Chapter 271 - Third in the room.

"I want the walls in front of the portal built as fast as possible!" Bittore spoke to Mollara, trying to explain how important it is to achieve such a task. Their contribution here throughout the couple of days would go in to vain if more Demons pop out of that Portal with no wall to prevent them from breaking through the domain again. "We need to put more people in that task."

"Just be patient for a bit, as far as I saw a bit earlier when I went to lend a hand, our people are almost done with cleaning up the Storage room." A lot of them spend so much time and muscle on that task, they are indeed appreciated.

"What about the Rat hole at the edge of the wall?" That can be considered equally important because they are close to sending all their food down there, last thing they need is for Ratbugs to poison the food supply. "Is it sealed yet?"

"No, but Alcon send his best "student"." Mollara quoted with a bit of a joking matter, and continued. "To patch the hole with Bricks, he will have a peek at it later to approve if its good or not. As much as we are concerned it will look like the hole was never even there!"

"Good, I trust your word because with Osira and Eric exploring the place I need you here to look over the place." She is still recovering of course, nearly doesn't have enough power to constantly be on her feet. Her body still needs time to heal and Eric most definitely won't drop any tears if even a single person knows what he is doing.

"Don't worry, I understand. I've been close to you enough to know how your mind goes, well at least when it comes to telling everyone what to do." Joked around Mollara and couldn't help smiling after, because when it comes to schemes no one knows how Bittore's mind works. "You just relax here, you won't help our people if you collapse."

Meanwhile, Eric and Osira have made their way towards the 6th tunnel in aims of exploration set as a task by Bittore. Although not expressed by word, Bittore thought. "I might as well kill two birds with one stone, the entire clan has their hands full for now and can't handle taking more tasks over their shoulders, and the two lovebirds will have more time alone." We did say that no one here can quite scheme as good as she does.

The sixth tunnel appeared to be the most normal out of the rest and at the same time the smallest. Walking in just 5 meters deep they found their selves on the room, perfectly built as 10 meters wide and long. But what does it contain you might ask?

Iron, a lot of it! From one end to the other this place is filled with Iron Ingots, spilled all over the place. A Demon likely stormed here and tipped everything over, or could it be a Ratbug? No, Ratbugs only appear where they sense food and sometimes a bit too far from food but still at a direction for it.

Want to know the worst part about all this Iron? "They have all caught Rust!" Osira felt her chest tightening a bit, she is used to pounding on Iron after all!

"We can't use them?" Asked Eric feeling a bit bewildered, "Won't the rust go away if we remelt them?"

"No, the Rust would still be there when the Iron cools down." It is a shame really, so much Iron just going to waste. There was a room filled with them, 1 meter wide batches spread a bit far from each other.

The room is the smallest compared to most of the rooms but when you consider that it is filled with Iron it just shows some form of superiority. The Snow Ignites had a lot of rock as a resource along with Iron as well and obviously all the coal required to smelt it, Ratbugs perhaps became a ongoing food resource and based on the Stone Cutter they also have Dark Blue Ingots, it is just a matter of finding them. Point is, these Snow Ignites had everything yet they lost everything in the search for more or at least in aims of expansion.

"You sure are bonded to your craft." Asked Eric as he saw Osira dropping a small tear, he thought that it can't primarily be related to the Iron here. "You can let it out if you want to cry, we are alone."

"Cry for Iron?" Osira asked as she tried to keep a smile on her face but the second tear already rolled down her cheek.

"Osira you know I'm not talking about Iron." Expressed Eric, already thinking that this burst of emotion is linked to her father.

"Well... It has been hard... How could my own father betray us for a bag of gold coins." She finally decided to express, afterwards gently sitting down on some tipped over Iron Ingots. "And just when things started to look up, we had enough Gold, enough food on the table and we had a lot of orders."

"And out of a sudden he just sold you out to the illas?" Thinking how much better Woldemir is compared to that retard, he couldn't help but feel bad for giving him a rough time. So he wanted to point out to Osira, "He just wasn't a good father, you should be happy that you survived it."

Eric wanted to sit down along with her, to try and comfort her with a hug maybe. But with all of this drama going on, that would just turn out for the worse if anyone saw them. Well Bittore would approve it but it would still just add more drama.

"I know, I realized that but sometimes I think that with gold not a problem, he saw us as true Demons." At this point her tone started cracking and her throat felt heavy, such a sudden burst of emotion is indeed hard to tackle even for the toughest of the tough.

Which gets Eric thinking, "Is this why she acts tough all the time? To avoid emotion?" But instead he expressed himself differently. "If he did, it is his fault Osira. You aren't to blame of the abilities you gained, he is to blame for actually believing the nonsense of which the illas spread through the Continent."

Well he can't give comfort even though he wants too, so he went for reasoning instead. Osira has proven generally smart and skilled, perhaps reason will make her feel better he thought.

"It just has been a long while, I barely talked about this with my mother." She expressed as she stood up from the Iron Ingots since it started making her buttocks feel cold, "But I know one thing, my father betrayed us."

Afterwards heading to do something that Eric would never dare, or at least didn't plan to for today. She put her arms around him and tightened him around a hug and wanted to thank him. He is a bit shorter so he just sunk in her hug, "Thank you for listening, this has been eating me alive for years."

"Anytime, I'm glad that I could he..."

Eric tried to respond to all of this shift of emotion, and was getting a bit nervous about it and fairly a bit red.

But his word was cut short when Osira warned! "If you tell anyone about this, I'll torch you while you sleep." She didn't want to admit that she cried even in front of him, but it was made sure what she meant. She doesn't want to let anyone know that she cried.

She separated from the hug, and trying to fight away his nervousness, he just tapped on her back to show a bit support and said. "Let's tell our Grand Leader of what we found." He joked a bit with his sentence, but it worked rather well. She began to smile a bit more.

He blasted Fire from his palm so they can at least know their direction. When they hugged, neither of them could kept a Fire going without burning the other so they had to shut them down, or at least he had too. Osira already did when she sat on the Iron Ingots. It worked for the best I suppose, no one saw them hug.

Little did they know, they weren't alone in the room. Mogranius appeared in the scene after without making much of an impact and whispered to himself, "I knew this kid would never take his chance. He has a thing going with that little ill.u.s.tratian girl too."

Afterwards he just casually walked out of the tunnel and thanks to the provided dark no one could see him even though he was no longer merged with Smoke. As he walked behind them over ten meters away, he thought to himself. "But there is one thing for sure, this lady is catching feelings."