'I should have known that something like that would happen...'
During one of his conversations with Professor Obel, Sunny had learned of a thing called Murphy's Law. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong... he did not know who Murphy was and why that person had been in a position to establish world-governing laws, but their veracity was hard to dispute
...Perhaps that Murphy had been a bit of a tenacious cockroach himself, to come up with such an undeniable rule.
In any case, that was exactly what had happened. Everything had gone wrong. Sunny had hoped to receive information and resources through the Dream Realm, but now, that hope was destroyed. The strange nature of the endless tunnel prevented Awakened from traveling across worlds.
He had not even known that something like that was possible.
'Damnation.'
Instructing the members of the cohort to keep the news to themselves, Sunny hesitated for a bit, and then gave the convoy an order to break camp. They had to continue moving forward.
At that point, he did not expect to reach the exit... however, Sunny still needed information. The tunnel was not looping on itself, as yesterday's experiments had proved, so there had to be some other type of magic involved. IIe suspected that it was spatial in nature, but had to observe more to come to a reliable conclusion.
The Rhino rolled forward, and the civilian transports followed. Once again, they waded through the silent darkness, cutting it with beams of light. Stone walls flew by, and since their surface always looked the same, it was easy to imagine that the convoy was not moving at all, and was instead stuck in place, cursed to repeat the same moment in time over and over again.
The only thing that broke the monotony were the foreboding entrances to the side passages that occasionally appeared from either left or right.
...Sunny knew that the most logical solution would be to try and explore them instead of stubbornly trying to reach the exit of the main tunnel. However, he felt reluctant to do so, at least for now. it was as though everything was forcing him to make that decision... which was exactly what sent his paranoia into overdrive.
'It's almost like something is trying to lure. us deeper underground... curse it...'
The side passages were too narrow for the Rhino to pass, anyway. And he was not going to abandon the APC unless absolutely necessary.
Sunny did pay the side passages a lot of attention, though. As he studied the entrances and the darkness that shrouded them, a small hint of suspicion appeared in his mind.
Apart from that, he was not remaining idle... even if it might have looked like that to the rest of the people riding inside the Rhino.
Throughout the next day, Sunny remained in his chair in the command suite. He did glance at the screens from time to time, but rarely. Mostly, he just moved his fingers in a strange way, making it seem as though they were performing a complicated dance.
At some point, Beth couldn't stay quiet anymore and asked in an irritated tone:
"What on Earth are you doing? Are you trying to cast a magic spell, or something?"
There was deep unease and fear hidden behind that annoyance, though.
Sunny smiled.
"...Actually, that is exactly what I am trying to do. i am an amateur sorcerer, you see."
The young woman scoffed.
"Fine, don't tell me. I guess you finally lost your mind!"
But Sunny had told her the truth. Although she could not see them, he was actually weaving strings of essence between his fingers.
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