Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 195 - 50 Slaughterhouse_1

Chapter 195: Chapter 50 Slaughterhouse_1

(263...084...458...my fellow bookworms, feel free to join our group. PS: If you’ve just stumbled across this, please show your support by adding this book to your favorites and recommending it to others. Your support motivates me immensely. Also, it’d be great if you could share your opinions. Thank you! PS2: Please note the title change: see the book’s details for more information).

"Aaaaaaaah!" Lina tripped while running and rolled straight down the slope. She continued tumbling for over twenty meters before finally coming to a halt as the ground gradually leveled off outside of the dense forest. The rest of the team charged out of the forest and looked back to see the five earth bears reluctantly roaring at them from the edge of the forest. The bears then turned back to their territory, frequently looking back as if unwilling to let them go.

"Haha, Lina, you looked so pathetic!" Vivian hopped off Pannis’ back and extended a helping hand to Lina, "Did you hurt yourself?"

"I’m fine. At least we got rid of them. I definitely want bear paw soup when we get back." Lina used Vivian’s hand to pull herself up and leaned on her knee to catch her breath, "Also, huff, you’re the big dummy, huff, you nearly killed me."

Catherine knocked on the heads of both girls before assessing their surroundings. At the end of the slope was the mouth of a canyon. From here, all the way into the canyon, the ground was scattered with countless fragments of stones, with no traces of any vegetation. Lina had slipped on these loose, crumbly stones that had weathered off the red clay hills around them and been shaped by years of rainfall.

The afternoon sun shone brightly on the ground, causing a bit of discomfort to the team members who had just emerged from the dark forest. The bewildering sense of time, alternating between light and darkness, had been a constant throughout their ten-day adventure, creating a sense of unrealness as if they were in a fantasy world.

Through the harsh sunlight, they could see the entrance of the canyon. Although seemingly abandoned, a faint stench of rot wafted from its depths. A mix of foul odors and the aura of death had each member of the team pulling faces of disgust while they peered into the winding depths of the canyon.

"Looks like this is it," Catherine’s face fell at the sight. Regardless of how much adventure experience they had, no one could learn to love this abnormal environment: "It’s too quiet here. Is there something nearby?"

"No, this area is quite safe," Elrad denied, "The silence is due to the lack of water, vegetation, and food. There’s nothing here. No animal would be willing to come. Additionally, the ground here is mostly composed of these loose stones- even animals easily slip on them, making it quite difficult to move."

"So we are camping here tonight?" Dora, maintaining her good habits of the past ten days, never strayed more than three meters from Catherine’s side when she had nothing else to do: "Why are you all looking at me like that? Did I say something wrong?"

"Sorry, Captain, but this is not a good spot," Illusion Fox pulled Dora aside and whispered softly. Although Dora, being a mercenary, had extensive combat experience, she didn’t understand these details as well as the girls who were adventurers and low-level mercenaries, having spent most of her time with large-scale teams: "There’s no cover, no protection, no proper escape route, and worst of all, the smell here is not suitable for camping. At least we need to find a place upwind."

"Okay, okay." Dora waved her hands dismissively, "I got it, I’ll listen to you guys. Hey, you there, Mr. Scout, stop standing there and laughing. It’s your job to find a good spot."

"This canyon is Raccoon Valley. It’s nine hundred meters long." Pannis looked at the entrance of the canyon, "I discussed with Elrad just now that, after passing through here, we will reach an upwind spot suitable for camping. It’s close to both the canyon’s mouth and the jungle."

"So you’re saying we just need to get across?" Dora hooked Catherine’s arm, "Great, let’s go, sister."

"Get lost." After ten days of dealing with Dora’s antics, Catherine finally snapped: "Tell us, Mr. Guide, will we encounter any dangerous beasts inside the canyon? Judging by the smell, there are a lot of animal carcasses here. Could there be some kind of scavenger beasts lurking around?"

"If I were alone, I wouldn’t consider passing through here," Elrad answered honestly, "But it shouldn’t be a problem with all of you here."

"Yes, there are hardly any high-tier magical beasts among scavengers," Pannis added, "We can deal with them easily, so there’s no need to worry."

Entering Raccoon Valley felt like stepping into an entirely new world. The valley was not wide, with the broadest part only being six meters across, and the narrowest part being just under a meter wide, barely enough for a person to pass sideways. Despite its narrowness, the valley was enclosed by towering cliffs that soared over a hundred meters. Looking up from the bottom of the valley, visitors could only see a thin strip of blue sky. The cliffs on either side bore down oppressively, causing anyone within the valley to become restless and agitated. This anxious mood affected the whole team, resulting in a tense and gloomy atmosphere.

"Everyone must be very cautious while walking here," said Pannis, who knew that no amount of reassurances would calm the team. The only way to resolve this situation was to distract their attention. So he said very naturally, "Due to the geological conditions here, there’s a high risk of falling rocks. If you don’t want ’crushed by a falling rock’ written on your tombstone, keep looking up. You wouldn’t believe the number of adventurers who die each year due to rocks falling on their heads."

"Really? Do you know how many?" Lina’s curiosity was immediately piqued, "How many exactly?"

"I have no idea- how could I possibly know?" Pannis shrugged in frustration, "But there are certainly quite a few every year. And I also know about an unfortunate man who died from a falling object during an adventure many years ago- but it wasn’t a stone."

"What is that?" Lina asked, "branches? Magical beasts?"

"Um, what fell was another adventurer, from another team. He slipped from above the canyon, and this guy just happened to rest in a foolish way in the canyon." Pannis made a ruthless comment, "Then he died. The falling one just suffered heavy injuries."

"How sad." Lina’s face didn’t show any hint of sorrow, "Let’s pray for him, haha."

Hearing Pannis’s story, Catherine became worried, constantly looking up at the sky above. Pannis patted Catherine’s arm, whispering, "Don’t worry, it’s safe up there for now. In the hundred or so meters distance, even if there are people up there who can hide their presence from me, if they want to attack us by throwing heavy objects from above, I would hear the sound of their movement."

Catherine was startled, but then showed an understanding smile, accepting Pannis’s reassurance.

Traveling through the canyon wasn’t easy. Apart from watching for falling rocks from above, they also had to guard against the slippery ground. At the same time, the narrow space constantly brought interferences. At many spots, they had to take off their backpacks and carry them by hand in order to pass sideways, making the journey over these few hundred meters quite difficult.

As the smell of decay grew stronger, after walking more than five hundred meters and turning a corner in the canyon, a scene resembling a slaughterhouse unfolded before their eyes.

After the turn, the terrain resembled a pocket: narrow on both sides and wide in the middle, in effect a nearly round small square. Within the roughly thirty-square-meter space, layers upon layers of magical beast carcasses were piled up. Most of the carcasses had been reduced to white bones, but some of the fresher ones still had decaying remnants of muscle on them.

"This should be the place." Pannis made a conclusion after a brief look and pointed to the half-decomposed bodies in the corner, "See that? The body of a giant rock sheep, the horns have been nicely removed and the count also matches - twelve. These must have been the prey of the Blue Coral Adventure Team."

Catherine followed along where Pannis was pointing and headed over, with Dora trailing behind her like a tail. They both squatted beside the giant rock sheep carcass, ignoring the stench coming from the decomposing body. They put extra leather gloves over their chainmail ones, and began meticulously examining the area where the horns were taken from the sheep’s head. After a while, the two female knights nodded at each other in agreement. Catherine, holding a semi-decomposed sheep head, raised her voice and said, "It should be these. Guli-Elmer mentioned to us that one of the horns was improperly removed, not cut at the standard position, leaving too large of a remnant. I found that particular sheep head."

"So, I guess we can establish that." Pannis’s voice came out from the pile of corpses.

"What are you looking for?" Seeing Pannis squatting on top of the pile of bodies, perpetually rummaging through, Catherine also crouched down next to him and asked, "Found anything special?"

"A few things." Pannis looked up at Catherine, holding up two thigh bones with rotting muscles still attached, which belonged to an unknown animal, "Look at these bones."

Catherine took the bones and brought them closer to look. Suddenly, she frowned and said, "These are cut marks from a knife."

"Exactly. And these bones are scattered around. Obviously, magical beasts wouldn’t separate these bones and consume them according to their parts, so it must have been done by intelligent beings. Look, this is a thigh bone of a large perforating musk-deer, and there’s also a Treexil. It definitely isn’t from the giant rock sheep," said Pannis, "During the time when the Blue Coral team stayed here, they couldn’t have consumed this amount of food."

"So you’re saying, we found the right place?" Dora stared at the leg bone with the rotting meat, and as a knight, she had a profound hatred, same as Catherine, towards the raiders for their actions harming other’s lives, "This should be the kitchen of those bandits?"

"No, it should be said to be only a slaughterhouse." Pannis continued, "Look at these corpses here. The ones at the bottom have completely rotted and can’t be identified, but the ones on the top, the further down, the higher the stage of decay. This indicates that the time when the bodies at the bottom were made is earlier. It also shows that they have set up camp here for quite some time."

"That’s not right." Catherine bit her lip, saying pensively, "One and a half months ago, in the ruins of Briana, weren’t the bodies we saw the members of that bandit group? Otherwise, the timeline won’t match."

"I’m afraid those were the groups searching for a new camp or carrying out another robbery." Dora said, "After all, our informant mentioned that they had a base in the forest. It wasn’t until our recent investigation into them became too stringent that they withdrew back completely."

"Regardless," Catherine stood up, "First, let’s locate their base. At that point, we’ll naturally find the answers to these questions. The key issue now is how to locate their base."

"No worries, let’s continue on and set up camp." Pannis stroked his chin, smiling as if in deep thought, "I think I’ve roughly estimated their location."