Editing The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Volume8 Chapter 4 (section)

===Part 6===

I couldn’t expect to find a paraglider in the long-since-abandoned dog square.

I would need to rethink our escape plan from the ground up, but I couldn’t just mope around forever. I had come this far, so I at least had to search around the dog square to see if there was anything at all I could use.

“The food processing building.”

I had no idea what was going to happen, so it was possible I would need a weapon like Nagisa had. I searched through the building with that in mind, but I only found a work bench with an attached electric tool. There was nothing small enough to carry around with me. I opened all the doors, hoping to at least find a knife or some scissors, but I found something else entirely behind one of them.

When I opened some thick metal double doors, I found a long, long stairway leading underground with a shimenawa decorating the top of the entrance.

I also saw the Hyakki Yakou emblem I had seen during the battle with the Aoandon.

The pure gold family crest had a shimenawa hanging from the very center.

“What the hell is this?”

“Gau.”

Asking the zombie Zashiki Warashi wasn’t going to help.

This was clearly suspicious, but I had a nagging feeling it wasn’t going to lead to an escape route. Finding a cave at the mountain’s peak made me think of the term Mikuchi-sama, but I had given up on doing anything on my own. If I was taken out here, what would happen to the caged Zashiki Warashi? Escaping together was my top priority. Once we reached some safe place, I could ask some big names like the Succubus or the Aoandon. I could even ask Hyakki Yakou for help. If we then found we had to go back to Bozen City to return the zombies to normal, we could do so with all the equipment we might need. I had no reason to risk my own life and the Zashiki Warashi’s fate on a one-shot gamble here.

With that in mind, I prepared to close the metal doors, but then I heard something rolling toward me.

“Hm? Hey, wait!!”

The foundation must have sunk at some point because the floor was slanted just a bit. That meant the wheeled bear trap was rolling straight toward me!

For a second, I considered trying to catch it, but I quickly realized that wasn’t possible. That thing was meant to carry two or three hundred kilo bears. It had to be pretty solid and heavy. If it picked up speed it wouldn’t just hit me. It would send me flying!

So I quickly fled to the side.

“Gau!!”

As the Zashiki Warashi held onto the bars inside the cage, I thought I saw her giving me a look of pure spite.

A moment later, the cage fell down the stairs beyond the door.

The crashing sounds continued for a while afterwards.

“Ah…”

Once the sound completely stopped, I peered into that darkness.

These were the blatantly fishy stairs leading underground below the shimenawa. I hadn’t wanted to go down there, so I sounded really annoyed.

“But I guess I have to go down there to collect that idiot…”