Holly approached Adam with a sense of relief, thinking that unless the intruder who left the door open returned, there was no way it would close.

“Let’s get out for now.”

Adam looked at his slightly crumpled shoes wedged in the door gap, then stepped back.

“Ah, it feels better to be out in the bright light.”

She breathed deeply and repeatedly as if coming up for air like a fish in water. After catching her breath, she looked around to see the room was filled with books from wall to wall.

“Why on earth were you coming out from such a place?”

As Adam wrinkled his nose at the dust-covered people, Holly hesitated to tell him about Lyla’s secret request. In addition, she recalled how Chase, who had wanted to go with his wife when she called her separately to the library, was turned away.

‘Lyla seemed to want to keep it a secret even from her husband, Chase…’

As usual, Cahill was just staring at Holly like he didn’t care.

“It seems like you’re up to something again?”

Adam, occasionally sharp-witted, said with a shocked face.

“Hmm, what brings Adam here?”

In the end, as she attempted to change the subject, unable to decide whether to tell him the truth, Adam looked at her with narrowed eyes before finally responding to her effort.

“I’ve been here all this time since you and Cahill followed the elf named Lyla. The night was just too long.”

Holly smiled as if things were going well.

“Then, did you see anyone coming out from here?”

“I did.”

When Adam nodded dumbly in response, sparks flew from Holly’s eyes as she heard his answer.

“Who is it? Do you know them?”

Holly’s eyes flashed as she pounced on Adam, who nearly felt his throat tightening from her grip.

“Someone I know.”

After Adam carefully removed her hand, which was clutching his collar, Holly, who was pulled into Cahill’s embrace, glared at him as if she were about to jump at him again.

“Your Highness and Holly come out?”

However, upon hearing Adam’s response, she deflated and shrugged. However, she quickly regained her spirit and pulled out a parchment.

“Then, how did you open this door?”

She asked, unfolding the parchment and preparing to jot down notes. Adam, peering at the parchment, opened his mouth with a confused expression as if he couldn’t understand what was on it.

“It was just a book in the wrong sequence, I put them in the right order.”

Nodding at his response, Holly moved her quill. Adam looked even more bewildered as he saw her drawing elongated rectangles in succession on the parchment.

“But what’s that? A secret code?”

“It’s a map.”

She retorted, causing him to doubt his own ears, though Holly paid no attention.

“So, what book was it?”

Adam shook his head and pointed to a bookshelf inside the wall of the basement. The red spines of the books at his eye level had no numbers written on them. She blinked in confusion, not understanding what he might have seen to think the order was wrong.

“These books are part of a series, but the titles are all different. Someone who’s not interested wouldn’t even know if there is a sequence in this book or what the correct order is.”

He spoke with a tongue-in-cheek tone, causing Holly, who was distant from the books, to avert her gaze in embarrassment.

“…Alright.”

She wrote down the order of the books on the bookshelf on the parchment and rolled it back up, putting it back in her bag.

“Oh! Please keep the fact that you saw us here a secret for the time being, and it seems like we’ll have to stay here for a few more days.”

Holly nodded as if she had remembered something. Listening to her subsequent words, Adam’s expression became increasingly grim.

“…Do you intend to continue this rude exploration?”

He asked, looking astonished.

“We just have to make sure no one finds out.”

Just as she whispered as if sharing a secret, Adam’s already pale face turned even whiter.

“You’ve already been found out by me, haven’t you?!”

“But Adam, you’re on our side.”

Holly said with a smile.

Adam flinched at her smile before his white cheeks gradually reddened. Seeing that, Cahill’s gaze towards him became stern.

“Let’s go!”

Taking advantage of Adam’s hesitation, Holly grabbed Cahill’s arm and pulled him. She headed back behind the bookshelf towards the entrance she had found before meeting Adam.

In the meanwhile, Cahill, while being led, did not forget to send a warning glance at Adam.

* * *

The entrance where the gemstone was stuck led to an empty room. The two of them continued to discover several entrances thereafter. Since encountering Adam, she confirmed that there was no one beyond the walls through Cahill, who was listening carefully.

“It smells awful.”

As they walked, his face kept wrinkling more and more, and when they reached a dead-end, he covered his nose with his hand.

Holly wrinkled her nose in the air.

Even though she hadn’t smelled anything, she didn’t doubt Cahill’s words at all. It was something she had noticed when they searched for the river in the forest. His sense of smell was beyond human levels.

“Do you know what the smell is?”

When he shook his head, Holly wasn’t disappointed since she hadn’t expected a definitive answer while she scanned the surroundings to identify the source of the smell he had detected. However, unlike other secret spaces, there was nothing here. Only faint beams of light filtered through from high above and pierced the area here and there.

“I think there might be a hole in the wall.”

The most plausible conjecture was that the light in the room beyond the wall was seeping in through a hole. Holly pressed her body against the wall to search for the hole.

“Where is it? I can’t see it.”

Watching her tiptoe from behind, he approached her and suddenly lifted her up by the waist. Startled for a moment, Holly quickly regained her composure. There was a hole in the wall that was big enough for one finger, even taller than Cahill’s height.

“Just a little further…”

She hesitated as she leaned against the wall, peering into the hole.

Other than a slight trickle of light, it didn’t seem to be obstructed by anything. Besides the hole she was examining, there were several more holes around.

“Why would they make holes? Just for lighting?”

However, it didn’t sit well with her that there was nothing in the room to justify the holes. As Holly searched the floor, she noticed patches of sand of different colors.

“You can put me down now.”

As she sat down on the ground after Cahill put her down, she swept the sand with her hand to see that it was black ash mixed in with the yellow sand.

“Looks like something was burned here.”

Muttering to herself, Holly was suddenly pulled back by Cahill, who had been standing behind her.

“It could be poison, don’t touch it recklessly.”

Holly, who had lived in peace until now, stiffened at the unexpected warning, while Cahill, who had been staring at her with a fierce look, grabbed her wrist and bowed his head.

“Cahill!”

Her eyes widened as she watched him lick her palm. Before she could say anything, Cahill quickly retracted his tongue.

“Fortunately, it’s not poisonous.”

Then, he spat out the saliva mixed with sand.

“What if it was poisonous, and you licked it without knowing?!”

Even though she shouted with a pale face, Cahill casually rummaged through the bag.

“I have a resistance to most poisons. Even if I get poisoned, I can endure it, but you can’t.”

Taking out a water bottle from the bag, he poured water onto her palm. He meticulously wiped off the wetness with a handkerchief and scrutinized every corner of her fingers for any remaining sand with a stern look.

“I’m sorry.”

Holly, who had been watching Cahill, spoke in a subdued voice. She broke her promise not to rush into danger with her body first, and because of that, he was almost in danger.

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