“Shut up! Stop laughing and help me out!”

Panic seeped into Gerhart’s voice as he realized he couldn’t wriggle forward or backward and that he was well and truly stuck.

“Fuck off, man. I can’t move. I’m injured, you know.”

Talia’s words were true. She had been injured quite severely in her tussle with the knights, and she had also pushed her body further beyond that as she broke the tunnel lid by shoving a bone club against it repeatedly. Her blood loss and fatigue did make it hard for her to move, and Gerhart knew it, so he couldn’t say anything to refute her. He could only continue struggling as the panic in his heart grew.

Yet, he soon felt a pair of calloused hands, smaller than his own, grab his arms and pull.

“H-hey! What are you doing? Aren’t you bleeding out?”

“Shut up and move.”

Despite her words, injuries, and exhaustion, Talia had still managed to get up on both feet and grab hold of Gerhart’s forearms.

Gerhart gritted his teeth and locked his hands against Talia’s bloody, sticky, and slippery arms. He did his best to alleviate Talia’s burden by pushing against the tunnel floor with his feet. But he didn’t have much leeway or space to use a lot of force.

But as Talia leaned backward and used most of her body weight to pull on Gerhart, he began moving through the hole. Unfortunately, it could barely be called moving since it looked more like his arms were getting stretched out.

Talia pulled Gerhart, and Gerhart held onto Talia’s arms. But even with the two working together, Gerhart’s wedge-like body had wedged itself in nicely in the narrow opening.

“Hey, guys! How’s it going?”

“Umpf!”

Talia had been so entrenched in freeing Gerhart that she didn’t notice Ritzy appearing right next to them. However, she was also injured and tired, so it wasn’t entirely because she was caught lacking. Still, there was no denying the fact that she fell on the ground.

“Taking a nap, eh? Sounds like a good idea.”

“Rit, just shut up and lend a hand.”

“Hah, fine.”

Ritzy sighed and put down the bone club resting on his shoulder atop the straps to a couple of leather bags. He also unslung the bags and put them on the ground next to the club. Before helping Gerhart, Ritzy threw a wary glance in Talia’s direction, but after confirming that she was out of commission, he trotted over and grabbed Gerhart’s hands.

“Now what?”

“Just fucking pull. We need to get out of here as quickly as possible.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Sounds reasonable.”

Ritzy grunted as he tried to tug on Gerhart’s arms. But, despite being in a better state than Talia, Ritzy didn’t have any success, and Gerhart was still stuck.

“Wait, I have an idea!”

Ritzy let go of Gerhart’s hands. Gerhart didn’t do the same.

“...what are you thinking, Rit? You better not be trying to leave me here.”

Hidden threat filled Gerhart’s voice. And it seemed to have gone straight above Ritzy’s head.

“Perish the thought, Gerry. I just thought that since the hole’s too small for you, we’ll just have to make it bigger!”

“...Okay.”

Gerhart reluctantly let go of Ritzy’s hands.

Ritzy bent down and started digging through the dirt surrounding the broken remnants of the tunnel lid’s rim. However, there wasn’t much he could remove. The hole was already as big as it could be without removing the circle of rotten wood. But Gerhart was in the way of that.

“You know what? How about shrinking you instead?”

Gerhart didn’t want to entertain Ritzy’s crazy ideas at the moment. But he didn’t have any other options.

“How?”

“I brought some Flesh Melting Liquid with me….”

“No. That won’t only shrink me. It will kill me, Rit.”

“Hmm. I guess we don’t want that, do we?”

“Nope. Not at all.”

Ritzy sat crouched and rubbed his chin while staring at Gerhart’s arms poking out of the dirt.

“Then, do you have any ideas, Gerry?”

“Fuck. Do you think you can push me down? I’ll try getting out of the way so that you can get rid of the wooden rim.”

“Sure.”

Gerhart heard the smile in Ritzy’s answer, and a chill went down his spine.

“Not with the club, Ritzy!”

“Tch.”

Gerhart didn’t even know that Ritzy had picked up the bone club. His instincts just told him that something bad was going to happen. And Ritzy clicking his tongue confirmed it.

Gerhart didn’t have any intentions of pointing out what Ritzy clicking his tongue meant. At least not when he had to rely on Ritzy to get out of the tunnel.

Ritzy stopped moving toward the bone club and returned to Gerhart, and grabbed his arms. He bent them at the elbows so that it would be easier to push down.

Ritzy put all his weight on Gerhart’s arms, but only when he jumped and landed with the additional force that gave did Gerhart slink back into the tunnel with a pained grunt.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It just worked a little too well.”

Ritzy shrugged and went to grab the bone club. He returned with speed and force as he swung the club overhead down on the mostly intact wooden rim with a cracking sound.

“Oh, right. Watch out!”

“Too late!”

“Did you get hurt?”

“No!”

“Tch.”

“I heard that.”

“Heard what?”

“Nothing. Just get that thing out of the way!”

“You’re so impatient.”

Ritzy swung down with the club again and sent rotten wood splinters flying. But it wasn’t enough to get all of the wood blocking Gerhart’s path out of the way, so he crashed down on the lid’s remnants again. This time, a large part of it broke away.

Gerhart grabbed the piece and threw it out of the tunnel, and Ritzy struck down again on the border between the wooden rim and the dirt, finally loosening it enough to pull it out of the ground.

After digging a little with their hands and making sure the hole was large enough, Ritzy and Gerhart had finally freed Gerhart!