“Hey! Are you al—”
The Holy Sword Bearer had just started speaking when she realized that the thing in front of her actually… actually had a skull for a face!
“Wah!?”
Even though she had already been through quite a lot and had built up a fair resistance to Undead creatures, Holly was still startled by the thing in her hands.
Her grip loosened, and she flung it away with a reflexive shake!
Splash!
But at the exact moment she threw it, the girl noticed that the other party only had a skull-like head… the rest of the body and limbs… looked pretty much the same as a Human… huh?
No, wait! That is the Lady’s Bone Armor! This person is Human!
Realizing that, Holly hurriedly scooped the person back up and dragged them along as she swam all the way to the bank of the Underground River.
Looking back at the river water rolling endlessly under the glow of the moss, the girl felt a surge of lingering fear.
If she had to do that again… she probably wouldn’t be able to pull off something like that a second time.
No, wait!
Now is not the time to be thinking about that!
“Hey! Hey, are you alright?” Holly quickly crawled over to the person wearing the skull mask and removed the Bone Armor from her body.
Only then did she realize—
The person she had saved was actually Reliel.
Her eyes were tightly shut, and there was a bruise on her left temple.
Looking again at the skull-shaped Bone Armor that had been tossed aside, the same spot was cracked open.
It seemed… when the Underground River completely erupted earlier, a stone flung by the rushing water had struck Reliel’s head?
That was some terrible luck…
Holly pressed her lips together. If it had been her who got hit, she probably would have died on the spot…
No! When will I ever fix this habit of thinking nonsense? What matters now is… is…
The girl’s pupils trembled slightly as she looked at Reliel lying flat on the ground, her face pale.
Um… check the ears and nose for mud… heart resuscitation… and… artificial… artificial respiration…
First-life scientific first aid methods instantly flashed through the Holy Sword Bearer’s mind.
She quickly began checking, repositioned the unconscious Reliel… and then…
Then…
“This is… this is just saving someone! I… I can do this!!”
The Holy Sword Bearer shouted to pump herself up, startling the small fish gathered nearby into scattering in all directions.
Even the glowing moss seemed to quiver.
Holly stopped hesitating. One hand supported Reliel’s chin, the other pressed against her forehead…
Then… without the slightest hesitation, she lowered her head!
“Ah… huff!!”
“Ah… huff!!”
Drip… thump~
Water droplets from the stalactites slowly fell into the river below, producing crisp, pleasant sounds…
A gecko clinging to the wall stared with wide eyes, curiously watching everything unfold.
Until… the tenth time Holly bent down—
“Cough, cough…”
The person beneath her finally reacted. Amid violent coughing, a large amount of water mixed with mud and sand poured out of her mouth and nose!
“Reliel!”
Seeing that she had finally regained consciousness, Holly’s eyes lit up as she hurriedly helped her sit up.
“Cough, cough, cough…” Several minutes later…
The girl seemed to have finally vomited out all the water in her stomach.
Endless confusion first welled up in those indifferent eyes, and only after seeing the worried girl supporting her did she pause slightly.
As if she finally remembered something.
“Thank you…” Reliel nodded faintly to Holly, her voice hoarse.
“It… it’s… nothing…”
Only at this moment did the Holy Sword Bearer’s tightly wound nerves finally relax.
And at that very instant, the overwhelming exhaustion and near-breaking tension suddenly released.
Muscle soreness and dizziness flooded in, and in the next second, the girl’s body went limp.
“Mm!?”
Reliel felt the force supporting her vanish and tried to reach out to catch Holly—
But in the next second, she was pulled down with her. The other’s wet, soft body pressed directly onto her own.
This weight was light for Reliel.
But… the Xiao Yaba who had just been pulled back from drowning had no strength left to push her away.
That’s right—embarrassing as it was to admit it—Reliel could not swim.
Since childhood, she had barely come into contact with water and had always resisted it…
Now, as she regained consciousness, hazy memories gradually flooded into her mind. It felt like her head had been struck by something…
Then… fragmented, incomplete recollections followed.
She seemed to have been in the water, dragged along by someone, all the way to here…
Was it her…?
Reliel turned her head with some effort, looking at the girl sprawled limply atop her, already unconscious.
She also felt the heavy chain armor worn beneath her clothes.
She really was… holding everyone back.
Subconsciously, she raised a hand and pulled the unconscious Holly a little closer into her arms.
Your growth really is… remarkable…
……
Meanwhile, on a riverbank somewhere along the Underground River.
Splash! Wet white hair slowly surfaced above the river.
Next came those red eyes, and in her hand, the Goddess Young Lady she was dragging ashore by the back of her collar.
After climbing onto the bank, the Lady lifted a hand to fling the water off her face, then looked back at the surging river behind her.
“An Underground River? Tch… I should have thought of that earlier.”
Ileya frowned slightly, her expression darkening.
This place had been Gobi land since ancient times, with no especially wide waterways.
The fact that Humans had once been able to establish a settlement here meant…
There had to be an Underground River, much like some western regions in her previous life—deserts and gobi on the surface, yet sustained by deep underground wells.
She should have realized this the moment she saw the location of 【Delan City Ruins】.
She had been too careless.
But… Ileya rubbed her chin.
If things were as she thought, they could use the Underground River to enter 【Delan City】 directly.
After all, the underground caves and labyrinth caves were probably already flooded by now, and the markers she had deliberately left earlier were likely all washed away. Returning the original route was not very realistic.
However…
Thinking of what had just happened gave Ileya another headache.
She had only had time to use Bone Armor to protect everyone before the Skeleton Soldiers she summoned were scattered to pieces by the erupting underground spring!
And she herself… in the face of such a natural disaster, had seemed so insignificant.
At the very least, in that first moment, she could only let the underground flood carry her away chaotically. All she could do was grab Veil by the back of her collar to keep them from being separated…
As for the others… Ileya had no idea where they were now.
At that thought, she finally seemed to realize she was still holding someone.
After thinking for a moment, Ileya lifted the person she had been carrying unconsciously.
She saw that… the Goddess Young Lady now had her eyes rolled back, her small mouth slightly open, limbs limp and powerless…
She looked… pretty okay? In truth, she might have already been gone for quite a while.