The four of them (with a squirrel added, making the proportion of humans even lower this time) stood blankly in the silver-white corridor, all somewhat stunned.
After a long while, Huli was the first to break the silence. "Benefactor, is this what's behind the 'stage'?"
"It's not what I imagined either," Eileen muttered. "I thought there'd be tentacles, flesh, eyeballs, and things like that, with mysterious, babbling voices everywhere... Wasn't that how these things were usually portrayed before?"
"Don't ask me. I don't know either. This isn't what I imagined, either." Yu Sheng waved his hand, then quickly pointed at the sign on the corridor wall. "But this really is inside Ankaela... Uh, 'inside' it. It says so on the sign: Ankaela—Maintenance Tunnel."
Huli's eyes widened in surprise. "Benefactor, you can understand the writing?"
"I can understand what it means, but I don't recognize these characters." Yu Sheng frowned and glanced down at the Hunter's outfit he was wearing. "Maybe... it has something to do with the Hunter's vision?"
Eileen quickly came to her senses after a moment of daze. "Maintenance Tunnel?! What the heck? A maintenance tunnel inside Ankaela? Is that what this means?"
Yu Sheng had no answer to give. He could only lead the group deeper along the mysterious "Maintenance Tunnel," remaining on high alert.
What was this place? Was it "inside" Ankaela? Or was it a road leading to Ankaela? Why was the backstage of a fairy-tale "stage" an obviously artificial corridor like this? Ultimately... what exactly was "Ankaela," the being known as the "Dark Angel"?
Countless questions churned through his mind, but in the empty corridor, only Yu Sheng and Huli's footsteps echoed monotonously. Yu Sheng had no idea where to go. He merely followed some kind of "instinct" deep in his heart, walking toward