146 Inside the box

On the second floor of the house there was not much else, there were only the bedrooms, bathrooms and a meeting room. There were a few more harvesters, but they didn't pose much of a problem to them.

Then, they finally stopped at the stairs leading down to the basement.

"Get ready" Veronica said, grabbing her spear.

Atlas made his staff into a spear creating the ethereal edge and at the same time the others prepared themselves. He could sense that there were a large number of harvesters hidden in the basement, at least two dozen of them. Although it shouldn't be a big problem.

Verónica was the first to go downstairs, followed by the others. There were no windows in the basement so they had to summon some light spheres to be able to see where they were walking.

When they went down the stairs, they found a lot of trash, especially shiny things. Additionally, there were dozens of eggs at the ends of the room.

"Attention"

As soon as she said that, Veronica raised her spear cutting in front of her, then a harvester fell dead to the ground, split in two. At the same time, Mika raised her hands and her nails turned into long claws with which she tore at another harvester that was jumping towards her.

The two mages did their part and killed more harvesters while Atlas stayed still since no harvesters attacked him.

'It's kind of disappointing'

Since Atlas was behind Veronica and Mika, he didn't have much free space, so he waited for the group to advance and split up so he could finally confront the harvesters.

But if before the harvesters had not paid attention to him since he was behind them, now that Atlas was in their sight, they immediately focused on him.

The basement was very dark and with the only source of light being the orbs that floated around, Atlas's silver hair shined beautifully, and like a spotlight that attracts moths, his hair attracted the attention of most of the harvesters.

It didn't take long for Atlas to realize this as three harvesters at the same time jumped towards him. He was barely able to react and with an agile movement of his feet he dodged one of them while another stabbed him in the chest, then turned his body and hit the last one on the head with the other end of his staff.

The harvester he had dodged had already been finished off by Mika so Atlas didn't have to focus on it and instead focused on the other harvesters who had his attention on it.

Atlas's movements with the spear were rough. He had barely trained with it in real combat, so the little he could do wasn't very effective. He could take on three harvesters at a time, but beyond that number it became a challenge for him.

Fortunately for him, he was not alone, and in a matter of a few minutes the basement was completely cleared of beasts.

Atlas wiped the drop of sweat that fell from his face and lowered his staff. The others also relaxed, but compared to Atlas, they did not sweat.

"I'll take care of the eggs, you collect the mana cores" Veronica indicated, approaching the corner of the room where there was an accumulation of eggs.

The others listened and began to open the bodies of the harvesters looking for their cores. After several minutes, they had finished collecting all the cores, so they finally focused on the steel-reinforced wooden door in front of them.

"It's open…" Mika murmured.

The room where the treasure was supposed to be was completely open. It may have been closed for years, but with the passage of time and with the efforts of the harvesters, the treasure had finally been looted.

Veronica was the first to enter the room and look around, then the others followed her. Seeing the interior, they sighed somewhat disappointed.

"I was expecting a hidden treasure… even a few dozen gold coins"

"But there are only empty boxes and rusty things"

The two mages chatted among themselves, looking at the boxes full of worthless objects. They may have been valuable ten years ago, but they weren't anymore.

The room was relatively small but big enough for the five of them to walk inside without problem.

Atlas moved towards the end of the room while the others deviated to check all the shelves in search of something important, valuable or some information.

At the end of the room there were more boxes with some swords, spears, bows and other weapons rusted with time and humidity. Atlas investigated the boxes where they were kept, but he found nothing useful.

'I was kind of excited to find something...'

Atlas sighed and moved a box to reach one behind it. At that moment, he noticed a strange hole hidden in the wall behind the boxes that caught his attention immediately.

"I think I found something" Atlas said the moment he saw the hole in the wall.

The others stopped what they were doing and headed towards Atlas.

"A hole in the wall hidden behind some boxes?" asked one of the mages.

Atlas nodded and with the help of the others he finished moving the boxes full of weapons, then he approached the wall and crouched in front of the hole. It was not very deep so it was not difficult for him to remove the rectangular box that was hidden inside.

"A simple box? Oh, but it has a lock"

Atlas put the box on top of another box and studied it for a few seconds. Then Mika, who was also looking at the box, said: "Maybe the key we found will work?"

"Wasn't that the room key?"

Everyone assumed that the key they had found in the office on the second floor opened the room where they were right now, but since it was already open at first, they did not give the key much importance.

Atlas took the key out of his pocket and inserted it into the lock. He slowly turned the key and a metallic sound echoed silently.

"It opened…" Atlas murmured.

Slowly, Atlas removed the lock and carefully opened the box. When it was completely open, everyone looked inside confused.

"What's that?" asked one of the mages.

"No idea… I've never seen anything like it"

Mika and Veronica also silently looked at the contents of the box while Atlas swallowed nervously. Mika, noticing that Atlas was a little nervous, asked: "Is something wrong?"

Atlas quickly reacted and shook his head.

"It's nothing, it just caught my attention"

That's when Veronica pointed to the piece of paper that was inside the box.

"It has a note"

Atlas stretched out his hand trying to keep his arm from shaking and took the note, read it and summarized what was important.

"I-it's a prototype weapon that the empire created. The Count who controlled these lands sent this prototype to the representative of the city to test it with the soldiers stationed at the border"

"So, it's a weapon? It doesn't look very imposing…"

None of them understood the purpose of the supposed weapon in the box... all except Atlas, who was very familiar with this type of weapon.

'D-did they create a rifle?'