"its nothing, give it a few minutes then it will heal on its own"

"...if you say so"

Vanessa looked a little concerned but almost like she suddenly remembered she was suppose to be angry with Mars did her face snap back into a frown before she went back to her armor suit, at this point Victoria appeared form out of nowhere and walked up to Mars

"Mars... your hand..."

"yeah I know..."

Mars wiped the blood off his arm and saw the wounds were rapidly closing and gave a smile before he showed it to Victoria

"see it's fine"

"okay... that's good"

Nicole walked over and after she sent a glance after Vanessa did she ask Mars

"what happened?"

Mars kept opening and closing his hand as his wounds healed

"I ran into some interesting golems"

Nicole tilted her head to the side and asked

"interesting? are they not all the same?"

"nope, the ones I fought knew swordsmans.h.i.+p"

"swordsmans.h.i.+p..."

the tilt went slightly deeper as Nicole gave Mars a blank stare, Mars gave a sigh and asked

"you don't believe me?"

"no it's just... well unbelievable... anyway you should tell the captain"

"okay... wish me luck"

Nicole gave Mars a salute as she sent him off, Mars walked over to were Vanessa was fuming and called out to her

"um... captain?"

"...what?"

Vanessa turned and looked at Mars with narrowed eyes

"I have something to report"

"what is it?"

"when I fought---"

"when you disobeyed orders"

"yes.... when I disobeyed orders I found some interesting golems that appeared to know swordsmans.h.i.+p"

"swordsmans.h.i.+p... are you sure?"

"yes captain, they carried 2 swords each which they used to attack"

"...I see, hmm..."

Vanessa fell into deep thought meanwhile Mars waited patiently for her to speak again and so some time pa.s.sed until finely Vanessa looked at Mars again

"I will report this to the general.... go join Hans and investigate the center of the village"

"yes captain"

Mars walked towards the collapsed center of the village

"this sure did a number on the village..."

the giant sinkhole had almost swallowed the whole village with only some of the outermost buildings still standing the rest had all been swallowed into the sinkhole and had all but a few been smashed to pieces, looking at all this destruction made a small smile form on Mars's face. after taking in the view for a moment Mars spotted Hans digging through some rubble down in the sinkhole and decided to join him, so he jumped down into the sinkhole and landed on the ground after falling for about 4 seconds and looked up

"definitely looks deeper from down here..."

while admiring the scenery Mars walked over to Hans that was digging though some ruble and asked

"what have you found?"

"hmm..? oh, Mars... nothing so far except for ruble"

Mars tilted his head and asked

"so what are we looking for?"

Hans stopped digging and raised his head to look at Mars

"anything that could have made the village collapse like it did"

"okay... I'll go look over there"

Mars also began looking around or at least he pretended to as he activated his energy sense and quickly got a clear 'look' at what caused the village to collapse

'is that it..?'

among the numerous mana stones in the area there was this one... thing that gave off a different energy signature Mars walked over and began digging and soon he uncovered it

"now what have we here..?"

at first he wasn't clear about what it was he was looking at, it was a cube a couple centimeters wide and it was seemingly made of polished rock but besides that it was heavy, really heavy for its size Mars threw it into the air a couple of times and estimated its weight was about 25 kilograms

'well whatever it is, it sure is pretty...'

the surface of the cube was covered with interlinked formations, Mars could barely make out the runes on its surface

'it's circle runes...'

circle runes was made up of ordinary runes stringed in a circle, while it might seem simple to read the parts of a circle rune its function as a whole was lost to Mars as he wasn't as well know in the domain of circle runes

'well whatever... maybe the captain knows what it is..?'

Mars turned and called out to Hans that was a little ways away

"I found something I'll go show it to the captain"

"sure I'll keep digging"

Mars looked around and quickly found the robe Hans had used to get into the sinkhole and quickly climbed it and walked over to the captain

"captain I found something"

"what did you find?"

"this"

Mars showed the cube to Vanessa that looked it over while it still was in Mars's hand before she tried to pick it up but was stopped by Mars

"careful it's really heavy"

"okay?"

Vanessa clearly didn't take his warning as she tried to pick it up with only 2 fingers and quickly found she was unable to lift it from Mars's hand Mars gave a grin which was quickly spotted by Vanessa that pouted and asked him

"what?"

Mars straightened out his face

"no it's nothing captain... but this thing is really heavy"

Vanessa gave up on picking up the cube and just looked at it while Mars held it and eventually she gave a sigh

"...well whatever it is the general needs to see it"

"that means?"

"that means we need to return to camp... but not now, we're close to the mining town were the golem infestation started"

Mars gave a nod and asked

"so we're driving into their lair?"

"basically... well we will go as far as we can"

"roger that captain"

"anyways... go get Hans and let's get some food"

"yes captain"

Mars quickly walked back to the edge of the sinkhole and jumped down before he walked over to Hans

"Hans, let's go eat"

"roger that... what was it you found earlier?"

Mars showed off the cube to Hans that leaned in and inspected it for sometime before he asked

"...what is it?"

"well I don't know and neither does the captain"

"huh... well it's covered in runes so it's probably best to keep it away from any and all mana stones"

"yeah... we don't want it activating after all"

Mars put the cube into his pocket and followed Hans up the robe out of the sinkhole and walked over to the temporary campsite were Gus was busy boiling water with a mana powered portable stove, Nicole saw the 2 of them walk over and asked

"what do you want to eat today Mars?"

"hmm... something with chicken"

"and you Hans?"

"....same as Mars, as long as it has chicken its fine"

"okay..."

Nicole digged into the big backpack and fished out two packs of freeze dried food which she threw to Mars and Hans, Mars looked at the package

"curry chicken"

Hans also looked at his package

"same here"

feeling satisfied with his food mars opened the package and fished out a wooden spoon before he poured some boiling water into the package and began mixing the continence with his spoon and asked the captain

"so captain what do we know about the mining town?"

"well I was going to brief you all later but now is a good time too.... first off it's about 30 kilometers away from here and it had a population of about 5500 people... besides that we don't know a whole lot other than the golems first showed up in the man stone pit mine"

Mars stopped stirring his food and tasted the chicken curry

'oh... so good...'

"wait captain that's basically nothing we know of the town right?"

"that's what we're here for Nicole, remember we're scouts"

"oh right"

"our job is to scout out the town and return in one piece"

"Mars... what... are you... eating?"

"oh Victoria, its chicken curry"

Mars petted Victoria that once again had showed up out of nowhere

"want to try it?"

"yes...I do"

"here you are..."

Mars took out a spoonful curry and moved it in front of Victoria's face that then proceeded to lick on the spoon a couple of times before she stopped and her horns flashed

"tastes... weird"

"so you don't like it?"

"no..."

"okay then, more for me"

"hey Mars"

"what is it captain?"

"...is Victoria well fed, I mean I have not seen her eat anything the last 3 days"

"hmm..? oh Victoria why don't you tell me what you have hunted the last few days?"

Victoria looked at Vanessa then at Mars before her horns flashed

"goats... mostly"

"okay, captain she says she had goats to eat"

"that's good..."

"why do you ask in the first place?"

"well it's because I have been thinking of adding Victoria to our combat formation and you can't fight on a empty stomach"

Mars gave a smile and petted Victoria on the head

"that's true"