The cave around them was very damp and cold, so cold that they couldn’t help shivering.
Lan’er and Lu’er hugged each other as they tried to warm each other up, but it really wasn’t working with how soaked they were.
The water kept dripping down from the ceiling, so it wasn’t as if they were going to dry up anytime soon.
If they hadn’t been cultivators, they would have already gotten ill a long time ago.
They didn’t know how long passed, but based on how dim the light was, they knew that it should be nighttime now.
When the bandits had brought them to this cave, it had been early in the morning.
To spend a whole day in this kind of damp place really was torture.
But it was definitely much worse for the mercenaries from the Mercenary Guild that had been kept here for over a week.
When they had been brought in, they were surprised to see these mercenaries, but they quickly learned that these mercenaries were the ones that had been captured when the bandits had attacked the Mercenary Guild’s caravans previously.
Lan’er and Lu’er really couldn’t help being impressed by how strong they were that they had been able to hold on for an entire week. But based on how they looked now, they didn’t believe that they would be able to hold on much longer…
However, there wasn’t a way out of this place for them.
The bandits were guarding the entrance and there were hoards of bandits outside, so it was impossible for them to fight their way out. Not to mention that they were quite weakened from being soaked in this cold water and being starved.
So even if they wanted to fight, they just didn’t have the energy to do so…
Still, Lan’er and Lu’er didn’t give up because they knew what being captured by rough men like these bandits meant for them. If they didn’t find a way out of this soon, then…their innocence would be in danger.
In fact, it was already a miracle that they had been able to keep it this long. They really thought that they would have been assaulted the first night or last night when they were camping out.
However, the bandits didn’t lay a single hand on them.
They didn’t know why this was the case, but they couldn’t help letting out a sigh of relief each morning.
The fear of being assaulted was still there though, so they couldn’t give up on finding a way out.
However, before they could find a way out, they suddenly heard shouting coming from outside of the prison.
The two of them looked at each other and then looked out the bars that were the doors to this cell. They could see some lights flashing in the distance before the guards that had been guarding them suddenly ran off to respond to the loud sounds.
Seeing that they had been left alone, the two girls quickly looked around to find a way to escape, but there wasn’t anything at all. The keys had been taken away and there wasn’t even a single rock that they could use as a tool or a weapon.
Though before they could do anything, there was a sound that suddenly came from behind them.
All of the people in the cell were surprised to see the wall that was at the very back of the cell suddenly collapsing. After the wall collapsed, it revealed a hole where there was a faint figure standing there.
They couldn’t clearly see who it was since it was too dark in this cell, but they all immediately raised their guards.
Before they could do anything, the figure suddenly said, “I’m here to rescue you. Come with me if you want to live.”
All of the prisoners in this cell were surprised, but then Lan’er suddenly said, “Boss, is that you?”
Lu’er also seemed to recognize something as she said, “Ah, it’s the boss! The boss is here to save us!”
Lin Fan came forward with a bitter smile on his face and shook his head before saying, “Shh, be quiet or you’ll draw them back. Now follow me.”
The Mercenary Guild mercenaries were hesitating a bit, but then they suddenly realized who Lin Fan was.
These Mercenary Guild mercenaries had spent quite a bit of time at the dungeon town, so naturally they were able to recognize Lin Fan. In fact, they had even talked to him quite a bit when they had stayed at the inn that time he was helping out there.
So without a word, they all started heading towards him. However, they were very weakened because of the time that they had spent in this cold and wet cell, so they only took a few steps before falling down.
Lin Fan saw this and then came forward to pick them all up as he said, “Alright, let’s go.”
The mercenaries had embarrassed looks on their faces, but they really couldn’t say anything since they knew that they wouldn’t be able to leave unless he carried them. So they just silently laid there while being carried by him.
As Lin Fan led the hostages out of the room, he also made sure to toss a toad through the bars before leaving. Then when they were out of the room and out of sight of that cell, he had the moles that he had left behind call up the door of the cell with a wall of earth.
After the door of the cell had been walled off, he gave the signal to Greeny and Greeny sent that signal to the toad.
With one loud croak, the toad’s mouth swelled before it suddenly blew up, releasing a large explosion of purple gas.
This purple gas quickly spread through the cave and soon it surrounded the bandits that were still in the cave.
The moment that the bandits breathed in the poison, there were black dots that appeared on their skin and all of them started coughing out blood. There were those that tried to run, there were those that tried to find the source of this purple smoke, and there were those that didn’t know what to do.
But no matter what they did, none of them were able to save themselves.
That was because the cave had been completely sealed off by Lin Fan.
The interesting thing that Lin Fan had found earlier was that the cell was very close to the back of the mountain. There was only a thin layer of stone between the cell and freedom.
So he had gone all the way to the back of the mountain and started digging his way to the cell.
He didn’t dig all the way to the cell right away, otherwise he would have reached it a long time ago since he had started digging in the morning.
Instead, Lin Fan had sent the other moles on another mission during this time. The other moles that he controlled went to the entrance of the cave and set a few things up, waiting for most of the bandits to come into the cave.
He knew that it was impossible for all the bandits to come in since they weren’t foolish enough to not set up a guard patrol, so he didn’t aim for all of them to be inside at the same time.
His chance finally came when the bandits came in for their dinner, which had turned into a feast to celebrate their successful raid. While all these bandits had been distracted he gave the order to the moles to set off the explosives to distract the bandits.
These explosives were nothing more than smoke bombs, but they had distracted the bandits long enough for the moles to create earth walls that completely covered up the entrance.
During this time, Lin Fan had broken through the back of the mountain with his pre-dug hole. All he did was break through that final layer to walk through into the cell.
Then after saving the hostages, he threw the poison toad in and sealed the only opening left which was the entrance to this cell.
The rest was history.
As for the bandits that were still left outside, they tried to break down the walls that had covered up the entrance at first, but that didn’t last long.
p That was because they were immediately hunted by the beasts in the woods.
Or rather, the beasts that Lin Fan had left.
He knew that he couldn’t trap all of them and that there would be stragglers, so he would need to clean up those stragglers too.
That was why he had left Fuyuki and Fubuki’s pack outside.
By the time he made it back to the front of the mountain with the hostages, there were only corpses left on the ground.
Fuyuki and Fubuki had long led their pack back into the forest since that was what Lin Fan had ordered them to do.
Even if he had told some people that he could tame beasts, that didn’t mean that he wanted everyone to know. It was an important trump card he had to keep secret for the future.
When the mercenaries and the two girls saw the ground covered in corpses, they couldn’t help looking at Lin Fan with shock and admiration.
Not only had he smoothly saved them, he had also killed off all the bandits at the same time.
While they didn’t know just how he had done it, that didn’t stop them from admiring him all the same.
Especially Lu’er and Lan’er, the two of them had strange looks in their eyes as they remembered what Yue Lan had told them before…as well as a faint blush on their cheeks…