After being forced to step down, the once-annoying nun eloped with me.

Naruja took this lesson to heart. She and the elves carefully followed in the veterans' footprints. They were suffocating from the polluted air, but seeing how the veterans were used to it and how agile they were, they had no choice but to suppress their anxiety and discomfort, forcing themselves to endure it with the mental fortitude of warriors.

Then night fell.

In the underground world where day and night are completely indistinguishable, the veterans rely on the light emitted by an inedible fungus called the "Day and Night Mushroom" to determine their time.

Yellow light represents nighttime. Blue light represents daytime.

This is a very valuable fungus. If you ignore the fact that it is inedible and smells bad, Naruja might actually like it.

But the thought of resting around these mushrooms tonight made her feel a little nauseous...

After all, it is indeed somewhat disgusting. And speaking of which, Mr. Lucas? What are you preparing to eat...?

The elves, who were filling their stomachs with dry rations, were dumbfounded.

Naruja, who had approached, was also taken aback.

Because what the veterans, including Lucas, dug out of the ground were cockroaches, earthworms, and mushrooms that smelled foul.

Seeing these vibrant creatures, Lucas and the others were simply delighted, saying that they would have food to eat tonight and wouldn't have to use up their already meager rations.

Looking at the foul-smelling mushrooms, and then at the lively cockroaches and earthworms, not only did Naruja's face turn green, but even the elves' faces turned green.

They would never eat this stuff! Not even grilled—wait...?

Are you really going to eat that?!

Watching the veterans skillfully skewer small insects with their daggers, then casually mix in mushrooms, and expertly gather the dried mycelium around them to light a fire, followed by a piece of overripe mushroom they'd found somewhere as fuel, and finally, they'd rest their daggers on the flames, excitedly turning the "meat chunks" on them...

Naruja and the elves looked at each other.

In the end, I still didn't have the courage to try this strange "food".

They realized that what Lucas said was not an exaggeration at all.

The Bayer Gesners' underground life was far more miserable than they imagined... and what is even more admirable is that they were able to find joy in such harsh conditions and face the devil and cruel environment with an optimistic attitude.

...This taught Naruja a lot. Although she felt she might never need to use the knowledge of "how to eat cockroaches" in her lifetime, she felt she had indeed learned a great deal.

This will be the nourishment she absorbs when she becomes an adult again. She will strive to become the person she wants to be, and finally earn a place in his eyes.

"Eating cockroaches, how terrifying..."

Even so.

Even that couldn't stop the tea-haired, antler-clad girl from unconsciously uttering fearful dreams in her hazy sleep.

............

On the other side, beneath the surface lies Constantinople, a once magnificent metropolis hailed as the Queen of Cities.

The surviving citizens are delivering food to the corrupted patients in the distant quarantine zone. Every now and then, the howls of demons and the shouts of warriors fighting can be heard from the other side of the wall in the distance.

The residents were used to it. After routinely collecting the body of a man who had committed suicide to resist the contagious disease of decay, the mortuary staff knelt on the floor, personally closing the eyes of the deceased who had not yet decomposed, and offering a prayer for him:

"According to the prophecy, our child will enjoy the sunlight on Earth under the guidance of the Purple-Clad Princess... Please depart in peace. We will take up your responsibilities."

This was a unique custom that had developed over thousands of years in the Bayreuth Empire. They would place the prepared body of the deceased into underground pits for burial. After all, once the body sank underground, there was no shortage of various cavities around Constantinople.

Normally, the subjects of the Bayern Empire refused to use the corpses of their own citizens. However, in this special case, quite a few people still made wills stating that if their bodies were still intact after their death, they must be buried in the Mushroom Garden.

Only in this way could the gradually withering mushroom gardens of Constantinople produce more food. Only in this way could they continue to provide help to the living after their deaths.

Even so, the fall of Constantinople was already a foregone conclusion—although the demons seemed to be doomed as well, humanity would always perish faster than the demons.

This point had become a consensus among the vast majority of the dispirited nobles in the Purple Palace of Constantinople.

Among them, the nobles, known as "germaphobes," are the most typical examples.

The germaphobe is a clerk and warrior in the Purple Palace. Under normal circumstances, he is responsible for recording all the knowledge and culture of the current Bayerzans Empire, confirming the remains and lives of every fallen warrior, and in the most dangerous moments, he also has to face the demons with a short sword.

He's called a "clean freak" because he absolutely must have a handkerchief to wipe his face, even if it means he'll be without pants.

Today, the germaphobe once again ripped the fabric off his trousers, while an exhausted nobleman, who had just returned from the battlefield, wailed, "That's a rare piece of fabric in all of Constantinople! How could you just tear it off like that?"

"This kind of fabric made from mushrooms is very rare! You're wasting such good pants, why don't you just give them to me?!"

Although the nobles spoke righteously, they knew very well that the germaphobe had the right to say that.

After all, the germaphobe is a ruthless person who can confront demons head-on, memorize the names of every fallen soldier after a battle, and even write down the names of the fallen in one night.

The germaphobe had the right to trample on his pants—and he knew his friend was just joking, so he simply wiped the sweat from his face with a cloth and retorted sarcastically:

"You noisy brat, why don't you write down all these names like I do? But then again, where's that one? Where's the shorty?"

"Him? He's dead. This morning during the battle, he was covering the retreat of the new recruits while some veterans were covering the rear. As a result, the veterans were wounded, and he was gone."

"Oh. Audie Lear... Alright, I've got it. I'll announce it tonight—on another note... how many of our current nobles are left?"

"The germaphobe, me, the young master who's currently going mushroom picking, and the one on the city wall... that's probably just the four of us."

"I remember that at least ten nobles lived when my parents were alive, how come there are only four left in our generation?"

"It's probably because the demons are attacking us more and more frequently. And don't just look at the [current survival rate], aren't most of the old men dead by now?"

The noblewoman, known as the "noisy one," shrugged, wiped the purple blood off her short sword with her sleeve, and then walked behind the germaphobe, looking at the names on the thick notebook.

Audie Lear was their mutual friend, a young nobleman who died while covering the retreat of new recruits.

This was common practice among the existing nobles of the Bayern Empire—except for the great nobles and elder nobles who had to stay in the Purple Palace to lead the last of their people in the fight against the demons, almost all the new nobles would do this on the battlefield.

If you're lucky, you might die alongside your friends someday. If you're unlucky, you might have to use a spoon to carefully scoop your friend, who's been stuck to the wall by a huge rock thrown by a demon, piece by piece, put them in a lunchbox as a souvenir, and then secretly bury them in the mushroom garden.

The nobles were used to this, and would even bet on who would collect whose corpse before going to the battlefield.

In the words of the elders, they seemed very optimistic.

Even so, after striving for a prophecy for thousands of years, even the aristocratic class would inevitably feel extremely tired.

A moment later, after the germaphobe recorded the name of the last person to die of decay that day in his notebook, the noisy ghost handed him a plate of dried cockroaches. As nobles, they were entitled to three-quarters of their food rations during peacetime, which included cockroaches.

Ordinary civilians only receive one-half or even one-third of that amount, and in most cases they can only eat mushy nutritional foods, but there's nothing they can do about it.

After all, the entire Bayerneath needs to allocate resources to the military. Otherwise, if the soldiers starve to death, the remaining soldiers will eventually become the breeding ground and food for the devil.

Although demons don't eat their own kind, they will eat humans to fill their stomachs—on another note, aren't we monsters in their eyes too, since we dissect demons as if they were raw materials?

They treat us like chickens, ducks, fish, and pigs, but don't we treat them like moving magical materials?

The germaphobe was pondering some philosophical question when he took a bite of a crispy roasted cockroach. After chewing it, he heard the noisy ghost beside him ask blankly:

"How much longer must we wait before the prophecy comes true?"

"What did you say?"

"It's the last princess in purple. I heard recently that the pillar of light from the prophecy seems to have appeared... but who knows when the princess in purple will come? The prophecy only says that after the pillar of light appears, Bayerzans will be restored and return to the surface, but it doesn't say exactly when."

"...I don't know either, let's wait and see."

Everyone in Constantinople took that prophecy as their final source of strength. Everyone.

They longed for their descendants to return to the surface, for the Bayern Empire to bask in the sunlight once more, and for themselves to one day see for themselves what the surface looked like, and what a paradise on earth the land they had protected was now.

With this expectation, they have persevered for thousands of years to the present.

Even so, people will eventually feel tired.

After centuries of fruitless efforts, with fewer and fewer companions and a worse and worse life for their people, even the most resilient nobles will eventually begin to doubt the truth of the prophecy.

Unlike the common people, who had to perform corvée labor and conserve their energy as much as possible, the nobles had time to rest. They were cultured and knowledgeable, knowing that in special circumstances it was necessary to deceive their subordinates with white lies, and they were also aware that they themselves, and the entire Bayerzans Empire, might become victims of these white lies.

Therefore, the noisy ghost felt confused.

She lost another friend today. What about next year? What about the day after tomorrow?

People keep dying like this without ever reaching a conclusion. Although the demon is already teetering on the brink of collapse, isn't the Bayern Empire also on the verge of its final collapse?

This edifice is on the verge of collapse. The prophecy that supports it has only shown a tiny glimmer, a faint sign.

Will we really live to see that day? Will we truly witness the truth of the prophecy, and not just a well-intentioned but false lie?

The noisy ghost, bewildered, bit into the dried cockroach.

The germaphobe standing nearby simply shrugged and said, "Actually, the Archmage also said that the fall of Constantinople is imminent. Soon, we won't need to worry about whether the prophecy is true or not—because next, either the demons will conquer Constantinople and we'll destroy their mother hive, or we'll destroy their mother hive first, and then they'll turn around and attack Constantinople too."

"In the end, we all perish together. Why are we still arguing about this prophecy? Let's live in the present, you noisy fool."

As he said this, he patted the noisy ghost on the shoulder and added:

"Perhaps the prophecy said that we would eventually defeat the demonic calamity, and then develop underground, waiting for the day when the Purple-Clad Princess would let us reappear on the surface. Since a small part of the prophecy has already come true, the rest should also come true."

"Then what guarantees that we'll live to see that day?"

"I don't know. So, let's eat something first."

The noisy ghost paused for a moment, then quickly realized that it was thinking about useless things.

She sighed, took off her helmet, and took another bite of dried cockroach. As she savored the bitter taste and the meager meat flavor, she turned to look at the interior of the Purple Palace.

The Purple Palace is currently the only facility in the Bayerzans Empire that is functioning properly, besides the wells. Even so, only a quarter of the palace's structure remains usable.

Part of the palace area was used as a memorial hall, which contains countless cultural artifacts, books, important knowledge, relics of great men, and art belonging to Bayer Geiss that were rescued after the Bayer Geiss sank underground.

The other part of the palace area served as a sanatorium for the seriously injured. A small number of the seriously injured who survived and were not corrupted were sent to the deepest part of the cleanest purple palace for treatment. The noisy ghost did not know exactly how many people survived; she only knew that the ground in the mushroom garden would always be turned over and filled in again after someone was sent to the depths.

There is also a section of the palace area, which is said to be the sleeping quarters of Constantine XII and his successors.

The place was sealed off tightly, and inside were ancient scrolls containing the names of those who had perished throughout history.

If nothing unexpected happens, the notebook in the hands of a germaphobe will also be stored there.

The elders said, "We must not forget any of the victims. If someone brings firewood to someone suffering in the snow, we must not let them freeze to death at their doorstep. Even if it is too late when they are found, we must at least record their name so that future generations may remember them."

The elders also said that there would surely be countless nameless victims. Because often we simply couldn't distinguish who was missing and who was truly dead. Sometimes the living and the dead were charred faces together, making it impossible to tell them apart. Sometimes they even had to dig out half-digested corpses from the bellies of high-ranking demons to piece them together—they too would have to pay their respects to these nameless dead. It's just that perhaps the dead would only receive the same kind of respect.

The elders concluded by saying that the Purple Princess would surely return. She would lead us to the ground, allowing our descendants to grow up in the sunlight, instead of fantasizing about its color in the darkness.

...The noisy ghost remembers it very clearly. She's remembered it very clearly since she was a child.

But will the princess in purple really come?

Living on the earthly paradise, would the Purple-Clad Princess really be willing to come down to us ordinary people, fight alongside us, and shoulder the responsibility of bringing us back to the earth?

I've heard there are many terrifying things on the surface of the earth. Harsh winters, natural disasters, famines, plagues... I've heard those terrifying things are even more horrible than demons, but the elders also say that no matter how terrible those things are, they're still better than letting us continue living underground.

Does the purple-clad princess truly have the ability and the will to support the Bayerzians, who currently know nothing about the surface world, in readapting to the surface environment, overcoming future difficulties, and ultimately rebuilding their own country?

...The noisy ghost lowered her head and reached out to grab the germaphobe's clothes. She was bewildered and uneasy, but all she could do now was continue to lead the people in the fight against the demons in the name of the nobility.