Behind the door was a dim room, with nothing else other than a place for candles on the walls. The only exit seemed to be a staircase leading downwards on the other side of the room.

"It's so dark..."

Princess Anne immediately remarked.

I was a bit taken aback at first but quickly understood.

The room appeared dim to me because I am somewhat of a demon myself, possessing a slight ability for night vision. For others, however, it was complete darkness.

I quickly summoned a light orb, illuminating the room. Upon seeing Ona step back, though. Although it was just a light orb, for a dark mage, it was an uncomfortable light despite not being harmful.

Well, although I could summon a ghostly fire for illumination using necromancy, that would be troublesome.

"Oh, I didn't expect your light magic to be so proficient."

Sally whispered to me.

"Didn't you see that look of envy in George's eyes?"

I looked over at George, who averted his gaze.

"You, you think you're bigger than you are."

"Where, I'm just a nun with devout faith."

Devout faith? What kind of devout faith gets you three pairs of wings - angel, demon, and fallen angel?

"Also, talk more with your lovely sister; look, she's giving me death glares."

I followed her gaze and indeed, Oyado was glaring disapprovingly in our direction.

"Well, thanks for the reminder."

"No problem, we're in the same boat, after all."

With that, she walked away slowly.

Just as I approached Oyado, Nate spoke up.

"Now that we have light, let's go down quickly. The patterns on this labyrinth seem to start from the inside and extend outwards, and these patterns have shown us where to go."

Everyone nodded and followed him down.

I also walked up to Oyado.

"What's wrong, Oyado?"

"Big Brother, you're ignoring me."

Oyado said discontentedly.

"Exploring like this should be something we do together, just you and me. Now with so many people, it's no fun at all. It was already enough with Sister Aliyah, now there are so many more..."

She glanced at Sally as she spoke.

"That girl is too dangerous. Big Brother, be careful. Always smiling, you might get sold off one day without even realizing it."

"Alright."

I patted her head and said, "Let's go, we still need to see the dragon, right?"

"Yeah..."

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The staircase leading underground was long and twisted through several turns. It gave the impression that this place was not a tomb but something from another world.

However, the walls here were devoid of any rusty iron pipes or strange wheelchairs...

Come to think of it, a long time ago, we once stumbled upon a facility resembling a hospital inside an underground maze, with some text from our original world. But since then, we never encountered it again, and I wonder what we stumbled upon back then.

As I was pondering, we had reached the end of the stairs.

"This... What in the world..."

Just as we emerged from the stairs, Turner exclaimed.

One by one, we all walked out from the staircase, only to discover that we were inside an incredibly vast underground space.

Glancing back, we noticed that the staircase we had descended was actually within a stone pillar, and we could not fathom the design that had constructed this place.

"Something's not right!"

Nate muttered as he felt the floor.

"What now? What's got you so startled?" I inquired.

"The patterns above are indeed from a tomb, but... down here is completely different! In fact, this is not the way tombs are made at all. The floor here is extremely smooth, if I were to say... it should be..."

"Space magic?" Ms. Mary suggested as she ran her hand along the wall.

"This space was directly hollowed out using space magic. I've seen this method of construction before... Well, in summary, there was probably a tomb originally inside this mountain, but someone wanted to use the space below, so they hollowed it out themselves, using the original entrance of the tomb as the access point. That's probably what happened."

"Well, that's..."

I chuckled wryly and released several light orbs in succession.

Four orbs flew around illuminating our surroundings. Although it brightened up instantly, we still couldn't determine our location.

"This..."

Everyone's faces were filled with disbelief, which was understandable, as even I could only manage a wry smile at this point.

Looking around, we couldn't see the edges below, as if we had descended directly into an abyss along a corridor.

However, I knew this was definitely not an abyss. Abysses are filled with the scent of sulfur and blood, much of which had been cleared by that demon lord fellow.

And this place now... had none of that scent, but instead, it carried a... rotten smell, yes, the stench of decay.

Hold on a second, are we in a horror movie now? This doesn't seem right at all.

"So, what now? Are we lost on how to proceed from here?"

"That seems to be the case, more or less."

"How about..."

Arylexia suggested.

"With so many of us, should we split up?"

"No!"

Both Ms. Mary and I interjected.

"Splitting up would be suicide, that's an age-old truth."

"Exactly!"

"Well..."

Seeing our resolute stance, Arylexia chuckled and fell silent.

"But this isn't a solution either, so what should we do?"

"It's not safe to go in any direction." I pointed at the floor.

"What about digging down?"