After taking a swig from the bucket, she ran to Carl and asked about the goblins' whereabouts.

"Those goblins are back? How's the battle going?"

Recalling the state of the goblins just now, Carl gave his own opinion.

"Honestly, it's not very good. Most of the goblins are in a pretty bad state. It looks like a pretty fierce battle must have taken place."

Hearing this, Hope's eyebrows almost came together.

The incomplete information made it impossible for the two to piece together the full picture of the incident, and the unknown often represents danger.

"Do you want to go investigate?"

Looking at each other, Carl and Hope said the same words in unison.

The same tacit understanding made the two of them stunned, and then they laughed together.

"If that mind flayer is really that powerful, we must make plans early and leave this troubled place as soon as possible."

Looking back at the wooden house nearby, Hope's eyes revealed reluctance.

But there is no other way. They can't afford to offend others now, so they have to stay away.

"Then let's go after breakfast?"

"good!"

Returning to the cabin, Carl and Hope quickly finished their first meal of the day, then put down the climbing rope and left the giant mushroom.

Hope was about to follow the path opened by the goblins to the base of the Mind Flayer, but Carl, who was already wearing the Guardian Power Armor, said, "Don't go this way, I know a small path!"

Taking heavy steps, Carl led Hope onto a not-so-obvious forest path.

This was caused by his stepping on it when he went to explore the Mind Flayer base last time. After not seeing it for a few days, the fluorescent mushrooms and moss that he had stepped on before seemed to have recovered.

'What an amazing vitality.'

With a sigh in his heart, Carl led Hope through the forest based on his memory.

Because the power armor was replaced with an offensive type, although Carl's design of the power armor avoided the noise it caused to the greatest extent, creatures with high perception could still hear some movement.

So Carl and Hope will always pay attention to the movements around them, and once any special creature notices them, they will kill it instantly.

Especially goblin scouts or brain eaters.

Once the two groups discovered that there were two outsiders in the woods, Carl and Hope couldn't imagine what they would do.

After overcoming many obstacles, Carl and Hope finally arrived near the Mind Flayer's base.

Through the cover of the wooden mushrooms, the two finally saw the current situation of the Mind Flayer base.

On the bumpy land, the hemispherical chitin base still stands.

There were many headless corpses of goblins scattered around the base.

Four giant squid tentacles grew out of the ground and were swaying left and right in the breeze.

"It seems that this is the reason why the goblins failed. Even a level 6 warrior would have a hard time getting up after this thing hits them."

"Anyway, I don't have the confidence that I can stop that thing. Let's go back and prepare, and leave this forest to find another way out."

Just by seeing those four tentacles, Carl and Hope lost the courage to trouble the Mind Flayer.

Thinking of his previous idea of ​​"killing the Mind Flayer and finding clues to leave the dungeon", Carl felt his face getting hot.

"A newborn calf is not afraid of a tiger" is not enough to describe his arrogance at that time.

Sighing, Carl and Hope were about to go back when suddenly, a subtle psychic wave probed towards this side.

Without thinking about who the spiritual energy came from, Carl immediately squatted down and grabbed a handful of soil, then picked up Hope and ran in the other direction.

After briefly reciting the spell and making the corresponding gestures, he cast the 1st-level spell [Long Stride] on himself.

However, as he escaped, there was an immediate response from the Mind Flayer base behind him.

Dozens of brain-eating monsters rushed out and chased after him.

Carl knew that they had not actually "discovered" themselves in a real sense.

Because brain-eating monsters have no eyes, they rely on psychic power to obtain information about their surroundings.

The weak psychic energy before should have been released by the brain-eating monsters on daily patrol to prevent foreign enemies from sneaking in. It was basically equivalent to an ordinary person's unintentional glance.

The brain-eating monster that released psychic energy must have sensed the presence of Carl and Hope, but it did not actually capture their thoughts, nor did it use psychic energy to detect their appearance.

That's why Carl started running without saying a word.

Because as long as he escapes within a certain range and the brain-eating monster no longer chases them, they can safely return to the cabin and plan to leave the woods.

Walking through the woods, Carl relied on the sturdiness of his power armor and almost never dodged the oncoming wood mushrooms.

The broken mushrooms perfectly marked his movement trajectory. Although the brain-eating monster behind him was left far behind, it was able to continue moving forward by following these traces.

But this is exactly what Carl wanted to see.

"Bang!"

After breaking another woody mushroom, Carl suddenly discovered that the road ahead was actually opened up by the goblins.

After thanking these selfless guys in his heart, Carl randomly found a direction and left.

Soon, a pool of water appeared ahead.

He subconsciously used his psychic power to detect the depth of the pool. However, even after expanding the detection range of psychic power to the limit, Carl still did not reach the bottom of the pool.

Carl, who was about to move forward, suddenly had his eyes light up.

"Hope, hold your breath!"

After whispering a reminder to Hope, Carl jumped into the pool.

A splash of water surged up, and with the help of the heavy power armor, Carl and Hope quickly sank to the bottom of the pool.

Carl's helmet automatically activated the underwater breathing cap effect, and a bubble wrapped around Carl, allowing him to continue breathing underwater.

He quickly cancelled the infusion quota occupied by the alchemy pot, and a blue light burst out from Carl's hand. He then copied an ordinary underwater breathing helmet and put it on Hope's head.

Hope, who had been holding his breath, suddenly let out a long sigh of relief.

As the two continued to sink, the water pressure was almost enough to make her spit out the air in her mouth.

With the underwater breathing cap, Hope was finally able to breathe well.

Above the pond, several brain-eating monsters arrived late.

Carl's last trace was on the road opened up by the goblins, so after a brief discussion, the brain-eating monsters split into two groups and chased towards both sides of the road.

Seeing the pool of water, several brain-eating monsters surrounded it.

Most of them have the same intelligence as ordinary people, so they easily came to the conclusion that "the fleeing enemy may have jumped into the pool to hide."

But there were no bubbles coming out of the pool, and their spiritual powers did not detect any living creatures in the pool.

Of course, Carl's psychic power is about the same strength as these brain-eating monsters. He cannot detect the bottom of the pool, so these brain-eating monsters naturally cannot detect it either.

At this moment, Carl and Hope had sunk to a depth far beyond the limit of the brain-eating monsters' psychic detection range.

After waiting for a while, these brain-eating monsters exchanged opinions with each other using psychic power, and finally left along the road.

And in the depths of the pool, Carl and Hope finally sank to the bottom.

(End of this chapter)