In the end, Remi still wrung a favor from the hustler, a neat little IOU tucked like a leaf in her sleeve.
She didn’t know when she’d spend it, but a seed in hand beats barren soil.
Besides, the Elvenfolk moving into the Mystic Realm is news they’ll learn sooner or later, wind‑spread and root‑deep.
No need to hide it; if a whisper buys a favor, why not trade it?
She had Flan mark‑teleport a space ring packed with obsidian, and pass Alicia the dossier on the Empire’s rot.
Task done, Remi and Flan dove back under the blankets like two lazy cats, vanishing into hush.
——We need to go deeper——
Ding—!
While Alicia was fixing Ling’s hair like smoothing river reeds, a ring and a white slip thunked onto the table.
Across the top of the slip, four stark characters read: “Imperial Rot.”
“Sis, what are you doing?”
Ling’s voice startled Alicia; fear pricked like cold rain.
She reflexively slid the note into her pocket, then lobbed the ring to Ling.
“N‑nothing… Look, Remi sent the obsidian.”
“Got it. Looks like we can go in.”
“So how, exactly?”
Ling answered with her hands, swift as a sparrow.
She flipped the ring, drew out fourteen flat, matching chunks of obsidian.
She stacked them into a standing 4×5 rectangle, hollow in the middle like a window.
“That’s it? It’s just… a rectangle.”
“Not done yet. Sis, give it a small fireball. Small. Don’t crank the heat.”
Still puzzled, Alicia rolled a little, ear‑sized fireball between her palms, then pitched it at the obsidian.
Thoom—!!!
A dull blast landed, the spell hitting dead center.
Flame found no fuel, yet it pulled like a hooked carp, snaking along the inner frame.
“Hey! Ling, what is happening?!”
Alicia’s pulse fluttered like a trapped moth; the phenomenon bucked every rule she knew.
Obsidian didn’t do this with fire. Chemistry? Physics? Smoke and mirrors.
Ling watched calm as pond ice, though even she hadn’t seen this trick.
If the game’s script held, the Underworld gate should bloom when flame arrives; now there’s just an extra beat.
Her guess proved right: the frame’s fire finished its crawl, then gathered center into a whirlpool.
Red flames sizzled, then a violet film seeped outward, petal over petal, swallowing every ember.
A portal to the Underworld, violet and true to memory, opened like a dark iris.
“Done~ Sis, let’s go in.”
Alicia kept silent; her mind fastened to the door like a clasp.
Doubt rusted through all the tales of the Underworld she’d swallowed since childhood.
How could a place of death and sin unlock with a handful of obsidian and a candle‑small flame?
It shredded her edgy teenage fantasies like paper charms in rain.
“Quit spacing out—inside!”
Alicia didn’t move, so Ling nudged her through like wind at a paper sail.
On her own step, Ling froze; a sharp thought rang.
Edmund can’t enter.
She tapped her fist to her palm, decision snapping like flint.
“Edmund!”
“Here!”
“Watch the place. Don’t wander.”
“Eh?! Wait—”
Ling didn’t listen; she took one stride and vanished into violet.
Edmund stayed behind, a lone stone waiting for their return.
——We need to go deeper——
No surprises: they stepped into the Underworld again.
Beyond the portal stretched a pure red landscape, iron‑hot, with a wall of scorched smell.
Ling’s adaptability snapped into place like a shield; she rode the heat in an instant.
Without it, she’d have gagged to vomit.
“Ugh…”
Alicia couldn’t match Ling; the air flipped her stomach, and she dry‑heaved, pale as ash.
Ling laid a thin skin of natural mana over Alicia, like dew on bark.
It couldn’t seal out everything, but it dulled the heat and blunted the stench.
“Thanks…”
Her voice still wobbled, but it steadied.
Ling’s thought flickered: if Alicia’s sick here, why was she fine waking in Yama Hall?
Maybe Yama Hall breathes kinder air.
She shook the stray thought off like rain, and looked to Alicia, seated, color returning.
“Well? Can you walk, Sis?”
“Mm… Fighting’s probably out, but I can travel. Being the older sister and dragging behind is shameful.”
“Dummy sis, what are you thinking?
Even if you drag my whole body like an anchor, I won’t mind a step that lags.
And there’s no fight now, so how could you be a burden?”
The comfort was clumsy as a stitched patch, yet for Alicia it warmed like tea.
The nausea eased, a knot loosening.
