家庭老师的姐姐

I was half expecting another mutated earth rat wave to rush after me now that I could start breathing a little better than a few minutes ago.

Even now, I'm not sure what caused the previous event or why the mutated earth rats happened to pass through the route I was currently moving on.

I didn't know if it was a coincidence, so I was extra cautious of my surroundings, my actions, and the sounds I made as I moved to avoid any unexpected event that could happen at any time and catch me off guard as I continued my journey to the surface through the tunnels.

Because of the gains I received by accident this night, I was beginning to consider whether I needed to continue hunting for monsters to kill for my quest or return home because I was quite tired from the hours I spent here harvesting because, aside from the crystal core, I did harvest some other materials from the mutated earth rats corpses.

Gathering materials from a monster corpse seemed to be an easy task because it appeared that all one had to do was pull and separate a specific body part from the monster corpse and that was all there was to it, but the reality was that it wasn't because if one did not take care when taking the particular material aware from the monster corpse, the material could either get spoilt, destroyed, ruined, and even useless to use again due to rough handling.

Because of this, as well as my previous actions, I spent a few hours underground in the tunnel.

In the end, I benefited greatly, so spending a few hours down the tunnel in a potentially dangerous location seemed like a good trade-off, though it didn't appear to be one when the fact that I turned to a fisherman for a few hours is taken into account.

As I considered these things, I came to a section of the tunnel that was somewhat familiar to me.

I said familiar because above me were the ruins of the very hole I hid myself in to avoid being discovered by the mutated earth rats who were frantically running at the time.

I knew I was getting closer to the surface when I saw the hole and the strangely bloody but clean surroundings, so I cleared my mind of all distracting thoughts and increased my speed as I made my way further up in the darkly lit tunnels.

For a few minutes, everything was fine until something happened that brought me to a halt.

It wasn't a monster tide charging at me, nor was it a monster with its gaze fixed on me.

It was the spearman, whose body I had overlooked because I hadn't found it.

He was currently covered in injuries all over his body.

Some were light and some were heavy, but I could tell he wasn't going to last long and would die soon.

When I saw this, I wondered if I should help him leave faster and take his weapon in the process because, based on his expression, he appeared to be in a lot of pain.

As I considered this, I moved slowly towards the spearman, who had turned to look me in the eyes with difficulty before opening his mouth to speak.

"H-h-help m-me," he mumbled before turning to vomit several mouthfuls of blood from his mouth.

This made me realize that the damage in his body was far worse than it appears on the outside.

And, while I heard what he said, I ignored it as I stood beside him, debating whether I should kill him and take his weapon, or just take his weapon and leave him to die.

Hmmm.

Killing him will get my hands dirty and it seems like a waste of time, so I'll just take his weapon and leave.

As I was thinking of this, I bent down to take the weapon that was on the spearman's lap, but just as I was about to take it, I noticed something hanging around the spearman's neck that made me stop.

It was a necklace, but it wasn't the necklace itself that made me stop; it was the pendant on the necklace that made me stop.

After the rich and powerful underground people revolted against the government in the old age and established their own empires, the kingdom system of doing things was not the only thing they adopted.

Insignia was one of the things they adopted that was quite different from the government system.

Almost every empire and kingdom used insignias instead of traditional flags with only colors and lines.

Insignias and flags could be argued to be the same thing because they served the same purpose, but they weren't exactly the same thing.

Flags originally were used mainly in warfare, and to some extent they have remained insignia of leadership, serving for the identification of friend or foe and as rallying points till they then became objects extensively employed for signaling, decoration, and for display.

Insignia were quite different in the sense that it is a distinguishing badge, mark, or emblem of military rank, office, or membership of an organization.

In all honesty, they both did the same job, but in different ways, because the flag is still in use today.

Well, it was a thing before the apocalypse perhaps.

The only difference between the old and new flags is that most flags had their empire's insignias embedded in the center of the flag for recognition.

The empires' tastes were quite stupid because it was just them trying to be more classy by adding more objects to the flag for show and for the face.

The Dawn Empire's insignia was a rising dazzling sun over a mountain scenery.

This is where things got interesting because the pendant I saw on the spearman's neck was actually one that represented the Dawn Empire's insignia.

An Empire ruled by Andrew Dawn, who happens to be the eighth most powerful person on the planet.

A lot of thoughts began to form in my mind, and perhaps I was already thinking too much, but there was one thing I was certain of.

If it is exactly what I believe it is based on some of my thoughts, then things have just gotten more interesting.

....

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