Harem Online: My Party Is Full of Beautiful Celebrities-Chapter 37: Raw Crystals

What was with this weird silence and all the staring?

Sometimes, people could just feel it when someone was watching them from behind. When they turned around, it was often an old friend, a parent, a lover, or someone else they knew.

That was what happened to Martin now.

But before he could turn around, Kill Clause burst out laughing.

"Hahaha!"

Her warm laughter, full of genuine amusement, shocked him to the core. He turned around and could barely make her out in the darkness, one hand over her lips, her shoulders trembling as she tried and failed to hold it in. She had completely lost herself and didn’t care at all that they were standing in enemy territory.

Beside her, Chaosgraphy and NukEncore craned their necks and stared at her like two deadpan sisters. It was oddly striking to see them react the exact same way despite how different they usually were.

Before Martin could ask what he had said to make everyone react like this, the mining goblins reacted first to Kill Clause’s laughter.

"Who’s that?!"

"That laughter is too clear! It can’t be a female goblin!"

"Could it be an elf?!"

Licking their lips, the goblins dropped their pickaxes and pulled small slings from their pockets. With their other hands, they dug out a few crystal bullets. After loading them, the goblins silently crept toward Martin’s team.

An elf would be a huge find, the kind of prize they would never let get away. Even if the best choice would be to offer a pure virgin elf to their boss, they still wanted to sink their claws into her first.

It had been too long since they’d gotten their claws on a pert elf.

As soon as the goblins rounded the corner of the tunnel, a shield smashed into their faces.

Stunned, the goblins saw a human male step out of the darkness, a devilish shield strapped to his arm, its face packed with thousands of curved horns. It ricocheted from one goblin to the next, keeping them stunned.

A woman breezed past him and slashed into them with twin swords. She certainly wasn’t an elf. She had chicken wings.

Behind those two stood a cow... and an elf.

The goblins’ eyes lit up with passion and perversion, but the elf herself didn’t care about them in the slightest. She sent arrow after arrow at them, aiming to kill. Beside her, the cow formed Fire Bolts and backed her up, but maybe because she was so top-heavy, her aim kept drifting.

The goblins didn’t know it yet.

But one thing was certain.

This was the end for them.

As their heads rolled across the ground and soon dispersed into bloody red particles, Martin and his party stepped into the excavation tunnel. Blue crystal light shimmered over the rough stone walls, glinting off the carts packed full of raw mana crystals.

Martin picked up a pickaxe with a denser blue crystal tip.

[Excavator’s Pickaxe (Common) (Durability: 61/100)]

[A sturdy mining pickaxe fitted with a dense blue crystal tip. The hardened point can bite into crystal veins and loosen them without shattering their core, making it suitable for crystal excavation.]

It doesn’t have any stats or buffs to help with the work. It only allows blue crystal excavation.

Meanwhile, Kill Clause walked over to a train of carts filled to the brim with blue crystals. She picked one up and studied its description.

[Blue Mana Crystal (Common)]

[A dense blue crystal that stores raw mana within its core. Extremely durable and difficult to shatter, it is valued both as a mana source and as a rare excavation material. Can be used as an evolution material.]

A clear difference from the shattered fragments caused by our crystallization debuff. Ours are formed from weak mana. The raw mana in this place is far denser. Far higher quality.

Just like the goblins had said, it could also be used as evolution material. So the monsters’ intel had been correct and could be used against them. Kill Clause was more interested in how much she could earn from this discovery and what her next move should be.

Behind her, NukEncore stared at her with narrowed eyes.

The way she reacted to us... and then laughed like that... could she really be Cassandra Selfmore? Is that why Alexandra always talks around her in riddles? Then they know. They have to know. And if she knows, then she probably knows about me too. So that’s it. We’re all silently agreeing not to let Martin figure us out.

For some reason, it stung that Martin was the only one who had no idea who they really were. At the same time, everything would change if he ever found out.

"Clause." Martin walked up to Kill Clause. "I think these crystals are worth way more than we thought. Rangar told me the academies are trying to help beasts regain their place in the world. If these help with evolution, then they’re huge. And there’s probably a way to turn them into mana potions, or into ingredients for mana food. Just like Chaos said, we should tell Cassandra and get the guild moving."

"Wait a second," Chaosgraphy cut in.

The two turned toward her.

Chaosgraphy smiled. "I’m not letting you reveal this place before we kill the boss ourselves. I want first crack at it, and at any achievement tied to the kill. After that, do whatever you want."

Martin nodded. "That’s fine. But come on. It’s all in our best interest. You really don’t think much of working under Cassandra Selfmore? Look, I got two weeks of paid vacation just like that."

"Martin... it’s fine. Just let it go," Chaosgraphy said with a smile.

Kill Clause added, "You’re the team leader, Martin. That means contribution goes where you say it goes. Phrase the report properly, and everyone benefits."

"Yeah." Martin nodded. "They’ll thank me in the future."

Chaosgraphy and NukEncore deadpanned again.

Kill Clause closed her eyes and tried to hold back her laughter once more.

Just then, more goblins spilled into the tunnel and froze when they saw humans.

"Humans!"

"Humans!"

"Humans!"

"Kill them and bring their corpses to the boss!"