"We can't afford to waste any more time."

After Faye left, Moen gazed at the cold moon inlaid upon the blood-red clouds.

He didn't know whether it was an illusion, but he kept feeling that moon was a bit larger than before; at this moment it was like a pale eye, coldly overlooking the entire world.

"Feels like I forgot something?"

Moen rubbed his chin and glanced in the direction where Faye had disappeared.

But there was no time to think about any of that now. Moen rose, nimbly clambered and leapt along the rock face, and found that hole again.

Moen raised a hand and conjured a Light Spell, peering into the hole.

The tunnel was deep; you couldn't see the end at a glance, but it was only half a person's height, so to go in you'd have to hunch over in extreme discomfort.

Fortunately, judging by how quiet it still was even though Lea had gone in for quite a while, the cavern seemed safe for the moment.

"It's got that "authentic old Beijing style—real underground tunnels."

Moen muttered a gripe, then stopped hesitating and ducked straight into the tunnel.

Following this obviously man-made tunnel deeper and deeper, the bright light shining from Moen's hand soon reached the end.

The way ahead was blocked, but as damp soil came into view, Moen looked down: a vertical shaft appeared in his sight.

"Changed direction?"

Moen skillfully gathered the light in his hand and shone it toward the bottom of the vertical shaft.

The beam met no obstruction and could illuminate the very bottom, but from Moen's perspective the bottom of the shaft was already about the size of a bean.

Moen casually tossed a stone down; judging from the sound, it was close to a hundred meters deep.

"What the hell, they dug this deep?"

Moen thought for a moment. Wasn't this basically digging straight through the whole hill—and vertically at that?

If the goal was to reach somewhere below, wouldn't digging horizontally from the foot of the hill be easier?

No idea what the person who dug this was thinking.

"But no matter how bizarre their idea was, I still have to put my head down and jump. I'm not like Lea—I don't know Levitation."

Moen sighed.

A hundred meters is indeed an impassable chasm for ordinary people, but anyone who could get here wasn't ordinary—soaring to the sky or burrowing into the earth is no big deal, right?

So Moen jumped.

Only, in those few seconds of free fall, as an involuntary grunt slipped from his nose, he suddenly remembered what he had forgotten.

He had forgotten to have Faye top him up with a cast of Holy Light before she left.

He had just passionately traded blows with the avatar projection of the Love God; even with the Crimson Flame, there was no way he had fully healed the injuries that had practically turned him into a sieve.

What's more, the rejection reaction in his body hadn't completely subsided and still needed the Crimson Flame to balance it.

But the adrenaline rush from the brawl, coupled with his urgency, had made him almost forget that he was grievously wounded.

Until now.

"Dammit."

Moen's face went pale. He thrust out his hands, trying to brace against the earthen walls on both sides to stop his fall.

But his mind suddenly went hazy. Along with a violent sense of weightlessness, his consciousness felt seized by a giant hand and yanked down into a pitch-black seabed.

"As expected... did I overdo it?"

...

...

"Help me..."

Who?

"Please save us..."

Who are you?

Why do you want me to save you? And how am I supposed to save you?

"Please... save us poor souls..."

Damn it, speak plainly, will you? Doesn't anyone know those who speak in riddles deserve to die...

Moen jolted awake.

Those strange pleas for help had made his temples throb, but what met his eyes was not a hell of wailing misery—just an ordinary rock wall.

Was that the voice Lea heard?

Why can I hear it too?

Moen shook his head, forcing his scattered mind to focus.

Drip, drip.

Water dripped onto the ground—the only sound here—and in this deep, shadowy cave it was especially eerie.

"You... woke... up?"

Suddenly, a second voice sounded. It was raw and blurred, like someone who hadn't spoken in so long they'd nearly forgotten how to form words.

Moen's pupils contracted. He hauled his weakened body over in a swift roll, both hands already gripping his hilt.

To get that close to him without him noticing at all—even right as he was waking up...

"You?"

Moen's expression froze; half his hostility dissipated the instant he saw who it was.

It was a little girl—an odd little girl.

She wore a tattered white dress; her skin was so pale it was almost translucent, like a ghost, yet she was filthy all over. Her little face looked as if she'd just crawled out from under a soot-blackened pot, so dark you couldn't even make out her features.

But what was odd wasn't her looks so much as the miner's helmet a few sizes too big perched on her head, and the rusty pickaxe in her hand.

It was comical, like a gag character from animation suddenly stepping into reality, radiating a sense of dissonance.

And even more dissonant... why would a little girl suddenly appear here?

A little girl showing up here was like being on the road to slay the Demon King and having all the beasts and monsters turn into dainty, bashful maidens.

If this wasn't a dream, then the likelier answer was a trap.

"Are you... going to kill me?"

The little girl looked at the blade in Moen's hand and spoke up suddenly.

"I... ahem."

Moen silently sheathed his blade.

After a careful look, he confirmed the little girl carried not the slightest trace of battle aura or mana. He couldn't sense any other aura either; the only reason he hadn't noticed her earlier was that her presence was too faint.

But he didn't relax his guard completely and asked:

"Who are you?"

"I am..."

The little girl thought for a moment. "Rab... bit."

"Rabbit?"

Moen felt it sounded more like a nickname, but he didn't press and instead asked something else:

"What are you doing here?"

"Dig... ging."

The little girl raised the pickaxe in her hand.

"Digging?"

Moen frowned. His gaze slid around the surroundings, and he suddenly understood:

"You dug this tunnel?"

The little girl said nothing, just gave a silent nod.

Moen stared at her, eyes bright:

"Are you a native here? Were these tunnels dug by the natives together? Where are the others? What happened here?"

Moen rattled off a string of questions, but the little girl only stared at him with her soot-black eyes.

After a long moment, the little girl shook her head and said:

"Not... together."

"What?"

"Not, together."

The little girl called Rabbit seemed to be getting a bit more used to speaking; her enunciation was a little clearer:

"This place... I dug it."

"You?"

Moen was taken aback, then suddenly turned and took in the surroundings.

After dropping down from that nearly hundred-meter shaft, the space here was unlike the entrance—extremely spacious, high enough that even someone of Moen's height could stand straight.

Only now did he notice that entrances to other tunnels were everywhere around them, densely packed and interconnected, like a complex ant-nest maze.

Moen's voice came out a little warped: "You dug all of this, alone, by yourself?"

Rabbit silently nodded. "Yes."

"..."

No wonder she's called Rabbit—with digging skills like these...

Moen glanced at her slender little arms and legs and immediately felt she was anything but simple.

"Right, since you're the one who dug the tunnels."

Moen took a deep breath and asked, "Have you seen a girl before this? About this tall, very cute, wearing a green dress, notable for a spectacular figure."

"I've seen her," Rabbit answered:

"I saw her, but she didn't notice me and went straight deeper in."

"Really?"

Moen perked up. When he'd seen the crisscrossing tunnel mouths just now, he'd almost despaired, but now at least he could find a guide:

"Could you take me to her? I... tss, that hurts."

Overexcited, he had carelessly tugged at a wound, and Moen's face scrunched up at once.

"Looks like I can't get too anxious."

Although Moen wanted nothing more than to sprout wings and fly to Lea's side right now, he didn't want his Highness the saintess to cry out for her knight in a crisis, only for the knight she yearned for to descend on seven-colored auspicious clouds... and then immediately put on a performance of coughing up blood and dropping to his knees in a skid.

"Let's rest a bit first."

Moen had great confidence in his ability to recover. Even without the blessing of Holy Light, as long as he adjusted himself a little, it shouldn't take long before he could move again.

At that point, he'd ask Miss Rabbit for help...

With that thought, Moen pulled out a piece of fruit and crunched into it, replenishing his strength as he continued to ask:

"Did you save me, Miss Rabbit?"

"No. You fell into a mud pit. It was soft there."

"I see. Then how long was I out?"

"Two hundred drips."

"Drips?"

Moen blinked, then realized she meant the sound of water dripping from the rock.

Judging by the interval between drips, it had been less than ten minutes.

Good...

"Miss Rabbit, you..."

Moen's voice faltered; he blinked.

He noticed Rabbit had kept standing at a relatively distant spot, seemingly wary of him.

That might make her less likely to agree to be his guide.

And he had more questions...

"Right—do you want some?"

Noticing that Rabbit's gaze seemed fixed on the fruit in his hand, Moen thought for a moment and asked.

"What... is that?"

Rabbit blinked, apparently very curious.

"It's fruit... don't tell me you don't even know what fruit is."

Moen asked in surprise.

This was a nation under divine benediction that never actually received any benediction, yet Rabbit didn't know fruit?

Moen thought it over carefully and suddenly understood...

She really might not. In this Golden Nation, the trees all grow meat—where would fruit come from?

"Here, have some—do you want it?" Moen took out some fruit.

The rabbit stared at Moen warily, but was clearly coveting the fruit in his hand, swallowing hard, a little hesitant.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you; what just happened was a misunderstanding."

Moen said in as gentle a tone as he could, "I also want to ask you for a favor later, so take this as payment in advance."

After staring for quite a while, as if finally sure Moen truly had no ill intent, the rabbit cautiously approached and, still on guard, snatched the fruit from his hand.

She first took a small bite, then Moen saw a clear light kindle in her pitch-black eyes; at once she began to wolf it down as if she hadn't eaten in a long time.

"Don't rush; eat slowly. I have more."

Moen then took out more fruit, all of which the rabbit swallowed in a few bites, not even spitting out the pits.

"What a little glutton."

Moen chuckled, reached in and found the fruit had already been eaten up, so he took out a piece of roasted meat he'd stored in advance, handed it over, and asked:

"Looks like the fruit is all gone. Do you want this?"

"D-don't... don't bring that kind of thing near me!"

With a smack, Moen stared in astonishment at the roasted meat that had been slapped out of his hand, while the rabbit wore an expression of disgust, like a frightened little animal.

"You don't like it?"

Quick as lightning, Moen caught the meat. Food was scarce now; he couldn't waste any.

"If you don't like it, say so earlier. No need to do that."

Putting on a stern face, Moen lectured earnestly, "You are all followers of the Goddess of Life, Emil, aren't you? Isn't there a tenet in the doctrine of the Goddess Emil that says you must not waste food?"

The rabbit looked puzzled.

"Ah, I almost forgot. For you, who have nearly limitless food, how could you possibly know what waste means?"

Moen smiled, unbothered, lowered his head and quickly dealt with the roast, restoring his strength as fast as he could.

But the puzzled look on the rabbit's face still did not fade. Watching Moen gradually finish off the roast, she suddenly said:

"We... we really are all followers of the Goddess of Life, but..."

"Hm?"

"But..."

The rabbit lifted her gaze and met Moen's equally puzzled eyes, and said, word by word:

"The Emil you mention... who is that?"