Ian and the now-conscious Amivy locked eyes.
The air seemed to freeze for a moment.
Facing Amivy’s “death glare,” Ian very naturally withdrew the hand holding the charcoal and hid it behind his back, as if that scene had just been her illusion.
Then Ian paused for a moment in front of Amivy and began to act stiffly.
“Oh! My Magic God! Prince Arthur, you’re finally awake! How do you feel? Is there any discomfort?”
“Yes, just seeing you makes me uncomfortable.”
“Oh, alright. I see. Your Highness is indeed fine.”
Amivy: “…”
Ian, with a serious face, used his topic-changing method, which was very effective.
It directly diverted Amivy’s attention.
As he expected, Amivy asked:
“Serious business? What serious business? You do serious business?”
“Don’t mind those key points, Your Highness. What I’m about to say might concern whether the two of us can leave this place.”
At the mention of leaving, Amivy also put away her disdain and contempt for Ian and became serious.
“What are you going to do?”
“Hmm… it’s not a big deal, just simply want to get a closer look at that ‘sun.'”
Ian shrugged, walked to a corner and sat down, and secretly threw away the charcoal in his hand.
“Look at the ‘sun’? Why do you want to look at the sun? What does that have to do with whether we can leave here?”
As the protagonist of the story and a Hero, Amivy very keenly noticed Ian’s small action of secretly throwing away the charcoal.
“Simple. If we want to leave, we definitely need to investigate the anomalies in this world. And here, the unmoving ‘sun’ in the sky is undoubtedly the biggest anomaly…”
“Hmph, that’s not wrong. But can that ‘sun’ really let us leave?”
Amivy didn’t dwell on Ian’s little action.
The most important thing now was still to find a way to leave this Magic-Forbidden World.
“That’s why I used ‘maybe.’ In fact, I don’t know if that ‘sun’ can let us leave here. But we have to try, don’t we?”
“Hmm… from a general rational perspective, that’s true. Alright, so what’s your idea?”
After thinking seriously for a moment, Amivy felt that Ian, that Masked Man’s proposal was good.
Regardless of whether that “sun” in the sky could help them escape this world, they had to try to know.
“My idea is simple. There’s a peak not far behind our Shelter. If we can climb that peak, we should be able to see what that ‘sun’ in the sky really is.”
“That simple?”
“That simple.”
“Then why don’t you just go climb it? What are you discussing with me?”
“Climbing is no problem, but now, there’s an unknown worm that has claimed the foot of that peak as its territory.”
“Worm?”
“That’s right, a giant worm about five or six Your Highnesses long.”
Amivy: “?”
Ignoring Amivy’s subtle gaze, Ian continued:
“Obviously, in this Magic-Forbidden world, with Your Highness’s and my strength, it’s impossible to defeat that giant worm that is five or six Your Highnesses long…”
“Hmm… so? What method have you thought of?”
After Amivy asked, she saw Ian step aside.
Behind him were several types of “especially effective” fruits sorted by color.
“…So, we need to use these fruits…”
“Fruits? Aren’t these the ones Xiao Bai and I brought back as food? What use are they?”
“Very fortunately, Your Highness. According to my tests, these are the most toxic among all the fruits you brought back. Used alone or in combination, they are enough to take down most creatures.”
After Ian saw Amivy’s gaze at the fruits gradually become “subtle” and “dangerous,” Ian quickly pulled Amivy’s attention back again.
“…That worm is huge, difficult to counter with conventional methods.
But if we feed it these powerful ‘fruits,’ we might be able to temporarily incapacitate it, or even make it fall asleep, buying us time to pass through its territory and climb the peak.”
Amivy also nodded.
This did sound like a feasible idea.
“Indeed, it’s a good idea.”
Amivy nodded, but then furrowed her brows slightly, looking at the piles of sorted fruits on the ground.
“But, according to you, that worm is five… six… of me long, and it can eat people. Are you sure these fruits we have are enough?”
She pointed at the pile of sorted fruits, less than 20 in number, and said.
“That bug sounds terrifyingly huge. This little amount, I’m afraid it’s not even enough to fill the gaps between its teeth, right?”
Ian very frankly spread his hands.
This was exactly what he was going to say next.
“Your Highness is wise, you saw the problem at a glance.”
“That’s right, estimated based on the current quantity. Even if the worm eats it all in one bite, the most likely result is just giving it a taste. It probably won’t achieve the effect we need.”
“So…?”
“…So, we need to collect more fruits. To ensure we can definitely poison that worm, and to a level of drowsiness that even if it receives a fatal wound, it won’t wake up…”
As he spoke, Ian’s gaze fell on Amivy and the Xiao Bai dog at her feet, who had just woken up and was yawning.
His meaning was already very clear: he needed Amivy and Xiao Bai to once again use their own “characteristics” to pick more “powerful” fruits.
“Hmm… umm, I’ll trust you one more time for now. I can go pick fruits with Xiao Bai.”
“Then I’ll leave it to you, Your Highness. Next, I still need to go investigate that worm’s predation patterns to ensure it can eat a sufficient amount of fruits.”
As he spoke, Ian wrapped the tools he might use to probe the worm in a black cloth and carried them on his back.
Seeing that Ian was ready, Amivy didn’t think much.
When Amivy turned around to pick up a few “reference sample” fruits that Ian had left behind, the familiar appearance of those fruits suddenly reminded Amivy.
That bastard Ian seemed to have used her to test poison in order to filter out these most toxic “excellent candidates”!
“Stop!! Kevin! You bastard! Did you use me to test poison?!”
However, when Amivy turned sharply, she only saw a vigorous back view moving swiftly.
Amivy, who should have chased after him, instead widened her eyes in disbelief and stood frozen in place.
She just watched as Ian, carrying a black cloth bag, sped away.
“…How… so similar… to ‘her’…?”
It wasn’t until Ian drifted out of Amivy’s sight that she murmured dazedly to herself.
Just now, the appearance of Ian carrying a black bag seemed like the grown-up version of “her” who saved Amivy when she was young.