Instance 4: Swarm Escape: Chapter 157: Carrot Pathfinding
The group pressed onward.
Buoyed by Youmu's promise of a duel, Ye Tian was a man possessed, practically crackling with energy. Any insectoid monster they encountered that wasn't an immediate, overwhelming threat was met with a single, decisive strike from his blade. He seemed to be in a desperate hurry, eager to carve a path straight to the Broodmother's lair, settle this instance, and finally test his skills against the half-ghost swordswoman.
Meanwhile, the unsettling thumping and scraping from the ceiling above continued to dog their steps. Ye Tian had already tried to flush their pursuer out, but the creature was unnervingly intelligent. The moment he approached, it would scuttle back into the darkness; the moment he turned away, it would resume its shadowing. After several failed attempts, he could only grit his teeth, suppress his mounting frustration, and let it follow.
After another ten minutes of tense travel, they arrived at a passage so narrow it forced them into a single-file line. Haruto glanced up, his eyes tracing the dense, crisscrossing network of ventilation ducts that formed the ceiling. He was about to voice a warning to Ye Tian, but the impatient man had already plunged ahead, leading the others into the tight corridor.
Haruto followed with a helpless sigh.
'If danger strikes in terrain like this, providing support will be a nightmare,'he thought.'Combine that with the spider-thing that's been stalking us... if this were a game, this would be the classic setup for a scripted death event.'
But it didn't matter. If that thing dared to show itself, he would simply trap it with a Boundary of Motion and Stillness. The instant it was frozen in time would be more than enough for Youmu to slice it to ribbons.
However, events unfolded contrary to Haruto's expectations. The spider monster on the ceiling made no move to attack, always maintaining a precise distance. After they had shuffled forward for several dozen paces, the cramped passage suddenly gave way to a wide, open chamber. Before them stood five identical tunnels, branching off into the darkness.
As the last of them stepped out of the narrow corridor, the creature that had been shadowing them seemed to give up the chase. The rustling, crawling sounds slowly faded as it retreated back the way they had come.
Ye Tian scanned the new area, finding no signs or clues to guide them. He walked to the fork, squinting into the gloom of each tunnel, trying to discern with his naked eye which one might be the correct path.
"Which way?" Kaguya asked, raising a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.
"How should I know?" Haruto shrugged, his gaze shifting to Lin Xuelao. At a time like this, it was her turn to shine.
The others followed his lead, their eyes all turning to the blind girl. Without resorting to one of the game's ghost artifacts, her unique sensory abilities were the most suitable for this kind of situation.
Lin Xuelao walked to the center point between the five tunnels. Her brow furrowed in concentration for a long moment before she finally shook her head.
"They're too long; I can't sense anything from here. Do you have something that can be thrown? I can listen to the echo and see if I can hear a difference."
Haruto reached into a Gap. When his hand emerged, he was holding a dark, coarse, brown brick.
"Will this do?"
The sight of the brick caused everyone's eyes to twitch. A single, unified thought echoed in their minds—Why on earth would anyone carry a brick with them?
Kaguya, in particular, shot Haruto a faint, knowing glare. She had a strong suspicion that this particular brick had been prepared specifically for her.
"...That's fine," Lin Xuelao said after a brief, stunned pause, nodding.
The group immediately fell silent, watching the bizarre scene unfold.
With a powerful swing of his arm, Haruto hurled the brick straight down the middle tunnel.
Clang—!
The brick struck the hard floor far down the passage, the crisp sound of it shattering echoing back with exceptional clarity in the otherwise silent chamber.
"The three passages on the right are dead ends," Lin Xuelao announced after listening intently. "The two on the left are too deep. The echoes aren't returning, so I can't judge the specific situation inside." Her tone held a hint of apology.
"It's fine, you've already done great," Haruto said with a wave of his hand. The others nodded in agreement.
Their choices had been narrowed from one-in-five to a fifty-fifty chance. Even if they were unlucky, they would only have to take one wrong path before turning back.
"Wait a second."
Just as everyone was about to head into the leftmost passage, Haruto suddenly called them to a halt. Under their bewildered gazes, he reached into another Gap and, this time, pulled out a bright orange carrot.
"I just remembered I still have this."
"Brother Haruto... what are you doing?" As his most steadfast teammate, even Yotsuya Miko couldn't comprehend his actions.
Kaguya, however, seemed to have a sudden realization. Her expression grew subtle as she asked, "This wouldn't happen to be Tewi's, would it?"
Haruto nodded. "I borrowed it before we set out for the last instance. I just kept forgetting to use it."
With that, he casually tossed the carrot onto the ground. It bounced once, rolled for a second, and then came to a dead stop. The tip of the carrot was pointing steadily toward the second passage from the left.
"We're going this way," he declared with absolute certainty.
It was as if three large, invisible question marks had simultaneously popped up over everyone else's heads.
Is he really being this casual?
Surely, this single carrot couldn't be some kind of information-type ghost artifact, could it?
"Brother Haruto, is this carrot like that pen from before?" Yotsuya Miko recalled their very first instance together. He had thrown something to point the way then, too, except it had been a pen that pointed straight at the ceiling.
Haruto nodded. "They were both borrowed from the same friend."
Kaguya's gaze became even more peculiar. She made a firm decision: as soon as she returned to Eientei, she was going straight to Tewi's room to "borrow" a few things of her own.
"Want to try?" Haruto picked up the carrot and tossed it to Yotsuya Miko.
She caught it, a flicker of curiosity lighting up her golden eyes. Mimicking Haruto's casual motion, she tossed it onto the ground. The carrot bounced and settled, its tip once again pointing directly at the second passage.
Refusing to believe it, Miko threw it several more times. No matter how she changed the angle or the force of the toss, the result was the same. The carrot's tip pointed toward the exact same direction every single time, without the slightest waver.
"How amazing!" she couldn't help but marvel.
"Of course," Haruto said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Tewi is a youkai of luck—a very, very lucky rabbit. Any item she blesses, or even just keeps in contact with for a long time, gets imbued with a measure of that good fortune."
Hearing this explanation, Yotsuya Miko developed a strong interest in this Rabbit Lady she had never met. An extremely lucky rabbit? That sounded incredible.
The others, who had been listening to the exchange and witnessing the miracle of the unwavering carrot, finally understood. This vegetable was, in fact, a pathfinding tool powered by a luck attribute.
The second passage was far calmer than they had imagined. If one had to point out any abnormality, it would be the dense, thick spiderwebs coating the walls. They spanned nearly the entire tunnel, and walking through it felt like treading on half-dried glue. Each step was met with a sticky, pulling resistance.
The slimy, clinging sensation made Haruto, who had a slight obsession with cleanliness, extremely uncomfortable. It wasn't until he coated his entire body in a thin, invisible layer of demonic power that he finally felt much better.
Suddenly, Haruto bumped his nose into the back of Kaguya's head. He rubbed it, realizing that everyone had stopped. Following their collective gaze, he saw that the passage walls ahead were covered by a flowing, undulating black mass. The ground, too, was scattered with what looked like pulsating clusters of black stains.
It was spiders.
Those black "stains" were actually impossibly dense swarms of spiders gathered on their webs. Near the walls, the pale, picked-clean shapes of several skeletons were tangled in the silk.
"Miko," Haruto said suddenly, "your Spirit Sight got an upgrade after the Old Castle, right? The ability to drive away low-level ghosts. Think it can handle these things?"
"These bugs do have ghostly characteristics, but not much," Yotsuya Miko replied, her tone uncertain. "I'll try."
The group tacitly parted, creating a path for her. She stepped forward slowly, and a sacred, golden halo began to shimmer in her eyes.
In the next moment, with her as the epicenter, the swarms of spiders within a three-meter radius recoiled as if struck by a physical blow, retreating like a receding tide.
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