I decided to keep to myself what I saw for now. Besides, they’d question me about how I knew about it.
What was certain was that we needed to hide fast, as the little demon girl suggested.
We landed safely on the other side, though I got uncomfortably close to the water beneath. I toyed with the idea of reducing my weight but decided against it in order not to raise suspicions. I mean if I was alone then I could have just flown across the river.
Enough of the MI6 headquarters building had been left that it still retained its ziggurat-like appearance, although obviously all of the glass on it had been shattered and it was a ruin slowly being taken over by the surrounding vegetation.
Strangely enough, Nanashi was uncurious about how I knew where we should go. Or maybe he found it ill opportune to ask me about it right now. In any case, I was going to have to come up with some appropriate lie for when he might get curious about it. After all, the only way I knew my way around was that I had a map. I suspected that at this moment we both wanted to just move forward but its afterwards that questions arise. Although, if I assumed this to be a somewhat accurate representation of the real world that means that somewhere in the System there were the records of what the MI6 headquarters looked like. It was scary that there were so many things about the System which even I couldn’t understand. I suppose even though I am nominally in charge of it, I am still part of it.
“This way.” I motioned to a large metal door with a lot of security features, both digital and analogue. Of course, it was locked but there was no door that could be locked to me since this was still my game, so I acted as if it was unlocked all along. Of course, if they had really wanted to keep me out of the door then they could have tried a similar trick to the one at the last level of the Jerusalem dungeons. I suspected that we were following someone’s script, but whose?
I opened the door and what was inside was a dark corridor but then when Nanashi turned on the lights the whole tunnel lit up with electric lights. What was the source of power? I doubted that batteries or generators would last this long but was there any other explanation.
“Hey, Chibi, do you know what this place is?”
“Who are you calling a Chibi!? I am a Princess! Well, I may as well be one!”
Why did lolis always have such childish personalities?
“Then, your highness Azaz-yra, must know what these facilities are?”
“Hmph, since you asked properly I’ll consider answering your question, after we have escaped from that unpleasant presence following us.”
I looked at the map which Arthur had provided me with, and what I could see was a vast underground facility. It reminded me of those diagrams of the Maginot Line used in WWII France which I wrote a thesis about in university. Of course, I couldn’t find any employment as an historian so here I was.
Unfortunately, the map was unlabelled so it didn’t really tell me anything about the function of these rooms although passing through them their purposes were obvious.
We passed what looked like the living quarters for soldiers, bunk beds basically, a kitchen, a gym, basically anything that was necessary for a comfortable living was there but there was not a living presence although “Azaz-yra” kept on warning us that whatever was following us was not letting us go. Locking all the doors behind was useless because it just forced its way in with its superhuman strength.
There was a tunnel at the bottom of the dungeon, cause let’s face it, that’s what this was, probably an underground railway track leading to other government bunkers but if we ended up being followed down there then there would be no purpose to us having entered this dungeon after all.
“If we are going to have to face them then let’s do it here,” I suggested.
We were inside a small chapel. Since our enemy outnumbered us, I figured that a place with limited space meant that we could take them on separately rather than all at once. There were plenty of statues of saints and the like to hide behind anyway.
“Why not in a corridor instead?”
“To avoid it collapsing on our heads.”
“Fair enough.”
Nanashi was actually very easy to deal with. I kind of envied Eilis. My henchmen on the other hand left much to be desired and if this simulation begun by my enemies was anything to trust, which it wasn’t, then they would go rogue eventually. I mean the “enemy” and “presence” which has been tracking us so far was none other than the members of the Castle Academy’s Student Council.
The chapel’s empty pews were all crumbling down to dust. I suppose whoever was down here must have escaped from down here once it was safe to do so.
