Overlord: Start from the Goblin Lair.

"If that's what you're saying, then you really shouldn't say it." Driver used his short stature to squeeze into a front row seat. He reached over the outer wall of the cabin and poked the shell of the mummy inside. "It feels a bit like wood when you poke it."

The sound of the goblins hitting the corpse shells echoed in the dark space, making the environment a little scary. However, the corpses here were indeed dead, and there was no terrifying scene of opening the coffin and rising.

"He really is a 'vegetable'," Ron told a pun that was universal in all languages, repeating it in Common and Elvish, making Ivy laugh. "It looks like his culture chamber is broken, causing him to lose his nutrient supply."

Ron carefully observed the space around the mummy, and quickly summoned the wizard's hand, pulling out a few tubes from the corpse's tightly clenched hands: "I didn't just pull these off."

These material transport devices that looked like infusion tubes but were thicker were definitely not pulled out by Ron. There might have been no fluid passing through them ten centuries ago, and they were now full of mold. If the person lying there was still alive, it would definitely not be a pleasant experience to be injected with these things.

So he must have pulled them out himself, but the creature couldn't survive for long without its source of nutrition, and eventually died in this device that instinctively maintained its life.

Ron and his team opened several other containers one after another. The bodies inside all had similar experiences, even the way they died was similar: they all held tightly the infusion tube that sustained their lives. As the number of samples that came into view gradually increased, Ron also saw some exceptions: they seemed to have decided to take the risk of reinserting the tube at the end of their lives, but this did nothing except make their deaths more tragic.

"Their entire bodies have been eaten away," Gillianis said softly, looking down at these creatures hoping to get lucky. "The bacteria in this pipe have no interest in flesh and blood, but they have a special liking for them, who are also plants."

"This kind of collective incident probably means that there is a problem with the storage device, or a leak in the transmission pipeline, causing these fungi to invade their lifeline."

"But why don't they just crawl out?" Anastasia was curious. "They are plants, right? Can't they feed themselves?"

Take the spore people as an example. Although they like to eat fresh meat, bones and blood, they can also absorb nutrients from soil and various organic matter, so there is almost no option for them to starve to death.

The elven mercenary looked around at the fragile ecosystem in the space. Although it was fragile, it seemed that there would be no problem if they wanted to survive.

At least they should die outside, instead of sitting and lying in rows in these metal coffins.

"Aunt Anna, the environment here was slowly formed several centuries after them, remember?" the half-elf warrior reminded, "At that time, they were likely facing bare metal walls, floors, and ceilings. If they couldn't eat their own kind, it might be more comfortable inside."

"But..." Anastasia looked up at the door leading to the cellar above. The meaning was obvious: if there was a larger metal coffin here, why didn't they leave here?

There is a cave outside, so there should be something to eat. "You forgot how we got in. The entrance and exit here need a 'lord' to open it - do you understand?" The vampire explained to his former compatriot.

"No," the elf refused to accept such a simple explanation. "So what is the purpose of their doing this? Is this some kind of mass burial ritual? The so-called Renaissance Fortress is actually a huge mausoleum?"

"You can question me, but you can't question nature!" The goblin hunter retorted, "I didn't name it that way! I think there must be some truth in it!"

"Okay, stop arguing," Ron waved his hand to interrupt them. He walked back to the first opened cabin with his hands on his hips and counted all the devices they dug out of the soil, including those that had been opened and those that had not been opened. "If we are a force - I'm not saying whether this is civilized or not - don't you think that even so, this amount is a bit too small?"

There are no more than two hundred cabins here at most, which is small even for a village - limited by this scale, can these vegetative people really have such a complete system to support them in building these cabins?

These are not wooden coffins. Even from Ron's perspective, they are full of the breath of the future!

"You mean..." As colleagues to a certain extent, Gillianis and Ron's thoughts are always in sync, "They should have other members of the same tribe?"

"Look around!" Victoria immediately took action. "Also, there is no device here that can store the nutrients they need. There must be a compartment nearby!"

"Do you want me to ask again?" Driver's body glowed with emerald green light again, but it quickly went out again. It seemed that the environment here was not suitable for the goblin to perform the Ask Nature spell again.

Fortunately, with a clear goal in mind, everyone had more means to move. Under Victoria's eyes filled with twilight, a door that blended into the environment appeared in front of everyone. As Ron pushed it open, a spiral staircase that could accommodate at least five adult men walked side by side wound down in the darkness, and no one knew where it led.

"There is a secret door about forty meters down." Victoria's spell gradually faded, but she had obtained all the information she wanted. "There is another one sixty or seventy meters down."

"Forty meters and sixty meters, we are underground now. We are almost in the Underdark..." Sera frowned, took the lighting equipment with light magic from Ron's hand, and walked down first, "Follow closely, pay attention to the top of your head, this is not a joke."

Creatures like bats would like to hang upside down above this dark space. If it were just bats, it would be fine, but if there were some other monsters lurking in the darkness, it would likely deal a fatal blow to everyone.

"Don't worry, I'll be watching over there for you," the Sword Song Lion Armor made a sound, "As for the Underdark, don't worry. Although we usually say that the surface area is close to the surface, even the shallowest part is measured in kilometers. You want to go to the Underdark? This is just the beginning!" (End of this chapter)