Chapter 136: They Were Driving Monsters Under People’s Homes to Buy the Land Cheap

By nine in the morning, Raven had reached a conclusion that improved absolutely nothing.

The warehouse had been destroyed by people, but the creatures beneath Kharad were still perfectly capable of destroying everything else.

He stood inside a borrowed office in the municipal building with three maps spread across a table and the records recovered from the Keller Ridge Consolidated warehouse stacked to one side. Maelor had obtained old tunnel plans. Valeria had acquired property and concession records through a combination of noble lineage, polite threats, and the kind of smile that made an official decide cooperation was preferable to discovering what happened otherwise.

Roland had handled something more important.

Food.

He dropped a bag onto the table.

"Neither of you has moved in an hour."

Raven took a piece of bread without looking away from the map.

"We’ve been moving."

"Moving stones across paper doesn’t count."

Valeria accepted a piece of fruit.

"He’s right."

Raven looked up.

"Since when do the two of you coordinate attacks?"

"Since you started forgetting that you need to eat even when you aren’t devouring organs."

"I ate this morning."

Roland pointed at the bread Raven had just picked up.

"That was ten seconds ago."

Raven decided finishing the bread would take less time than continuing the argument.

Maelor leaned over the main map. He had marked the known galleries beneath Kharad’s northern district in charcoal, but the problem was that "known" represented only a fraction of what was actually there. Official tunnels ran beneath houses, warehouses, and streets, while many ended abruptly at symbols indicating natural chambers or abandoned excavations. Others simply had no recorded endpoint.

"This is Bore Twelve." Maelor tapped a line descending from the northern edge of the settlement. "Officially sealed after a collapse two years ago."

Raven slid one of the recovered ledgers toward him.

"And Keller Ridge bought beams, lamps, tools, and six tons of mineral salt for that sector over the last four months."

Maelor studied the column.

"The salt makes sense if they were trying to manage Burrowers."

"Or attract them."

The guide looked up.

Valeria set down her fruit.

"Explain."

Raven pointed toward several locations they had inspected outside town the previous day.

"You said locals leave certain minerals near areas where they want juveniles to excavate."

"Yes."

"Then someone with enough experience can influence where a colony moves."

Maelor shook his head.

"Influence. Not command. They’re not dogs."

"They don’t need to obey. They only need to prefer one tunnel over another."

Raven moved a small stone across the map.

"If Keller Ridge has been depositing minerals in Bore Twelve while detonating charges in other galleries, they could have been pushing the colony toward this sector gradually."

Valeria followed the route to where it ended beneath several residential streets.

Maelor cursed.

Roland stopped eating.

"Why would they want monsters under houses they’re trying to buy?"

Raven picked up the document recovered after the warehouse explosion.

Population clearance required before acquisition.

"Because a house on safe ground has an owner and a price. A house sitting over a dangerous colony has a desperate owner."

Valeria pulled another sheet from the pile.

"And if the municipal government declares the district uninhabitable, the mining concessions underneath could change hands."

Maelor took the document from her.

"What’s down there?"

Raven didn’t answer.

That was exactly what they were still missing.

They had found references to subsurface expansion, permits, valuations, and discreet property purchases, but nothing directly stated what resource justified blowing apart buildings and manipulating a colony of monsters.

Valeria continued sorting through the surviving pages.

"Here."

She pulled out a partially burned sheet. The lower half was missing, but several lines remained readable.

Deep Survey 12-C.

Vein continuity confirmed.

Estimated commercial yield...

Then an abbreviation.

Maelor recognized the code before Raven did.

"Aurelite."

Roland frowned.

"Expensive?"

Maelor gave a humorless laugh.

"Find enough of it and you stop worrying about what breakfast costs."

Valeria took the document.

"Conductive crystal."

"And a stabilizer," Maelor added. "Used in mana grids, mining equipment, and some magical construction. It isn’t Black Mithril, but a large vein beneath a small town can make a company very rich."

Raven looked back at the map.

Now they had motive: cheap land, mining rights, a valuable mineral deposit, and a disaster that could conveniently be blamed on monsters already living beneath the settlement.

Too clean.

"We need to prove the explosions are artificial," Valeria said.

"We already know they are."

"We know. That isn’t the same thing."

Raven looked through the window.

Outside, residents were already repairing the destroyed warehouse. Many had accepted the Burrower explanation because it was the threat they understood.

Humans preferred dangers they recognized.

That hadn’t changed between worlds.

"Then we find one of the charges before they use it," Raven said.

Maelor pointed toward the map.

"If they’re planting them inside Bore Twelve, getting there won’t be easy. Those old galleries run close to an active colony."

"That helps us too."

"You didn’t understand me."

"I did. We need to know where the colony is."

Maelor stared at him for several seconds.

"You really did come here for a piece of monster."

"A very specific piece."

Valeria settled farther into her chair.

"And a surprisingly demanding one."

Raven ignored her and tapped the northern district on the map.

"First, I want to see the houses Keller Ridge is trying to buy."

The northern district of Kharad did not look condemned.

That was the first thing Raven noticed.

Narrow streets wound between low stone houses, workshops, and small courtyards where hardy plants grew in raised boxes. Several families stored water in tanks connected to old underground channels. Miners repaired tools outside their homes while children ran between bell posts as though living above a network of creatures capable of demolishing buildings was completely ordinary.

For them, it probably was.

The signs of recent pressure activity were subtler: a repaired crack, a wall supported by new beams, extra bells installed on two corners, and one empty house with a red symbol painted above the entrance.

Maelor pointed toward the last one.

"The family left three weeks ago."

"After an attack?"

"The ground started vibrating every night."

Raven approached.

The property was locked, but Valeria convinced a neighbor to let them into the rear courtyard.

Raven crouched beside the stone floor and found a narrow gap between two slabs. He inserted a small piece of metal, waited, and then struck twice.

Tap. Tap.

Valeria watched him.

"What are you doing?"

"Testing something."

"That usually comes before the explanation."

"I’m working on it."

He struck the stone again, then waited longer.

Something answered from below.

Not a clear sound, but a vibration so faint it could almost have been imagined.

Raven left his palm against the stone until another pulse came.

Maelor felt it too.

"Don’t do that too many times."

Raven removed the metal.

"They respond to vibration."

"I told you they communicate through it."

"I didn’t know how much they could distinguish."

"And now?"

Raven looked at the ground.

"Enough to investigate a repeated pattern."

Roland, standing near the door, looked down.

"This is starting to sound like one of those campfire stories where people discover too late that they shouldn’t walk across the sand."

Raven glanced at him.

"There was a movie in my world with a similar idea."

Valeria turned toward him.

"A movie?"

"Recorded stories we could watch on a screen."

"You already explained those."

"Then we saved time."

"And it was about monsters underground?"

"Something like that. They detected vibrations and hunted people from below."

Roland pointed at the ground.

"How did it end?"

Raven thought about it.

"The people learned to stop being stupid."

Maelor laughed.

"Then it was definitely fantasy."

Raven almost smiled.

The comparison wasn’t exact. The creatures from that fictional story didn’t accumulate pressure or build networks of underground chambers, but there was something familiar about a threat that didn’t need to see you. It only needed to know you were there.

Raven looked toward the rooftops, raised stone platforms, and short walkways connecting some of the buildings.

Interesting.

Not useful yet.

But interesting.

They visited seven properties over the next two hours.

Five had received purchase offers from companies linked to Keller Ridge. Four had experienced recent "Burrower activity," and three showed damage that was too similar to ignore.

Raven found alchemical residue at two.

At the third, the blast had been small enough not to destroy the building. It had only ruptured an underground cistern.

The owner believed a creature had struck from beneath.

Raven didn’t.

There was a burned point hidden behind one of the supports.

"Small charge," he said.

Valeria crouched beside him.

"Can you prove it?"

"I don’t know what compound they’re using, but the damage pattern didn’t come from subterranean pressure."

"That’s still your opinion."

Raven picked up a stone fragment.

"Then we get a second opinion."

Maelor smelled the residue, then rubbed some of the dust between his fingers.

"Mining alchemy."

"Common?"

"Common enough. Fracture charges. They’re usually inserted directly into rock."

"Could they buy them legally?"

"Any licensed company could."

That complicated the evidence.

Raven stood.

"We need to find one before it detonates."

Valeria looked at him.

"That also sounds like something likely to detonate while we’re looking for it."

"That’s usually the difficult part."

The woman who owned the house was still watching from the doorway.

"Are you saying someone did this?"

Raven looked at her.

There was no reason to lie.

"It’s possible."

"Why?"

Valeria answered before Raven could give her a colder version.

"There are interests in the land beneath this district. We’re still confirming the details."

The woman went still.

"Keller Ridge."

It wasn’t a question.

Raven studied her.

"They offered to buy?"

"Three times."

"How much?"

She gave him the number.

Maelor cursed again.

"That’s less than half its value."

The woman crossed her arms.

"The first offer was higher."

Raven understood immediately.

"It dropped after the incidents."

"Yes."

Valeria looked at her.

"Are people accepting?"

"Some. I have two children. If the bells keep ringing at night..."

She didn’t finish.

She didn’t need to.

Raven looked toward the crack in the ground again.

The plan was working without requiring soldiers, murders, or forced removals. They only needed the residents to believe that staying had become more dangerous than selling.

And if the Burrower colony actually moved into the district, the lie would become true.

That was the worst part.