Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 320 - 32 Root-like Space_1

Chapter 320: Chapter 32 Root-like Space_1

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"Why not install an elevator system like at the top?" As they spiraled down the last vertical shaft, Catherine asked, "It can’t be that the goblins have to spend this much time climbing down themselves, right?"

An hour had passed since they separated from Passion and Indulgence. For a solid hour, the four of them had been descending down the vertical shaft. In the dark and monotonous space, they all felt as though they had descended a considerable distance, but in reality, it was only a few hundred meters. This wasn’t a misperception though. The spiraling staircase extended the journey over several kilometers. Due to the stress and the lack of opportunity to relax their muscles, the maids were beginning to pant, with beads of sweat appearing on their faces.

"I suspect that this is just an emergency exit, which is why there are only stairs. The usual maintenance entrances would have elevators. The goblins may have an easy time coming down, but they would struggle to climb back up with their physique," Vivian explained to Catherine, before turning to the two maids and adding, "You two should change your clothes now, you’d have to anyway."

"Change clothes?" Pansy and Mimosa asked in confusion, "Why do we need to change clothes?"

"Aren’t you feeling hot? Don’t forget, we’re different from you two. Our physical conditioning allows us to wear ordinary clothing even in winter without feeling cold. But you two are ordinary people, and you must be wearing thick clothes right now," Vivian explained. "The temperature increases the further underground we go, so that’s why you’re sweating so much now. Take off some clothes, or else you might get dehydrated from all the sweating if we stay down there for too long."

"Ah, it seems we are almost there." After the maids had changed, Catherine leaned over the railing to look down again, saying excitedly, "This should be our last stretch. I wonder what the goblin sewers look like, I’ve never seen them before."

"It’s just a sewer; dark, narrow, damp, dirty, sticky, riddled with bugs and rats, and reeking everywhere. I once visited the sewers in the Holy City while conducting research. I guess there shouldn’t be any difference," Vivian said with a grimace. "I definitely would not want to go back unless absolutely necessary."

"But...but the Shadow Hand made their base in the sewer. If it’s as you described, I don’t understand how they could stand it," Catherine argued. "Also, Passion and Indulgence told us that most of the area down there doesn’t need lights. It wouldn’t be as dramatic as you say."

"You’ll see for yourself soon if you don’t believe me," Vivian huffed, jumping down the last few steps. "This should be the last transfer station. Look ahead; if we follow the stairs downwards, it should lead us to the main sewer line. According to the map given by Indulgence, this main line is denoted by the thickest line."

"Shh, Pansy, turn off the light." Catherine suddenly waved to the maid sisters and whispered, "Look, there seems to be light coming from below the staircase."

"Huh, there does seem to be light," Vivian stated quietly, her heart racing, "Is there someone there?"

"No, there’s no sound of people, it seems to be just light," Catherine shook her head, "You guys wait here, I’ll go check it out."

"Don’t be reckless." Vivian grabbed Catherine’s wrist before she could move forward. The girls held each other’s gaze for a few seconds. Catherine eventually nodded lightly, and Vivian finally released her grip, "Be careful."

The three who stayed behind watched as Catherine carefully descended the stairs after wrapping her feet in soft leather, peeking around the corner to get a look. As soon as Catherine stuck her head out, she froze for a few tense seconds, then gestured to her friends, "It’s okay to come down, there’s nothing here. It’s safe."

The others slowly joined Catherine, sticking their heads out to take a look, and were just as stunned by the sight before them.

The image of the underground sewer far exceeded everyone’s expectations. Not dark, cramped, oppressive, or smelly. Instead, it echoed more of a city at the heart of the earth than a sewer system. The main sewer pipe was constructed of colossal tubular columns with an inner diameter of thirty meters. The sub-pipes were assembled from pipes with inner diameters of twenty-five and twenty meters. At the bottom of the pipe was a seven-meter-deep and eight-meter-wide, trough-shaped water channel. A thousand years ago, all waste water from the city gathered here before being transported far away to the ocean. There was a two-meter-wide walkway on both sides of the water channel for maintenance personnel.

At the top of the sewer, goblins embedded countless glowing fluorescence stones in the stone body, forming a light belt that covered the entire sewer system, making most of the sewers constantly basked in light. This setup not only facilitated the repair and maintenance of the sewers but also prevented the proliferation of Demonized Energy to some extent, and the outbreak of magical creatures.

"Is this really a sewer?" Catherine mumbled, "If you fill in the surface canals, there’s enough space here for a squadron of knights to line up and charge."

"Whew, the goblins’ technology and strength have reset my understanding again," Vivian sighed, looking up at the glow above her head. "I finally understand what the Elf’s prophecy meant."

Dark, wide, dry, wet, dirty, clean, dangerous—this was the prophecy of the elf mage. At first, Vivian and Catherine couldn’t understand such contradictory prophecies. Even when explained that this referred to the sewers, it was hard for them to visualize it. Until they saw the real thing, they realized the prophecy wasn’t wrong at all.

Dark, wet, and dirty were descriptions of sewers, while wide, dry, and clean were descriptions of the physical reality in front of them. Yes, the sewer now was dry and clean. Maybe ten thousand years ago, when the sewers were still in use, this place was indeed wet and dirty all year round, so much so that even the goblins’ metallurgy techniques required a layer of hard glue-like substance to be poured onto the inner wall of the metal pipe, keeping the metal body isolated from the outside, for rust prevention. But, over ten thousand years later, no sewage had flowed through this system for a long time, and the inside of all pipes had become extremely dry. Furthermore, due to the passage of time, the sludge brought by the sewage inside the pipes has solidified and turned into a hard stone structure, making the inside of the pipes no longer dirty, and even clean thanks to the cleaner puppets.

Looking ahead along the main pipe, every few hundred meters, a secondary pipe with an inner diameter of 25 meters extends diagonally upward, and the secondary pipes branch out to 20-meter-diameter pipes every interval. If they branched further, it led to each drainage channel and manhole. This massive drainage system, like the root system of a tree, continued to extend smaller branches, linking together a medium-sized city group within a range of over a thousand square kilometers.

Of course, that was the situation ten thousand years ago. Ten thousand years later, the main pipes are still intact, and most of the secondary pipes and branch pipes are also normal. But the lower-level branches, that is, the pipes going up to the original surface level of the Goblin City, have mostly been blocked by hundreds of meters thick layers of soil and rock, completely unable to climb further. Thus, this area has been completely cut off for ten thousand years.

"Vivian, do you think there’s a chance we might stumble upon the ruins of a Goblin City buried deep underground while wandering around in these sewers?" Catherine’s eyes sparkled, she excitedly said, "And then find a lot of treasures left by the Goblin Empire in the city. Hahaha, that would really make us rich."

"Sis, it’s not even night yet, isn’t it too early to dream?" Vivian rolled her eyes weakly. "Give me a hand, lower me down to the bottom of the canal. I need to carve something."

"Hmm, so you also think it’s not possible?" Catherine sighed, dispelling her illusion and used a descending rope to lower Vivian into the sewer.

"Actually, in theory, it’s not impossible. There may indeed be such cities." Vivian’s voice came up from the bottom of the canal, "But the chances are as slim as you tripping while walking on the road and accidentally discovering a high-content Magicsteel mine. Hmm, the chances might even be lower."

"Never mind." The hope in Catherine’s eyes slowly extinguished, but she was not discouraged at all. "Even if the odds are small, it might still come true. By the way, what are you carving?"

"A marker, done, pull me up." Vivian put the safety rope around her and was pulled back onto the walkway. She patted her clothes and said, "Within two hundred kilometers, I can sense the position of this marker. If we get lost and can’t find this exit, at least we won’t get farther and farther away with this thing around. Unfortunately, a Teleportation Array that is not carved on a special base only lasts for forty-four hours. If we had one here, and also kept half of the portable set with us, we would never get lost."

"Above." Catherine’s ears suddenly twitched. She quickly retreated with Vivian to the maid sisters, raised her shield to protect the three, and looked up. At the top of the pipe, several spider-shaped metallic puppets completely ignored the four below, crawling on top. Occasionally they stopped somewhere, and when they left, any slightly damaged parts of the hard glue-like substance had been repaired.

"It seems these are maintenance puppets." Vivian looked up eagerly. "Indulgence and Passion didn’t tell us about them."

"They probably didn’t know either." Catherine said, "They haven’t explored outside, and all the entrances and exits for their base’s puppets were sealed off decades ago. It’s normal that they couldn’t see. It seems these won’t interfere with us, let’s ignore them and move on." (Novel "Yarra’s Adventure Notes" will have more new content on the official WeChat platform, and there are 100% lucky draw! Hurry and follow the official account "qdread", hurry up!) (To be continued. If you like this work, please vote and support at qidian.com. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile readers, please reading at m.qidian.com.)