Elaine woke up in a daze, as if his head had been hit by a hammer. He felt his throat was dry, and a sultry heat surrounded his whole body.
Why did the camp suddenly become so stuffy? Even if he was sleeping in the house, it wouldn't be like this?
He originally planned to get up to find some water, but found that his hands and feet were tightly tied together by something, making it impossible to move freely.
Is this a dream? Is this what is commonly known as "ghost pressure on the bed", a phenomenon of sleep paralysis caused by local lack of oxygen in the body or compression of nerves?
There seems to be something wrong... If it's numbness, it should be a large area of numbness in the hands and feet, rather than this feeling of hands and feet being locked together and unable to move...?
"Your Highness, Your Highness, wake up?" A voice whispered in his ear. Only after he gradually woke up did he recognize that it was Edmund's voice.
At this time, his eyes gradually adapted to the darkness. Only then did he realize that he seemed to be in some kind of prison. Edmund was lying next to him, and the leopard in the distance seemed to be Queeg. They all
In jail.
Ignoring the sweltering surroundings, a bone-chilling feeling spread down his spine, and he knew something was wrong. They were attacked by someone while they were sleeping, and then they were captured and thrown into this prison.
"Damn it..." Elaine groaned: "Edmund, no, don't tell me that we were betrayed by Xury?"
"...It seems that's it." Blood Lion replied, his voice was very low, as if he didn't want the people guarding the prison outside to hear their conversation, or even wanted people outside to know that they had woken up.
Elaine also lowered her voice: "Are you all okay? No one was injured?"
"It's okay." Queeg replied, raising his hands from a distance. Elaine saw that Queeg's hands were cuffed by some kind of shackles, and he was as unable to move freely as Elaine.
The shackles were made of ice. Elaine found that his hands and feet were also shackled with the same ice, and there was a heavy ball of ice at his feet that was the size of a human head.
But he didn't feel the coldness of the ice shackles. Because he couldn't feel it, the situation was quite bad. It was obvious that the shackles were made of ice blocks, but the cold air in them did not escape, allowing Elaine to feel it, which proved that the outer layer of these ice blocks
Wrapped in a powerful barrier, the barrier is strong enough to prevent the loss of temperature - neither the heat from the outside nor the cold inside the ice will be lost easily.
This means that no matter how long it takes, these ice shackles will not absorb Elaine's body temperature and dissolve on their own. And it is obvious that they cannot smash these extremely strong ice reinforced by the barrier with their own strength.
Block. Edmund, who had been awake since just now, couldn't do it, and Elaine, who was much weaker than Edmund, couldn't do it even more.
It's really bad.
The worst thing is that Elaine found that all his clothes and equipment had been stripped off, leaving only a pair of underwear. Those damn enemies even took away Elaine's glasses. Without glasses, Elaine's vision was now blurry.
, you can’t see anything clearly if you are far away.
It was still extremely hot in this inexplicable prison. Elaine was sweating slowly but continuously. There were at least three places on his back that were itchy but he couldn't reach out to scratch them.
...so bad.
"Here, what happened?" Elaine tried to calm down and asked Edmund about the situation first.
"As His Highness the Prince expected, we were betrayed by that bird." Edmund replied: "Obviously when we left the seventh floor of the underground maze, Xury had been pretending to be unconscious. He already knew that we used teleportation
The door returned to the surface, and he used some method to tip off the group of stalkers, so that the stalkers would attack us at night. I should have been awake and guarding His Highness, but Mr. Quigg said that he
Responsible for watching the wind——"
"My fault?" The cloud-patterned leopard interrupted, seeming quite dissatisfied: "I was watching the wind, but I was attacked by a sneak attack and knocked unconscious from behind."
"If Mr. Quigg's alertness had improved—?" Edmund drawled reprovingly.
"Why don't you do it?" Queeg protested.
"Enough, enough! If you want to quarrel, you can find another opportunity to quarrel later!" The white lion boy interrupted angrily: "First, find a way to escape from this hellish place. Queeg, you can't use [
Virtualization]? Use that to get rid of the shackles?"
"No, it can't be used." Leopard replied: "These, strange shackles, will disappear with me."
"……What?"
"You will understand if you try it," Queeg said.
I don’t know what Queeg wants to express, but the stalkers seem to be very wary of Queeg’s virtualization ability, and may have taken preventive measures against that ability. But the stalkers probably didn’t take Elaine’s power seriously.
,maybe he can——
...well, no.
He wanted to try to use [Virtualization] to move his body into the subspace, but found that the damn shackles had also [Voided] along with him.
The shackles seemed to have become a part of his body. Even if he didn't want the shackles to disappear with him, they still stubbornly disappeared with him. I don't know how the stalkers did this.
The same thing should happen to Edmund. He can obviously transform into other creatures to break free of the shackles, but now he still can't break free. Apparently he tried and failed.
Xuri was indeed a mole. He had observed Elaine's battle and was quite familiar with Elaine's group's abilities, and he even reported it to the stalkers.
It is precisely because they are familiar with these abilities that the stalkers designed this kind of shackles to trap Elaine and the others.
"We can't get rid of it..." Elaine gave up: "Look, it looks like we are trapped here."
"Well, not exactly." Edmund said, "I have a way to try, Your Highness. I don't guarantee that it will work, but there is no harm in trying. This method requires His Highness's cooperation."
"Tell me, tell me and listen." The white lion boy urged: "I, I will help as much as I can."
"Very good." Edmund came close to Elaine, his shoulder almost touching Elaine's face: "First of all, please His Highness the Prince to absorb my blood and take my abilities as your own."
"……ha?"
"There is no time to hesitate, please do it." Blood Lion urged.
"I, I don't want to...and I'm not sure whether this can be successful..." Elaine groaned. Edmund's transformation ability is exclusive to him and is essentially the same as Elaine's transformation ability.
Different. Elaine is not sure whether she can successfully copy Edmund's ability. And is it really okay to just use that ability to transform casually? Every transformation is equivalent to tearing apart Elaine's absolute domain.
, let him step into the grave earlier...
"I know His Highness the Prince's doubts. But now is really not the time to hesitate. You should have noticed it, right? His Highness Bailey is not with us. He is not in this prison."
"This, this..."
Indeed, Elaine didn't hear the little fox calling him. Of course, the prison was too dark, and he couldn't see well as he was lying on the ground unable to get up. It was very possible that he just missed someone, and it was very possible that Bailey was also in the cell.
, he was just lying in a corner and hadn't woken up yet. He did think so optimistically at the beginning, thinking that Bailey would be safe with them for the time being.
But when Edmund said that Bailey was not here, he was probably not threatening Elaine. Bailey was really not here.
"Bay, where did Bailey go?"
"I don't know. We were knocked unconscious and captured. When we woke up, we were in this prison. I didn't see any sign of His Highness Bailey. He may have escaped successfully, or he may have been locked up in another prison."
"Bay, Bailey..." Elaine couldn't help but worry. Bailey was just a child, and he must be very scared now. Whether he hid fearfully after escaping, or was locked up alone in a prison and cried, in short
Bailey must be scared.
"I, I understand." Elaine moved her body, leaned on Edmund's shoulder, and bit down.
Edmund's fur and muscles were quite strong, and Elaine even spent a lot of effort biting Edmund's shoulder to bleed and drink Edmund's blood sample.
"Very good, this is the first step of the plan." Edmund hummed, not sure if it was because Elaine's bite hurt him so much: "Your Highness, please relax a little. Next, I will transform into a submarine."
Hunter, you need to collect another blood sample from the stalker."
It sounds like this is indeed the case. Edmund's transformation ability needs to absorb blood samples from other creatures before it can be activated.
Elaine silently let go and waited for Edmund to transform. Although he was trapped in shackles, Edmund successfully transformed into a stalker. A half-mermaid monster lay next to Elaine.
"Take another bite." Edmund urged: "His Royal Highness needs this blood sample to transform into a stalker."
"Ran, what next?" Elaine hadn't bitten off yet, but just asked Edmund about his next plan.
"Those stalkers must know that I have the ability to transform. I'm afraid I can't fool them just because I'm transforming." Edmund analyzed: "But if both of us become stalkers... and
Is Queeg also using virtual reality to hide now?"
Elaine immediately understood Edmund's plan: "I see, that's it. He, they will think that we have escaped from prison, and only two jailers are being held here."
"Exactly -" Edmund wanted to continue, but suddenly interrupted: "Shh! There's something moving!"
He quickly transformed back into his original blood lion appearance, and rolled a few times on the cell floor, away from Elaine. He lay still on the ground, pretending to be still unconscious.
Elaine hesitated to follow suit, but he heard footsteps coming from outside the cell.
The footsteps of two...no, three people. The footsteps of one of them were slow and light, and it felt like he was old.
Although the cell was quite dark, through the ice-like wall, Elaine could vaguely see the three figures through the light coming from the open door. Those who came in were all half-mermaids.
"Hello, guest." The leader of the three stalkers spoke first. From his height and manner of speaking, Elaine was almost certain that this was an elder among the stalkers, or someone with a higher status.
people.
"Hello..." Elaine started to talk first: "Why, why do you keep us here? This, this is your way of hospitality?"
"Then why did the guest run away?" The elder asked, "We asked the guest to stay overnight. The guest did not obey. The guest did not respect us."
"I, I'm in a hurry." Elaine groaned: "I, I want to save my father, I don't have time to stay here all day!"
"No matter what the reason is, the guests don't respect us. We just don't respect the guests." This group of stalkers had no intention of listening to Elaine's explanation: "The guests also attack the guards at the checkpoint. The guests are enemies, anyway, we must close the gate first."
"
(Damn the stubborn degenerate half-mermaid freaks of the deep sea...) Elaine muttered in her heart.
"Let us go! Let us go!" Elaine said angrily: "I, we are just passers-by! We didn't do anything to you! You, you can't just imprison us unreasonably!"
"We can." The other party said: "Our territory, the guests listen to us. If you don't respect us, you will be locked up for life."
"...bastard, bastard!"
"But don't worry, guest." The half-mermaid said in a mechanical tone: "You will be educated right away, and then you will become one of us. If the guest is obedient, maybe he can be let out."
(Education?... Is it an operation such as hypnosis and brainwashing?)
Then the half-mermaids ignored Elaine's protests and turned around and left.
"This, these bastards..." Elaine cursed after the stalkers left. Although he cursed in a low voice, he knew there must be guards outside the cell.
"They finally left." Edmund came over and transformed into a stalker again: "Let's continue to implement the plan, Your Highness."
"Really, is it really okay..." Elaine looked at Edmund's scaly shoulders and felt like he would bite out a fishy smell...
"This will be successful, don't worry." Blood Lion assured.