Volume 8 - CH 5

Chapter 5: The Underground Passage

Atlantis  10:08 AM

I had a game-over kind of feeling.

“That’s right, you still haven’t given me an answer to the previous matter.” Slowly standing up, Andellar, who had already returned to his true form, said to me.

I did!

I’ve already said that I don’t want to go, isn’t that an answer?

Senior gave me a cold look, and next he took a step forward, “Do you still want to have a taste of how it felt to have your head exploded?” Then, he curved into an ice-cold smile, “This time we’re not on school grounds, so there’s no chance of you resurrecting again.”

“Oh, indeed, getting hit by a royal weapon is quite a painful feeling.” Andellar smiled as he rubbed his head, sharp eyes staring at me. “However, that degree is still not enough to kill me, especially when the user is wavering, since that will reduce the power by a significant amount.”

Wavering? Is he referring to me?

“Chu, don’t dance to his words.” A cold voice drifted from above my head, “The first expert of the Ghost King, Andellar, is best at causing people’s hearts to waver and then taking advantage of that to strike. If you follow along his words and begin to consider them, you’ll be dragged down by him.”

Eh? Is that true?

“Prince Icy Flame, you’re mistaken.” Folding his arms and leaning back on the sofa, Andellar didn’t get angry and smiled instead, as if Senior’s words had no effect on him at all. “That’s only one of my specialties. In addition to that, there’re also many other things that you can’t even begin to think of. If you’re interested, we can find another day to learn from each other.”

“No thanks, I have no interest in dealing with a poisonous insect.” Senior frowned and replied with an arrogant sentence.

Basically, I feel like there’s a duel between a poisonous insect and a poisonous snake unfolding before me. Both sides were so terrifying that it caused this haunted house to become unlike a haunted house; instead, it’s more like a crime scene where a methane gas explosion could occur at any time.

With a “pa” sound, the back of my head got punched. Glittering little stars immediately appeared before my eyes, and I missed a few seconds of their conversation.

By the time I recovered, they had already exchanged two or three sentences.

“In short, as per the order of the Ghost King, I must take him away.” Andellar still had a smiling expression, but it was gradually beginning to give off an unknown sense of oppression. Even I, who was standing at the side, felt a heavy pressure, and cold sweat continuously flowed down my back. “You also know that right now you’re unable to deal with me. All those who came from the Temple of Nothingness are very powerful, but unless the three elders personally came here, with just you alone, I can tell you this: you only have a ten percent chance of winning.”

Senior smiled coldly too as he met his gaze, “Since you also know that I came from the Temple of Nothingness, then, do you believe that I seriously don’t have a way to deal with you?”

I had a feeling that the battle of the century was about to begin, and carefully noted the escape routes; if there’re any signs of something not being right, I’ll pull Senior away to escape at once.

“I believe you definitely have not revealed your full strength yet.” Very certain as if he had long since confirmed the general background of his opponent, Andellar stood up and took two steps forward before standing not too far away in front of Senior. “If it isn’t because my first priority is to retrieve him, in regard to Prince Icy Flame’s birth, I’m very interested in it as well, so the best way to go about that would be to bring both of you along to see the Ghost King. Otherwise, having to work for it would also be a kind of bother.”

“Impossible.”

The instant the mood tensed, I saw a black object draw out into a line and then stop, right before it would’ve reached Senior’s eyes. It was only after it had stopped that I recognized it as Andellar’s black needle.

Without dodging, evading, or even blinking, Senior looked straight at that Ghost King’s expert in front of him. “Don’t forget, this is a competition, and I have an instant video transmitter on me. If you make a move now, I will immediately issue the highest alert, and by that time, there will be even more black robed experts appearing here. Are you sure you’d be able to escape by then?”

Sure enough, Andellar retracted his black needle, “I’m not sure I’d be able to, so never mind then. At any rate, I have plenty of opportunities this time.” He shrugged, immediately giving up, “However, I won’t give up on either of you, so you better be careful not to end up alone.” Then he turned around, changed back into Tenju’s appearance and slowly went downstairs.

At the same time that Andellar left, I suddenly felt like collapsing. My legs grew weak, and I directly sank to the ground. I wasn’t aware of it a moment ago, but now that I’d completely relaxed, I just realized how much of a quivering mess I am.

It’s very rare for Senior not to give me another kick.

“Chu, take this.” From the pocket of his robe, he took out a little round ball with a diameter of about five centimeters or so, and passed it to me. It was a small ball that looked like a toy eyeball, and on it was a word that I couldn’t read. “While we’re in Lake Town, no matter what happens, you must not be alone. In addition to our own people, even if you encounter Seven Hill Academy’s players, you still have to doggedly stick to them. But if something does happens, just tightly pinch the word on the ball, got it?”

I hurriedly put the ball away, “I got it, I got it.” In short, it’s probably something like a life-saving charm for me. Due to the fact that I had just been threatened, this time I didn’t doubt the purpose of the eyeball at all.

Later, after my legs stopped shaking so much, I climbed up from the ground. Senior, who had been waiting for quite some time, then immediately turned to walk downstairs. After I hastily caught up, we passed through the second floor grocery store and quickly went out of the house.

As soon as we arrived downstairs, a certain two people, who I thought might’ve already been added to the list of those disappeared, were currently waving at me from not too far away.

“Yang Yang, Prince Icy Flame, we found something interesting!”

***

Yado and Leido were standing not too far away as they waved at us.

This is probably the first time I was ever so happy to see them as I raced over to them. “You two are alright?” I thought that this time they’d be goners!

“Alright?” Leido looked at me with a questioning expression, “Did something happen? Look at how nervous you are.” He directly stretched out a finger to poke my forehead and was instantly smacked away by me.

“Where did you go just now?” Turning around and directly asking Yado, Senior was rarely puzzled as he asked.

Yado pointed to the ground. There was a street gutter in the area that we were currently standing on, and close to it was a manhole cover. “Down there. Because we heard the sound of the wind coming from below, we followed the gutter and went down to see if there’s anything there. In the end, we discovered a passage.” He walked over and pulled up the manhole cover. Beneath it was extremely dark, like the kind of place that you’d refuse to go into after a single look.

“Passage?” Bending over as he looked at the drainage channel, Senior thought for a long time.

“Yeah, which is why I just went down with Yado to walk around for a bit. We found out that the passage was quite long and turned back, since we were afraid that Yang Yang might be in trouble.” Leido nodded.

Basically, I just got out of trouble.

Looking at the gutter, Senior once again thought for a moment. “There’s probably something underneath it. This gutter looks like it should be quite long, so before we find the others, don’t act rashly…”

Before he finished speaking, a thunderous boom sounded out from a distance.

It seems like someone else has already begun acting rashly…

“There’s someone in that direction.” Mutually nodding at each other, in a instant, both Senior and Yado disappeared before our eyes.

Hey hey…If you’re not going to use arrays, then would you mind showing some consideration for the people who can’t run quickly…

I stared at the dust rising from the ground and had an exhausted feeling.

“Yang Yang, let’s walk there slowly.” Obviously staying behind to wait for me, Leido took my hand and laughed with a “hei hei” sound.

Honestly, I have a really bad feeling.

A second after I decided to escape, Leido tugged me and used a speed that was totally not for “walking slowly” to bolt over.

“Let me walk there—-!!!!!”

I saw the surrounding sceneries going backward!

You’re clearly running at a speed of a hundred miles per hour, right! This is “walking slowly”!?

I found out that there might be a very big difference between Leido’s and my basic cognition.

Ten seconds of intense sprinting later, I regained my senses. It was only after Leido had let go of his hand that I noticed that the surrounding scenery had completely changed, as if it had become another street altogether, with a half-destroyed building in front of us. The culprit hasn’t escaped yet and was simply standing not too far away from the building.

A certain person was the most easily recognized, even if he was wearing a mask, but his red robe was still so obvious, it was almost dazzling.

“Chifuyu?” I thought that he’d definitely be together with Ryan! But it seems like there’s no one else in the vicinity, other than Senior and Yado who had arrived before we did.

“What happened here?” Senior glanced at the devastated surroundings and then calmly asked.

Chifuyu removed his mask. In his hands were a couple of black charm papers, which were obviously used by him to blast the buildings of other people’s town just now. “I was originally planning to use the Yukino clan’s tracking technique, but at the same time that I was going to activate it, I was suddenly attacked by some unidentified creature. When I was about to launch a counterattack, it fled into a building so I accidentally destroyed some of the houses.” He quickly described his situation before putting away the things in his hands.

“What attacked you?” Leido swiftly followed up with a question.

“I don’t know. It felt like fog, but it had substance. When I blew up the houses, it escaped through the underground drainage.” Chifuyu took off the mask on his face and then pointed to the nearby gutter that looked very similar to the one we just saw. “That fog was sort of like the thing recorded in the short video of Lake Town. However, it wasn’t the same color. The one I encountered was beige, not white.”

Beige?

It can’t be that it grew moldy, right…haha…

Senior turned around and gave me a vicious glare.

I’m sorry, please continue.

“We have also suspected that there’s something wrong with the gutter. It looks like we’ll have to go down to investigate.” Kicking aside the manhole cover, the “kuang lang” sound soon subsided, and Senior looked at the pitch-black bottom then turned around. “You guys continue to search for the others. I’ll go down to investigate first.”

Won’t that be too dangerous?

There’s a yellow fog down there!

“Senior, it’d be better to wait for the others, right?” Chifuyu was the first to object.

“Or maybe we should go along with you?” Leido and Yado were rushing to follow him.

You two are rushing to go down to join in the fun, right? I had an intuition that if these two went, especially if Leido goes along, there would definitely be many unexpected things happening.

“No need, it’s still too soon for some investigation to best me.” Senior immediately rejected it, “Chifuyu, just now you were planning to use a tracking technique when you were attacked?”

“Yeah, I was attacked when I was about to activate it.” With a baffled expression, Chifuyu shrugged.

“Try it again.” As if he had thought of something, Senior said.

“Alright.” Chifuyu snapped his fingers and greenish-white flames instantly appeared in the area. I remember this one: last time when we had fieldwork in the Ghost King’s Tomb, Chifuyu had used this to track the others, and it even came with a map.

Next, he took out a white charm, “Jiàng shén, guī yī zhòu, xī zhī hǔ guǐ chí bēn zhī lù.” As soon as he finished chanting, the white charm immediately lit up with white flames. Just as Chifuyu seemed like he was going to continue chanting, the white charm suddenly emitted a strange sound. Then several sparks suddenly appeared from the white flames, and they immediately became black flames.

[T/N: Summon the Gods and form an incantation, the Tiger of the West races on the road to the ghost.]

Seeing this situation, Chifuyu threw the charm on the ground at once and stepped on it. “That’s strange. Why didn’t it activate?” Staring at the black ashes on the ground, he raised his head and looked at Senior again. “It was clearly fine a moment ago…”

“Looks like someone plans to prevent all of us from meeting up with one another.” Saying it so confidently, Senior glanced at that gutter. “Just now I tested it, including tracking techniques, teleportation arrays, counter-incantation arrays, communication spells, etc., all of those cannot be used. But the general unrelated spells are still slightly usable. Other than that, the General Assembly’s fixed point image tracking can also be used.”

Teleportation arrays can’t be used?

I suddenly had a feeling of being enlightened. No wonder Senior and the others had chosen to run over here before. Now that I think about it, it seems to make sense. When I encountered Leido a while ago, and when I met Senior later, both of them were walking.

The face-changing person, Andellar, is not included.

In fact, I also suspect that having this place turn into this is his masterpiece.

“If that’s so, then this proves that this place definitely has a certain degree of danger.” Chifuyu’s face followed suit and turned serious, “The more likely it is for this to be the case, the more important it is that we find the others as soon as possible.”

“Chifuyu, if it’s you, then it won’t take too long to find Gasai. Yado and Leido are also able to find Yido. During the time that I’m investigating below, you guys should be able to gather all of them here. Remember, you must not act alone!” He carefully instructed in detail to the other three before his red eyes turned back to glare at me. “Especially you, Chu!”

“I know.” I know it very well. Even if you didn’t tell me, I’d still know it. Since there was a face-changing person called Andellar who warned me that not long ago, I wouldn’t be so suicidal as to go and challenge him.

“Watch out for those fogs. If one of them appears, then run away.”  Before Senior went down into the drainage, he left behind these words.

***

“Alright, where should we go now?”

Placing the manhole cover back to its original position, Leido broke everyone’s silence. “Before it gets dark, we have to find the others. After it’s dark, this place will be flooded and that would make it rather difficult to move about.”

That’s right, at night Lake Town will start to get flooded.

Once I thought of this matter, I felt that we should first see if there’re any stores with hiking supplies, and maybe make something like a plastic boat and whatnot, so that we can immediately escape, in case something does comes out at night.

“How are you going to find Gasai?” Quickly asking the main point, Yado continued to wear a long face as he asked.

Putting his mask on again, Chifuyu looked at him from behind his mask. “Using the blood relations method to search…You guys are probably doing the same, right?”

Blood relations?

My attention was caught by Chifuyu’s mask. Since I was too far away to notice it in the past, it was only today that I was able to carefully look at the style of the mask. It really does feel like a Japanese Noh Mask, the exact opposite of Gasai’s. Gasai’s mask leans more toward the Western style and feels feminine, while Chifuyu’s mask is undeniably a ghost mask. It looks as if it’s brimming with a murderous aura, rather scary and even a little shocking, especially when you look at it from a close range.

All I can say is…the craftsmanship of the master who made the mask is simply way too good. If this was put up for sale in a boutique or a whatchamacallit commemorative museum, there might be a whole bunch of people scrambling over it.

“Yang Yang, what are you spacing out for?” The mask turned, and behind it came Chifuyu’s questioning voice.

“No, nothing.” I hastily replied. I can’t just say I was calculating how much your mask could be sold for, right?

“That’s good.” Taking out a small bell from the backpack he brought, Chifuyu placed the object on the ground. “Let’s start by looking for Yido first.” Then he took two steps back, giving way to the twins by the side.

I’ve always felt that he and senior Gasai have the problem of not being able to communicate clearly with one another; even now, it’s still very obvious.

“Thanks.” Leido stepped forward, and the nearby Yado also made the same move. Both of them simultaneously held out their palms and ripped off the medical bandages from before, and beneath was the faint scar of the cut from just now that had been gradually healed with the effects of the medicine. He nimbly pulled out a dagger and once again drew a cut on that scar, instantly followed by dripping crimson blood.

The exact same blood streamed down from both of their hands in unison and fell drop by drop on top of the bell.

Chifuyu squatted at the ground and tapped the bell with his fingertip. Then he chanted something like a song in a soft voice, “Yīdī xiě shì zǒu yībù, liǎng rén xuè shì xíng yīlù, sān là xuè shì tà yī chù, sì fēn xuè shì pǎo yīmù, sànbù guī rén zàibu guī, líng líng dīng dīng zhuī zhǎo huí.”

[T/N: One drop of blood walks one step, two people’s blood goes one road, three beads of blood tread at a place, four dots of blood runs to last seen, the scattered returns once more, “ling ling ding ding” fetch him back.]

That bell shook, and the second it left Chifuyu’s hand, it suddenly started moving in a circle. Then the circle became bigger and bigger, and as it dragged along the blood on the ground, it began drawing something.

“This is a tracking technique too?” I watched the bell drawing out some kind of speckled thing and curiously asked Chifuyu who had already gotten up.

He shook his head, “No, all of the tracking techniques have been sealed. This is considered a precognitive manifesting technique and is also one of the Yukino Clan’s secret spells handed down over generations. It’s mainly for helping some people locate their lost relatives and all. The place that the bell is currently drawing is the place where Yido will be arriving at ten minutes later.” Chifuyu paused for a moment to look at the simple diagram gradually emerging on the floor before turning back towards me. “Of course, the greater the distance, the greater the amount of time it’ll take and thus, the more blood you’ll have to give. However, the accuracy is always a hundred-percent, without fail, and it can allow you to locate your relatives as soon as possible. Usually the clients aren’t able to handle getting a flesh wound and prefer to choose a more painless method.”

I can definitely understand why the clients don’t want to use this method. If it were me, I wouldn’t really want to use it either. Simply seeing Leido and the others look for someone makes my scalp tingle a little.

A couple of seconds later, Leido and Yado both withdrew their hands at the same time.

The diagram on the ground had been formed, and the bell was just lying motionlessly there.

A building that I have never seen before was drawn on it, but it can be considered to be very distinctive, because it’s a tall building. Within this Lake Town, there aren’t many tall buildings; just raise your head and you can figure that out. Especially since, other than the bottom of that building being empty, there’s a stone sculpture of an eagle by the entrance.

“This is Mock Avenue. It’s four streets away from here, so if we hurry there now, it wouldn’t take too long.” He identified the location so quickly, it once again made me feel amazed over Chifuyu’s vast knowledge. It can’t be that a few nights ago, you were able to get your hands on the legendary map and had suddenly memorized all of it, right?

Ghost!

You non-human ghost!

“Alright then, let’s get going right away!” The very energetic Leido grabbed my collar.

Wait a minute, it can’t be that you want to “bring” me there like you did just now, right!?

“Wait for a moment.” Tugging Leido’s hand, Yado took out a green crystal from his pocket. “Let’s leave a mark here.” Then, he threw the crystal into the gutter, his intention completely unknown.

After the crystal rolled into the gutter, it emitted a faint glow for a few seconds and then the light dimmed until it completely disappeared.

“Alright, we can go now.”

No, wait a minute, can’t I just slowly walk there by myself!?

Just as I was going to say that to Leido, the back of my collar was immediately yanked hard by someone, and the surrounding scenery was like seeing your life flash by as it rapidly vanished before my eyes.

Maybe…

After this competition, I’ll be diagnosed with the legendary speed phobia.