Chapter 223: Ore Thieves

"I don't know about the Paladin, but I've been warned a few times," Victoria said with a humorless snort, beckoning Delaford over. "Come take a look. See if you can find this Ghoul's footprints on the ground."

"Where did they come from?"

"It's rock everywhere. How am I supposed to track footprints on this?" Delaford crouched down reluctantly, dabbing a finger in the loose dust on the stone surface. "No good. The Giant must have tracked this in from outside. I'll see if my rats can find anything."

As expected, the local wildlife's Perception was far stronger than the goblin's. They easily detected that six giant spiders and four giant centipedes had been near here in the past two days, along with signs of multiple Mosquito Bats.

"That's odd," the Goblin Hunter said, smacking his lips. "We didn't run into any Mosquito Bats the first time we were here. Otherwise, these giant mosquitoes that only feed on the blood of living creatures would have definitely caused us some trouble."

The Hill Giant might have been pestered by these creatures, but his hide was thick. To him, a bite from a Mosquito Bat was no different than one from a regular mosquito.

"Aren't there any other clues?" Ron asked, looking at Delaford as he ended his concentration on the spell and came back to himself. "Like, about the Ghouls?"

"That's the strange part," Delaford said, stroking his chin. "None of the rats, whether they're active during the day or at night, noticed any Ghouls. Of course, it's possible Undead Creatures just aren't something they pay special attention to. In any case, the final verdict is: no sign of any Ghouls."

"Then where did this corpse come from? He even took a bite out of it," Aive said, propping her tower shield against the wall and sitting down to lean against its inner side. "Don't tell me what we saw was an illusion *and* the Giant's taste buds are malfunctioning."

"Hey, don't be in such a rush. This method failed, that's all. It doesn't mean we can't catch them," Delaford said, glaring at the Half-Elf. He drew four arrows from his quiver and wedged them into crevices in the nearby rocks. "Say," he addressed the Hill Giant, "didn't you say earlier that they come to steal the stones you dig up?"

"Yes," the Hill Giant nodded vacantly. "When I start work, they show up."

"How many are there? A lot?"

"Three... five, maybe," the Giant said, counting on his fingers. "I turn around, they run. Hard to catch."

Even if Hill Giants were on the weakest rung of the giant ladder, they weren't something Ghouls could provoke lightly. Ghouls would know this even without a Demon Ghost controlling them, so this fact wasn't very helpful for figuring out the enemy's makeup.

"First I'm hearing of Ghouls being interested in ore," the Goblin Hunter said as he set the last arrow in place. As he began Casting, a fleeting green light pulsed from the four arrows. "How much do they take? Do they steal all of it?"

Seeing the Hill Giant hesitate, Sera answered for him. "Isn't it obvious? They take as much as they can before the big oaf spots them. If he spots them early, they get less; if he's late to notice, they get more."

The Hill Giant nodded in agreement with Sera's "translation" and added a supplement of his own: "Thieves make ore little. Cannot finish task for Dwarves. Get more work."

"These Ghouls are practically his nemesis," Sera said, glancing up at the Giant sympathetically. "When we first met him, they were stealing his food. Now they're even stealing the ore he mines."

"But I don't get something," the Barbarian said, curiously watching Delaford, who was bustling about preparing a hiding spot. "Delaford, are you setting a trap? Four arrows aren't going to stop a Ghoul."

Forget Delaford's usual shortbow; even a longbow with greater piercing power would struggle to incapacitate a Ghoul easily.

"You don't get it," Delaford said, cutting off Ron and Silvia before they could explain. He raised his head smugly and waved at the two Mages to keep quiet. "These aren't ordinary arrows. This is Magic!"

"For the next eight hours, any creature that enters this area will trigger an alarm and be attacked by the arrows!"

"Oh, I see!" Sera exclaimed, putting on a perfectly cooperative look of sudden understanding. "So, all we have to do is get the big oaf to start mining and make some noise to attract the Ghouls. Then, when the alarm goes off, we rush them and wipe them all out in one go!"

"Wipe them out? No, no," Delaford said, waving his hands dismissively. "They'll probably just run away when they're spooked. We stay hidden and follow them!"

"Ore isn't like meat; the Ghouls can't possibly be using it themselves. That means something else is ordering them to do this. We'll follow the trail back to its source, *then* we wipe them all out!"

"Not bad at all, Delaford!" Sera looked at the goblin as if he were a genius. "But about this spell, how come you two, Ron and Silvia, didn't think of it?"

Ron and Silvia exchanged a helpless look. "Casting Guardian Arrow requires arrows as material components," Ron explained. "Neither of us knows how to draw a bow, so why would we carry arrows?"

Besides, the number of spells a Mage can prepare each day is limited. Guardian Arrow isn't a particularly common spell, so unless they were certain they would need it, they would never have considered preparing it.

"All right, everyone get over here and hide!" Delaford had already finished preparing their cover and was waving everyone over. "Big guy, you just start mining like you normally would. We'll take care of this trouble for you!"

"As for the rest of you, don't make a sound—especially you, Aive! You're the one clanking around in the most metal!"

"If I weren't wearing all this metal, you'd all have a lot more slices in you," the Half-Elf huffed, carefully shifting into a position where she wouldn't make any unexpected noise.

After getting the ready signal from the goblin, the Hill Giant picked up the Mining Pickaxe Rurik had custom-made for him and swung it hard against the rock wall. The impact of the pickaxe on ore produced a tremendous CLANG, the echo reverberating through the empty mine for a long time, carrying from the third level all the way to the entrance and down to the very bottom.

In about a quarter of an hour, a rustling sound began to reach the ears of Ron and the others. It was immediately followed by the skittering, scraping sound of claws and bone-ends dragging across stone.

Under normal circumstances, these sounds wouldn't be hard to perceive. But masked by the tremendous noise of the Giant's mining, the creatures' approach was practically imperceptible. It wasn't until several pale, translucent figures drew near the range of the Guardian Arrows that Ron and his companions finally spotted them.

"They're here!"