The traces of the once-existing Silverstone Curse Cellar had been completely erased.
No one could detect that atop this colossal pit, there had once been a power station that the Elves relied upon for survival.
Other buildings had only had their above-ground parts roughly leveled. Only the Curse Cellar had been so thoroughly dealt with that not a single piece of rubble remained, not even the parts below the ground.
This pit, like a crater from a meteorite, had an interior diameter spanning hundreds of meters.
Curiously, those who dealt with this place did not bore a vertical hole straight down from above; instead, after leveling the buildings on the surface, they dug an inclined hole from the entrance, extending downward.
Deeper down, the scale of the cave gradually expanded... until at a depth of over twenty meters belowground, the space reached its maximum size, and the depth its deepest.
Further down... one could see through the broken, collapsed floor, shining with a deep blue glow, to the dilapidated sewers below, now dry, filled with dust and broken stones.
"... It looks like a subway exit,"
Defu commented on the forum, "It must be at least two stories deep underground."
said the gourmet goose who was quietly watching the live stream. He answered confidently, "It should be four stories. When you all descended, I saw a fragment of flooring... If each story is the same height, you should now be on the fourth underground level."
"However many stories it is," Xitan Pulan looked at the sewers with some hesitation, "the key is... should we go down? There doesn’t seem to be anything here."
"... It’s been hundreds of years since anyone used this place, are you still afraid of the dirt?"
"No, I mean the sewer is too spacious. It feels like you could even drive a car inside to catch shrimp or something."
Xitan Pulan muttered to herself quietly, "This familiar shape... I always feel like four muscular turtles wielding weapons might come crawling out."
Defu reassured, "Relax, if four green turtles really jump out, tonight’s supper will be Bouncing Turtle Soup..."
"I really don’t want to go in. I have a feeling there will be rats and cockroaches or something..."
Xitan Pulan grumbled.
But as the saying goes, seeing Bofis float into the sewer left her with no choice but to reluctantly carry the torch and follow, unable to stop herself from complaining, "It’s been so long since anyone’s been here, is the air okay? There isn’t going to be any gas that explodes upon contact with fire in this sewer, right?"
"This isn’t a sealed environment... This place is completely connected to the surface, apologize to your chemistry teacher."
Four Concealed Triplets retorted.
Unlike the open and completely shattered basement, the sewer was unexpectedly well-preserved.
The sewers built by the Elves resembled gigantic blood vessels, sprawling throughout the Underworld.
The central conduit had dried up completely, leaving only a shallow layer of dry sandy soil. On both sides of the sewer, however, there were clean, raised edges you could walk along.
Although the sewer had been dry for a long time, everyone, including Bofis who had become a spirit, subconsciously advanced along the edges of the sewer.
To avoid being inadvertently stepped on in the dark, Defu lingered at the back. After all, Chocolate’s body had night vision capabilities and could move forward normally without Xitan Pulan’s lighting.
She sniffed the air with a somewhat strange expression, then rubbed the sandy soil in the middle with her paw and brought it to her nose to smell.
Consequently, her expression grew even stranger.
She stretched out her paw and dug into the sandy layer in the center—indeed, it hid a more moist layer of earth.
She sampled and smelled it again. Then, after rubbing her paw on the ground, she wore a thoughtful expression on her face.
Defu squatted in place thinking for a while, then suddenly dashed after the group, leaping gracefully, and caught the pants of Four Concealed Triplets in one swoop.
Then she pounced twice and lay on the shoulders of Four Dark Tidings, like a cat-shaped backpack.
Four Dark Tidings was startled by Defu’s sudden action.
But Chocolate was not a small pet cat—Defu could not possibly squat obediently on Four Dark Tidings’ body with her size.
Four Dark Tidings could only awkwardly hold the cat, feeling the weight comparable to that of a wild child.
He asked the bush cat in his arms in a low voice, "Are you afraid of getting dirty?"
Defu pretended to meow and responded calmly in the forum, "I checked the sand in the middle. I couldn’t smell any grease, excrement, or rot at all.
"This place, as a sewer, has no stains on the walls or ground... Isn’t that strange?"
"Maybe it’s because so much time has passed that the stains have eroded away?"
Four Dark Tidings looked toward the sewer following Defu’s gaze, "And after a few hundred years, the materials that would smell bad must be long gone, right?"
"There should still be traces left at least."
Defu replied, "Not to mention anything else, the soil should have become fertile by now. But I didn’t see any signs of the soil becoming fertile... Instead, I detected traces of a curse.
"The surface sand has almost lost its curse; but in the deeper, moist soil, one can feel the curse very clearly. Its concentration is approaching the curse aura from when Annan previously performed a ceremony in the warehouse."
"... Then that’s indeed very strange."
Four Dark Tidings thought for a while and nodded in agreement with Defu’s reasoning.
Xitan Pulan, who was ahead, also saw the conversation between the man and the cat, paused, and without any hesitation, directly asked Bofis, "Speaking of which, Bofis... What is this sewer for?"
"... How would I possibly know that?"
Bofis turned her head back, staring at Xitan Pulan dumbfounded, and replied with disbelief, "In your place, are underage girls supposed to know about this sort of thing?"
"Cultural differences, I guess."
Xitan Pulan said assertively, "It’s quite normal to understand some general knowledge, right? And I don’t even know what you call this pipe."
"... Even if you say that, I wouldn’t know either."
Bofis felt somewhat troubled, "But, if it’s just general knowledge... I do know that this is for waste disposal."
"What kind of waste? Feces?"
"—Hey! How can you use such a dirty word!"
Bofis was unexpectedly not very good at dealing with this type of word.
She somewhat flusteredly retorted, "How could feces possibly be directed to the intake pipe, that would make the city too stinky!"
"... Then where does the water here go?"
"Of course to the surface."
Bofis answered confidently.