A Foundation of Ancient Corruption

“Mnaaa… Why Anna always have a bad dream!!” She wailed, tears flowing.

Anna is a little bit shocked, but she smiled patting her head, “I’m fine, also, stop seeing my mind. It’s creepy. I’m grateful I have you here…”

“I promise! I won’t let you go!”

Suzuha smiled more, “That’s comforting to hear.”

The following evening passed in a comfortable, almost domestic routine. Anna ate dinner with Zebril, the two of them discussing the slow but steady progress of the gate repairs.

Afterwards, Anna returned to her quarters and buried herself in the ancient tome, her notebook filling with more cryptic details about Ars Terran.

When the barracks bells tolled eleven, she closed the book. The time had come.

She slipped out of the barracks, Maren in her sword form a silent. Uetum and Pietta were already waiting for her in a dark alley, just as planned.

“Where are we going now, Anna?” Maren asked telepathically, her voice full of curiosity.

“Back to the mines,” Anna stated simply. “To check on things. And to make a map.”

“So you really has the key, huh…?” Pietta asked slowly.

“Yes!” Uetum looks happy, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Uetum said the mines are real! And Anna-chan has the key!”

“But still, I couldn’t believe it’s here all along…” The entrance wasn't hidden.

It was a monstrous, fortified structure of black iron and gray stone right in the middle of a restricted government district, disguised as the ‘Royal Department of Geological Survey.’

It was a secret hidden in plain sight, a place so intimidating and official that no citizen would dare approach it.

“I have brought two more slaves. Step aside.” Anna said.

The crew of guards on the 11 PM shift, clearly under strict orders, simply stepped aside as Anna approached and unlocked the massive gate.

“Nya, we’re Anna’s slave now?” Uetum looked at Anna innocently.

She shakes her head, “That was just let us in.”

As they descended into the upper tunnels, one of the lone patrol guards they passed gave Pietta a long, leering look, his eyes full of contempt for the small, corrupted girl. “Filthy monster,” he muttered, just loud enough to be heard.

Pietta didn’t even break her stride. A flicker of shadow extended from her foot, silent and thin as a needle. It touched the guard’s heel for a fraction of a second and he collapsed to the ground, dead before his body hit the stone.

Anna let out a long, weary sigh, not even turning around. “What was that for?”

“He was looking at me,” Pietta replied, her voice a cold, simple statement of fact.

They soon reached a precipice overlooking one of the vast main caverns. Pietta gasped, her previous ruthlessness forgotten, replaced by sheer awe at the impossible scale of the underground city.

The cavern was easily around two hundred meters tall, a city of scaffolding and despair lit by the pale, sickly glow of magic crystals.

“This… this must have taken a long time…” she whispered.

“Fifteen hundred years,” Anna said, already taking out her notebook and beginning to sketch the layout of the tunnels and guard posts below.

There were shockingly few guards. It didn't matter. The endless, rhythmic clink-clink-clink of thousands of pickaxes echoed from below. The slave spell was doing all the work.

“They’re feeding off the ambient darkness,” Pietta mused.

“I see. That’s how they survive without real food. But this much energy, constantly regenerating to sustain over three hundred thousand… this isn’t natural.” She turned to Pietta, the expert.

“The kingdom is using mana regeneration magic on a massive scale. Where would they get that kind of power?”

Pietta shook her head, her gaze fixed on the cavern floor. “It’s the corruption seeds, of course,” she said. “Dark beings need corruption to survive. This entire mine must be built on a foundation laced with them.”

Anna froze. “Can Yarte create something like this?”

“No,” Pietta said, a new, unsettling confusion in her voice. “I don’t know where these came from. The energy… it feels different. The seeds Lord Yarte creates are potent, but new. This…” she gestured to the vast, dark cavern, “It feels different.”

Anna, however, did not dwell in the despair. “Let’s walk around, we have time.” she continued sketching in her notebook, her quill scratching out the lines of tunnels, guard posts, and structural weaknesses.

Uetum and Pietta watched her, their expressions a study in contrasts.

“Anna-chan, what are you doing?” Uetum finally asked, her voice a nervous whisper. “You’re just… drawing.”

“A plan is useless without a perfect map,” Anna replied without looking up, her concentration absolute. “I’m making sure there are no unknown variables. I know what to do.”

Uetum’s face lit up with a boundless, childlike faith. She turned to Pietta, grabbing her arm excitedly. “She’s doing it, Pietta! See?! Anna-chan is trying to help all three hundred thousand of them get out of this mine before the corruption strike!”

Pietta, however, looked from Anna’s notebook to the endless, tiered levels of slave labor below, her expression deeply skeptical. “I mean my plan is also helping them get out of here?” she murmured, shaking her head. “But seeing this, it must be impossible…”

Anna overheard her, her quill pausing for a fraction of a second. “Just wait,” she said, her voice calm and steady, a simple statement of fact. “I’m doing my best.”

She continued walking and mapping. As they moved deeper along a narrow service ledge, Pietta stopped. She produced a small, specialized geological hammer from a pouch and began chipping away at the cavern wall, examining a strange, faintly glowing vein of ore.

Uetum stared, her tail starting to lash with irritation. “Pietta! What are you doing?!” she hissed.

“Anna-chan is over here making a genius escape plan, and you’re playing with rocks!”

“This isn’t playing. This is part of my mission,” Pietta replied, her voice flat as she carefully placed a rock sample into a labeled bag.

“Lord Yarte ordered me to analyze the unique materials in this mine.”

Uetum was aghast. “But… but what about saving everyone?! Don’t you care, nyaa?!”

“I really want to help but… I know I can’t do anything.” she said, her voice soft but firm. “I follow my orders, and I believe in Anna. I think this is good.”

“Anna-chan…” Uetum began, her voice small and uncertain. “Can… can Uetum help in any way?”

Anna looked up from her work, her orange eyes sharp and questioning. “You’re not going back to your mission? Spreading the corruption for Yarte?”

Uetum shook her head vehemently, her ears flat against her skull.

“No! Uetum doesn’t want to!” she insisted, her voice trembling with a newfound horror.

“If Uetum keeps doing that, and the forest corruption reaches the city… everyone here will die. All of them. It’ll be my fault.” She looked at Anna, desperate plea for a new direction. “So… Uetum just wants to follow you now.”

“You sure?”

She bowed her head, “Anna-chan… give me an order, nya.”

Anna assessed the catgirl for a long moment. Uetum was terrified, lost, and looking for a new purpose. She was a valuable, and now loyal, asset.

“Alright,” Anna said, her voice crisp and business-like. She tore a fresh page from her notebook. “Your mana is neutral, you said. The guards’ wards can’t sense you. You’re also faster than I am in these tight spaces.”

She quickly sketched a rough outline of the cavern they were in and pointed towards a series of large, dark tunnels on the far side.

“I’m mapping this central cavern and the western shafts. I need you to scout the eastern tunnels. All of them,” Anna instructed, handing the paper to Uetum.

“I want to know how many levels they go down, where the main ore veins are, and most importantly, find the locations of any major guard barracks or control rooms. Do not engage anyone. Just observe and report back to me here in one hour. Can you do that?”

Uetum’s entire demeanor changed. Her ears perked up and her tail began to swish with excitement.

“Yes, Anna-chan!” she said, her face breaking into a wide, determined grin as she took the makeshift map. “Uetum will be the best scout ever, nyaa!”

And with that, she shot off.