Five days passed.

The adults grew increasingly restless. The initial hope of a swift rescue had faded, replaced by anxious uncertainty.

Why hadn’t anyone come? Surely the Battle Angel could dig through a bit of rubble?

What was taking so long?!

Mika had his theories.

He had explored enough of the cavern now to understand the scope of their situation.

The Anti-mana field wasn’t just localized to their chamber.

It extended outward for kilometers in every direction, a vast dead zone where no blessing could function and no blessed being could survive.

Any rescue attempt would have to be done manually, by mortals, using purely mechanical means. And that would take time.

He tried to explain this to the staff. But they didn’t want to hear it.

"But we have Lady Anya with us! Surely her mother would move heaven and earth—"

"Are you saying we’re stuck down here? Is that what you’re telling us?"

"This is unacceptable! We need to do something!"

And yet, when Mika proposed that "something." their enthusiasm evaporated.

"We need to explore the cracks in the walls."

He said, pointing toward the narrow fissures that lined the cavern.

"Some of them might lead to other chambers. If we can find a way out, or at least find more resources—"

"Crawl through those? Are you insane?!" The older doctor looked at Mika as if he’d suggested juggling live explosives. "They’re barely wide enough for a child, let alone a grown adult."

"I’d get stuck for sure." The administrator declared. "My frame simply isn’t suited for—"

"I have claustrophobia." A nurse added, shuddering. "Just looking at those cracks makes me ill. I can’t. I simply can’t."

"What about the darkness?" Another chimed in. "It’s pitch black in there. We don’t have proper equipment."

"What if we get lost? What if the tunnel collapses? What if—"

"Fine." Mika said, cutting through the chorus of objections. "I’ll do it."

Anya’s head snapped toward him. "No! Mika, you can barely walk! You need to rest—"

"I’ll be fine."

"You won’t be fine! You’re sick! You’re weaker than I’ve ever seen you, and you want to go crawling through dark tunnels alone?!"

"I’m the only one who fits." He said simply. "And the only one willing. So it has to be me."

Anya wanted to shake him and demand that he stop sacrificing himself for people who didn’t deserve it.

But she could see in his eyes that his mind was already made up.

"Then I’m coming with you." She said.

"No. You’re staying here."

"Mika—"

"You’re staying here." He repeated, his voice gentler now. "Someone needs to keep an eye on things. And if something happens to me..."

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

Anya felt tears prick at her eyes. "Nothing’s going to happen to you. You promised. You said we’d survive this together."

"We will." He squeezed her hand. "But I need you to be brave for me right now. Can you do that?"

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

—

Mika pried a glowing crystal from the cavern wall—it continued to shine even after being detached and used it as a makeshift lantern to explore the cave.

He started with the larger openings. Fissures wide enough that even an adult could fit through, if they were willing to try.

But none of them were.

The adults watched from a safe distance as Mika disappeared into the darkness.

But they all led nowhere.

Dead end after dead end. Small chambers that held nothing but more rock and the occasional puddle of seepage.

Not a single opening that led upward or outward or anywhere that might offer escape.

So Mika moved on to the smaller cracks.

These were different. These were tight, so tight that he had to exhale completely just to squeeze through certain gaps.

The rock pressed against him from all sides, cold and unyielding.

He had to contort his body into unnatural positions, twisting and turning.

Sometimes going headfirst, sometimes feetfirst, sometimes shifting orientation halfway through when the passage narrowed unexpectedly.

It was the stuff of nightmares. For anyone with even a hint of claustrophobia, it would have been unbearable.

Mika simply endured it.

He dislocated his own shoulders when necessary—a technique the War Maiden had taught him during survival training—popping the joints out of their sockets to reduce his width by crucial inches.

The pain was excruciating, but he bore it silently, resetting the joints once he was through the tightest spots.

His regeneration would handle the rest.

Hours passed. Tunnels were explored. And still, nothing but dead ends.

The worst came when he pushed himself into a fissure that angled sharply downward.

He slid further than he intended, his momentum carrying him into a narrow bottleneck where the passage constricted to barely more than a foot wide.

He stopped, tried to back out—

—and couldn’t.

He was stuck!

The realization hit him with cold clarity.

He was wedged between two walls of solid stone, unable to move forward or backward, with hundreds of feet of rock above him and no one who knew exactly where he was.

For a moment, panic flickered at the edges of his mind. But he forced it down.

’Think. You prepared for this.’

Before entering the tunnel, he had tied a rope around his waist—salvaged from the hospital ruins with the other end secured to a rock formation in the main cavern.

The plan was simple: if he got into trouble, he would tug the rope three times, and whoever was on the other end would pull him out.

He tugged. Once, twice, three times.

Nothing happened.

He tugged again, harder. Still nothing.

What are they doing out there?

He shouted.

"Someone pull me up!"

The sound echoed through the narrow passage, bouncing off the walls, but there was no response.

The rope remained slack.

The panic tried to return. Mika crushed it with ruthless efficiency.

’Fine. I’ll do it myself.’

He assessed his position. The rock edge in front of him was pinning his ribcage, making it impossible to expand his lungs fully.

His left arm was trapped beneath him; his right arm was extended forward into the darkness, useless for leverage.

The only way out was to make himself smaller.

So he started breaking his own bones.

One rib. Two ribs. Three.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

He felt them break under the pressure he applied, the sharp pain lancing through his chest.

His clavicle next—a clean break that allowed his shoulder to collapse inward, reducing his width by precious centimeters.

He worked methodically, dispassionately, as if he were performing surgery on someone else’s body.

The pain was immense. He ignored it.

When he had broken enough bones and reduced his profile enough, he began to wriggle backward, millimeter by agonizing millimeter.

The broken bones ground against each other with every movement, sending fresh waves of agony through his body.

But he was moving. Slowly, painfully, he was moving.

It took nearly an hour to free himself.

When he finally emerged from the crack, he collapsed onto the stone floor of the main cavern, gasping for breath.

His body was aching everywhere. His regeneration was already working to repair the damage.

But the Anti-mana field was slowing the process, and the bones would take time to knit properly.

He lay there for a long moment, staring up at the distant ceiling, before pushing himself to his feet.

Where was everyone? He had told the hospital staff to wait for him here in case anything happened to him.

Just then—

"Mika!"

Anya’s voice came. She came running toward him, her face streaked with tears.

"Mika, oh thank goodness, I felt that you were gone too long but I was—they were—"

"Where were they?" He asked, his voice flat.

She hesitated.

"They were...talking to me. Asking questions. About Mama, about the family. They wanted to know who my father was, and if Mama and him got divorced, and—"

Her voice cracked.

"I didn’t want to answer, but they wouldn’t stop asking, and I didn’t realize you were in trouble until now, and by then—"

"It’s not your fault."

"But I should have been there! I should have been watching the rope!"

"You told me to keep an eye on things and I—"

"Anya." He put a hand on her shoulder, wincing slightly as his healing bones shifted. "It’s not your fault."

He then walked toward the cluster of adults, who were gathered near the water seepage, chatting amongst themselves.

They looked up as he approached, their expressions shifting to something approximating concern.

"Oh, there you are! We were wondering when you’d come back."

"Find anything useful? Any way out?"

"We were just taking a short break. That area near the tunnels is so stuffy and hot, we needed to cool down a bit."

"Besides, you seemed to have everything under control. We didn’t want to interfere."

Mika looked at them for a long moment.

They hadn’t been watching the rope. They hadn’t been waiting to pull him out if he got stuck.

They had been gossiping about Anya’s family while he was underground breaking his own bones to escape a slow death.

"I checked every accessible crack and fissure." He said, his voice betraying no emotion. "None of them lead anywhere useful. This cavern is sealed."

The staff exchanged glances.

"Well, maybe you should check again." The older nurse suggested. "Just to be thorough. We might have missed something."

"Double-checking never hurts." A doctor agreed. "Our lives are at stake here, after all."

"Maybe try the ones you couldn’t fit through before? If you could just squeeze a little harder—"

Anya’s hands balled into fists.

"He just spent hours in those tunnels! He’s exhausted! Why don’t any of you try?!"

"Now, now, young lady, there’s no need for that tone—"

"No! You’re all just sitting here while Mika does everything!"

"You took the food he found, you didn’t help when he was stuck, and now you want him to go back into those horrible tunnels while you do nothing!"

The adults bristled at her accusation, their expressions shifting from guilt to indignation.

"That’s rather disrespectful—"

"We’ve been managing the supplies and maintaining morale—"

"Someone has to keep things organized up here—"

Mika took Anya’s hand and pulled her away.

"Come on."

"But Mika—"

"Come on."

He led her to their corner of the cavern, a small alcove near one of the larger crystal formations and sat her down. She was trembling with fury, tears of frustration streaming down her cheeks.

"They’re terrible." She said, her voice shaking. "They’re selfish and useless and they don’t care about anyone but themselves."

"I thought having adults here would make things better, but they’re making everything worse!"

"I know."

"Why aren’t you angry?!"

"I am angry."

His voice was quiet, controlled, but there was something cold beneath it that Anya had never heard before.

"But anger doesn’t help us right now. We need to survive. And to survive, we need to be smart."

"What does ’being smart’ mean when we’re trapped with people like them?" She said with a huff.

Mika was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was heavy.

"It means we can’t rely on them for anything. From now on, we look after ourselves."

"You and me. No one else."

—

The mattress incident came two days later.

Mika had managed to salvage one decent mattress from the rubble.

A thin but comfy pad that provided some cushioning against the hard stone floor.

He had given it to Anya immediately, knowing she needed proper rest to stay strong.

And on the seventh day, one of the older nurses approached their area.

"Lady Anya." She said, her voice syrupy-sweet. "I couldn’t help but notice that you have a mattress."