Chapter 1260  +25 BONUS  Violet saw how much weight Carissa had lost–she couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep.  Heart aching, she pulled Carissa into an embrace, pressing Carissa’s head onto her shoulder. ” Lean on me. If crying makes you feel better, then let it out.”  But Carissa suddenly shoved her away, scrambling to her feet and jumping over the stream. She ran a few steps forward, stopping at a tree.  Carved into the trunk of the tree was a clear and detailed orchid.  Carissa ran her fingers over the smooth lines of the flower, but her heart didn’t lift. While the blossom was complete, the condition of the tree and the carving itself suggested that this was the mark Travis and Kyle had found.  It was a discovery, but it was also like finding nothing at all.  After a moment of quiet contemplation, she spoke. “Vivi, why don’t you all head back down the mountain first? I’ll stay here and keep looking. Since there’s a mark here, there must be more further ahead.”  Violet gave her a light tap on the head. “What are you thinking? We’re in this together. If we leave, we leave together. If we stay, we stay together.”  “But our provisions are running out,” Carissa said.  “Well, we’ll catch fish and forage for wild fruit,” Violet reassured her. “I’m sure His Highness and Dylan have been getting by the same way.  One of Carissa’s biggest worries was that, after so long in the mountains, they would run out of provisions. But there weren’t many wild fruits around, so survival now meant hunting rabbits and mountain chickens. And along the way, they had already seen quite a few animals.  On the western slope of the mountain, two men with scruffy beards sat in a small cave, gnawing on freshly roasted wild rabbit. Their clothes were covered in dirt and grease, and their hair was disheveled. They had just washed their beards in a nearby mountain spring, making them look a little less wild.  They hadn’t done it for their appearance. With their beards so long, the constant consumption of meat would cause bits of food to get caught in the hair. At night, when they took turns sleeping, ants would crawl onto their faces, nibbling at the scraps. Generally, the ants weren’t too bad, but when they came across a nest of poisonous ones, their faces would swell up with red, painful welts.  Right now, their faces and bodies were dotted with those red, swollen bumps. Luckily, they had brought along some of Sebastian’s antidote pills. Otherwise, those two men would have been killed by the ants.  1/2  +25 BONUS  Chapter 1260  Dylan scratched his face again while chewing, unable to hold back a curse. “Once we catch the next supply delivery, we’ll set this mountain on fire and burn every last ant.”  Rafael kicked him lightly. “Stop scratching. You’ll break the skin, and you don’t want scars. You haven’t even found a wife yet.”  “Your Highness, aren’t you itchy?” Dylan glanced at Rafael, who was still eating gracefully. His face was clearly dotted with more red bumps than Dylan’s, yet he wasn’t scratching.  “It does itch,” Rafael said, taking a deep breath, his face growing even more red and swollen. ” But scratching just makes it worse. Between pain and itch, I choose itch. This is also a good time to exercise my perseverance and endurance.”  After he finished speaking, he rubbed his whole face on his arm, feeling much better.  They had been waiting here for ten days. Before that, they had been wandering around the mountains without much progress. Going down the mountain was too much trouble, so they simply kept searching.  It was ten days ago when they discovered the small cave. Below it, hidden by a tangle of dry grass, was a larger cave. It was artificially dug, and it was deep and vast. Inside, they found provisions and some weapons.  They had found it by chance as someone had been bringing food down the mountain to the village. So, they snuck in at night to investigate and noted that the grain was running low.  They overheard a conversation that revealed the supply delivery was expected again in the next 10 to 15 days, at which point the hidden entrance to a tunnel would be opened. It was then they realized that the grain wasn’t being transported through the village road, but through a tunnel.  There was actually a tunnel in the mountains?  —  At that moment, Rafael remembered during the chaos of the previous era, Lunvale had been occupied by a rebel army for over ten years. He had heard that they dug tunnels all over the mountains in Lunvale, planning to use them to launch surprise attacks.  Since it happened over two hundred years ago, Rafael had only read about it in historical records. It was such a big event, yet it was only mentioned briefly in the history books, so he didn’t remember much about it. He only recalled it when he heard the people mention the tunnels.  He didn’t know if the tunnel was extensive. If it was, it would definitely lead to more than just Stone Village.  Years ago, the rebel army had occupied the area for over a decade and stayed in the mountains. The region had a series of rolling mountains, with many villages of different sizes.  Rafael wanted to explore the tunnel where the food was being sent, to find out where it entered, and then investigate how many tunnels there were.  Chapter 1261