All the little mice I’d once arranged to scurry about the underground passageway—none of them could be sensed anymore?
How strange. Let me try again.
After trying to sense them once more, Rita became even more certain: something was off about the atmosphere here.
Although, perhaps “atmosphere” wasn’t quite the right word to describe those colorless, formless things lurking at her side.
Right now, all Rita’s senses were normal, but she still felt as if the eye of her mind had been sealed shut.
Very soon, Rita understood what it was she’d sensed—what gave her such a deeply ominous feeling.
“Mana…?”
It was mana. Like someone had filled a glass to the brim with Pepsi, and now no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t pour in any Coke.
“Rita, what are you talking about?” On Rita’s back, Cecilia, who had kept her lips sealed this whole time, was bewildered by these sudden words from Rita.
Rita herself couldn’t make sense of it, so there was no way to explain it to Cecilia. But right now, there was no need to explain—she just had to keep going.
“It’s nothing. I think I know how to find that place now.”
At the moment, Rita felt like she was back in elementary school, trying to press together two like poles of tiny science magnets. No matter how you forced them, there was always a repulsive force, the closer they got, the stronger it became.
Her path might not be the right one, or necessarily smooth, but Rita could still use that force to get as close as possible.
All she had to do was head towards the spot where the repulsion was strongest, where she felt the most uncomfortable, and she’d be fine, right?
Just keep going…
Wait, why did that feeling suddenly weaken? Could something have changed again?
With that thought, Rita turned and stepped back a few paces—the oppressive sensation seemed to grow stronger again, proving that it wasn’t the outside world that had changed, but herself.
Rita paced back and forth, feeling the unpleasant sensation grow stronger, then weaker. For a moment, she didn’t even know which way she should go.
How could Cecilia not notice such an obvious abnormality? Even if they were lost, it wouldn’t mean just standing in place, especially since the tunnels weren’t complicated to begin with.
“Rita, what’s wrong?”
“Lady Cecilia, it’s like this…” Rita briefly described her sensations.
After hearing her out, Cecilia also fell into deep thought, as if searching her mind for something.
After a while, Cecilia asked, “Rita, if you had to put a number to it, how big is the difference between these two spots?”
How could you possibly quantify something like this? If she had an exact number, she could have used basic elementary school triangulation to find the spot long ago!
Right now, she felt like a gamer tasked with finding a quest marker somewhere in a multi-story building, but the marker covered a huge area—she didn’t even know which floor it was on, let alone find the NPC!
“In that case, why not go a bit further, maybe take a slight detour?” Cecilia suggested.
Following Cecilia’s advice, Rita went forward a bit further, but before long, she reached a dead end blocked by a cave-in.
This was an area Rita had never explored before—at least, that half-buried, shattered magic circle was definitely not one she’d seen.
She was close, but the way was blocked again, and honestly, the mana concentration here was even weaker than at that previous corner.
“It’s a dead end, we’ll have to find another way.” Cecilia patted Rita’s head and whispered.
“You’re right.”
Rita muttered, turning to head back the way they’d come.
“If only I could just dig through it… What a pain.”
Wait, hold on—did I just say something amazing?
A brand new idea popped up in Rita’s head.
This is good! This could work!
With Cecilia on her back, Rita dashed back at full speed, soon returning to the spot where the mana had fluctuated so strangely before.
Maybe because they’d passed this way several times, Cecilia recognized the spot too. “Rita? We already passed through here. There’s no need to go this way if you want to find the exit.”
Rita didn’t answer directly. She squatted down and let Cecilia off her back.
“Lady Cecilia, may I ask: you said you’d seen the underground layout. The places where there might be magic circles were all deliberately chosen weak points, places we absolutely shouldn’t dig, right?”
Cecilia sensed that Rita might have found a method even she hadn’t considered. She immediately slid off Rita’s back like a little cat and nodded. “Your way of putting it is a bit crude, but that’s roughly the idea.”
“So that means, compared to those spots, the other areas should be sturdier, right?” Rita pressed.
“In theory, yes.” Cecilia gave a definite answer at first, then immediately regretted replying without thinking.
Normally, when dealing with others, even if she couldn’t always give the best answer, Cecilia would at least think carefully. Had she caught Rita’s goofiness too?
But with lives at stake, Cecilia couldn’t worry about that. She immediately shouted,
“Rita! Don’t be rash!”
But she was a step too late.
Rita had already taken her pitch-black sword, walked a few paces aside, gripped it in both hands and drove it downwards with all her might into the stone bricks.
An ordinary sword would have broken for sure, but Rita’s blade wasn’t made of metal.
It was crafted from the talon of the Supreme Lord of the Night, the greatest of all burrowing Scarab Lords.
Crack!
Huge fissures instantly spread from the blade, making the whole underground tunnel shake. Cecilia could even smell the choking dust falling from above.
“Hey!”
Rita called out. Her voice was bright and cute, but what happened next was anything but cute.
With a twist of her wrist, those cracks grew even more terrifying, and the entire section of floor under the sword caved in as if punched by a giant fist, making Cecilia slip.
What monstrous strength! She could probably crush an apple with her bare hands!
No—this was far scarier than just crushing apples! “Lady Cecilia! Watch out!”
Rita yanked out her sword one-handed, pulled Cecilia straight into her arms, and wrapped her small body protectively.
Then Cecilia felt the ground give way, and the two of them tumbled down together with the falling debris.
This was the first time Cecilia felt her feet leave the ground for so long.
Well, second—the first time was when she’d been hung on the flagpole.
She could only hear the roar of crumbling earth, the clatter of stones, and the wind whistling past her ears.
Rita was moving, constantly shifting her body’s position, but Cecilia could only bury her head into Rita’s chest, feeling the strength of Rita’s arm around her waist and the not-so-fast but steady heartbeat.
And the stifling feeling as Rita’s enormous treasure chest smothered her mouth and nose.
Finally, Cecilia’s feet touched uneven but solid ground.
It may have only lasted a few dozen seconds, but to Cecilia, it felt endless.
Not from nerves or excitement—she just genuinely thought she was going to suffocate.
“Puh… ah…” Not caring about her image, Cecilia gulped in mouthfuls of dusty air. The feeling of her lungs filling up again and the burning pain in her throat let her finally realize she was alive.
Now she could see—the surroundings had completely changed.
They were still underground, but no longer in a cramped passageway. It looked more like a vast cavern.
“This is…?”
“I don’t know either, but it should be our destination, right?” Rita shrugged.
“How did you know doing that would work?” Cecilia was so surprised her mouth fell open.
“Huh? I didn’t know. I just thought, if I dug a bit and moved forward, we’d probably find the place. Isn’t it always like this in Terraria or Minecraft?”
Cecilia had no idea what strange lands Terraria and Minecraft were, but she understood: Rita’s plan had simply been to dig like a mole until she found something.
That was even dumber than she expected—a thousand times dumber!
“Do you know how dangerous that was? What if the tunnel collapsed and buried us!”
“It’s fine.” Rita gave her a thumbs-up. “If there’s any danger, I’ll be right by your side to protect you!”
Cecilia’s first reaction was her heart skipping a beat. It was an ordinary statement, but back there, Rita really had protected her at once. At least she could trust that when Rita promised to protect her, she meant it.
But thinking of the rock that almost smashed her head, and the treasure chest that nearly suffocated her, all Cecilia felt now was fury.
When danger comes, she’ll protect you—but don’t ask where the danger came from.
Seeing Cecilia still silent, Rita hurried to placate her: “Come on! We made it to our destination, didn’t we?”
“Just dumb luck.” Cecilia snorted, clearly unhappy.
She’d nearly died because of this idiot—there was no way she’d give her a good face now.
“Lady Cecilia, don’t we have more important things to do right now? Let’s not get hung up on that!”
Rita’s tone was like coaxing a child. Cecilia might have liked that when they were sharing a bed, but now it just made her angrier.
Facing Rita, Cecilia could clearly see her silently gripping her sword, staring intently behind her, her voice growing more solemn.
“Lady Cecilia, now we really have a bigger problem.”