“Good.”
The moment I said that, Erka’s eyebrow twitched.
“What exactly is good about this?”
“You two seem to be getting along.”
“Who says we’re getting along?”
“Right. We’re not.”
Mia cut in.
“And she smells.”
“How many times are you going to say tha—”
“Enough.”
When I cut her off in a low voice, Erka shut her mouth.
To be precise, it was less that she shut it and more that she swallowed her words because the more she said, the more it felt like she was losing.
Mia was still staring straight at Erka.
The tip of her nose was wrinkled ever so slightly.
That meant she disliked her.
The expression of a kid who trusted smells before people.
I pulled the papers on the table back toward me.
Part of the inspection records for the lower southeast side.
Entry restriction logs.
Missing maintenance requests.
And one half-dead line on the old layout map.
A line that wasn’t cut off, just pretending to be.
“We’re going underground tonight.”
Erka answered immediately.
“Good. Then this time, the iron door—”
“We’re not going through the iron door.”
“Why not?”
“There’ll be people guarding that side.”
Erka frowned at once.
“Then how are we getting in?”
“From the dormitory first.”
I pressed my finger to the lower part of the layout map.
“We’ll go out the back door, meet behind the storage shed, and from there circle along the outer wall of the laboratory building.”
“You want to give up on the entrance and just look around the sides?”
Ignoring her, I spoke to Erka.
“You check under the wall for holes, around the drains, and whether there are any cracks near the wall.”
Then I looked at Mia.
“Mia, if there’s any spot where you smell something flowing out from inside, tell us right away.”
“Okay.”
Erka’s face crumpled at once.
“That smell thing again.”
I didn’t respond.
The truth was, that was the fastest way.
The entry point wasn’t always the same.
There were days when you went straight down through the iron door, days when a low gap in the floor was open,
and days when the drainage channel behind the storage shed was active.
It was different every time in the game.
But one thing didn’t change.
Air from inside leaked out from wherever it was open.
People couldn’t smell it, but Mia could.
“If Mia stops, we check that spot first.”
Erka’s eyes narrowed very slightly.
“What are we checking for?”
“There’ll be a hole nearby that we can get through.”
The corner of Erka’s mouth lifted just a little.
“But don’t even think about going in right away.”
“Wow.”
Erka let out a hollow laugh.
“You cut off the most important part at the end.”
“I did it on purpose.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought you’d charge in without looking ahead or behind.”
“That’s prejudice.”
“It’s not prejudice.”
Mia cut in immediately.
Erka whipped her head around.
“You stay out of this.”
“Why?”
“Since earlier, all you’ve done is say I smell or that it isn’t prejudice. You keep saying things that get under people’s skin.”
“I said true things.”
“Do you really have to say them right now?”
“Yeah. Because you’ll go in again.”
Erka shut her mouth.
Good.
This time, no rebuttal came.
She looked annoyed, but she also knew it wasn’t entirely wrong.
Instead, Erka looked at me once.
A little longer than before.
As if she were thinking about why I was putting Mia forward,
and why I was so certain there would be a hole where Mia stopped.
“…It does seem like you know something else.”
Erka muttered under her breath.
“But trying to pry that out of you now would be a waste of time, wouldn’t it?”
I answered without smiling.
“Good. I’ll let it slide this time.”
That was what she said, but her expression didn’t look like she was letting anything slide at all.
She was leaving her suspicions as they were, and for tonight, she would follow along.
That was enough.
“And if we find a hole, I’ll check it first.”
Erka asked again.
“Why?”
“Because I need to see whether it’s safe to enter.”
“How would you know that?”
“I’ll know when I see it.”
“What a truly insincere explanation.”
“Because it’s faster than explaining.”
“That’s the most suspicious part.”
“I know.”
“Smell is faster than explaining.”
Mia nodded.
“Yeah.”
Erka narrowed her eyes and looked at me.
She seemed about to ask more, but in the end, she stopped.
Good.
That was better than her not asking at all.
She had to be at least this suspicious to be Erka.
I folded the paper in half and tucked it inside my clothes.
“Now, let’s leave one at a time.”
Erka asked again.
“Why?”
“Just in case?
You take the materials and leave first. That’ll look the most natural.”
“Then what about her?”
“She’s usually not seen anyway.”
At that, Mia nodded once.
She seemed to have taken it as a compliment.
Erka looked offended again.
“So I’m just being treated as a conspicuous human being.”
“No.”
“Then?”
“You’re being treated as an openly suspicious human being.”
“You really can’t say things nicely.”
“I know.”
“And you keep doing it even though you know.”
“Yeah.”
Erka snatched up the papers and tucked them into her clothes.
“You’re seriously the worst.”
“I’m glad you know that about yourself too.”
“Fine. I’ll let that remark slide too.”
With that, Erka stood up first.
Her footsteps grew distant down the hallway.
Only Mia and I remained in the reading room.
Mia was still looking toward the door.
Even after Erka left, the tips of her ears moved ever so slightly, as if she were smelling the scent left in that spot.
“Senior.”
“What?”
“I think she’s already gone in once and come back out.”
“Not today?”
“Yeah.”
Good.
Actually, I’d been thinking the same thing.
Erka was exactly that kind of person.
The type who wouldn’t be satisfied until she confirmed things with her own hands.
I rose from my seat.
“You leave too.”
“After how many seconds?”
“Thirty seconds.”
“Got it.”
Mia didn’t get up right away. Instead, she looked up at me once.
She had the face of someone who’d been holding the same words in her mouth for a while now.
“What?”
“Today.”
“Yeah.”
“Is it really possible that we won’t go in?”
That question caught on something.
She thought that if I found a hole, I would end up crawling in anyway.
“If it looks dangerous, we won’t go in.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Mia looked at me for a moment.
It was the face she made when smelling for lies.
Then she said very quietly,
“I half-believe you.”
“That’s a lot of trust.”
“By your standards, Senior.”
Instead of replying, I tapped the edge of the desk once with my finger.
“Thirty seconds.”
“Okay.”
Mia opened the door and went out into the corridor.
I couldn’t hear her footsteps.
As expected.
About three minutes after Mia left, I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
I walked without hurry. Just because you were sneaking out at night didn’t mean you had to crawl around like a thief.
If anything, being too cautious made you stand out more.
Right now, I had to look like just another student who’d finished studying.
As I turned down the hallway and descended the stairs, I glanced out the windows from time to time.
The sky had already sunk into black, and even through the gaps in the window frame, the outside air seeped in coldly.
At this hour, traffic toward the dormitory decreased quite a bit.
Instead, it was when the supervisors made their rounds.
On the way to the dormitory back door, I ran into two people.
One was an underclassman carrying a water bucket, and the other was an upperclassman yawning with a sleepy face.
Neither showed much interest in me.
When I stepped out the back door, the air grew colder.
The rear of the dormitory was always like that.
During the day, laundry lines were strung up, water buckets were set out, and servants came and went noisily.
But at night, it was the opposite.
I leaned my back against the wall and counted silently.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Before I reached thirty, the door opened just a crack, and Mia slipped out like a shadow.
There was almost no sound.
Saying she really couldn’t be seen was exactly right.
“You’re here.”
“Yeah.”
“Erka?”
Mia sniffed once.
“She went ahead.”
“Behind the storage shed?”
“Yeah.”
I jerked my chin forward.
“Let’s go.”
We crossed the dormitory’s back yard and stuck close behind the storage shed.
Piles of firewood, empty barrels, and an old handcart were stacked there like shadows.
It really was a good place to hide.
No, maybe I should say it was a good place for people who thought it was a good place to hide to gather.
And sure enough.
Erka had arrived first in the narrow gap behind the storage shed.
She was standing with her back against the wall, and the moment I approached, she opened her mouth.
“You’re late.”
“I’m not late.”
“By my standards, you are.”
“You talk a lot for someone who was about to go ahead alone and held herself back.”
Erka’s expression stiffened for a very brief moment, then returned to normal.
That had hit the mark.
Mia said from beside me,
“That’s true.”
“Could you please keep your mouth—”
“Shh.”
I cut her off briefly.
“Keep your voices down from here on.”
Erka took one breath with an irritated face and raised only her hand instead.
It meant she understood.
It was a relief if she reacted even like that.
The truly dangerous type was the one who went silent.
I glanced beyond the corner of the storage shed.
It wouldn’t take long to reach the southeast outer wall of the laboratory building if we went in a straight line, but if we did that, we’d look suspicious to anyone watching.
We had to stick to the walls and the shadowy areas.
“Don’t take the lead.”
I said to Erka.
“I know.”
“No, your face looked like it was about to take the lead again.”
“Honestly.”
Erka ground her teeth lightly.
“You really do keep getting on people’s nerves.”
“I haven’t gotten on them all the way.”
“That makes it even more annoying.”
Mia gave a very soft giggle.
Good.
The sound was suppressed, but the conversation wasn’t dead.
This much was fine.
We turned into the narrow path beside the storage shed.
Instead of heading straight for the laboratory building, we circled around once and approached the point where the outer wall and the water channel met.
Moisture had risen along the base of the stone wall, and old moss clung here and there.
Before we’d taken more than a few steps, Mia stopped first.
Her hand went up.
A signal to stop.
I halted at once and blocked Erka behind me with my arm.
In the distance, lamplight swayed once.
Someone was making a round through the hallway on the laboratory building’s side.
Two people. The intervals between their footsteps were heavy and slow.
They weren’t students.
Until the lamplight receded, all three of us stayed pressed against the wall.
Mia seemed to be barely breathing, while Erka’s shoulders were slightly stiff from holding her breath too tightly.
Only after the footsteps vanished did we move again.
This time, I spoke first in a low voice.
“You saw the patrol, right?”
“I saw it.”
Erka answered as if clinging to my words.
“But that doesn’t guarantee there’ll be an entrance on the side.”
“There’s no guarantee.”
“Then?”
“We search for it.”
“You really do explain things strangely.”
“Maybe the listener is just slow.”
Erka snapped her mouth shut.
Beside her, Mia laughed softly again.
She seemed to be having particular fun teasing Erka today.
Once we stuck close to the outer wall of the laboratory building, the real search began.
I looked at each of them in turn.
“Mia.”
“Yeah.”
“Start.”
“Okay.”
Instead of replying further, Mia immediately lowered herself.
She moved slowly along the place where the wall met the ground.
Her nose wasn’t quite touching, but it was close.
Saying she searched like a real beast was exactly right.
I looked at Erka.
“You only check the spots where Mia stops.”
“I know.”
The search took longer than expected.
The southeast outer wall wasn’t short.
On top of that, it wasn’t just an ordinary wall.
Maintenance drainage channels were attached here and there, and the colors of the lower stones were all different.
The older parts had gone dark and dead, while the sections added later were a different color.
In daylight, we might have been able to see some of it with our eyes, but at night, we had to rely more on touch and instinct.
We moved a little farther to the side.
Then Mia suddenly stopped.
Her ears stood up, and her head tilted very slightly.
Her hand pointed to one spot below the wall.
“Here.”
I moved right beside her.
“How is it?”
“It smells.”
“What kind?”
“Inside smell.”
Erka reflexively bent at the waist too.
“Where?”
Mia pointed to a low gap where two stones met beside a drainage groove.
At a glance, it looked like a cracked spot, but when I got closer, the gap inside was deeper than expected.
Good.
We’d found it.
“It’s leaking from here.”
Mia said quietly.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
The look in Erka’s eyes changed.
If irritation had made up half of it until now, curiosity made up more than half of it now.
Her body leaned forward.
Her hand went with it.
I immediately grabbed her wrist.
“I told you.”
Erka drew in a short breath.
“I didn’t touch it.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to check.”
“I go first.”
Erka bit her lip at my words.
She looked annoyed, but she also knew this was not the time to push.
I lowered myself further.
The gap was not big enough for a person to properly fit through.
But the problem was not its size.
At that moment, the inside of my left eye tingled first.
Ah.
Here it comes.
Along with the sensation that some part of my mind had suddenly caved in, the edges of my vision warped for an instant into ink-black.
What I saw was not the crack between the stones, but black lines spreading out from it.
The floor. The wall. The tips of my feet. Mia’s wrist. Erka’s sleeve. All of them led to the same place.
Step wrong, and you die.
It was not an explanation, but a sensation closer to certainty.
I reflexively pulled my hand away.
“Senior?”
Mia noticed first.
Erka’s expression also stiffened.
“What is it?”
I did not answer right away.
My vision swayed for the briefest moment.
I forced down the nausea rising in my throat.
Great.
Which meant this was as bad as it could get.
I barely managed to open my mouth.
“Let’s withdraw.”
Erka shot back immediately.
“Why?”
“Not today.”
“Why not?”
“If we go in now.”
I said, unable to take my eyes off the gap.
“We die.”
Silence fell.
For the first time, Erka could not immediately argue.
Mia was silent as well.
I could feel both of them looking at my face.
I said it once more.
“Let’s withdraw for now. Just remember the location.”
Erka clenched her teeth.
“Yurian.”
“No.”
“It’s right in front of us—”
“No.”
My voice dropped lower than I expected.
It was not anger. It came out that way because I knew that if she pushed any further, something would truly go wrong.
Erka looked at me.
Irritation, frustration, distrust. And behind them, a very faint trace of fear.
This time, I saw it too.
Mia moved first.
She grabbed my sleeve and tugged me back once.
“Let’s go.”
Great.
At times like this, she was the quickest.
I took my eyes off the gap and stood up.
My temples throbbed.
If I had gone just a little closer, I might have collapsed right there.
“You remembered the location, right?”
Erka answered in a very low voice.
“…Yes.”
“The second gap beside the drainage groove. The spot where the end of the left stone is broken.”
“I remember.”
“Good.”
I pulled back without looking behind me.
On the way back toward the warehouse, Erka was quiet, and so was Mia.
Instead, I could feel both of their gazes repeatedly sticking to me.
Great.
There was a mountain of things I had not explained, but I was in no mood to explain.
If I opened my mouth now, I felt like I would vomit first.
Only after we returned to the shadow behind the warehouse did I finally manage to breathe a little.
Erka was the first to speak.
“What did you just see?”
I did not answer.
“Later.”
“You’re doing that again?”
“Yeah.”
Erka let out a hollow laugh.
It was not from annoyance, but from sheer disbelief.
“You really are the worst.”
“I know.”
Mia said very quietly beside me.
“Your face looks the worst it has all day.”
I did not need her to confirm that.
I leaned my back against the warehouse wall once, closed my eyes, then opened them.
“That’s it for today.”
Erka immediately asked.
“What about tomorrow?”
“If we’re still alive tomorrow, we’ll think about it.”
This time, neither of them said anything.
That silence was actually better.