A few hours before meeting Cairens in the underground prison.
It had been five hours since Abrisius, saying he would rescue Cairens who had been dragged away during the day, snuck into the building leading to the underground prison. The day had already grown dim long ago.
While watching the tight security and hiding his body behind pillars or in warehouses out of people’s sight, waiting for an opening, far from finding an opening, it seemed that as time passed, only the number of people monitoring increased.
“What should I do……”
Abrisius watched the massive underground prison gate with bated breath. He had somehow succeeded in getting this far, but he absolutely couldn’t get inside the prison where Cairens was.
“Why are they all loitering around here?”
Even though it had become the middle of the night, Abrisius clicked his tongue at the soldiers guarding the prison gate with wide-open eyes.
Perhaps because it was a building confining criminals, the surveillance was stricter than expected.
Especially from the entrance leading to the underground prison, soldiers stood in a line, and among them, the two soldiers guarding the door on both sides at the very end were beyond the category of ordinary humans in size alone.
‘How am I supposed to get to Cairens secretly past those two?’
The key glimpsed furtively at the waist of the giant soldier on the right. That must surely be the key that could open the iron gate. The situation assessment had been finished hours ago, but he couldn’t see any way to enter the prison while avoiding the tight surveillance and the two enormous gatekeepers.
“This is annoying. What should I do?”
Should he just twiddle his thumbs like this? Just as he was becoming disheartened.
“Caaaaaw—!”
A crow’s cry was heard.
When a slightly heavier cry different from Lily’s was heard, the people around tilted their heads.
“A crow in the middle of the night?”
“Were crows nocturnal? They shouldn’t cry at night……”
When people were tilting their heads, a crow flew through the sky from behind a garden tree. Since the building connected to the underground prison had a colonnade entrance connecting the outside and inside without obstacles, the crow came over to this side without hindrance.
The crow, exceptional in physique from the start, was larger and fiercer than Lily.
Flapping its glossy black wings as if painted black once, it cried loudly as if for people to hear.
At the bird sound echoing in all directions, people’s attention focused on the crow.
“Caw-caw—! Caaw—!”
“Shh, won’t you get out of here?”
To drive away the noisy crow, the soldiers waved their hands and spears, making a commotion.
Despite the soldiers’ threats, the crow flapped its wings and moved elegantly, leisurely crying loudly toward the people gathering near it.
“Caaw, caw caaa—!”
It was a high-pitched cry that grated on the nerves. At the noisy sound loud enough to wake sleeping people, the soldiers’ brows furrowed.
But why was it?
“Haaawn……”
The more they listened, the more their eyelids grew heavy at that nerve-grating sound.
Stopping even their attempt to drive away the crow, like fish circling bait caught on a fishing hook, they stared at the crow circling around them as if entranced.
“Ugh, why am I so sleepy? When it’s this noisy.”
“My eyelids are heavy…… Why am I suddenly so sleepy……”
“Mmm……mm, I shouldn’t, sleep. I have to guard this place, but if I sleep……mmm.”
The more the crow’s sound struck their ears, the heavier the eyes of the people chasing those wing beats blinked.
Even knowing they shouldn’t sleep, the crow’s cry made deep fatigue and sleep seep into their minds and bodies.
“Ugh……ugh”
“Ah, I’m sleepy. Just a moment…… Just a nap.”
Eventually, people unable to overcome drowsiness smoothly lay down and fell asleep on the spot.
The duty to guard the underground prison, the fact that they shouldn’t carelessly sleep on the bare ground—all were helpless before the sleep demon.
“Caaw.”
The crow that confirmed people had fallen asleep descended below. Turning its head to check once near the statue where Abrisius was hiding, the crow made eye contact with Abrisius, whose expression showed disbelief.
“Hmph!”
Snorting once as if displeased about something, the crow that glanced at Abrisius flew to the prison entrance. And just like that, it bit the key hanging at the waist of the sleeping soldier with its beak and threw it toward where Abrisius was.
“Uh…… Huh?”
He inadvertently obtained the key to the underground prison.
With a dumbfounded face, Abrisius alternately checked the key and the crow. To think he would easily solve this problem thanks to a crow.
Putting people to sleep all at once and throwing what he needed as if knowing what it was—it was definitely not an ordinary being.
Just like Lily he had met a few hours ago.
“Thank you.”
Perhaps understanding the greeting, the crow that blinked its eyes a couple of times flew up high again and disappeared into the darkness.
“……After saying all that, did she call a friend?”
Fiddling with the key the crow gave him, he recalled Lily he had met during the day earlier.
Even while saying all that, her words contained worry toward him. Perhaps that crow was a friend she sent, he thought.
Strength entered the hand holding the key.
He couldn’t know if she had truly helped him, but now was the golden opportunity to rescue Cairens.
“Wait, Cairens.”
He moved carefully so as not to wake the sleeping people, and Abrisius moved his feet.
When he opened the entrance door to the underground prison with the key, the damp air that had been stored deep underground stabbed his lungs. At the suffocating smell, Abrisius unconsciously covered his nose.
“Ugh, don’t they even ventilate here?”
There was no reason to ventilate the underground prison for prisoners, but Cairens was trapped inside there. Was it okay to treat a weak child so poorly when they brought him for the reason that he was a sacrifice for the gods?
‘People without conscience. Still, it’s his last journey, so what would it hurt to treat him a bit better?’
Anger welled up at poor Cairens’s situation.
As he descended the stairs one by one, small footsteps echoed deeply in the underground.
Worried that the deeply sleeping people might hear the sound and wake up, Abrisius kept watching outside while descending the stairs one step at a time.
And…….
“Cairens……”
At the end of the prison, he could finally see Cairens again.
The moonlight from the only open barred window covered Cairens’s back. His figure crouching beneath it was truly pitiful beyond measure. At that pitiful sight, he forcibly suppressed the desire to run right away, break down the prison door, and take him out.
‘The problem is from now on. I somehow came this far with the crow’s help, but there’s no way Cairens will obediently follow my words.’
In case he wouldn’t follow, he already had another plan thought out, but persuading him somehow here was the priority.
“Then let’s go.”
As soon as the words ended, a dark red mass of light embraced Abrisius. Abrisius, now familiarly transformed into a deer’s form, cleared his voice and called to Cairens toward the prison where he was confined.
“Hey!”
He raised his voice to a level that wouldn’t be heard outside and called Cairens, but he didn’t even move.
“Hey! Can’t you hear me?”
Eventually, when he called with an even louder voice, Cairens finally looked this way. His hazy eyes, which had no vitality to be found, gradually grew larger. Cairens, who couldn’t even think to close his open mouth, looked at Abrisius with eyes and mouth wide open in disbelief.
“You’re……”
“Hello, Cairens.”
Right, it’s worth being surprised. After all, an ordinary deer who had finished saying goodbye suddenly appeared in front of him like this, speaking human language.
