Chapter 77 – Under City (2)

Bang!

The earth wall surrounding the house exploded with a loud boom. Contaminated people rushing into the house. But they couldn’t find anything inside.

“Grr. Where are they!”

“Grrr!”

The contaminated people looked around growling, and following behind them, the gang boss with a huge build entered looking completely fine.

Though he had been covered in blood and near death, thanks to being contaminated, his abilities were strengthened and all his wounds had healed.

Unlike ordinary people, he looked somewhat normal. Thanks to being a superpower user, he received less mental influence.

“Rat bastards, where did they run! Everyone search the surroundings!”

At his words, the contaminated humans tried to move, but another voice stopped them.

“No, searching above ground will be useless.”

A mage wearing a robe and holding a long staff entered through the door. She confirmed the broken earth wall and the hole-pierced floor, and a smile appeared on her face.

“What’s underground here?”

“Grr, there’s an old sewer though…”

At the boss’s words, the mage nodded.

“They probably went down to the sewers through the ground. We need to chase into the sewers.”

At her words, the boss frowned.

“Are you certain?”

“Have we ever told you wrong? Aren’t you satisfied now?”

At her words, the boss grinned. Of course he was satisfied. He had never felt this good.

“Well, feels like I’m being used, but doesn’t matter. Everyone chase into the sewers. Move quickly!”

The mage breathed a sigh of relief at the boss’s words.

Contaminated ordinary people had shortened thinking, so they easily obeyed their superiors as long as their own desires could be resolved.

But superpower users and those who had internal energy or mana retained some reason.

Basically, contaminated humans were made to feel favorable toward contaminated summoners, but troublesome things could happen if not properly persuaded.

Following the contaminated humans running toward the nearby sewer entrance, the mage Erica showed a twisted smile.

The opponent was a summoner who moved earth. Finally she could avenge the Spear Absolute.

***

Patter patter.

From the ceiling of the quiet sewer tunnel, dust began pouring down one by one.

Rumble rumble.

Soon pouring stones and earth. Following that, people fell from the hole that appeared in the ceiling.

“Aah!”

People with good physical abilities like Nan-seol and Daniel could land safely on the floor, but Hayden and Clara had no choice but to roll on the floor.

“Ptui! The landing was a mess!”

At the sudden fall, Michael made a comment, but seeing Sun-woo drenched in sweat, he closed his mouth with an awkward face.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m just a bit tired.”

At Nan-seol’s worried question, Sun-woo waved his hand. As he said, he had just exhausted all his stamina and internal energy.

After grasping the summoners’ location, Sun-woo continued moving underground with the party. Because there were too many enemies detected by sorcery above ground.

Moreover, to rescue the summoners who were surrounded, there was no method but through the ground.

Having rescued the summoners like that and moved underground again to this sewer, Sun-woo couldn’t help but be tired.

“Then we should rest a bit. It’s quite deep, so they won’t be able to chase here.”

At Michael’s words, several people immediately sat down. They were the summoners Sun-woo’s party had rescued. Having fought to their limit, they couldn’t move anymore.

“Where should we go now?”

At Daniel’s words, the party looked at each other with troubled expressions.

According to what they heard from the summoners who had been above ground, the contamination range was extraordinary.

All visible regions were contaminated, and even the clouds, which had been fine when the continent was contaminated, seemed contaminated.

It was difficult to gauge how far the contamination had spread.

In this state, even escaping somewhere, it was hard to guarantee they could escape the contaminated area.

“Still, how about we leave the city and think about it. We should probably try to find summoners in other cities…”

At the female summoner holding a sniper rifle’s words, the other summoners nodded.

Because leaving the city would be relatively safer, and if they met personnel from other cities, they might find other methods.

But Sun-woo and his party pondered with serious expressions. Looking at this city’s situation, the summoners dispatched to other cities didn’t look fine either.

Moreover, outside the city wasn’t guaranteed to be safe either. Sun-woo’s party remembered the beasts that had roamed the New Continent.

But when the party, having no other alternative, tried to find a way out following her words.

“If you have nowhere to go, would you like to come to where we live?”

Clara stepped forward.

“You mean that place where scavengers live?”

The mission Sun-woo had done here before came to mind.

The scavengers he had seen before dealing with the contamination source. And the free zone of ability users and mutants deep below the sewers that the mutant who had guided him after the mission told him about.

What Clara was talking about now was exactly that zone.

Naturally, the summoners except Sun-woo’s party didn’t know what she was talking about, but the party seemed to be pondering.

“Our prophet told me to bring you all after finishing work. Everyone strongly opposed it, but for things to turn out like this…”

Clara’s expression as she continued speaking was extremely dark. Their world had collapsed. Though she heard the story from the party, she couldn’t understand it well.

Then, something came to Sun-woo’s mind.

“Wait, how far underground is that place?”

“We have to go down for a long time. About 3,000 fiats?”

A completely incomprehensible number came out, but fortunately Hayden knew both measurements.

“It will be roughly 1.2 km.”

Tremendously deep. And at such depth, there might be a possibility.

“Let’s go there. Deep underground, contact with the Summoners doesn’t reach. Then there’s a high possibility it’s escaped from contamination too.”

Escaping from contamination, for those who didn’t know how far they’d have to go to escape contamination, this was somewhat good news.

At Sun-woo’s words, the party immediately agreed, and the other summoners also agreed as if they had no choice.

The party began moving following Clara.

“Grr, leaving the contaminated area is good, but it’s just a temporary measure anyway. If we can’t contact the Summoners, won’t we have no way to return?”

Following Clara while walking, Michael grumbled. As he said, going underground might just be a kind of refuge.

But Sun-woo was placing hope in what was called the prophet’s words. One who sees the future wouldn’t call them without reason.

Sun-woo also had expectations, but since it wasn’t certain yet, they had to visit where they lived.

***

The path going underground wasn’t far from where Sun-woo’s party had dealt with the contamination source before. Passing through an entrance disguised as a wall in one passage, they descended underground.

The passage going underground at first showed signs of being artificially made by people, but soon natural cave formations appeared.

From seeing water flowing from elsewhere in the center of the cave, it seemed to be a cave created by groundwater.

“Don’t tell me it’s sewer water?”

One of the summoners approached the water to examine it and frowned. Though weak, a stench was coming from the water.

“It is sewer water. It’s water that went through purification devices in the center of the sewers, but it’s not completely purified.”

The psychic ability user they met at the passage entrance solved his question. After sending other scavengers ahead, she joined the party at the entrance.

“Originally it was a cave created by flowing groundwater, but later when the sewers were made with the city, sewers flowed instead of groundwater. Now it still smells because purification isn’t complete, but after the city purifies it several more times, it can be used as drinking water.”

Her words ultimately meant they used this water as drinking water.

Since it became answer time anyway, Sun-woo also asked one question. Because he hadn’t seen something he’d seen before while coming here.

“The animals being raised for food in the sewers aren’t visible, what happened?”

It was about the rats he had seen in the sewers before. The rats visible at the rat farm weren’t caught by Sun-woo’s sorcery at all.

“Ah, after that incident, we caught them all. Since we called in everyone who had been staying in the sewers without distinction, there was no need to maintain them anymore.”

This too seemed to be content the prophet had prophesied. They probably noticed the current situation in advance.

After that, the party quietly followed her downward. Though it was a dark cave, the torches lit by the psychic ability user and Clara, Sun-woo’s sword, etc., brightened the light, so there wasn’t much difficulty moving.

The cave was very complex. The passages in various places and similar paths made it impossible to know directions at all. Sometimes even the water disappeared from passages, so without someone guiding, they wouldn’t know directions at all.

After a while, among the summoners, except for Sun-woo, no one knew the path inside the cave.

Sun-woo’s sorcery could occasionally feel people hiding as they passed through the cave. Probably people monitoring this cave. Well, there was no way they wouldn’t guard such passages.

And Sun-woo’s prediction wasn’t wrong. While descending underground, the party realized the murky color around them had disappeared. They had escaped the contaminated zone.

The summoner party all breathed small sighs. No matter how well they endured contamination, being inside a contaminated zone was quite stressful.

The party could walk with somewhat easier minds.

At some moment as they continued descending for a while, the party faced a wide-open entrance.

It was a huge underground plaza that seemed several kilometers in diameter. Shining stones were embedded like stars in the ceiling, numerous buildings were in the plaza, and numerous holes in the walls looked like doors and windows where people lived.

And there were many people passing between them.

“Welcome to our underground city. Welcome to ‘Derinküyü’.”

The somewhat tired-looking psychic ability user, Silvia, spread her hand pointing to the underground city behind.

***

The party entered the city looking around with curious expressions. The party’s guidance was done together by Silvia and the guards who had been guarding the entrance.

The city was very large, diverse, and noisy.

On one side, countless rats were docilely moving following the Pied Piper without even fences, and on one side of the plaza wall, tremendous amounts of mushrooms filled the wall.

And inside the city, various facilities like commercial districts and blacksmith shops were gathered, and mutants, superpower users, and ordinary people passed between them mixed together.

Children weren’t visible on the streets but were visible from the holes drilled in the walls. Probably the residences were made by digging holes in the walls.

Silvia guided the party to a building on the north wall of the city.

When the party crossed the city, people all stopped what they were doing and watched the party.

Only Michael glared back at the surrounding gazes, and the other party members pretended to be indifferent, looking only forward and following Silvia.

And shortly after, they arrived in front of a house standing alone by the wall, separated from other buildings.

The two-story house was properly made, unlike other houses carved from rock.

Around the house was very quiet. Partly because it was somewhat separated from other houses, but also because everyone seemed to be careful as people all reduced their voices and footsteps when approaching here.

Fortunately, the house’s living room was quite spacious. Though the entire party entered, it didn’t feel cramped.

At the end of the living room was an old woman sitting in an armchair.

“Welcome. You worked hard. I’m the prophet who called you.”

She was an old woman with a gentle impression full of wrinkles on her face, and her face was full of gladness for the party.

The party naturally smiled, but one person, Sun-woo, stepped forward with a stiff expression.

Finally meeting the prophet, he had to resolve his curiosity.

“Is the reason you called us here because there’s a spatial ability user who can send us back to our world?”

At Sun-woo’s question, everyone’s eyes widened greatly. It was completely unexpected words.

But Sun-woo had seen a spatial ability user who moved between dimensions, and had also fought her.

Of course, she said she became able to cross dimensions because her abilities were strengthened by being contaminated, but in this wide world, there might be someone capable of crossing dimensions even without being contaminated.

“That’s right. That’s why I called you.”

At Sun-woo’s question, the prophet nodded.