Amber Sword

But immediately after that outing, Laismekka turned it into stone for two hours. She actually said he was cheating because he didn’t build a door for the maze. But isn’t this also a cunning strategy of the Minotaurs? Stark is deeply troubled by his failure to win the favor of the beautiful lady. Why does no one appreciate his cleverness? Thinking of Laismekka, he can’t help but visualize that cold and beautiful face in his mind, as clear as if it were real. But Stark soon realizes it is indeed real, for he sees the beautiful Lady Medusa emerging from the curtain of rain.

"So tell me, what happened again? I heard the chaos from above," Laismekka questioned a bit irritably, "Is your big head only for balancing your body, Stark?"

Upon hearing Laismekka’s words, Minotaur Lord Stark displayed a silly grin, a look that utterly destroyed his fierce appearance—you can imagine how ridiculous a cow would look with such a grin. That’s precisely what Lady Medusa saw. She frowned slightly, guessing that she couldn’t extract any useful information from this big fool. She simply pushed him aside to look into the pit herself. She immediately saw what seemed like a spectacle taking place at the bottom of the pit: a large group of Cave Dwellers was screaming and fleeing up the sloping path like rats from a cauldron. It was as if there weren’t just rats in the cauldron but also a cat.

"What are you doing!" Laismekka was nearly driven mad with anger. If she weren’t holding onto a sliver of sanity, she would’ve turned and glared fiercely at the idiot Stark, turning him into a stone sculpture forever. That sculpture would look as mighty as the Legendary Minotaur Lord Minotaur, and from then on, no one would ever know just how stupid this guy was, which is the most crucial thing.

But unfortunately, the Cave Dwellers could not answer her.

...

"What are you doing!"

When that screech, no less piercing than a sea demon’s, pierced through the rain, our Merchant Lady, aided by the White Mist, was transforming into a black cat. A swirling black smoke rose, and a little cat with glossy, satin-like black fur and golden eyes stepped out from the smoke, pacing like a kitten. She seemed curious about this form, though for a witch, transforming into a magical animal is actually a specialized Spell, which the White Mist didn’t tell her—she would soon get used to it all.

White Mist observed as Roman curiously licked her left paw, then her right, stretched her paw to scratch her ear, and then shook her tail. Unable to stand it any longer, White Mist turned into a ring of mist around her, finally forming a white ribbon tied at the back of the Merchant Lady’s neck. "Hurry up and go; it seems chaotic down there. Now is a good opportunity," White Mist said in its usual listless tone.

Roman then stepped out of the bushes, quietly reaching the pit’s edge.

The bottom of the pit was in utter chaos. It was unclear whether a larger-scale landslide had occurred or if they had encountered something. The Cave Dwellers were shrieking and scrambling upwards. Among the creatures from the Underground of Qiao Gen Digan, there was no room for brotherly affection. They fought one another, just to get ahead—if possible, throwing a companion behind was also acceptable. In her fury, Laismekka turned several Cave Dwellers rushing up into stone without extracting any information. At this moment, no one would pay attention to the movement at the pit’s edge; in fact, no one saw the cat at the pit’s edge. In truth, only Stark and Laismekka were present and capable of seeing at all.

Roman lightly jumped toward the bottom of the pit along the scaffolding, like a true little cat, making White Mist sigh in admiration, thinking the Merchant Lady was better as a cat than as a person. However, she suddenly felt that, relative to Roman’s curiosity, perhaps the legend of cats having nine lives was truly her destiny. If Vorn World had a concept of reincarnation, White Mist might suspect Roman had been reincarnated wrongly. However, in the brief moment she was distracted, the Merchant Lady deftly dodged several groups of Cave Dwellers. She nimbly landed on a reinforced plank, her golden-slit eyes wide open, looking toward the bottom of the pit. "White Mist, White Mist, look, what are those!"

White Mist ’looked’ down and immediately saw a dozen strange creatures pursuing the Cave Dwellers ahead. The reason they were called strange creatures was that they somewhat resembled spiders, but none she knew of had bodies covered in sharp crystals. If not for the exposed segments of limbs, she might have mistaken them for giant crystals chasing after prey. "Ah, it’s the Crystal Clusters!" she exclaimed.