Shadow Slave

After a while, Sunny regained enough of his senses to warily look around.

The tunnel they were currently in was somewhat different from those they had traversed while fighting the horde of undead monsters. It looked more weathered and decrepit, with its walls and floor smoothed and uneven, as though eroded by something over the course of countless years.

What's worse, it was… wet. With a cold shiver, Sunny realized that they were surrounded by puddles of black water.

The smell of sea salt permeated the air.

Looking up, he found the tall figure of the boisterous huntress and asked in a raspy voice:

"Where are we?"

Effie glanced at him and gestured up.

"A hundred meters or so below the surface, pretty much exactly under the city wall."

He stared at her blankly, slowly comprehending the meaning of these words. The huntress gave him a nod.

"Yeah, you guessed correctly. Come night, this place is going to be full of seawater. That chasm behind us is what prevents the catacombs from being flooded by the dark sea."

She sighed tiredly.

"So, unless we want to drown or be eaten by some depth dweller, we need to get out of here as soon as possible."

Sunny closed his eyes, imagining a roaring torrent of black water erupting from the mouths of countless tunnels and falling into the abyssal chasm like waterfalls made of pure darkness.

Yeah, if they were still underground when that happened, sea monsters would be the least of their problems. The sea itself would kill them.

Luckily, the day was still young.

a signal. A few moments later, Nephis rose to her feet and glanced at the members of the

to go.

groans of pain, everyone stood up. Sunny

really starting to wonder if fighting Harus

the skeletons was at least predictable. The

nothing worse than facing an enemy that

deeper into the tunnel, Sunny caught up with Effie and asked with a hint of idle curiosity in his

the way, how do you even know your way around the

wasn't like she could have

gave him a dubious look and

been here a couple of times before, trying to escape from especially terrible Nightmare Creatures. Although, to be honest, I only descended

Effie shivered.

that time. Back then, the strongest hunter in the outer settlement sort of took me under her

scratched the back of his head and grimaced when his battered body protested against the

party must have been very strong,

at him

said anything about returning alive? Actually, they all died. I was the only one

for a long time,

then why the hell did

Effie shrugged.

matter how strong that party was, they weren't even close to this one. Do you even realize how powerful the six of us are, all put together? Goddamn. I wouldn't want to be our

hesitated for a few

to face. We'll get out of here

particularly trusting person, but at this point, he didn't really have a choice. Leaving the tall huntress alone, he walked

tunnels were now strongly angled down. With each minute, the cohort

battle against the army of the dead was behind

exactly did all those