Chapter 477 Finding Hena

“There’s nothing here at all?”

Staring at the empty room, identical to the others they had searched, Prarlulu frowned in confusion.

“No. She’s definitely here.”

Miko sniffed the air carefully.

“But this place—”

“Quiet! Stay still for a moment!”

Miko suddenly gestured for silence.

Prarlulu clamped her mouth shut at once.

She then watched as Miko’s ears twitched, as if catching some faint sound.

Prarlulu tilted her head, straining to listen as well—but all she could hear were the terrifying roars echoing from outside, and nothing more.

When she looked back,

Miko had somehow gotten down on the floor.

Her ears pressed flat against the ground, she crawled forward slowly.

Before long, she reached a tattered wooden bed.

She stood up, gripped the edge of the bed, and flipped it over in one motion.

Beneath the bed, the floor was still empty.

“I found her!” Miko cheered loudly nonetheless.

“?”

A question mark popped up over Prarlulu’s head.

Found her?

But there was nothing there at all.

Just as that thought crossed her mind,

Miko’s hands groped across the floorboards, until she seemed to find a hidden mechanism.

Creak~!

With a shrill, rotting sound,

a hidden underground door swung open.

A concealed cellar lay revealed before Prarlulu’s eyes.

The cellar was not large, and held no belongings of any kind.

Only a little girl, curled into a tight ball, was weeping softly.

“Weird?” Miko stared at Hena in the cellar in puzzlement. “Why is she so small?”

This Hena looked nothing like her real-world self. She appeared far younger—only around six or seven years old.

“Prarlulu, is this really Hena?”

“Yes, this is her. This is where her mental trauma began. Her form is frozen in that moment. As we go deeper, she will gradually age to match her present self.”

“Um…… complicated, but whatever—so this is Hena, right!”

“Right……”

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“Then we’re good to go!”

Miko jumped down into the cellar and crouched in front of Hena.

“Hena, we’ve come to save you. Come with us.”

The young Hena did not respond at all.

She only continued to sob quietly, just as before.

“It won’t work. Her heart is sealed far too tightly—we can’t wake her like this. We have to take her with us by force!”

“W……” Miko hesitated at the sight of the small, pitiful Hena, then slapped her cheeks hard.

“This is no time to waste!”

She lifted the young Hena onto her back, then leaped upward and out of the cellar.

“Let’s get out of here, quick!”

The two fled the house at once with the young Hena on their backs.

But the moment they stepped outside, they froze in shock.

“W…… what in the world?”

All around them, the area was densely packed with Black Smoke Humanoids. Moreover, there were over a dozen of the giant humanoids that had guarded the house earlier.

And Hulim Heyerar was standing right in front of the building, fighting against them all.

“How did this happen? Why did so many appear all at once?!” Miko exclaimed in disbelief.

The time between entering and exiting the house had been no more than two minutes!

It was impossible to believe that the outside had descended into this state in just two minutes.

Hearing her voice, Hulim glanced back,

then quickly retreated to stand beside the two girls.

“Hulim, what happened out here?” Miko asked urgently.

“I’m not sure. It was calm earlier, but at some point, these creatures went mad and their numbers exploded.”

“I think I know why……” Prarlulu said in a low voice. “It must be because Hena has been found—this place’s defensive level has risen drastically.”

“Hena……” Hulim glanced at the girl on Miko’s back. “This is…… Hena? Are you certain?”

“I’m certain. We can explain later, but we need to find the entrance to the deeper layers quickly—or we’re in serious danger.”

As her words fell,

“Roar!”

More and more Black Smoke Humanoids surged toward them.

“This is endless!”

Boom——!!!

A massive attack crashed down,

blasting apart dozens of the humanoids.

The three seized the chance to break out of the encirclement.

But they did not get far before being surrounded once again.

The Black Smoke Humanoids now filled every corner of the village.

They crawled toward the girls on all fours, rushing in from every direction at frightening speed.

The sight of the dark creatures swarming across the ground was deeply eerie and horrifying.

Boom! Boom! Boom……

Hulim continuously repelled them with magic, yet their space to maneuver shrank by the second.

The number of Black Smoke Humanoids never stopped growing, until they began piling on top of one another in many areas.

“Prarlulu, where is the entrance to the deeper layers?” Hulim shouted.

“I-I don’t know…… only Hena herself knows where it is.”

“What?”

Hulim glanced at Hena on Miko’s back.

“There’s no way she can tell us in this state! Is there no other way?”

“There is one trait, though I’m not sure if it helps. The location must be a place that holds extremely deep memories for Hena.”

“Thats……” Hulim frowned, troubled.

There was no way they could know something like that.

“Hulim, the place that holds the deepest memories for someone is usually the place they visited most often, right?”

Miko said suddenly.

“Highly likely…… Miko, have you found something?”

Miko nodded, pointing toward a direction beyond the village.

“Actually, since earlier, I’ve been picking up Hena’s scent from that direction. It was too faint, so I didn’t pay much attention to it.”

“Great work, Miko!”

Hulim extended her right hand forward.

Boom——!

Dazzling white light blazed through the Black Smoke Humanoids, carving out a path.

“We’re heading there immediately!”

The three ran toward the forest outside the village with the young Hena.

The moment Hena’s body crossed the boundary between the village and the forest,

the entire atmosphere of the village shifted abruptly.

“Roar——!!!”

The number of Black Smoke Humanoids exploded once more.

From a well in the center of the village, a column of black smoke shot straight into the sky.

The girls, sensing something was wrong, turned back—and immediately gasped in terror.

“Wh-What is that——!?”

Prarlulu stammered, terrified into near-speechlessness.

Before their eyes, countless Black Smoke Humanoids had piled together into a tsunami-like wall, surging toward them at an unstoppable pace.

“Don’t look back! Run——!”

Even Hulim had no intention of continuing to fight these creatures at this point……

Before long, the group reached the spot Miko had indicated.

A stone tower mill stood at the very edge of this world.

Across a slowly flowing river, opposite the mill, lay only boundless, pitch-black darkness.

“The scent ends here.”

Hulim glanced at the mill and made her decision at once.

“Inside!”

Bang!

She shattered the door and burst inside.

The instant they entered,

the black smoke pouring from the village well high above underwent another terrifying transformation.

Hulim, who had just stepped into the tower, suddenly felt a sharp, palpitating sense of dread.

She turned instinctively toward the window.