Chapter 60: Unexplored

Martial Manuals like the [Nature’s Cartographer] required a lot of mental capacity. It was a different skill set. An advanced version of drawing and creative flair, one might say.

But for Eren, he had to downgrade his own skills. He made an inferior version of his Mind Palace and compressed it to fit into a 2D page.

"That’s amazing, Eren!" Bernadette praised.

"You memorized our path just like that? I barely even remember my breakfast," Abe joked.

Ormann nodded with a smile. "We should have had you leading the way."

"I only know our path back," Eren humbly admitted. "And I’m not that confident in my fighting skills to be on the front line."

The rest of the group passed the map amongst each other, excited and relieved. The mystery and complexity of the Subterranean Burrows were washed away. This map had cleared the shadows that made the tunnels so oppressive and dangerous.

No longer would they have to wander through its ravenous pathways, not even knowing if their tunnel led to a Concrete Block or a dead end.

"Where should we go next?" Tori asked.

"We can’t enter this tunnel over here. Everything has been explored," Henry chimed in.

Celeste took the map and pointed at one of the branching Burrows filled with question marks. "How about this pathway on the Northwest side? If this tunnel doesn’t lead to a Concrete Block, we can just backtrack for a little bit and go over to the neighboring path."

Sierra then turned to Ormann. "Where do you think we should go?"

The clean-shaven man took the map and inspected it with great care. He studied it for a good two minutes, before he pointed at a strange symbol within the map.

A burrow was labelled as ’explored’, but was quickly crossed out and replaced with a ’question mark’ and an ’exclamation point.’

"What does this mean?" Sierra asked Fowler.

"Oh, that’s a weird place. It has been explored. In fact, it has been completed! One of my customers were able to traverse through its dangerous terrain and reach the other side successfully.

But... there’s no Concrete Block on the other side. That Burrow had all the symptoms of having a Concrete Block. Hard obstacles, very risky, and a complete lack of sunspores. However, there was nothing there. Just a huge waste of time.

Of course, I don’t show this to my normal map, hahaha. But for you guys, for you, I’ll make sure you don’t waste your time in a wild goose case," Fowler said, winking at Eren.

The rest of the group heeded his warnings. They’ve mentally excluded it from their choices, not even giving it a second more of attention.

But not for Ormann, it seemed.

"Ho—how does the terrain look?"

"That Burrow?" Fowler asked, eyebrows turning uneven. "From what I heard, there’s quicksand everywhere. The only way to traverse it is by hanging on to stalagmites hanging from the ceiling."

Eren noticed Ormann’s eyes flare for a brief instant. Excitement, relief, anxiousness. All of those emotions flashed through Ormann and were quickly masked with forced calmness.

He thinks this is an opportunity.

"Ah, that seems dangerous, hahaha," Ormann awkwardly laughed. "Anyway, let’s get going. Thanks for the map!"

Practically pushing them, Ormann ushered the group forwards. He didn’t look back while the others were waving goodbye at Fowler.

"Tell the others about my map services!"

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A few minutes of rushed walking later, Ormann found a secluded alcove in the Burrows and pulled everyone inside.

"Why were you in such a hurry?" Sierra asked.

Ormann looked around, wary of someone eavesdropping on their conversation.

"I think we should go to the Quicksand Burrow," he said, with a hasty tone.

"What? But it’s already been explored. There was no Concrete Block there..." Sierra’s voice turned more quiet as she understood something. "...unless you think that there is a Concrete Block there!"

Ormann smiled. "Exactly, yes."

Celeste was the first to voice out her questions. "How can you be so sure?"

"Remember what I said about specialized Burrows?"

"... you’re guessing that this Burrow is actually a puzzle made by an Awakener organization."

Ormann didn’t have to say more. The prospect of obtaining another loot box made the others giddy with anticipation. The beef cuts from earlier were absolutely delicious and helped them recover faster than normal.

But of course, the true prize of the lootbox was the reputation they would gain upon its completion. Getting recruited by a top organization was the dream for all Awakeners.

"I still don’t think it’s worth the risk," Celeste said, crossing her arms against her chest. "Is everyone here extremely confident about their Reinforced grip?"

According to Fowler, the Burrow was impossible to cross through the floor. Quicksand would swallow them up even before they took five steps in. They would have to hang from the ceiling, swinging from stalagmite to stalagmite like monkeys.

This required a lot of endurance, physically and spiritually. They’d need to expend Ræzoň constantly if they wanted to hang onto the stalagmite without falling.

And this meant they’d need to keep sunspores lit at all times. One hand grasping the stalagmites, and one hand on sunspores. It’d be hard to juggle both. One wrong move would send them falling into quicksand.

"...maybe we should try other Burrows first," Sierra said.

"Yeah. If we finish the Quicksand Burrow and find out there’s no Concrete Block at the end, we’ll have wasted our sunspores for nothing," agreed Henry.

"And we already have a loot box, right? We already have an Awakener Organization taking note of us," said Abe.

Eren saw Ormann’s face grow ever more desperate. The man turned silent for a few seconds, debating, before he finally took out something from his pockets.

"Now promise me you won’t tell anybody else. But look at what I’ve got."

Ormann revealed a cylindrical metal object with a rounded glass dome at its end.

Sierra and the rest of the group gasped out loud. It was a flashlight!