◆ Chapter 21: Of Course, They’re in the Mines too
“…IT’S still circling overhead, m’lady.”
Lex has returned from scouting the cave opening. Since we entered the cave, the dragon moved away from the entrance and started circling the area from the air. Nothing has changed since—just as Lex reported.
“I don’t think we can get to the floodgate the way we planned,” I say.
“Nor do I. We were lucky to escape the dragon the first time. We should proceed by thinking we won’t be so lucky the next time.”
“Yah, but it’s not like we can stay cooped up in here forever, right?” Rosso raises the biggest problem with a furrowed brow. He’s absolutely right. Staying in the cave keeps us safe from the dragon, but we don’t have enough supplies to last long.
We will have to leave eventually.
Lex pulls out a map. “As far as that problem is concerned, I checked the map Master Pino gave me and it seems this was once a coal mine. This is an old tunnel, but it seems to connect two different entrances. One leads out near Cladorca, and the other—”
“Oh! It’s near the floodgate!” Too happy to contain my excitement, I interrupt Lex.
“Precisely!” he answers with a smile.
“Meanin’ we’ve just gotta travel these tunnels! Now we’re talkin!” Rosso slams his left fist into his right palm to express his delight.
Though…not every problem is solved yet.
“But the horses are frightened,” Nady mutters in a concerned voice as she pats her horse.
“The tunnels have many areas that are too difficult for the horses to traverse. We must leave them behind,” Lex decides on the spot.
Bringing the horses could be more dangerous for them, but zombies still roam Torstana in droves. Not to mention there’s a dragon nearby. I can’t shake the feeling it might be even more dangerous to leave them.
“Will they be okay?” I ask.
“…Vianta is a smart girl. I am confident she will lead the other horses away from danger should the need arise.”
His decision means leaving Vianta, who is like family to him, behind. Obviously it's tough on him. But Lex only grimaced for a fraction of a second before deciding.
“All right. I’ll abide by your decision.” I keep my response brief because I think that’s better for Lex in the long run than trying, and failing, to console him.
Once we finish dividing up the bags we had tied to the horses, I face the cave’s dark depths. “Ready to go?”
“Mizuha, shouldn’t you do something about her?”
“…It’s not nice to leave her behind, is it?”
I knew the problem without Nady having to point it out to me. I hadn’t forgotten about that problem person, but I’m hesitant to speak to her the way she’s acting. Giving in, I call out to Iris who’s weeping on her knees near the cave entrance.
“Iris, how long do you plan to sit around?”
“My goddess statue…ahhh…! Waahhh…!” she wails.
“I’ll leave you behind.”
“How will I ever be able to fall asleep again…?”
“If you come right now, I’ll pat you on the head.”
“Coming!”
Wow, she got over that fast. And for that matter, I almost missed what she said, but does being unable to sleep without my statue mean she uses it as some sort of hug pillow? I can’t imagine falling asleep hugging that hard and knobby thing, but I can picture Iris doing it, which is scary.
In any event, we have begun advancing deeper into the cave. Our formation consists of Lex at the vanguard, Iris reveling in her head massage from me, Nady behind us, and Rosso bringing up the rear. Only Lex and Rosso have torches.
“..It’s uncomfortably quiet,” I whisper.
“You would certainly expect there to be at least one or two zombies wandering around given Cladorca’s population,” Lex responds.
“Personally, I’d love not to run into any at all, but we should stay vigilant just in case.”
Encountering zombies in the dark without being mentally prepared for it might give me a heart attack. Bracing myself, I keep repeating “zombies are gonna come from somewhere, anywhere” in my mind as Lex heads deeper inside the tunnel.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
“Say, Nady? Do you hear something?” I ask nervously.
“Y-Yes. Sounds like metal striking rock—”
I hear a sudden loud crack from my right. When I look toward the source of the terrifying sound, I find a cracked wall. Welp. This can’t mean anything good. No sooner do I think that then the crack spreads and the cave wall shatters in every direction. A pickaxe wielding zombie springs out.
“BWOAAAAAHHHHH!”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The zombie raises the pickaxe in its right hand and brings it down on my face. Though not as agile as the nighttime zombies, it’s plenty faster than the normos. At this rate, my eyeballs are going to be mined by a pickaxe! Just in the nick of time, the zombie disappears with a dull thud. Lex had intercepted the zombie with his shield, knocking it back into the hole it came from.
He looks over his shoulder at me with a panic-stricken expression. “Lady Mizuha! Are you unharmed?!”
“Y-Yeah… Thanks, Lex.”
I tried to be mentally prepared, but I didn’t expect them to break through the cave walls. My heart nearly leaped out of my chest! And now it doesn’t even get a chance to stop jackhammering in my ears because another zombie bursts its way through a different spot in the wall next to me. Lex knocks it back with his shield while I’m screaming.
“It’s hard to believe, but it appears the zombies here are capable of breaking down the walls, m’lady!”
“Doesn’t that make this entire cave a death trap then?!” I cry.
Rock cracks as if to prove my worst fears right. The sound is coming from the wall directly behind Rosso. Several pickaxe wielding zombies—miner zombies—spill from the newly formed hole.
“We’re screwed if we stay here any longer! They’ll box us in!” I shout.
“Pushing forward is our only option! Hurry! I shall cut open a path for us!” Lex bellows and the rest of us run right behind him.
However, the miner zombies seem capable of pinpointing our exact location as they smash through the walls and lunge at us with impeccable timing.
“We should stick together as close as possible so we don’t get separated!” I shout over all the noise. “Geh! Iris, you’re sticking too close! I can’t walk!”
“Iris doesn’t think this is close enough yet…!”