"Are we there?"

"Not yet. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ”

"Are we there?"

"It's not there yet. ”

"Are we there?"

"Nope!"

"Are we there?"

"Marisa, please be normal!"

"Oh, got it, can I ask you one last question?"

"Just ask. ”

"Are we there?"

Unable to bear it, Reimu slammed her fist into Marisa's skull, violently closing her annoying mouth.

In the few seconds that Marisa went quiet, the entire tunnel became extremely quiet, and there was no sound to be heard except for the footsteps of the three of them.

Of course, this rare silence lasted only a few seconds.

"Reimu, Reimu!"

Marisa, who didn't even have a good scar, had forgotten the pain. She tugged at the corner of Reimu's clothes and said with a cheap smile:

"Reimu, I'm hungry, do you have anything to eat?"

"Do you look at my clothes, like I have a pocket for food?"

Reimu was upset, and she wasn't angry when she spoke. Marisa, on the other hand, doesn't know how to read words and emotions at all, so she walks up and starts pulling at Reimu's clothes. Just before Reimu raised her fist and was about to make her remember it longer, she finally retreated and said with a wilt:

"Like...... Not really......"

"If you know, don't bother me anymore!"

"But I'm hungry, what can I do?"

Thinking about it carefully, the magic sofa felt that the last thing she ate was the box of senbei in the cabinet of Hakurei Shrine, and she had already vomited it out. Being able to walk all the way here on an empty stomach is already a super level performance for her.

"Hungry, bear with it!"

Reimu hammered her deflated stomach to prevent it from making some indecent sounds. She'd been walking with Marisa since the morning, and Marisa was so hungry that her chest was pressed against her back, so why shouldn't she?

At the end of the day, it's all about this overgrown tunnel. The servants went in at lunchtime, and by now, even the dinner point has passed, and it is really unreasonable that they have not even reached the end.

If this continues, they may starve to death here before they can find an exit. If that's the case, it's too embarrassing.

"Alice, aren't you hungry?"

Marisa saw that Reimu couldn't speak, so she turned her head to bother the puppeteer who had been silent all the way.

"I'm not going to be hungry. Alice replied with a blank face, staring straight ahead.

Only at such times will she show something different from humans. It is only at this time that Marisa can truly realize the fact that Alice is not human.

But so what? she's seen a lot of monsters and stuff, and Alice is more kind than those who pretend to be ghosts.

"It's so good to be a magician, a magician ......," Marisa said, looking at Alice's side face wistfully, "and it doesn't grow old, it doesn't starve, it's beautiful, it's powerful." ”

"Someday, I'm going to be a magician, too!"

"Becoming a magician isn't just a benefit......" Listening to Marisa's speech, Alice smiled bitterly, "If you become a magician one day in the future, you will probably be able to experience this...... Well, if you can be a magician!"

"What's the matter, look down on me?"

"It's useless for me to look down on it, the important thing is that your true strength is there. With your magical talents, I'm afraid you were already in the ground long before you became a magician!"

"It's too much, Alice!"

Marisa was speechless for a moment, then turned to Reimu for help:

"Reimu, you say, what she said is not excessive!"

"Hmm...... I think ......," Reimu said slowly, "Alice is right, a fool like Marisa can't be a magician for two or three hundred years." ”

"Wow, you two together to bully me!"

"It's not bullying, it's stating the facts. ”

"Even if it's a fact, there is a difference between what can be said and what can't be said!"

Marisa jumps forward and turns around, blocking Reimu and Alice's path. With an extremely serious expression, she announced loudly:

"I'll do it for you! I, Marisa, will one day be at the pinnacle of magicians. Don't regret it!"

"Okay, okay, got it. Reimu waved his hand and said impatiently, "Anyway, I won't see it in my life, so let the next generation and the next generation of witches envy and hate you!"

"It's good to have ideals, but it's not right to be ambitious. Alice smiled.

"You two, I'm serious!"

"We are also very serious about you!"

"Damn!"

Led by Marisa, the three of them forgot about their hunger and exhaustion, laughed and played all the way through the tunnel, and reached the exit.

"It's already so late!"

Marisa looked up and saw the crescent moon through the shadows of the trees.

Outside the tunnel, there is a forest. The trees in this forest are much more sparse than in the Enchanted Forest, so the moonlight illuminates the ground and keeps the forest from falling into complete darkness.

"Of course, you don't want to think we've been walking around for hours. ”

With that, Reimu picked a tree stump that looked very flat and sat down for a while.

"Huh...... How many hours are coming?"

Marisa folded her hands and counted them, but she couldn't count them. After staying in the dark for a long time, even the concept of time has become blurred, so it seems that the rumors about people who have been confined for too long and eventually go crazy are not groundless.

Fortunately, she has two reliable partners by her side who can accompany her through the journey, otherwise, she would not have the courage to persevere alone.

"Where are we?" asked Alice, touching the trunk of an old tree.

"Hmmm......"

Marisa looked around a few times, shrugged her shoulders, and said:

"I don't know. ”

"After walking such a long way, I must have come quite a long way!" Reimu speculated, "Maybe it's not even in Gensokyo!"

"Not in Gensokyo?"

Alice looked back at Reimu in surprise.

"It's just my assumption, after all, ......"

Reimu hesitated for a moment, then continued:

"After passing through that strange mirror, I felt that the Great Barrier of Hakurei was getting more and more blurred...... It should be very clear in normal times. ”

The so-called "vague" and "clear" are all her personal feelings as a witch, and outsiders generally can't understand them. However, they have moved away from the message that the Great Barrier covers the entire territory of Gensokyo, and both Alice and Marisa have received it.

"In other words, that mirror is the border between reality and illusion......

Alice said, taking a deep breath, and continued:

"What I'm breathing now is already the outside air......

The air here was much fresher than the damp, putrefactive gas in the tunnels, but Alice always felt that something was wrong with the smell of the air.

This kind of wrongness is not a psychological suggestion of "outside air", but a real and physiological sense of wrongness. As for what this feeling meant, Alice couldn't say for a moment, but she just felt more and more uneasy.

Marisa, who is beside her, has a completely different idea:

"You say, if we put the air from the outside world in a jar and take it back to Gensokyo to sell, will we make a lot of money?"

Marisa looked eager to try, but unfortunately she didn't have a jar on her, otherwise she would have done it.

"It's good to think about this kind of boring idea when you're usually idle, can you stop saying it?" Reimu complained ruthlessly, "I always feel that if I listen to it too much, I will be pulled to the same level as you......"

"Why are you bored!" Marisa looked indignant, "I'm serious about planning!

"Okay, okay, you say yes!"

"The two...... There's something you need to look at......"

Alice interrupts the bickering and shows them an item she had just picked up.

It was a blood-stained black feather, and the blood on the surface of the feather had solidified, presumably after being exposed to the air for some time.

The feathers looked like crow feathers, but they were several sizes larger than the average crow feather, and even a black swan might not be able to grow that big feathers - it was unnatural.

When Marisa and Reiki saw this feather in a dream, they both closed their mouths and put away their hearts, with solemn faces.

"Actually, I felt it when I first came out of the tunnel. "There's a not-so-friendly smell in the air around here. ”

Then, when I saw the feather, I finally made up my mind...... The air here is filled with the smell of blood that has not yet had time to dissipate. ”

"That's it, Wen......" Reimu asked, swallowing a mouthful of saliva.

"It may be, it may not be...... I don't dare to jump to conclusions. ”

Alice threw the feather, which was stained with blood and dirt, to the ground, clapped her hands, and said:

"But, dare I say, before we got here, there was a guy with black wings who bled here. Of course, it could have been just an unlucky wild goose that had the misfortune to hit the hunter's gun. There is only blood here, there are no corpses, everything is difficult to say. ”

Reimu listened to her words and was silent for a while, then stood up, patted the dust off her skirt, and said:

"Let's go, this place is not suitable for long. ”

"I feel the same way. Alice nodded, "Now it's better to get out of this forest and find a really safe place, and then think about countermeasures." ”

"Oh...... Are you leaving?"

"Well, let's go. If this is indeed the outside world, it should be easy to find the town, so let's go to an inhabited place first. ”

Even if you stay in this wilderness, you won't be able to find anything to eat!"

"Where is your focus......"

"Hey!"