"Grandpa Augustus, Grandpa Augustus!"
After an unknown amount of time, amid the stifling air and agonizing pain throughout his body, a soft call woke Priest Augustus from the darkness.
When the old priest opened his eyes again, he felt only a piercing pain at the back of his head, while his entire left arm had already gone numb.
His vision was completely dark, and the foul air made his lungs convulse. Fortunately, the breathing of the three children he had shielded beneath him was still steady. The two smaller boys had either been injured or fainted from fright. Only Marian, the little girl with braided hair clutching a princess doll, remained conscious. She had been the one to wake the old priest just now.
"An earthquake... this building..."
Once awake, Priest Augustus immediately made his judgment. He then tried to move his limbs amid the rubble, only to discover that all four of them were wedged within gaps in the building's remains. With only his current two-ring strength, he could not crawl out from the deepest part of the ruins of the collapsed three-story building.
"Grandpa Augustus, will we die? Like Father and Mother did."
The sheltered Marian asked, her voice already weak. The severely injured old priest tried to make his tone more cheerful:
"No. Of course we won't die. Someone will come rescue us soon."
Little Marian said nothing more, and the priest realized that she, too, had finally been unable to hold on and had fallen unconscious.
Blood ran down the old priest's cheek. It was his own blood. He guessed that aside from the back of his head, there had to be other wounds on top of it.
But the pain throughout his body prevented him from carefully sensing his condition. After using most of his