180 Ruins Part 1 (1/2)

Drake's mercenary squad only has seven members. All of them were dark skinned and their clothes were obviously about to succumbed to wear and tear and begging to be replaced.

Although Wallace had felt that their clothes, robes, and shoes possesses a bit of Mana Enhancements, it was already in a poor condition.

He was somewhat amazed that the squad didn't ask for a huge sum of money to live a better life in exchange for the Celestial Fragment. They were instead looking for a Spatial Bag.

Anyway, if that was the truth, this also implies something...

'It only means that whatever treasure we are about to take within the ruins would worth a lot more than the several hundreds of million credits...'

”It's good to see you again, Wallace.”

”I feel the same way. So, is this your squad?”

”Yes, this is Franco, Marsha, Mordred, Ordessa, Giovanni, and Barrett.”

There's two females within the squad and their appearance wasn't any better in terms of weapons and mana enhanced clothes... They seem to be used on their job, looking veterans on their field. Marsha and Ordessa even look a bit stronger than the other five members  because the two were carrying an unusually large and sharp Heavy Sword. At the very least, the weapon seems to be well taken care of.

They all greeted Wallace as they tried to get to know him more. The ruins they were about to visit was not completely safe so they had to ease themselves up. It's best to learn now how to communicate with them so during emergencies, they could rely on each other.

”The ruins that we found was in a land owned by Marsha. It's actually a farm land that she inherited in her small family.” Drake said after the introductions.

”A farm land?” Wallace tried to clarify and this time, it was Marsha who answered.

”Yes... I learned how to use mana and became a magician when I was 8 years old through the treasures, documents and weapons, I accidentally found in the ruins. That was 20 years ago. I thought that I already excavated all the treasures within but I recently found a larger underground facility just beneath the skeleton beside the place where I initially found those manuals and pieces of mana artifacts...”

Marsha explained how she returned to the farm land recently just to supposedly pay respect to the skeleton underneath believing that those treasures she had taken was the skeleton's belongings.

Wallace listened as they walk around the village.

Yes, they were in a small village just 30 kilometers away from the Tanza City. It was quite near considering that their leader, Drake, went to the far capital just to trade the fragment for a Spatial Bag. But he suddenly recalled that this item was indeed very rare so it was a good decision to try the large Capital City instead.

The small village probably only has 50-60 people. Wallace noticed that there's few young or adult men in the village. There's around 45 females and the others were old and young males.

He found it a bit weird but realized that the capable must have been working at the nearest city as a living. After all, there's only a few hectares of cultivated land here.

He also noticed that one particular house or probably a barn emits a very mysterious Mana Fluctuations.

The barn was weirdly placed at the center of the farm destroying the nice view.

”I know that you're tried, I heard that you came from Tanza City, right? Thats quite far.”

”No, I'm good. We can start any moment you like.” Wallace confidently said. He has much better control to his mana now so his Void Phasing Steps didn't caused to much trouble.

”Haha! That's good, we're actually quite excited today as well. We've been stuck on that part of the ruins for a while now... You can just imagine our desire piling up.”

Everyone chuckled as a fiery light shown in their eyes. Their adventurous spirit was rising up but Wallace had to take his priorities.”

”Uhmmm... As for the--”

Wallace was interrupted as Drake suddenly remembered.

”Oh! Sorry... This is your Celestial Fragment. You can have a look to make sure.”

Drake carelessly threw the small chest containing the precious item.

Wallace caught it and even without opening, he confirmed that it's the genuine mission objective.

He grinned at this and felt quite happy as he was getting closer and closer to his real objective. He was aware that the mission he was receiving was in accordance to the path he had chosen and the Pathfinder was only guiding him to it.

He didn't store the small chest in his Dimensional Storage Space because it was reserved for whatever things they were about to retrieve. All the previous contents of this space were safely transferred to a secured room within his house at Tanza.

The group of eight entered the barn that seems to be hastily built just to hide the underground place.

At the center was a crater with about 6 meters in diameter and about 6 feet deep. Below was a white and a little bit shining skeleton of an adult man. Beside this unusual skeleton was a small hole fit for one person to enter.

Wallace sent his Divine Sense to investigate.