The Martial Unity

"You wanna go back?" Kane frowned. "Are you sure, after we haven't even made any progress yet?"

"It's because we haven't made much progress that we need to go back," Rui explained calmly. "Also, I'm honestly not even sure that we'd be able to fit that big esoteric boulder into my dimensional storage ring. At the very least, I'd need to empty out all the other stored goods and items in there. So even if we succeed right now, we still need to go back."

"Damn, right, I forgot about our inventory limits," Kane muttered. "Alright, let's head back for now. I'm actually quite tired and could use a recharge honestly. Drinking rejuvenation potions works, but it's not as satisfying as a genuinely natural period of rest."

"True," Rui admitted. "Alright, let's head back for now. I also am curious about the reaction of the Shionel Confederation to the board of the gate of the Town of Veril, honestly."

The two of them had spent more than a day and a half in the dungeon between exploration and trying to break past the defensive countermeasures of the giant tree. It was finally time for them to return back.

The actual travel back did not take that long. Even though Martial Squires could not run at top speed given that there were no straight paths for them to build up speed without slowing down, it was still quite enough for them to jog to quickly cover the diameter of the Shionel Dungeon. The reason that they didn't was also because the tunnels formed a complex maze the path back to which was extremely difficult for most people to navigate. Thus most Martial Squires spent at least an hour both traveling to and back to new floors. Many a time, scouting teams that necessarily spent a lot of time in dungeons needed to spend a lot of time getting back because they were not going to known locations and were instead searching for new floors.

None of this applied to Rui. He didn't need to waste time like every other Martial Squire did when returning since he had memorized the way they came, and also could sense the easiest way out of the dungeon from any given point with just a short time spend scanning with Riemannian Echo.

Within fifteen minutes, they had come out.

Kane grew especially focused as he made sure he made no mistakes when they stepped out of the dungeon with his Void Step technique. This was arguably the most important role Kane played, which was making sure that no one sensed them when they left the Shionel Dungeon. The reason this was extremely important was that the consequences of being spotted when leaving the Shionel Dungeon during one of their genuine raids were high. They never entered the dungeon officially when they went on one of their mass harvests of esoteric deposits, and instead used Void Step to enter the dungeon. What that meant was that they could never leave the dungeon normally either.

After all, how could Martial Squires that never entered the dungeon magically leave the dungeon?

Of course, most people would not pay much attention to such a thing, and most people would not care to be careful of such a thing.

But Guildmaster Bradt, Chairman Deacon, and Rui Quarrier weren't most people. Each of them was extremely aware of the sheer size of the role that logistical details such as this played. The former two because of a lifetime of experience in the world of business and commerce and intelligence gathering, and the latter because of otherworldly shrewdness and intelligence. None of the three would miss an oddity such as Martial Squires magically exiting from a place that they never entered, and none of the three were stupid enough to make such a mistake, especially when they were going against each other in a battle of information and intelligence gathering.

If Kane made a mistake, then as far as Rui was concerned, it would be time to run and run away far.

Thankfully, Kane was far too careful, and the two of them successfully reached their inn discreetly.

"Ahhhh," Kane sighed in relief. "I can't wait to get into the hot tub."

"You can go ahead and eat without me, I have the usual stuff to do," Rui told him.

"Gotcha," Kane nodded nonchalantly. This had already been the norm, thus he didn't really see anything odd about it. "See you later."

Rui left the inn as he headed toward a particular destination that was actually on the other side of the country. This location would serve as the location for the burial of the esoteric resource supplies that Rui and Kane had harvested, which they would be selling in the name of Esosale Suppliers through the Bradt Distribution Network.

He needed to regularly restock the inventory of Esosale Suppliers, otherwise, the brand that he had built with the help of the guildmaster would be affected to a certain extent. Although he made sure not to shackle himself with such a thing, it was still something he was willing to consider when it was easy and affordable.

It took him a little while to reach the other side of the nation, finally reaching his destination.

"Alright, no one around for five kilometers, let's get to work," Rui pulled a shovel from the dimensional storage ring, before swiftly digging up a huge hole with it that was six feet deep.

THUD

He brought out all the esoteric harvests that he had in his storage, dumping them all in the big hole that he had just buried, before hurriedly covering the hole up once more. He blew some hot air at the sand with his windpipe, getting rid of the moisture in the dug-up sand that darkened it, making it completely indistinguishable from the dry sand around it.

('Let's get out of here before I'm spotted by anyone,') He quickly disappeared as he left behind a big sonic boom in his path.