While the three parties plundered, the undercurrents had already begun moving.

*Clak*Pak*

The moment Davin entered the mountain, Loreta sped in the opposite direction and arrived at the missionary outpost, or what was left of it.

______________________

Fredrick had broken one of the pillars of the missionary before running away, after which Rowan chased him.

The Missionary, which couldn't stand on three pillars, bent and ultimately collapsed.

*BOOM*

The fall killed a lot of unlucky beasts and some adventurers.

The loud crash generated an air wave that threw most of the adventurers off balance.

At the same time, many wooden pieces broke into splinters, which cut through air and embedded itself in random places. Many of those places were the bodies of the adventurers closest to the building.

So, in one go, Fredrick had completely destabilized the organized formation of the adventurers, and didn't even know about it.

Well, he knew that it would destroy the building, but he didn't know that destroying the building would lead to such.

Unfortunately, that wasn't all.

All of this happened simultaneously, and the damage was immense.

Adventurers were lying on the floor, dead or clutching a part of their body where wood splinters had pierced.

Some had multiple splinters stuck in their bodies, while others had none but had fallen unconscious after hitting their head on the floor because they were flown afar by the air wave.

And it didn't affect only those nearby, everyone in the outpost felt it.

In essence, the situation became chaotic all at once.

The snake lover potion had just been administered not a minute ago, so its effects were still potent.

As such, more snakes poured out of the forest and approached the outpost in a frenzy.

In such a situation, with only a few adventurers able to stand upright - the others were still disoriented or screaming because of the pain of splinters in their bodies - what would happen was obvious, and it happened without a doubt.

No miracle occurred, only a massacre!

The adventurers were massacred across the outpost.

Some mercenaries were battling beast while escorting merchant carriages when the gust of wind threw them off their feet, giving the beast a chance to land easy kills.

The mercenaries that remained choose to run away immediately.

Money was good and all, but you could only use it if you were alive.

Like so, the merchants and their carriages were abandoned. Even worse, some of the mercenaries choose to kill their employers and run away with the carriage holding all the valuables.

After all, the missionary was destroyed. How were they going to find the one that did what?historical

It was only because the potion duration was only two minutes that the adventurers were able to recover.

Although, in those two minutes, dozens had died and dozens more had plundered.

Moreover, some buildings were set on fire. Whether on purpose or coincidental, no one knew.

Other buildings were completely wrecked because of the frenzied snakes.

After the two minutes had passed, the snakes slowed their charge and craziness, but they didn't stop right away.

A few dozen others also died within the next few minutes, but some adventurers were already back on their feet and killing beasts.

It was then.

*BOOM*

The sound of Fredrick's body breaking into the mountain was heard.

From where they stood, the sound's intensity was much lower.

It caused many eyes to look in that direction, but only briefly.

They couldn't afford to look any longer because of the beasts in front of them.

The ground was mostly free of blood, because many died due to poison from the snake's bites instead of wounds.

The adventurers able to fight at this point were all skilled, and because of the dire situation they found themselves in, none of them had time to bicker.

Rather, they focused all their strengths on culling the snakes.

Soon enough, another sound resounded.

This one was far louder than the last.

From the missionary, many saw a snake with white scales slowly slither into the open, and their mind went blank.

Many felt dread just from its look, causing even more adventurers to flee.

But others fought on. As they did, they used one eye to watch the battle between the big snake and Rowan - who they could only make out to be a sparking yellow dot - while using the other eye to watch what was in front of them.

At the same time, the number of snakes in the outpost grew even smaller, as the snake lover potion had exhausted some time before.

Only then could the adventurers rest easy, or not, as they saw the bodies of their comrades and partners lay on the floor, dead.

It was at this moment that Loreta awoke.

She had landed head-first on the hard ground, which caused her to lose consciousness, but because she was in full armor, the damage was small compared to others.

Davin, the remaining members and a few others wanted to go and spectate the fight against the big white snake, each for different reasons.

But the resounding booms from the clashes between the snake and Rowan had them standing still, too afraid to do so.

Only after a few minutes, when something else - Rowan swinging his final strike - resounded and they couldn't see or hear the snake anymore, did they advance towards the mountain.

____________________

Now, she was taking apart the remains of the Missionary as she searched for a certain artifact.

She was a missionary, a fairly high ranking one at that, so she knew what to do in the current situation.

Well, it is a simple thing.

'I have to inform the empire'

The Empire would be the one to deal with such matters, so she made haste to signal them.

'This is it!'

After fifteen minutes of searching, she finally found it.

An item only meant for emergencies.

But it didn't seem like there could be a bigger emergency than her current situation.

It could only be used once and there were bound to be better ones in the Missionary, but she didn't know where they were or would be, since the Missionary was lying flat on the ground.

So, she poured the little mana she could into it and said three words.

"Help! Manite mine"

Now, with only five minutes left for the other parties to plunder the mountain, she ran back to it.

____________________

At the same time, a man jumped out of the gap made by Fredrick in the mountain.

It was the slave.

In the first place, the slave was only picking mana crystals because not doing so would make him stick out like a sore thumb.

The main aim was to get out of there unnoticed.

But nothing said that they had to use the whole twenty five minutes, did they?

So the slave took many mana crystals with fast hands and got out of the cave first.

Before the other mercenaries could do anything, the slave took off, and being at the mid-Adept rank, it was fairly fast.

Like so, the culprit of the entire incident from start to finish made a clean getaway with others being none the wiser.

The second part of the plan was about to begin!