Chapter 233: Bull
After taking a moment to observe the building, Holly turned back to Akira with a smile. "Let’s go."
She led the way, and less than a minute later, Akira stepped through the door behind Holly.
The moment she saw the interior of the building, she couldn’t help but stop for a moment.
Whatever the building had originally been divided into, those divisions were gone.
The internal walls had been knocked down with enough thoroughness that the entire ground floor existed as a single continuous space, with the only evidence of the original layout being the occasional stub of a wall that hadn’t been fully cleared, and the regular spacing of the support columns running from floor to ceiling.
The floor had been swept clean, with the debris and mold that characterized every other building down here cleared away and kept back.
Someone had patched the worst of the ceiling damage with material she couldn’t immediately identify. The result was a space that felt, against all reasonable expectation, habitable.
Tents filled the floor in loose rows, each one different from the next in size and material, the kind of variation that came from people arriving separately and setting up with whatever they’d had on them at the time.
Between the tents, small paths had formed naturally, with the ground worn smooth by regular foot traffic.
The population was sparse. She counted perhaps a dozen people visible, some moving between tents, some sitting in doorways, and some simply watching her and Holly pass with the particular attention of people who rarely saw new faces.
Several of them called out as Holly moved through.
"Holly."
"Back already?"
"Who’s the new one?"
Holly acknowledged each greeting with a nod or a brief word, but she didn’t stop. Instead, she kept guiding Akira towards the center of the hall.
The tent at the center was the same as any other. There were no markings or decorations. Basically nothing that distinguished it visually from its neighbors except its position.
Holly stopped in front of it.
Before she could speak or lift the flap to announce their presence, a voice came from inside.
"Come in."
The voice was low and gruff.
Holly held the flap open and Akira ducked inside.
The tent was simple in a way that allowed any onlooker to tell that this was out of choice rather than lack of means.
There was a bed along the left wall, neatly made, a table at the center, with a chair on the far side and nothing on the surface except a map weighed down at two corners by small pieces of broken stone.
The man behind the table looked up.
The man was well built with prominent muscles that bulged from his tight fitting clothes. It was clear that even with the fact that he was trapped in the Underneath, he hadn’t let his training go.
His clothes were clean, but his hair was not the same. He had a scraggly beard that covered his jaw and throat, growing without much direction, and his eyes carried the flat, sustained alertness of someone who hadn’t slept for a full night in longer than they could remember.
His aura was B-rank.
"We have a new arrival," Holly said, moving to stand beside the table. "Her name is Akira. She got separated from her group when the walls shifted."
She looked at Akira. "This is Bull. He runs things down here."
Bull looked at Akira with an expression that was neither warm nor unwelcoming. It was clear that he was assessing her.
"What’s your class?" he asked. "And your skills?"
Akira hesitated.
Bull laughed. It was a short sound, rougher than she’d expected. "You don’t have to list everything. Keep your skills to yourself if you want. But you have to tell me your class."
He leaned back in his chair. "You’re going to be here for a while, and in here, everyone pulls their weight. I need to know what you can do before I can figure out where you fit."
Akira held his gaze for a moment.
"I’m a [Necromancer]," she said.
Bull nodded slowly, his expression shifting slightly. "We can work with that."
He looked at Holly briefly, then back at Akira. "I’m sure we can find something useful for you."
"I do have a question, though." Akira stepped closer to the table. "What are you doing about us getting out of here?"
Bull’s expression didn’t change, but something behind his eyes did. He looked at the map on the table, then at her.
"Sit down," he said.
Akira frowned before glancing at Holly, who gave her a shrug.
Akira pulled out the chair across from Bull and sat.
Bull leaned forward, his forearms flat on the table. "You just got here," he said. "Which means part of you is still working through the idea that this is temporary. That you’ll find the way out, or your group will find a way in, or the dungeon will shift again and open something up."
"I’m going to save you the weeks it took most of us to reach the same conclusion and tell you directly."
Akira said nothing.
"Forget about getting out," Bull said. "Not because there’s no exit. There is one. Holly told you that much."
He picked up one of the papers on the table and set it aside without looking at it. "This place is the garbage dump of the Undercity. The dungeon built it to be exactly that. A place things go and don’t come back from."
"The moment anyone down here tries to go up through that exit, the Undercity responds. With everything it has." He clenched his jaw.
"We’ve tried to get out of here. More than once. We’ve lost good fighters every time. People who were stronger than most of the ones still sitting in those tents out there."
The tent was quiet for a moment.
"I know you won’t take my word for it," Bull said. "Someone like you, who’s just arrived and full of options you haven’t exhausted yet." He almost smiled. "So I’m not going to argue with you about it."
He looked at Holly.
"Take her to see it herself," he said.
Holly straightened. "Come on," she said to Akira, already moving towards the tent flap.
