Extra's Perfect Ending-Chapter 256: In search of treasure

Traveling in the north was a bad idea for even knights and priests. The monster scourge had finally become a problem even for normal people who lived far away from Guragua. They would often see shadows of monsters and hear stories about encountering the beast.

All from the story that had been circling through the traders and passing knights.

"Let’s the church deal with it"

That’s what they thought at first, to them the church was almighty, a power beyond their imagination and a force that could never be reckoned with. However, as time continues to pass instead of the monster stories going away, it intensifies.

More and more traders avoid even Duranberg and adventurers are being recruited by the church to control the situation. The monsters are out of control.

It’s not that the twisted monsters were hard to kill, but their number. It’s been a public fact that the number of animals was higher than humans but, they didn’t expect it to be this much.

The village was overwhelmed by animals and the surviving member fled their home. Only a few made it out alive. The survivors reinforce the tale of the twisted animal ravaging their home, sampling their farmland, and killing their family.

Even thieves and raiders would think twice about going into Guragua to steal the riches left behind. However, at this time, someone was deep in the northern territories, where monsters were rumored to be numerous.

"Holen.. are we there yet?"

One of the knights asked him, their horse trotting along the snow-covered forest. Holen straightened out a map in his hand to get the snow off.

"It should have been here"

The detective scratches his top hat. He looked at the map harder to find where he went wrong. And he was pretty sure he got it right.

"Let’s dig here"

"Um..."

The knight behind him made a weird face, they didn’t feel confident in Holen’s leadership here. He had been rather wihy washy with his order but, they didn’t say a word because of money.

Holen had a very big pocket and a very big information network. Through that, he was able to hire guys who had been down on their luck with decent skills to come with him on this journey. They set out when the beast scourge was on the rise and didn’t know any better. If they had known, none of them would be here.

One guy unbound the shovel from the side of a horse and handed it to all the knights and they started digging. The detective had been able to hire four of them at a competitive rate of 100 stac per person if they escorted him back alive.

Their objective was simple, find the treasure that was on this map. The old yellow map depicted a place in the valley filled with trees, where they were all surrounded by mountains on all sides.

The knight started digging with their shovel. They worked through a layer of snow and dug up some dirt. The four knights worked in random places hoping they would finish their job. Holen also got to work digging a hole but, stop after he exhausted himself.

"Anything?"

The sound of a shovel hit the dirt as Holen questioned them.

"Nothing sir"

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All of them had nothing. He orders them to switch places and they comply. Hours went by as Holen and the knights found nothing.

"Sir Holen I doubt we could find anything here."

One voices their distress. It’s pretty clear that this was a fruitless effort. Holen also knew this after an hour or so but he hoped that they would find something. He gritted his teeth.

"Fine! Pack your things, we will look in another place"

Three other knights heave a sigh of relief. They thought they would be stuck with her forever. Hopping onto the horse, they travel deeper into the valley, until they reach the end. There, the mountain was steep and the snow was not as heavy.

The horse finally came to a stop when the knight saw something.

"Sir, there’s a statue up ahead!"

They were pretty excited, if this was what Holen was after, they would be able to go home. Upon hearing their word, Holen’s eye widened and he sped up his horse to get a closer look. It was a statue of a hooded figure, a god of some kind holding a book and having a tree sigil on it.

"This looks like it..."

He wasn’t sure yet, all the clues that he had didn’t amount to much when seeing the real thing. The statue was covered in snow and had its right hand pointing out of the valley.

"Dig up this place."

The knight gets to work once again, shoveling dirt from around the stature. In the meantime, Holen marked down the place of the stature. And draw a line out of the valley.

The pointing hand leads him nowhere when he references the treasure map with a real one. After another hour, they dug up nothing. There’s only dirt around that statue.

Holen decided to call it a day after, the knight looked tired. They had been at this all day and they also needed to do this for tomorrow, so he better get on their good side with an early rest.

They set up a simple camp and went to bed.

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Morning came and Holen had a new lead. If digging around the stature didn’t yield any result then he ought to follow the finger at that point of the valley.

They get back on their horse and travel out in a straight line. After an hour they finally came upon something. The was the same statue pointing backward to where they came from.

Naturally, he ordered the knights to dig around the stature and similarly, they found nothing. Only a pile of dirt and snow had been formed on the side. Holen sigh.

Nothing was ever easy for me, right?

He knew he was on the right track, he just needed to search for more clues. Like he always does his entire life.

"Let’s split up and search!"