Though Rhaegal had said the break would last an hour, in the end they hit the road again after nearly an hour and a half. Everyone was pretty tired after their battle with the odontotyrannus (for lack of a better name they'd decided to call it that for now), so no one had noticed the time passing... and then they technically didn't have a real way to measure time underground, so they hardly noticed. The only ones who could know the exact times were the dragons thanks to the fact that they could calculate the elapsed time thanks to their incredibly developed brain that allowed them to count the seconds based on their memories of the previous hours, and that was why Rhaegal always knew when it was time to contact Haku... but even they didn't mind resting a little longer, so they had ignored the delay. However they certainly couldn't wait forever, so in the end they got up and after taking all their things they were back on the road.
Unfortunately, the larger the caves they explored, the more difficult it was to find something that could be used for healing. It was easy when a cave was just a few hundred meters wide, because in a maximum of three hours they would have obtained total knowledge of all the life forms present and their characteristics... but in a cave about fifty kilometers wide and with an entire forest inside, the situation was quite different. Only the animal species present were tens, if not hundreds, while the species of mushrooms and fungi were thousands. Some were easy to find as we were the size of trees and were therefore easily seen from a distance, but most of them were very small and no taller than a blade of grass. Imagine being in an immense meadow and identifying every type of plant, grass, flower, insect, lizard and mouse present there: it would be a feat that would take days, if not weeks. That was more or less what Rhaegal and his group were experiencing now: in terms of exploration it was very nice, because every minute they found something new, but to find the cure it was very complicated.
"And that doesn't match what we're looking for either" Carlos muttered as he held up a mouse he'd just found hanging from the stem of a giant mushroom. It was a white mouse the size of a human finger with several pairs of centipede-like legs that even sprouted from the tip of its tail. "By the way, what do we call this?"
"Not another tigerman name!" Dyana exclaimed. It didn't suit her that Atelas had named the odontotyrannus with the language of his people; even if they were now allies, in fact, lionmen and tigermen still maintained a certain rivalry.
"Well, that's right. Let's give him the name in lionman language this time" Carlos said waving the mouse, which squeaked furiously. "How do you say 'many legs' in your mother language?"
"Schilalyi" Dyana answered.
Carlos thought about it for a moment, then he shrugged. "Well, it's cute… I'd say it's okay. If there's no objection, let's call it that" he said, then he finally let go of the mouse. The small rodent quickly escaped moving on its many legs as if it were really a centipede, and climbed over the stem of a mushroom until it reached the top. Once there it squealed furiously at Carlos, and then it dug its teeth into a small tunnel inside the mushroom in which it hid.
Sarah sighed deeply. "At this rate we'll never find what we're looking for" he murmured. "Maybe we're wrong. Maybe we should try to narrow our search. I mean, we've already found substances with the amount of mana we were looking for, and we know what produced them. Maybe if we look for similar mushrooms and animals we'll have a better chance of…"
"All the substances we found were poisonous" Serengal reminded her. "And while we have no way of knowing, it's unlikely that mushrooms and animals of similar species would produce less harmful substances. So far, all similar animals and mushrooms that we have noticed exhibited the same characteristics, such as those parasitic snakes. Therefore, if we looked for mushrooms and animals similar to those that produced substances with the amount of mana we need but still poisonous, it is likely that they would also be poisonous"
"Yes, but we can't know!" Sarah said. "Being similar organisms doesn't always mean having the same characteristics. Maybe the substances they produce will be similar, but we could find one that has a tolerable level of toxicity for us. We could be able to do it much faster..."
"Or we could ignore just what we needed to look for a ghost" Rhaegal pointed out. "If you were wrong, we would end up wasting a lot of time finding nothing, when perhaps what we were looking for was directly in front of us. The cure could be contained in any of these mushrooms under our feet, but if we focus only on the ones we know we could easily miss the right one"
"Well, at least we'd try to do something!" Sarah exclaimed in an irritated voice. "I'm tired of going in circles! We lost two weeks... maybe even more, I couldn't keep count... finding practically nothing! We inspected one cave after another in minute detail and got nothing! We'll never make it this way! This place is huge, and the further we go down the bigger it gets, and I'd like to remind you that it spreads all over the fucking desert! If we don't narrow our search, finding the cure in here will actually be a miracle!"
Well, she wasn't entirely wrong either. That underworld was truly immense and inspecting it piece by piece it would have taken years to explore it all. And since they'd ascertained that the amount of mana needed for the purpose was quite rare down here, the chances of finding the cure were quite slim. There was a very good chance that it existed given the size of that cave system, but very few to always find it because of the aforementioned size. "Look, I know it's hard" Rhaegal said in a tired voice. "I too wish there was a way to find the cure faster... but unfortunately there isn't. We know too little about this place to be able to exclude some organisms from the list. This place is not like a forest on the surface, which even if unexplored has characteristics common to all the other forests in the world and therefore more or less able to navigate, this is an environment that has been isolated from the rest of the world for who knows how many thousands of years. We have barely begun to know it and understand how it works. Excluding something now could mean committing a fatal mistake"
"But it could also mean the opposite, right?" Martha intervened by supporting Sarah. "You said it, we know too little about this place to rule out a possibility regardless, so what she's proposing might as well be accurate. I vote we do as she says, at least we could..."
"Oh, that's it! We told you this is a bad idea, why don't you understand?" Corgorin snapped. "Instead of wasting time complaining, keep working. This will allow us to find what we are looking for first, certainly not make random assumptions"
"Well, at least we're trying to find a solution!" Sarah exclaimed, her face blushing. "But you're not doing anything to improve the situation!"
"Here they go again..." Carlos murmured shaking his head. Both he and Atelas started to walk away, as they had learned was best done when the girls were fighting (which happened on average once a day, sometimes even more than once), but a thud made with such intensity that their limbs trembled stopped them. Rhaegal had just slammed his tail into the ground with such force that it cracked the earth as if it were glass.
"That's enough! I can't stand it anymore!" the dragon exclaimed in exasperation. "It's been two weeks... two damned weeks... you've been going down each other's throats every single day, and then I have to step in to smooth things over! I thought the way you two on the surface were annoying enough, but now you're exaggerating! I feel like I have to look after a bunch of children, and you all know how I feel about children since I've been sleeping outside ever since our cave has been haunted! ! Now I've had enough! Now let's play a nice little game: we all sit down, look into each other's eyes, and talk! Let's solve this thing here and now!"
Rhaegal really couldn't stand it anymore. He had hoped that because he was forced to work together, his sisters and the adventuresses would be able to talk and clarify, but for two weeks they had done nothing but poke each other. And now he was far too tired to go on like this. He refused to continue knowing that sooner or later there would be another fight, so it was time to resolve that situation.
The two dragonesses and the three adventuresses looked at each other for a moment; they'd wanted to tell Rhaegal that he wasn't their boss, but his tone had been so weary and at the same time authoritarian that it was obvious enough that he wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, so they did as they were told and sat down, albeit a little reluctantly. Atelas and Dyana did the same, but Carlos tried again to move away… only to be grabbed by Rhaegal's tail and forced to sit down as well. "Ok..." the man murmured realizing that he had no chance to escape from that conversation. "I know... first of all... can we talk about 'that' thing...?"
Carlos was obviously referring to the fact that the dragons had asked them not to reveal to anyone that they had given him dragon blood, and the adventurers had kept their word until then, not even discussing it with Dyana and Atelas. Now, however, if they really wanted to have a decisive conversation they would have had to talk about it in front of the two of them. "You trust them, and I trust you" Rhaegal said. "Talk about it freely. And then, even if you were going to say it around, I don't think it would create problems... I've already told Haku the truth". The legend that dragon's blood gave great powers was widespread among newcomers, and Haku had told Rhaegal that at least all the members of the Council already knew it was true, so it wasn't important to keep such properties secret; the only reason he had asked the adventurers to keep the matter silent was that he feared his brother's reaction and judgment. Now that he had already revealed everything to him, he had no reason to ask them to keep it hidden further.
"Oh, well, then I can finally explain!" Carlos exclaimed happily, then looked at Atelas and Dyana. "Long story short, they gave us their blood a couple of months ago and increased our strength, but they also hinted indirectly that they didn't trust us completely, and that pissed us off… then after a while Serengal and Corgorin thought we were overreacting and started sulking, and that's how we got to this situation"
"Wait a fucking minute!" Dyana exclaimed. "Did they give you their blood? So the legends are true? Does drinking dragon's blood increase strength?"
"Exactly, but I don't recommend it" Carlos told him. "Trust me, it was the most painful experience I've ever had. It was like having lava, acid and poison everywhere in my body. I prayed to die at least twenty times before that horrible process ended"
"Who cares! It's extraordinary!" Dyana exclaimed with shining eyes. "I was sure your strength had increased... so I was right! How exactly does it work?"
"I don't think this is the time to talk about it, do you think?" Rhaegal grumbled, glaring at the lionman rather grimly, who fell silent. Normally he wouldn't have been so rude, but now he wanted to resolve the situation as soon as possible. "Can we get back to the main topic, please?"
There was a moment of silence that seemed almost oppressive, and then Sarah spoke up. "Right. Let's talk about the important things" she said in a voice that was somewhat calm but hid a certain level of irritation. "I've wanted to say it to your face for a long time: you have disappointed us"