"Haha, I called it smuggling, but we actually crawled through a mine."
Zhao Si explained it to Malenia.
"A mine?" Malenia propped her chin on her prosthetic hand, listening closely.
"Right. There's a place in Caelid called Gael. It has a mine that connects to Limgrave," Zhao Si said with a smile. "I didn't know at first either. Only when we went through it did I realize how many tunnels crisscrossed inside. One branch led straight to Limgrave. Without someone guiding us, it would've been really hard to find."
Mines were dangerous places, and disasters like cave-ins, flooding, and poisonous gas were secondary concerns.
The most terrifying thing in there was actually getting lost.
From the mine entrance, you entered the caverns, then went deeper into a network of tunnels branching every which way.
It was pitch-black inside, with oil lamps lit only in tunnels still in use.
In many abandoned tunnels, you couldn't even see your hand in front of your face. If you wandered into one and didn't turn back in time, you could easily get lost.
You would never get out, even in death, becoming a skeleton no one knew about.
Those were precisely the routes the villager smuggling people across took.
Clearly, the Redmane Army hadn't discovered this underground passage either.
"We're here, we're here. Out you go, come on."
The villager held up his torch, ushering everyone outside.
The light at the exit was already visible from here. Zhao Si could even sense the air of Limgrave.
Different terrain and regions naturally felt different.
Once he saw everyone heading out, the villager turned and left. His torchlight quickly disappeared around a corner.
By the time Zhao Si and the others emerged from the cave, they hadn't gone far before several burly men jumped out of