Chapter 395: Hellfire (7)

“We can’t waste any more time.”

After Phil left, Muen looked up at the cold, clear moon set into the blood-red cloud layer. He didn’t know if it was an illusion, but he kept feeling that compared to before, that moon was a bit larger; right now it was like a pale eye, coldly overlooking the entire world.

“Feels like I forgot something?”

Muen rubbed his chin and glanced in the direction Phil had disappeared. But there was no time to think about any of that now. He stood up and, moving nimbly along the rock wall, climbed and leaped his way forward, once again finding that tunnel mouth.

Muen raised a hand and rubbed out an Illumination spell, then looked into the hole.

The tunnel was very deep; you could not see the end at a glance. But it was only half a person tall; to enter, you had to hunch over uncomfortably.

Fortunately, judging by how it had stayed quiet even though Liya had gone in for quite a while already, the inside of the tunnel was temporarily safe.

“This is exactly that old Beijing vibe—an underground tunnel.”

Muen muttered a gripe, hesitated no further, and went straight in.

Following this obviously man-dug tunnel deeper and deeper, very soon the bright light in Muen’s hand reached the end.

There was no passage ahead; but as the damp soil came into view, Muen lowered his head, and a vertical shaft appeared in his sight.

“Changed direction?”

Muen gathered the light in his hand, practiced and sure, and shone it down toward the bottom of the vertical shaft.

The light was unobstructed and could shine to the bottom directly; but in Muen’s eyes, the bottom of the vertical shaft had already shrunk to the size of a bean.

He casually tossed a stone down. From the sound, he estimated it at nearly a hundred meters.

“What the hell—they dug it this deep?”

Muen thought for a moment. Wouldn’t this basically drill straight through the whole hill—and drilled through vertically at that.

If you wanted to reach somewhere below, wouldn’t digging horizontally from the base of the hill be easier?

He really didn’t know what the person who dug this was thinking.

“But no matter how bizarre their thinking is, I still have to close my eyes and jump. I’m not like Liya—I can’t use Float.”

Muen sighed.

A hundred meters would indeed be a chasm to ordinary people, but anyone who could get here wasn’t ordinary. Soaring to the sky and plunging into the earth—wasn’t that easy?

So Muen jumped.

Only, in those few seconds of falling through midair, as a muffled groan leaked uncontrollably from his nose, he suddenly remembered what he’d forgotten.

He’d forgotten to have Phil give him a top-up of Holy Light before leaving.

He had just fought passionately with the Love God’s projected avatar; even with Crimson Flame, there was no way he had completely healed the wounds that had nearly turned him into a sieve.

What’s more, the rejection reaction in his body hadn’t fully subsided and still needed Crimson Flame to balance it.

But the adrenaline spike from close combat, coupled with the urgency in his heart, had made him almost forget that he was seriously injured.

Until now.

“Shit.”

Muen’s face went pale. He reached out, trying to brace against the earthen walls on both sides to stop his fall.

But his mind suddenly went hazy; along with a violent sense of weightlessness, his consciousness felt gripped by a giant hand and yanked down into a pitch-black seabed.

“As expected... did I overplay it?”

...

...

“Save me...”

Who?

“Please save us...”

Who are you?

Why do you want me to save you? And how am I supposed to save you?

“Please... save us poor people...”

Damn it, can you speak human words or not—don’t you know all riddle-speakers deserve to die...

Muen jolted awake.

Those strange cries for help had made his temples throb, but what came into view wasn’t some hell of wailing misery—just an ordinary rock wall.

Was that the voice Liya heard?

Why can I hear ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ it too?

Muen shook his head and forcibly gathered his scattered mind.

Drip, drip.

Water fell onto the ground. That was the only sound here, and in this deep cave it felt especially eerie.

“You... woke... up?”

Suddenly, a second voice sounded. It was clumsy and vague, like someone who hadn’t spoken in a very long time opening their mouth for the first time, as if they were about to forget even how to pronounce words.

Muen’s pupils contracted; dragging his weakened body, he flipped up quickly, both hands already on his hilts.

To approach him and make him fail to notice— even in a just-awakened state...

“You?”

Muen’s face stalled; the hostility dissipated by half the instant he saw who had come.

It was a little girl. A strange little girl.

She wore a tattered white dress; her skin was so white as to be almost translucent, like a ghost, but she was filthy all over; her little face looked like she had just crawled out from the bottom of a pot—so black you couldn’t even see her features.

But what was strange wasn’t her appearance; it was that she wore on her head a miner’s cap a few sizes too big and held a rusty pickaxe in her hand.

It was comical, like a gag character from a cartoon had suddenly jumped into reality—full of dissonance.

And even more dissonant was... why would a little girl suddenly appear here?

A little girl appearing here was like, on the road to defeat the Demon King, all the monsters had turned into delicate, shy pretty girls.

If this wasn’t a dream, then the bigger possibility was a trap.

“Are you... going to kill me?”

The little girl looked at the blades in Muen’s hand and suddenly spoke.

“I... cough cough.”

Muen silently put his swords away.

After a careful observation, he confirmed there wasn’t the slightest aura of battle-qi or magic on the little girl; he couldn’t sense anything else either. The only reason he hadn’t noticed her earlier was that her presence was too faint.

But he didn’t fully lower his guard. He asked, “Who are you?”

“I am...”

The little girl thought for a moment. “Rab... bit.”

“Rabbit?”

Muen felt this sounded more like a nickname or something, but it wasn’t easy to press. He continued with other questions:

“What are you doing here?”

“Dig... ging.”

The little girl lifted the pickaxe in her hand.

“Digging?”

Muen frowned. His gaze slid around and, suddenly enlightened, he said:

“This hole—did you dig it?”

The little girl didn’t speak; she silently nodded.

Muen stared at her, eyes bright. “Are you a native here? Were these tunnels dug by the natives together? Where are the others? And what happened here?”

Muen asked a string of questions, but the little girl only stared at him with pitch-black eyes.

After a long moment, the little girl shook her head and said:

“Not... together.”

“What?”

“Not, together.”

The little girl named Rabbit seemed to have gotten slightly more used to speaking; her words came a bit clearer:

“This place... was dug by me.”

“You?”

Muen froze, then suddenly turned his head and took stock of the surroundings.

After jumping down from that nearly hundred-meter shaft, the space here, unlike the entrance area, was extremely wide—wide enough that Muen could stand perfectly straight even with his height.

And only now did he notice that all around were other tunnel openings—densely packed, interconnecting each other, like a complex ant-nest labyrinth.

Muen’s voice even warped a little. “You dug all this—alone, by yourself?”

Rabbit silently nodded. “Yes.”

“......”

No wonder she’s called Rabbit—this burrowing ability...

Muen glanced at her thin little arms and legs and immediately felt this was no simple character.

“Right—since you dug the tunnels.”

Muen took a deep breath and asked, “Did you see a girl earlier? About this tall, very cute, wearing a green dress—the characteristic is that her three measurements are extremely outstanding.”

“I saw her,” Rabbit answered.

“I saw her, but she didn’t notice me. She went straight deeper in.”

“Really?”

Muen got excited. When he’d seen those crisscrossing tunnel mouths just now, he had basically despaired; but now, fortunately, he could find a guide:

“Can you take me to find her? I— hiss, that hurts.”

Because he’d gotten overexcited, he accidentally tugged his wounds; Muen’s face scrunched up at once.

“Looks like I can’t be too hasty.”

Even though Muen wanted to sprout wings and fly straight to Liya’s side right now, he didn’t want this scenario: his Lady Saintess calling for her knight in a crisis, the knight she kept in her heart stepping down on seven-colored auspicious clouds... and then performing an on-the-spot blood-spit and knee-slide.

“Let’s rest first.”

Muen had plenty of confidence in his recovery. Even without the blessing of Holy Light, as long as he adjusted a bit, it shouldn’t take long to regain enough mobility.

Then he would ask Miss Rabbit for help...

Thinking this, Muen took out a piece of fruit, crunched into it, and while replenishing his strength, kept asking:

“Did you save me, Miss Rabbit?”

“No. You fell into a mud pit. It’s very soft there.”

“I see. Then how long was I out?”

“Two hundred drops.”

“Drops?”

Muen blinked; then he realized she meant the sound of water droplets on the rock.

Judging by the intervals between drops, it was probably less than ten minutes.

Thank goodness...

“Miss Rabbit, you—”

Muen’s voice stalled. He blinked.

He discovered Rabbit had been standing a fair distance away the whole time, seeming to remain wary of him.

If so, she might not agree to his guide request.

And he had more questions...

“Right—do you want to eat?”

Noticing that Rabbit’s gaze had been fixed tightly on the fruit in his hand, Muen thought for a moment and asked.

“What... is that?”

Rabbit blinked, looking very curious.

“This is fruit... don’t tell me you don’t even know what fruit is.”

Muen asked in surprise.

This was a nation that had never received the gods’ grace under the gods’ grace—Rabbit actually didn’t know fruit?

Muen thought carefully, then—oh.

Maybe she really didn’t know. After all, on the trees of this Golden Nation, what grows is flesh. Where would fruit come from.

“For you to eat. Do you want it?” Muen took out a fruit.

Rabbit stared warily at Muen, but she was obviously drooling over the fruit in his hand; she swallowed hard, hesitating.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. Just now was a misunderstanding.”

Muen used as gentle a tone as possible. “I also want to ask you to help me later, so consider this an advance payment.”

After staring for a long while, as if finally confirming that Muen truly had no ill will, Rabbit carefully approached; even while staying on guard, she snatched the fruit from Muen’s hand in one go.

She took a small tentative bite first—and then Muen saw a clear light flare in those pitch-black eyes. Right after, as if she hadn’t eaten in ages, she wolfed it down.

“Don’t rush. Eat slowly. I have more.”

Muen took out more fruit; Rabbit swallowed them down in two or three bites each, not even spitting out the pits.

“What a little glutton.”

Muen smiled, reached into his stash, and found the fruit had been eaten up. So he took out a piece of pre-stored roast meat, handed it over, and asked:

“Looks like the fruit’s gone. Do you want this?”

“Don’t... don’t bring that kind of thing near me!”

With a smack, Muen stared, dumbfounded, at the roast meat swatted from his hand. Rabbit’s expression was one of disgust—like a frightened little beast.

“You don’t like it?”

Muen snatched the roast mid-air with quick hands. Food was scarce now; he couldn’t waste it.

“If you don’t like it, just say so. No need to do that.”

Muen put on a stern face and earnestly lectured, “You’re all believers of the Life Goddess Aimier, right? In the teachings of the Goddess Aimier, isn’t there a commandment about not wasting food?”

Rabbit showed a puzzled expression.

“Ah, I almost forgot. For you, who have almost infinite food, how could you know what ‘waste’ means?”

Muen chuckled, unbothered, and lowered his head to quickly deal with the roast meat, restoring his strength as fast as possible.

But the puzzled look on Rabbit’s face didn’t fade. Watching Muen eliminate the roast bit by bit, she suddenly said:

“I... we, are indeed believers of the Life Goddess. But...”

“Hm?”

“But...”

Rabbit lifted her gaze and met Muen’s eyes, which held the same puzzled look, and said one word at a time:

“The Aimier... you speak of—who is that?”