Rise of The Strongest Monarch

The room isn’t really a problem but it does raise questions, not that anyone else seems to be interested right now.

"We should just keep pushing this time around. Resting will just waste time," Airi suggests while looking around.

"That is probably the best way to go about it," Zeno agrees.

I don’t really have a reason to argue against it when I want to be out of this place myself. We’ve been deep under a city for a little while now so I’d like to get the hell out of here when we have the chance.

At least fighting zierel on the surface is a bit more manageable compared to the space down here.

There’s also places we can run off to if anything happens as well which is good.

So we scour the room for any source to point us towards another potential exit since the zierel can catch up eventually.

But the room didn’t really give us too much to work with, maybe a secret button or level exists somewhere in here. That’s exactly why I’m starting to feel around the walls for anything that sticks out.

Click!

My hand just barely pushes something in and a small bit of rumbling can be heard from across the room.

"Seems someone found us a way out after all," Airi says with relief in her voice.

"Let’s get going while we have the chance," Zeno chimes in.

Amelia doesn’t say much to that and we both just follow behind them as we continue to go down another hallway.

Zierel certainly wouldn’t have gone out of their way to make that hidden pathway, right? I don’t really get what’s happening around here or why someone went through all this trouble.

None of it really makes sense in the grand scheme of things. Zierel thrive in darkness and there isn’t any light down here... So humans would’ve had to bring flashlights or even standing lights.

Yet, none of that equipment is down here. Humans didn’t really have much of a part in the creation of this part of the city it seems, or someone covered it up pretty good.

"Maybe a human was thinking about the future," Celeste speaks up with a curious tone in her voice.

That is possible since a lot of humans would build doomsday bunkers in case of a potential nuclear war. It wouldn’t be far off to assume this is a very similar instance... Except it doesn’t have any supplies down here.

No food, no water, no beds.

"They might not have been done with the project yet. There is that possibility as well," Celeste says calmly.

I start to observe the walls a bit more closely as we walk down the hallway. Something odd about them is the claw marks that are slightly engraved within them.

Zierel came through here at some point in time and maybe they even took the bodies of the humans working down here.

I know it sounds crazy since it is dark as all hell but humans eyes do adjust to the dark after a certain period of time. Doesn’t mean you have perfect sight or anything but it isn’t as bad as before.

Those Zierel could’ve taken human form and kept the work going on the rooms, tunnels, and anything else down here.

But that would also mean that Zierel have been around longer than we knew. They’d have been around before the sun disappeared on us and just a bit before people started dying.

"Now you’re starting to think properly. Maybe you aren’t dumb after all," Celeste says with some excitement.

I just didn’t used to think about everything in depth like this but it is starting to make a lot more sense than everything else did.

I’m just shocked that we took so long to realize that Zierel were already here... Not that we could really do much about them at the time.

Humans only awakened after the sun disappeared which is even strange to think about.

"I think we are getting closer to an exit!" Airi shouts for us all to hear.

"About time," Amelia says softly.

I shift my attention to Airi who is ahead of us and realize that she’s right, a small light is at the end of the hallway. A ladder right next to it so this could be the way out.

After a couple minutes we finally reach the ladder, it is quite new.

You can tell it wasn’t here very long since it probably would’ve rusted a bit or shown some sign of age. Yet, nothing about it is old in the slightest.

"I’m guessing this has to be our way out at this point," Zeno speaks up with a bit of frustration in his voice.

He sounds like he’s hit his limit with being down underneath the city for so long.

"I’d say so," Airi responds while looking up.

She gestures for Zeno to go first, probably because of how he’s starting to act.

It doesn’t take long for him to disappear up the ladder, but now it is just the three of us standing here. We all look at each other for a second before looking back at the ladder.

"Who wants to go next?" I ask softly.

"I’ll go," Airi answers before Amelia can.

"I was going to say I’m okay with whoever wanted to go next," Amelia says while crossing her arms.

"Alright. Go ahead Airi," I speak with a calm tone in my voice.

She begins to climb up the ladder after that, slowly disappearing into the darkness above.

Silence lingers for a moment as we both stand there waiting, almost like someone should be telling us to come up next.

Then I realize it is best to send Amelia up next since she is a bit more exhausted than me. So I gesture for her to go up while I wait a minute or two.

"I’ll see you up there," Amelia says quietly.

"Yeah. I’ll see you when I climb up," I reply with a calm tone in my voice.