Shadow Slave

The convoy had stopped once again. This time, however, there was one significant difference to the place Sunny had chosen to set camp - it was situated near one of the side passages, which they had avoided at all costs in the past.

Currently, the Irregulars were gathered around the dark entrance, staring at it with gloomy expressions on their faces.

Sunny did not look too enthused, either.

After a while, he sighed and glanced at his subordinates.

"Have any of you noticed it?"

They looked at each other, not sure what to say. After a while, Dorn spoke in a somber voice:

"What exactly were we supposed to notice, Captain?"

Sunny silently shook his head.

In the past few days, he had been observing the side passages attentively as the convoy passed them, trying to see if there was a pattern to when and where they appeared. The tunnel looked to be endless, after all, so it seemed that there was an endless amount of these branching paths, too... which was a bit weird.

in the process of observing the side passages, a sinking sense of suspicion took hold of his heart, and by now, that suspicion was all but confirmed.

He frowned.

"Well, i don't blame you. It's pretty hard to notice."

Then, Sunny pointed at a particular spot on the stone wall of the tunnel, right where it made way for the open chasm of the entrance to the side passage.

"There's a small protrusion there, and on the opposite side, the stone is chipped near the floor. There's also that crack over there."

They stared at the spots he showed, not quite sure of the meaning of these small, barely noticeable features.

"What about them?"

for

during the initial scouting had them, too. With how rough the walls of the tunnel are, it is only expected that there would be nothing smooth about the side passages, but still. Exact cracks. at exactly the same spots, at hundreds of

the chipped portion of the wall,

it. Did someone leave these marks on

Sunny shook his head.

say is that there are no hundreds of entrances. There's just one entrance, and one side passage, repeating over and over across the tunnel.

paled. After a long stretch of grim

we are being

his carefree smile,

being lured

The swordsman just shrugged.

has to be alluring, right? Otherwise, no

a deadpan expression for a few moments,

we going to do,

echoed Belle's smile, making her eyes

side passage. It's an

Belle's eyes glinted.

eat it instead of it

Sunny cleared his throat-

we are going to try to

that his plan did not sound too encouraging to the

He coughed.

is found and destroyed. So, we will split into two teams. One team will go down, the other will remain

Irregulars looked at each other, trying to guess who will be assigned to which team. Luster was their best pilot, so he would have to remain with the Rhino... Samara's Aspect was less useful in narrow spaces, so there was no point in taking her deeper underground, either. The

the darkness, and

who is going to accept