It was enough and the drive went smoothly for three hours until they reached the coast.
The location of interest, but Roman still had a journey ahead of him.
Getting out of the car and letting the driver go making sure to retrieve his soul mark, Roman left the road and began jogging up the shore-line.
The shore he got dropped off was rural to begin with. No people for miles in all directions.
With an ocean to his left and a forest to his right. The shore was not sandy, but rocky.
While following the coast each direction would eventually lead to small towns, there was quite a distance to reach them.
With the sun falling and darkness taking over, Roman took a flashlight out of his backpack stocked with useful things.
But Roman didn't run into any creatures, all too spooked by the flashlight.
Until a few hours of running brought him to a more rocky region, forcing him to slow down.
And within a few minutes of entering this new environment he felt a presence and paused.
Pointing his flash light in the direction of the presence he saw nothing. Approaching the location he sensed the presence, Roman found no evidence of any animal.
So he continued but every now and then he sensed a new presence, but could never actually find it.
Until the sun began to shine through and Roman put his flash light away. Continuing his journey, but not long later he again felt another presence.
Turning to its location he saw a hole appear from a rock and bubbles rising, floating into the air.
But the bubble seemed to hold a green gas. Roman had no clue what this was.
Darting to its location, the hole quickly closed and any further investigation into the rock, even destroying it led to nothing.
This puzzled Roman but he continued forward, this time collecting a few pebbles into his hand.
Awaiting the next time this rock-opening-bubble-leaking phenomenon occurred again.
And he didn't have to wait long, when Roman noticed it happening again. Quickly throwing a rock, popping a bubble and letting the green gas escape.
Roman watched the green gas dive down as if affected by gravity ten times more than normal.
Something was definitely below him, so Roman quickly paused searching for a cave entrance or something similar.
Though he found nothing in a range of ten or so miles around. Just encountering more rock-opening-bubble-leaking phenomenon.
Experimenting further, even managing to lodge a pebble into the rock opening.
But the hole closed the moment he approached crushing the pebble into dust.
Though if Roman didn't approach the phenomenon, he found the phenomenon didn't stop and lasted a few minutes.
Not finding a solution, Roman continued forward knowing while he was in the correct area mentioned in the mission he hadn't found what he was looking for.
What was he trying to find? It was supposed to be glowing yellow and red shells.
But after a dozen more hours he reached the end of the designated search area. Exiting the area he was supposed to find such shells.
He knew this mission was supposed to be hard, it was labeled B-rank. The same difficulty that the chimera ants were supposed to be.
But after entering the hunter bar and browsing missions he knew not everything was the way it seemed to be.
F-rank missions were from non-Hunters who were rich enough to afford a hunter.
D-rank missions were mainly posts from hunters requesting aid.
While C-rank to B-rank were a mix of hunters requesting aid, information or rare treasures.
But A-rank missions were the highest ranking. Missions Roman learned about from the bartender personally.
But there was no mention of the dark continent, and Roman knew it was secretive.
So Roman assumed the B-rank given to the chimera ants was a front for the public.
Or possibly it was the true difficulty of the chimera ants if you disincluded the king and his royal guards.
But from what Roman knew about the dark continent he also thought the given B-rank could derive from a ranking system based purely on the dark continent.
A ranking that appeared the same but held a vastly different weight.
After all, the phantom troops were designated as an A-rank criminal gang in the anime, the same level as the 14 marches and five shadows.
But they would be no match for the king of the chimera ants.
Turning around not willing to give up, he searched the forest around the area again for an entrance, but found nothing.
His last option was the ocean, an underwater cave opening.
This held the most promise after all he was looking for shells not fang.
The ocean held more promise than the forest.
Racing against the clock to beat the darkness, Roman again didn't find what he was looking for, but there were lots of large rocks blocking his view, so it actually wasn't fully searched, and he bet there was an entrance either under a rock or behind it.
But the darkness was setting in and Roman was too lazy to search for it in the dark.
So he used En, the advanced technique to sense your surroundings.
Directing it down, beneath the ground a hundred meters. Not his full strength but it was the deepest he was willing to dig.
Running across the region of interest trying to find the underground cause for the phenomenon.
It wasn't until he went to the center of the region of interest. Where the rock-opening-bubble-leaking phenomenon was most common.
That he found a large pocket of space beneath.
So he halted his usage of En and concentrated his aura into his hands, before beginning to dig as the night took over.
Sensing a number of presences every now and then. He ignored everything, digging a human sized hole dozens of meters deep through pure stone.
Until he reached an opening, and within he was greeted by a lake of water.
The water was illuminated by a yellow and red floor, which Roman could tell was full of shells, and of course the green gas.
The green gas was coming from something within the water and when it broke free from the lake, it was surrounded by water, floating up into the rocks above.
But upon further inspection the green gas was coming from the yellow shells.
Roman predicted that once the green gas was extracted from the yellow shell it turned red. This was because nothing was leaving the red shells and the yellow shells were of all different shades leaning toward red.
But this all made Roman curious about where all the shells came from.
Before dropping down, Roman carved a pocket into the tunnel he dug, putting his bag within.
And taking a rope out, trying it to a jutting out rock, and dropping it into the lake below.
But when the rope touched the water below something happened.
As if connected to the rocky walls, they trembled and before Roman knew it the tunnel Roman dug was rapidly closing, as if healing.
He was stunned but the speed of the rocks closing was too fast for him to react, so he descended the rope with gritted teeth.
The tunnel he carved was very small to begin with, and in a moment an inch was closed and it became too small for him to escape through.
Looking around, Roman noticed an underwater entrance, confirming his theory of an underwater passage in the ocean.
Though the rocks moving wasn't the only anomaly, when Roman was looking at the underwater passage, a green clam appeared.
Making Roman's eyes widen, this was because the aura of the clam wasn't weak.
Though the clam didn't seem to notice him, closely inspecting the underground lake, with unknown sense.
A clam didn't have eyes, ears or really anything to sense the surroundings accurately. But it was doing so, and Roman knew if clams had weak senses Nen could make up the difference.
Though once the clam didn't find anything off it started moving toward him.
But Roman wasn't surprised, he already knew the rope hitting the water got him into this mess.
So it wouldn't be weird if the clam came to inspect it. The reason for the clam not inspecting it first was probably because it didn't feel threatened by it.
Reaching the Rope just a few feet into the water it paused, now only a feel meters away from Roman.
Something that made him realize that the clam could probably only sense things in the water.
But just then the clams shell began to open, revealing a blinding green light, and before Roman knew it the part of the rope in the water was disintegrated into nothing. Causing a ripple in the lake thanks to the now empty space.
Though Roman knew he didn't want to fight such a power, it was terrifying and he didn't know if he could withstand it.
So Roman didn't hesitate to act when the clam's mouth began to shut. Afterall the clam's mouth was probably its weak point.
Summoning his cloak Roman dove toward the clam at a blind spot.
He didn't need to avoid the green light, Roman knew the light although unavoidable. Its power was very controlled, when it destroyed the rope it only destroyed the rope.
So with his aura concentrating on his hands, taking the form of a spear, emitted with great control, he threw it with great force.
Entering the water as if the water wasn't even their Roman watched the spear pierce the Clams mouth and even pierce partially through the back of its shell.
With the light in its mouth dying and the clam falling lifelessly on the lake bed.
Roman was just now falling into the water, but unexpectedly he landed on the water, like it was glass.
This was weird and contrary to everything he had experienced thus far.