บท 149: 149. Biding Time
Three days later.
Thyra looked at the soldiers around him. There were more than ten soldiers held inside the cell along with him.
This floor was the last floor of the so-called dungeon. The dungeon was nothing but a stand-alone prison.
There were five floors above the ground and three floors beneath the ground. And after staying here for three days, Thyra could understand what was so special about the last floor.
Even after staying here for three days, his spiritual energy showed no sign of recovering. And the culprit was the prison wall.
Although the black stone wall looked simple, it also had a suppressing effect. His essence energy, which was supposed to recover within a day, took almost three days to recover less than ten percent.
'That man is really far more cautious than I had expected.' Thyra sighed as he observed the other members.
After three days of one meal and water, it was enough for them to show signs of weakness. The walls weren't helping either.
'I can't waste any more time.' There is no way to tell what time it is on the surface from two or three stories below ground.
'I need to recover my energy.' Knowing it and doing it are two different things. The good news was that he already had an idea about the cells around them.
"The normal way is out of the question…" Nigel heard Thyra mumbling something, only to find him looking at him.
"What is it?" He inquired.
"Nothing." Thyra shook his head.
"Don't worry. They will let us go as soon as they find the real culprit."
"Huh!" One of the soldiers, who was sitting a little distance away from them, snorted. "Do you really believe that?"
"What?" Nigel wasn't too patient with others and asked aggressively, "What's the problem with you?"
"Nothing." If he had stopped there, it wouldn't have escalated further. However, he added, "At least I am not idiotic enough to believe that they would let us go."
"Why wouldn't they?"
"If they wanted to, they would have believed us and didn't put us here in the first place. Our lives, not just our lives; they didn't care about the lives of refugees."
Nigel almost opened his mouth to say something but paused. While another one said, "It's not like we are refugees. We have been here for more than a decade. Everyone knew us. There is no way we would kill each other."
"Dream on." He snorted, adding, "Mark my words. If they can't find the real killer, we will die in the cell without seeing the sun again."
"Silence." This time, the shout came from outside. A couple of guards came with twelve loaves of bread and a few animal stomach bottles.
"Shut up and eat." Those guards simply threw the food and water inside, saying, "Don't make any noise again. If I hear you make a ruckus again, there will be no food for you tomorrow."
Although they wanted to curse aloud, they could only stare at the prison guard. They were well aware that there was nothing they could do about it. More importantly, their starving minds couldn't help but think about the bread.
They scrambled as each one of them grabbed their designated loaves. However, they had to share the water.
After somewhat filling their stomachs, all of them silently sat on the floor, supporting themselves by the bars or walls. None of them wanted to waste any more energy than they needed.
However, Thyra had a different idea in mind.
He still waited for a few more moments. After confirming that most of them had closed their eyes or that whoever had their eyes open wasn't looking at him, he checked outside the prison.
After being here for more than a few days, he noticed the guards didn't tend to come back after giving them the food.
It was most likely because it was night. He wasn't sure about the reason, but he was sure it was only a gap in their presence he could use.
He was sitting by the gate. He checked on the others one more time before his hand melted away.
It turned into slime as it escaped through the cell. It wasn't massive. However, it was still connected to his consciousness. He closed his eyes, concentrating on controlling it.
It was not the first time he had done it, and he was also familiar with the layout of the prison and the number of inmates in each cell. Nobody seemed to notice as the slime spread across the floor and began to move around.
It made its way slowly toward the stairwell's entrance. But running away was not what he was planning to do at the moment. It moved slowly into the cell, close to the door.
Thyra sensed around four individuals within the confines of the cell. Their vitality was lower, but they were still alive. It was not their vitality that Thyra required, but rather their innate energy. Alas!
Thyra carefully maneuvered the slime up the wall and set itself down atop one of the inmates.
The slime fell right on the face of the inmate. Before the person who was hit knew what was going on, the slime hand had already gone into his mouth and sealed all the openings.
However, the expected resistance did not show up as the victim's body slowly died. The slime didn't leave. Instead, it slowly absorbed its energy.
Unlike others, Thyra had two ways he could gather mana or essence energy. While others could mostly absorb it from their surroundings or from mana stones, he could absorb it from other people.
Direct absorption while holding the victim allowed him to regulate the amount taken in, but the slime was less precise.
Thyra believes that it is preferable to kill the victim before absorbing the essence. After all, he intended to regain at least half of his strength before tonight's breakout.
But he never imagined that his first victim would be someone he knew. It was actually Kira.
Everything that was coming from that direction, including the screams, reached his ears. Not just him could hear the women in that area pleading for assistance.
Almost everyone on the floor had heard it. They had no problem understanding what was happening there. Thyra understood it, too.
It is fair to assume that Thyra intentionally put himself in this cell since he had complete knowledge of the fact that no one would come to their aid regardless.
But he made a mistake there. The females made no attempt to resist. They do nothing as the slime slowly smothers them to death and drains them of their life force.
The slime left the cell to go on the hunt once it realized there was no longer any life force to sense.
***********
Mia kept herself hidden while staring at the back of Fanger. They were supposed to wait for Thyra to escape the city.
However, the three-day time period was over. That wasn't supposed to be a problem.
They could have waited some more time, but something unexpected had happened.
This evening, as soon as the sun set, the gate of the city of Thynor opened. A small group of cavalry was quick to run toward the border.
Fanger felt something wasn't right. More importantly, he was worried that Thyra had already left with that group. But there was no way they could both leave this place.
Before he could get away, he handed over the map and the whereabouts of his few subordinates, who were hiding in a few nearby villages.
She had no choice but to wait for Thyra to emerge at this point. Despite her anxiety, Thynor remained peaceful. Just like the previous four days since Thyra's arrival, the city showed no indications of erupting into chaos.
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