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?"

lingered for

are present at each of the entrances we passed in the last couple of days. The first one we saw during the initial scouting had them, too. With how rough the walls of the tunnel are, it is only expected that there would

of the wall, then scratched the back

get it. Did someone leave these marks

Sunny shook his head.

of entrances. There's just one entrance, and one side passage, repeating over and over across the

stretch of grim silence, Belle finally

are being

carefree smile,

being lured somewhere, don't you

The swordsman just shrugged.

has to be alluring, right? Otherwise,

with a deadpan expression

what are we

making

tunnel more or less left us no choice but to try and explore the side passage. It's an ingenious

Belle's eyes glinted.

then we eat it

Sunny cleared his throat-

the plan... we are going to try to only he eaten a

hint that his plan did

He coughed.

on good authority that we will have to get the hell out of the tunnel as soon as the thing trapping us inside is found and destroyed. So, we will split into two teams. One

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 rest of them...

looked into the darkness, and then asked

to accept