wings and a long and powerful horn on its head.

However, Liu Guanyi didn't care about those details as he stared at a particular part of its body, its damaged rear and missing rear leg that looked like it was burnt and peeled off from its body.