Chapter 218: Fate, wondrous beyond words

Fate, wondrous beyond words.

To be honest, Cheng Shi overestimated his own digging ability.

He discovered that even with a folding shovel prepared in his personal space, he could not work quickly beneath the collapsed and compacted ruins.

Because the surrounding soil was not just soil, but also wood and steel; his folding shovel was not sharp, and at times he could only rely on his bare hands to break these obstacles.

Thus, one man and one mouse inched forward bit by bit in the direction indicated by the mouse "Captain."

After only an hour or so, Cheng Shi stopped, drenched in sweat.

"Can't you sing me a song or give me some kind of buff?"

"Squeak, squeak."

"I suspect you want to exhaust me so you can take advantage of me."

"Squeak, squeak."

Cheng Shi's face darkened, and he gave the mouse a solid whack on the head.

"That's for cursing me."

"?" The mouse was knocked dizzy, spinning in a whirl.

It wasn't that Cheng Shi didn't want to work hard, but he was truly exhausted. Today, a warrior's bravery should be in killing, not in digging dirt. Making a favored one of 【Fate】 act like a burrowing mouse was simply a waste of talent.

But there was no other way; for now, this seemed to be the only path to take.

Staying put to wait for the trial to end was no longer viable, because Cheng Shi could already faintly hear weak shouting coming from above, along with tremors that were constantly intensifying!

The guard knights of Montelani had perhaps already assembled here, beginning to rescue the buried citizens.

"You'd better not be lying to me, otherwise, all the suffering I've endured, I will make you pay back in full."

Li Wu sat in the cage with an expressionless face, feeling that his mouse life was bleak.

He really wanted to say that if he hadn't met Cheng Shi, he might have already found a suitable corpse to transfer his soul into, but who told him to run into this little...

No, he wasn't, he was the clown!

On the other side, while Cheng Shi was still burying himself in hard work, in a hidden room deep beneath the prison, a mouse quietly emerged from the ventilation duct on the ceiling.

It looked at everything under its feet in surprise, slowly crawling down along another pipe against the wall until it reached an unmanned desk, where it fell into deep thought while looking at the stacks of illustrated documents before it.

This was undoubtedly a laboratory hidden underground, and its location was one of the offices in this lab. The documents laid out on the desk in order were likely relevant information about the experiments being conducted here, or perhaps the greatest secret of this laboratory.

Finding such an unexpected harvest, the mouse should have been happy, but at this moment, it couldn't be happy at all, because...

It couldn't read.

It circled the desktop twice, scrutinized the small office thoroughly, and made a decision.

It prepared to steal these documents, but before stealing them, it needed to do one thing: find a human who wasn't too smart and swap bodies with them.

Indeed, this mouse was transformed from Su Wu.

The moment the mist rose in the prison, he had intended to stay put, but someone took the opportunity to approach him and stick a Li Wu purification card on his lower back.

The light from this purification card instantly attracted the surrounding punitive knights, who closed in on him. Seeing that his situation was unfavorable, Su Wu had no choice but to activate his backup plan, sticking the purification card on his hand onto a mouse and throwing it in the opposite direction.

Not only that, he swapped identities with the mouse whose tail he had been stepping on, and then slipped away in the chaos.

He had intended to leave this place along the ventilation duct, but he never expected that the duct he chose didn't lead to the surface at all, but rather deeper underground.

Thus, he cautiously and carefully arrived here, in this underground laboratory connected to the Montelani Deathmatch Prison.

Building a laboratory in such a hidden place—one could guess that a great secret must be hidden here.

Especially since these documents actually bore the emblem of the Tower of Reason.

Yes, the Tower of Reason.

Although Su Wu couldn't read, that didn't stop him from recognizing the emblem of the Tower of Reason.

How interesting; in the heart of the Grand Tribunal, under the feet of Montelani, a laboratory of the Tower of Reason was hidden.

All of this caused Su Wu's curiosity to inflate rapidly. He tiptoed to the door of the office, waiting for the first unlucky soul to appear.

However, after waiting for a long time, he didn't wait for an unlucky soul, but instead waited for a teammate.

Gao San!

This acrobat, whose entire body was as soft as an octopus, actually "drilled" out from the same duct exit.

And the incomparably large and hard prisoner helmet on his head was now also as soft as an octopus limb, falling from the duct while clinging tightly to his deformed skull!

This acrobat actually possessed the talent to soften his appendages!

But even so, he hadn't been able to shake off this annoying tin shell!

The moment Gao San landed, Su Wu lay at the doorway without moving or hiding, and the man and the mouse stared at each other across the space.

"......"

"......"

Seeing that the mouse's gaze was so lively, Gao San instantly understood everything. He frowned and guarded himself inwardly:

"Beast Tamer?

Did you leave the traces in the duct?

Hmph, no wonder you died so easily. What a pity, I thought I had personally trapped and killed you."

The mouse wrinkled its nose and slowly stood up.

"So you are an acrobat." A sharp, distorted human voice squeezed out from the mouse's throat.

If there were any ordinary people present, they would surely have been scared unconscious by this dialogue between man and mouse, but Gao San was not surprised at all, because a Beast Tamer was inherently such a miraculous profession.

"What do you say? Is it a surprise that the 'Fate Period' you discovered suddenly became your own?"

"Who knows? Perhaps I will discover a new 'Fate Period' here, and this new one will belong to you."

Gao San sneered. He first glanced at the office door, then walked to the desk, attempting to pocket the documents on the table.

Anyone with eyes knew these were definitely good things, but as for how good, Gao San didn't know.

Because he couldn't read either.

"Just by you, a mouse?

Su Wu, oh Su Wu, it's not that I look down on you, but if you weren't in your beast-taming form, I would have to be wary of you. But now... you want to kill me?

Heh, keep dreaming, it's quite cute."

The mouse's eyes narrowed, and it placed its claw on the door.

Its meaning was very clear: if you don't want to talk, then I'll knock on the door. As for what's behind the door, it depends on everyone's fate.

Gao San's hand, which was reaching for the documents, stalled, and his face sank.

"What do you want?"

"The documents belong to me, and the things outside belong to you." The mouse extended a claw and pointed outside the office, clearly wanting the other party to open the blind box.

But Gao San wouldn't pay any attention to such an unreasonable negotiation demand. He sneered and instantly jumped from behind the desk to the front.

It was clearly such a violent movement, yet when he landed, not a single sound was made.

"I only need 1 second to strangle you, then take the documents and run. I'll give you one more chance, what do you want?"

Upon hearing this, the mouse wasn't afraid; instead, it hissed and crawled two steps toward Gao San.

"Why don't you try it?"

Did Gao San dare to try?

He did not.

No one would underestimate a Beast Tamer, and no one would take risks in an unknown situation. His earlier attempt to seize the initiative was meant to catch Su Wu off guard and see if he could bluff the other party. But when Su Wu crawled toward him, his "bluffing" strategy naturally fell apart.

The other party had a backup plan, they definitely had a backup plan. Well, what liar didn't have a backup plan?

Gao San stepped back to the edge of the desk, his face serious.

And Su Wu—no, that mouse—slowly loosened its hind claws.

Su Wu didn't have a backup plan at all.

He was also bluffing, bluffing that the other party didn't dare to gamble at this very moment.

That was close; he had gambled and won this disastrous standoff.

"Next, shall we talk about cooperation?"

Su Wu seemed to have regained the initiative. He lay at Gao San's feet with ease, pointing at the documents on the table.

"We each take half, and then push open this door together to see what's outside this office. How about it?"

Although Gao San didn't dare to make a move, he sneered and mocked:

"I can contribute ten parts of effort to push the door, so for the documents on the table, I'll leave you... one-tenth.

After all, it's a cooperation, I have to let you earn something, right?"

"......"

This round of bargaining left Su Wu speechless, because he truly couldn't contribute to the task of pushing the door.

A mouse's strength was simply too weak compared to a human, especially when this human was a warrior.

But just as he was preparing to refute Gao San again, a voice faintly came from above the duct.

"Are you sure it's here?

If you're sure, then I'm going to cut it. Very well, 3, 2, 1!"

"Boom—"

"Clang—"

"Thump, thump, thump..."

A figure carrying a mouse cage fell straight down from the shattered ceiling, and the moment that figure landed steadily, a joyful smile appeared on his face.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk...

Fate, wondrous beyond words." ===== CHAPTER 219 =====