Deadline Is Raining in the Status Window - Chapter 246

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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“Alright, let’s get going!”
As Cha Cha shifted the gears and activated the engine, a sputtering motor sound echoed through the cabin. But the noise was short-lived—there came a soft *pssht*, and something shut down. Cha Cha tilted his head in confusion.
“Huh? Wh-what’s wrong? Why won’t it move?”
Oh no. This is bad. Why isn’t it moving? Of all times, it breaks down now?
“Th-this is strange! There’s fuel, but—”
Cha Cha kept pressing buttons, but the motor would turn over only to die again moments later. He forced brightness into his voice, as if trying to reassure me.
“Looks like it’s broken! It does this sometimes—old junk, you know!”
“I see. If the engine won’t turn over, the battery may be discharged. Let me check the Engine Room.”
“W-wait!”
I was about to head toward the Engine Room door to inspect the detailed mechanisms inside, but Cha Cha blocked my path. He was blocking me, yes, but he couldn’t meet my eyes directly—just kept his head bowed, fidgeting. Hmm… so he’s grown into a proper nerd. He’d look perfect in a plaid engineering shirt.
“It’s really dirty in there! Lots of grease and grime, and—anyway, it’s better if you don’t go in!”
“If it hasn’t been maintained regularly, the engine oil may need changing.”
“Evan, how do you know all this stuff?!”
“At the Construction Site, I had to maintain my own equipment. I’d repair the uncles’ cars sometimes too.”
“What—what kind of life have you been living?!”
“I’ve supported myself through various part-time jobs.”
That wasn’t what Cha Cha wanted to hear. He stomped his feet and insisted we just leave it alone—it would fix itself. We should go wait outside.
“There’s no machine in the world that fixes itself by being left alone.”
“There is! Right here! There definitely is!”
“Why not ask the Machine King for a house call service?”
“I’ll handle it myself!”
The homeowner had spoken. No point pressing further. I acknowledged and made my way to the Kitchen, asking Panda to prepare some signature Underworld dishes using local ingredients. I wanted to test my hypothesis about whether Underworld food was truly radioactive, and I was curious about the taste of extinct flora and fauna. When I first came to the Underworld, I’d wanted to try the fiddleheads, but never got the chance—I regretted that.
“I want to eat fiddleheads. Underworld fiddleheads.”
“Hmph.”
Just as people on the Surface World didn’t eat fiddleheads, it seemed the Underworld had no such culinary tradition either. Panda Butler warned me they were poisonous and tried to stop me, so I grabbed a foraging basket instead. The season for picking fiddleheads had passed, but in places where they sprouted late, young shoots should still remain. They grew so large that I couldn’t quite gauge what counted as “young,” though.
“Cha Cha! Let’s go pick fiddleheads!”
“Coming! I’m ready now!”
And so I went fiddlehead picking, holding Cha Cha’s hand. His hand was no longer a fiddlehead, of course, but it was remarkably soft. Is this what hands untouched by hardship feel like? I kept fidgeting with it, and Cha Cha kept trying to pull away, saying it tickled. A mischievous impulse seized me, so I slapped my own cheek hard.
Fortunately, my sense of propriety snapped back into place.

◇ ◆ ◇

Four days had passed in the Underworld. To summarize: I survived eating Underworld food. Gerth had prepared a delicious red chili paste that I’d eagerly mixed with rice and seasoned bracken. And the extinct bananas—they were absolutely divine. Apparently, the bananas remaining in the world are the least flavorful variety, but these extinct ones were genuinely sweet with a proper banana aroma, like eating banana pudding made from banana milk.
“Evan! I brought ancient corn today!”
“The Underworld is the best!”
Today’s meal was corn that gleamed like jewels. We would boil it in unrefined sugar made from an extinct variety of sugar beet, seasoned with a pinch of salt. The taste would likely be identical to ordinary corn, but it looked so beautiful that I wanted to try it. After all, what looks good tastes good too.
“Splash!”
The water had come to a boil. After preparing the ingredients as usual, I was about to leave everything to Panda Butler and wait for the meal, but the panda rushed past the corn toward Cha Cha. Looking at the written message, it seemed someone had fallen into the Well.
“That’s strange. Who would be coming?”
“Isn’t it Apet? He probably came back down since he hasn’t seen me these past few days.”
“Ugh, it’s annoying that people know Evan is here.”
Cha Cha glanced at the Laboratory marked with a no-entry sign, then brushed off his pants and stood up.
“Evan is here! I’ll go tell him you can’t come!”
“Come with me. The old man will need to see my face to feel reassured.”
“No, no, I’ll go alone and come back. Just stay here.”
“Come with me.”
When I spoke firmly for the second time, Cha Cha pouted and asked me to wait a moment. The Starving Child darted beyond the restricted area with a bang and returned.
“Now we’re ready! Let’s go!”
“You really love that white coat.”
“Yeah! It makes me feel stable when I meet people!”
It was like a salaryman’s battle gear. Accepting this explanation, I took Cha Cha’s hand and headed cheerfully down toward the Well.
“Eeeevaaaan….”
But an eerie voice echoed through the underground. The temperature seemed to drop slightly. Terrified by the voice of a vengeful maiden ghost in the middle of summer, I gripped Cha Cha’s hand tightly, and the ominous sound drew closer.
“Eeeee…vaaaan….”
“What is this! I’m scared! It’s a ghost! Evan! A ghost got in!”
But I think I know who that ghost is. From a distance, it sounded like a resentful maiden spirit, but listening more carefully, it was Kanna’s voice.
“Evan! And you, Underworld King! If you value your lives, come out and apologize at once! Kanna is furious!”
“This is my warning! Listen well! The twisted Underworld’s Evan-obsessed otaku has completely lost it from stress!”
Moreover, it wasn’t just Kanna—Eugene and Reina seemed to be there too. Those bastards came down looking for me because I disappeared. Well, four days of unexcused absence was pretty bad. I hope my grades aren’t ruined.
“Ex-girlfriend! Your friend is terrifying! Come out quick!”
So the kids were alive and well after all. It seemed Apet had come along too. They must have gone to Apet while searching for me.
“Ahhhhh! What is this!”
Thick black liquid consumed the floor. The sound of shoes corroding with a sizzle suggested it was Kanna’s special poison.
“Eeeee…vaaaan….”
Finally, Kanna appeared around the corner. Her face was gaunt, but her eyes gleamed with intensity. In this darkness, Kanna’s eyes glowed red like a wild animal’s as she sprayed poison. Usually she only stammered, but today she stuttered like a skipping record.
“Four days, four days, I, I worried, worried about you without a word….”
I was terrified. Save me.
Kanna gnawed at her nails frantically, tilting her head at an unnatural angle as she stared at me, and I couldn’t even speak from fear. A non-human would be less frightening. What terrified me most was that Kanna in this form was still a living person. They say humans are scarier than ghosts.
“Ahhhhh! It’s a monster!”
Panicked, Cha Cha pulled a transparent ampule from inside his white coat, snapped off the neck, and threw it. It contained some kind of drug, and when the ampule hit Kanna, she wiped her hand across her face to clean off the liquid.
“…Poison?”
I wasn’t sure what it was, but what Cha Cha threw was apparently some kind of toxic substance. Kanna, hardened by long exposure to poisons, quickly wiped the drug away and rubbed her fingers together. The moment her fingers contacted the poison she’d created, the drug oxidized with a pop.
I’m not entirely sure, but it seems Kanna’s poison won out.
“P-poison, barely, I, I won, hehe, hehehe.”
Whatever Cha Cha had thrown must have struck Kanna as hilarious, because she split her mouth wide open and laughed—hehehehe—a full, unrestrained laugh. It was uproarious, delirious. Who had made Kanna like this? The answer was me. This was bad.
“Aaahhh! What do I do! Even if it’s incomplete, this won’t work either! Evan, hide!”
Still, Cha Cha wrapped his arms around me, determined to protect me despite trembling at this unfamiliar terror. His resolve to shield me was truly admirable and touching. But now it was my turn to be brave.
I gently pushed Cha Cha back and stepped toward Kanna. My shoes made a sizzling sound as they began to dissolve. I’d need to buy new ones once we got outside.
“I couldn’t leave because of the barrier. I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you.”
“You, you’re awful, how much, I worried, worried.”
“I grew complacent, thinking I could leave whenever I wanted. It was my oversight not to realize you’d worry, especially since I’d fallen in love with the food here.”
I approached Kanna and squeezed her hand tightly. She was still emitting poison, but I had Immunity to All Toxins, so I remained unharmed.
…I should have gone barefoot from the start. Now I’ve just wasted a pair of shoes.
“Sob, sniff, how much I, worried, for four days.”
“From now on, you won’t have to worry. I promise.”
When I extended my pinky finger, Kanna gratefully linked hers with mine and burst into tears.
“E, Evan, went to the Underworld, they said, said! I, I thought you were dead!”
“Just because someone goes to the Underworld doesn’t mean they die. You’re alive and well, aren’t you?”
“B, but still!”
As I held Kanna and patted her back, the Female Informant seemed reassured and withdrew her skill, leaving only tears. The sticky substance on the floor vanished. We were safe.
“Evan! Can we get close now?!”
“It’s fine. There’s no poison now.”
“Wow! I thought we were done for when she started throwing a fit!”
It seemed Reina Letem and Eugene had been through quite an ordeal as well. I welcomed my friends while cradling the now-calm Kanna in my arms. As the only adult present, the old man who’d been acting as our guide checked that everyone was accounted for, then asked me about what had happened.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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