Read Novel Full CHAPTER 83 – SURVIVAL IN THE UNDERGROUND BEGINS
It’s Ko-Fi’s Supporters’ chapter (31/65), enjoy~
Chapter 83 – Survival In The Underground Begins
I removed the blanket from my bed and took a piece of the wooden board that supported my body. I pulled the straw out of the pillow, which was just a messy bag stuffed with straw. Then, I gather a stone from the mended, broken stone wall in the corner of the cell. All I needed to do was put them in my inventory, craft them, and complete the stone ax.
Now, it’s just a question of where and when to dig with this thing… Considering the light pouring in through the small window with the iron bars, there’s still time before sunset. I’m sure the guards will come running if I start digging with a stone ax while the sun is still high in the sky… I mean, are there guards here?
Are there any other people in this cell?
“Ooyy, is there anyone else here? I’m the new guy, Kosuke.”
There’s no sign of anyone else. It seems I’m the only one here.
I thought that if there were other prisoners, we could exchange information. However, I can’t believe that such a splendid cell is underused. Hmm, does that mean that there are not many vicious criminals in the Holy Kingdom who would be put in the cells? Maybe there are not so many rebellious subhumans anymore.
No, those people might be disposed of on the spot. I want to know the actual situation under the rule of the Holy Kingdom. I need more information. I lack information, after all.
While thinking about this, I slowly stored the bed in my inventory and began to use the stone ax to knock over the stone floor that was directly under the bed.
The sound was quite noisy, but the guards didn’t shout at me, nor did the neighbors complain about the noise. Neither of them are there, are they? What? Am I being abandoned?
Oh, maybe they don’t care about me at all and want to weaken my body and soul through loneliness and starvation? The water in the bottle seems to be fresh, but I bet the water will only last about three days. So, when I’ve weakened my body and soul, a good person from the Holy Kingdom dashes in to save me. The good person is kind to me and takes me under their wing, and I become fascinated with them… is that the scenario?
At this point, it’s just a fantasy, but it sounds like it’s not impossible. It’s lonely to be alone, and it’s hard to be poor. If I was left to die with no food or water, and someone saved me and was kind to me, I might fall in love with them.
“Well, that’s not a scenario that works for me.”
In my inventory, I have a small amount of pre-cooked food and some non-perishable food items. Among the perishables, there is water, vegetables, and fruits. If I had to feed an army right now, I think it would require years to be done.
The only thing I can’t do anything about is Gizma’s raw meat, though, unless it’s cooked… These shouldn’t be eaten raw. Or rather, I don’t want to eat it raw. It would give me a stomach ache.
There was no sign of any disturbance at all, so I dug through the stone floor. I need to find a sewer that I can walk through while trying not to damage the sewer pipes… After a while of digging with the stone ax, I found some soil, so I made a stone shovel, switched to it, and started digging again.
It’s a strange feeling. Isn’t it usually the case that underground passageways like this are built beforehand, and then the foundation is poured, and the structure is built on top of it? No, I don’t know the technical details, but that’s how I imagine it.
Yeah, but there is magic in this world. After building a castle, you could use magic to excavate underground and use it to turn soil into rock while building an underground passage. I remember Isla doing the same thing when she and I were building the wall.
I’ve been digging for a while now, and I’ve come across a problem that I think is obvious.
“It’s too dark to see anything…”
I’ll need a torch for this, but I’ll need to completely dismantle the bed to get enough wood. This is a problem.
Should I dig through to the cell next door and sacrifice the bed next door…? No, I don’t think staying in the cell is a good option either way. Let’s sacrifice the bed and use it to build a fire and torch.
So I went back to the cell and completely dismantled the bed to make some wood. I also collect pillows, blankets, and water bottles, as they might be useful for something.
Oh, the shackles and manacles? They’ve already been stored, yes.
Then, I made a fire using the wood and the fire pit that I had stored in my inventory.
Is there a fire pit? Well, I didn’t take it out in the square because it would just burn up.
I mean, why did I act so carelessly? I feel like I’ve been turned into a fox or a raccoon… Well, Qubi is a fox, though. Maybe he can also use some kind of magic to guide the thoughts of others…? When I think about it, his name can also mean “nine tails.”
The more I think about it now, the more I wonder. There are many suspicious things about Qubi, when I think about it… No, it’s all hindsight. Everything is too late now. But if that’s the case, what the hell is this situation?
I’m sure Qubi understands that this level of restraint means nothing to me. If my ability is accurately transmitted to the people of the Holy Kingdom, there is no way that this level of restraint will be enough.
I was supposed to be warned of my abilities and made to spit out the contents of my inventory, but the way they restrained me was as if they were expecting an ordinary prisoner.
It’s a bit strange, isn’t it?
If this is what Qubi intended, then it seems that not only me… but also the Holy Kingdom is being rolled around in the palm of Qubi’s hand. In fact, it is possible that the higher-ups in the Holy Kingdom, or rather the people who rule here, are simply ignoring Qubi’s advice.
“Hmm… I don’t know!”
Well, that’s okay, I don’t know what I don’t know even if I think about it. It’s just a guess.
Anyway, I made some torches and jumped into the hole I made on the stone floor. Of course, I will collect the fire. Then, block the entrance from inside the hole with a stone wall block crafted from stone. This way, they won’t be able to follow me so easily.
Is the air safe? For some reason, these torches don’t seem to eat oxygen… To begin with, they burn permanently and are not hot to the touch. That’s why at that time, the light in Isla’s eye is gone. As usual, it’s against the laws of physics and magic.
As I wielded the stone shovel, relying on the light from the torch set up on the earthen ground, I hit the stone wall again. Had I finally reached the sewer? I switched to the stone ax and swung it this time.
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
After a few meters of digging, I finally reached the sewer… Is it really a sewer? Here?
There is no doubt that this is an underground passage, but there is no sewage flowing, nor is there the stench that I was expecting. It seems that the sewage pipes I’ve been following extend further down than this underground passage.
Is there something like this under the castle…? Is this some kind of secret underground passage of the royal family? If that’s the case, doesn’t this lead to the outside?
I guess my luck’s not out! Although that doesn’t mean it really leads to the outside!
I don’t know if this is really an escape underpass, but if it is, then there is no danger. There should be no danger of traps or monsters being placed in the escape route that could kill the royalty trying to escape.
But I’ll keep my guard up. I’m a survivalist, after all!
I don’t have to worry about air quality anymore, so I feel much better than when I was digging a hole. Yeah.
It’s dark and a little scary, but I explore the underground passage with a stone ax in my right hand and a torch in my left. This style reminds me of the first time I explored the forest in this world. Unlike that time, I only have a stone ax, which makes me a little nervous… Oh, no, I have some wood left and some stones, so I can at least make a stone spear. I’ll make one.
I also made a stone knife and a stone spear. I also have a stone shovel, so now I have all the stone equipment I need! What? A stone pickaxe? There’s no such thing. It’s not in the crafting list, and it doesn’t show up in item creation either. Strange. I could make a stone war pick for offensive use, though.
But I don’t really care about that right now. It’s not really important.
“…..!”
I turn around and raise the torch. Why am I doing this? Isn’t that what you think? No, there’s something. I’ve been feeling some kind of presence behind me for a while now. I can’t hear footsteps, but it’s like something’s crawling towards me… No, no, no! No way, right? What the hell is in this place, HAHAHA!
Calm down, calm down, me. At times like this, it’s best not to panic. If it’s a horror movie, I’ll die if I’m unprotected and think it’s just my imagination. But if I’m too scared, I will also die. I mean, wouldn’t this situation be a complete disaster in a horror movie?
Think, think! What can I do with the weapons in my hand against an unidentified mysterious creature…?
I have a… stone knife, stone ax, stone spear, stone shovel, a few torches, a fire, a bottle of water, shackles with manacles and iron balls, a fire pit, and lots of food.
I quickly took Gizma’s raw meat out of my inventory, set the torch on the ground, and placed it next to it. Then I crouched down and went into stealth mode to observe Gizma’s raw meat from the darkness.
I waited for a bit, and then… I-it came! Something has come! Something undefined and indescribable has come. It’s something dangerous that looks like it’s about to say “Tekeli-Li*!”
[T/n: I’m not really sure about this.]
That’s slime, right? Yes. It’s not the cute, weak one from Dra*on Qu*st, but the nasty one from classic TRPGs.
The slime seems to be wary of the Gizma meat that is placed right next to the torch. It seemed to be intelligent enough to be wary of it. I wonder if the fact that it followed me to avoid detection was more out of caution than instinct?
A part of the slime extends from the body like tentacles and picks at Gizma meat. After poking and prodding it to make sure it wasn’t a trap, it dexterously used the part of its body that extended like a tentacle to carry the Gizma meat to the main body and take it into its body. The whole slime was trembling as it felt delicious.
“Oishiiii♪!”
“Kyaaaaaaaa! It can taaaallkk!”
“Piiii!?”
I couldn’t help but scream as the slime spoke. The slime’s body shrank as if startled by my voice.
“O-ooh, you can talk?”
“Hyiiieee! The human-san found me! I’m careless!”
“No, you’re not just careless…”
It has the intelligence to be wary of traps, yet it showed itself, ate the decoy’s meat, and said it was delicious. Even though it is intelligent enough to manipulate language; it is not very smart, is it?
“Do you want to bully me?”
The slime asked me, shaking as if frightened.
“No, I don’t bully you. Are you, no, are you a subhuman… too…?”
[T/n: He use Omae at first and Kimi after that.]
Can slime be included in the subhuman category? The size of this slime is… hmm, about the size of a couch that ruins people? It’s pretty big. The volume is quite large, isn’t it? The color is a beautiful light blue. It’s not the iridescent black color of heavy oil. If it were, I’d probably have to go through a SAN check or something.
“Subhuman? You won’t bully me?”
“I don’t bully. I made friends with a subhuman in the Black Forest beyond the Great Omit Wilderness, and we lived together. The Holy Kingdom captured me for various reasons, and now I’m on my way to escape.”
“Heh…”
The slime approached me at a surprisingly fast pace, crawling around me and pointing the tips of its thin tentacles at me as if to observe me. I feel like I can feel its gaze on me, and I’m sure it’s really observing me.
“Can I touch you?”
“Just touching is fine. But don’t hurt me or eat me.”
I said and sat down on the floor. It seems to be a person I can talk to, and I don’t feel any hostility. It’s like a child. I think it’s best to let it do what it wants and not let it get too cautious.
“I won’t hurt you!”
The slime said as it shivered and started to touch my hands, ankles, and neck. I wondered what it was doing.
“I can taste and smell the Elf, One-Eyed race, Harpy! And many more!”
“Taste? Smell?”
I took a morning bath this morning, too. I wonder if the slime felt something that the bath couldn’t wash away.
“Since you don’t seem to be a bad person, I’ll take you to my home!”
“Home…? Is there anyone that knows more about things… than you there?”
“Yes.”
“Hou… okay, take me there.”
“All right! Over here!”
Slime… Or is it Lime? Anyway, he… or she? Does slime have a gender? In any case, Lime started to move, so I decided to follow it. Slimes have an image of being slow, but this one is surprisingly fast. It’s almost as fast as I’m walking.
“I’m Kosuke; nice to meet you.”
“Kosuke! Lime is Lime!”
“I see… Nice to meet you, Lime.”
It was a bit depressing to explore the dark underground passages, but I was lucky enough to make quick contact with a friendly person… Yeah, I guess my luck’s not so bad after all!
Author Note: Slime girl is good _(:3 ∠)_