Konoka had only been distracted for a moment when another mishap struck on her end. They had actually gotten the final question wrong, and without a word, the armored man picked up the answer board and smashed it apart, exposing the hollow beneath it.
"Honestly!" One hand held down her skirt as they plummeted, while the other clutched Little Nine. Konoka wore a helpless smile, not particularly terrified despite the free fall.
"You really are..." Little Nine looked helplessly at the girls and Negi, all of whom were in free fall around him. In the blink of an eye, they had nearly let someone take a Seven Kills, hadn't they?
He waved a hand, and a gust of air rose from below. The girls' rapid descent immediately slowed. Noticing this, they stopped screaming one after another. "Huh? Where did this wind come from?"
Negi, who had been flailing his skinny legs and short arms, glanced in confusion at Little Nine in Konoka's hand. In the chaos just now, he seemed to have seen the little doll smile. Not only had it smiled, it had damn well moved its arm—and then this current of air had appeared.
The airflow supported them until they landed, only vanishing once their feet touched the ground. They were now in a fairly vast underground space, shrouded in the enormous roots of some plant. Jiu Ming studied them and immediately connected them to the World Tree. In all of Mahora, only that tree likely possessed roots so immense.
Beyond that were underground rivers winding all around them, along with a great many scattered bookshelves. Quite a few shelves sat crookedly in those rivers, yet even as the books were washed over by the current, they showed no signs of damage.
Having fallen underground, they immediately lost