{After an hour and a half, they finally reached Dandong. Although the station their team has arrived at was strictly for SRA's army
use only: and located at a significant distance from the major railroads and highways, loud voices, screams, and noises
of different origins were emanating from all directions. Amid this chaos, a thin and timid-looking man, who would look more like straw without his oversized fur trench coat, moved towards our direction. Even from afar, a reek of alcohol and tobacco was so strong that a kid would be dancing and swearing in the drunken rage. }
{When he got closer and opened his mouth, and even a stronger stench shrouded the entire team.}
{Ha Eun's eyes were all watery, and she looked as she was on a verge of crying. She was desperately flapping her palms to use them as fans. But unfortunately, it was all in vain. With such terrifying AOE, he could easily participate in SRA army raids.}
{He then extended his hand in wait for Fei Hong. Regardless of this unbearable smell, she kept her composure and didn't let him wait for long.}
-'Hello, I am colonel Liu Xingfu, I take you are captain Fei Hong, I got orders to guide you and your people to the newly formed tunnel. But, please excuse me for my frank words, no one mentioned that you are such a beauty
With those words, a colonel pulled her hand closer to his face with intentions to kiss it. Fei Hong hastily freed her hand, and to avoid possible awkward moments, tried to avert colonels' attention to a different topic.
-' Colonel, why is it so noisy? Are locals trying to storm the SRA's LRT station?'
-' News about the tunnel spread pretty fast, and residents are trying to live city by all means possible. But, rest assured regular army will hold down all the civilians from your precious LRT system.'
{In the meantime, Sergei's and Gan Ga Ja's groups were standing still as frequent drinking buddies of the battalion commander; they were more or less immune to the incense exuded from the colonel.}
{As he was, trying to explain the entire situation with the residents, the colonel waved his hand and received a positive response from his subordinates.}
-'Please this way, the transport is ready, we will arrive at the sight in no time.'
In about ten minutes we have reached the city center. There was a hole of 300 meters in radius and about 20-25 meters deep. Tons of debris and a huge pile of rubble accumulated from the collapsing buildings, cars, trees, and people. With just a wild guess, tens of thousand lives got swept away when the tunnel opened. Fei Hong, with her sensory trait, managed to scan the entire perimeter and located the tunnel entrance.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
-'Unfortunately... There are no survivors.'
{Fei Hong was, it's never easy to face such a meaningless and cruel death. All of them were probably her fellow countrymen, and this fact alone made her patriotic heart shiver in agony.}
-'Straight to work, ha? We will part ways here. Though evacuation is in progress, I have to manage preparation if a need to seal the entrance would arise.'
-'Didn't you hear? I just said there are no survivors. How can you just ignore those words?'
-'Girl, don't let your emotion cloud your vision. They already dead, focus on keeping others alive.'
Colonel left us right away.
Fei Hong could not understand his lack of emotions. And his last response made her furious. Fei Hong herself was bad at phrasing her thoughts.
She pointed out the direction, and I started to move all the debris blocking the entrance. I could've made a path with the abilities of this world. But, even the ruble is useful. So, I chose to slowly move everything into my inventory.
-'What an amazing ability, it seems as it just disappears. '
Fei Hong, who was gloomy just a moment ago was now excited to see an irregular's ability.
Seeing how careless I was moving all the debris in his way, Ha Eun's face turned pale.
-' Wait, there might be survivors down there. If you continue, you will crush them to death: besides shouldn't, we first help the army with the excavation of survivors.'
-'Did you hear what I said a moment ago?. I have just scanned the entire area; there are no survivors. Regardless of survivors, our priority is to confirm the threat level of the dwellers in this tunnel. Do you understand?'
-'Ummm, Buuut. '
-'If this tunnel is filled, with high threat dwellers, we must seal entrance right away, or even more, people might get killed. So we will proceed straight to the tunnel. That's an order!!'
_'.....'
Ha, Eun didn't reply anything and just silently nodded in response.
Reaching the entrance of the tunnel: there was a steep path similar to the staircases in the towers but under a weird angle. From this point on, that was a long descent to the depth of the hollow earth. The path was narrow, about a meter wide, and 2 meters in height, amazingly but, those parameters were constant throughout the spiral corridor.
The descent was gradual and slow, but this way was ensuring our security.
In about 12 hours, we reached the end of a tunnel. We were standing in front of the gates to the underworld; for quite some time: waiting for Fei Hong to finish scanning the area. In a few moments, she gave the signal, and we went inside.
Air felt light and somewhat moist; utter darkness surrounded us without a source of light. It was impossible even to see the silhouettes of those around us.
{Hyuk-Il couldn't use fire to light up space: since sometimes in those parts of the underworld: rare natural resources could be there, and they were remarkably flammable. To think about it, the only reason people do not seal the tunnels right away is to get a grip on those resources.}
Light rods got turned on; illuminating all the surroundings, and
it was a sight to see, broad and spacious premises with some vegetation and a whopping amount of massive chunks of crystal-like stones were reflecting the light from the rods. But our gazings were abruptly stopped by the screech that was coming from all the directions. Hundreds of rodent-like dwellers were filling the entirety of premises and then rushed toward us.