Sir! Don't close the net!

Li Yili glanced slightly towards the prison cell before continuing downwards.

Even in a prison without locks, human guards still wield considerable power.

The breeze carrying the scent of grass and earth as she stepped downstairs made Li Yili feel momentarily disoriented, and a long-lost sense of fatigue washed over her. However, the various strange and unusual creatures gathered in front of her instantly tightened her nerves.

Li Yili exhaled and, feigning nonchalance, crossed her arms to avoid most of the jailers and found a relatively quiet corner.

A high platform was built in the center of the lawn, and a man who looked to be only forty years old stood on it. The man's devout yet hollow tone made Li Yili immediately deduce the faction to which he belonged.

Bishop Azawi.

Although Teresa Prison is a public prison, and the position of warden should be rotated among the Galar Horn, the Black Gate and the Celestials, and the Church of the Steam and Steel God, the Azavet Bishop's man has been in the position of warden of Teresa Prison for four years.

I heard that Bishop Azawi used to cling to the position of warden and delay the handover, but no matter how long he delayed, it was impossible for him to do so for four years.

It is clear that Bishop Azawi has conceded enough benefits to make the Galar Horn and the Church of Steam and Steel turn a blind eye.

The Galar Horn is quite easy to guess; it's simply the legacy of the ancient gods.

The Cult of Steam and Steel is a bit more complicated...

Li Yili shook her head, casting aside meaningless speculations and focusing her attention on the matter at hand.

This man, who looks to be in his forties, appears to be the current prison warden. Stripped of all the official platitudes like "this is your chance for redemption of your filthy souls and bodies," his rhetoric simply means it's time for you to get to work; if you don't meet your targets, you'll die.

Li Yili rested her chin on her hand, her brows furrowed.

After looking around, he understood the food chain among the prisoners in Teresa Prison. The higher up you lived, the lower you were on the food chain. So, the three floors below him, except for the immobile plant girls, all came down to obediently undergo training. The lower you went, the more disobedient the prisoners became, or rather, the more prisoners who wouldn't be turned into labor.

He needs the legacy of the ancient gods, but the King in Yellow must never go down to the temple to dig up the legacy.

But Li Yili could, or rather, she had to go down to the temple to obtain the legacy of the ancient gods.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Chris Dorf was surprised.

Although he was just an ordinary man in his fifties, he was the only person who traveled back and forth on the Road to Theresa. Many things from the outside world could only enter Theresa Prison through his hands. This was the Road to Theresa, the only place where one could safely leave Theresa Prison, and a place that the prisoners in this prison were absolutely forbidden to approach.

Therefore, if the prisoners really wanted something, they would tell him through the corresponding jailer.

Chris

Chris Dorf never expected that the much-discussed King in Yellow would suddenly appear in front of his cabin, and Chris Dorf was even more surprised that the King in Yellow seemed equally surprised.

“You…recognize my face,” Li Yili said, narrowing her eyes warily after a brief moment of surprise.

“You’re not wearing a mask,” Chris Dorf pointed to his face. “We met on the first day you came, but the King in Yellow doesn’t seem to remember an old man like me.”

Li Yili was stunned for a moment before she suddenly realized what was going on.

"Ah~ I'm so sorry, I was feeling desperate at the time because I was being framed."

"Slander?"

“Of course,” Li Yili said, spreading her hands.

“Everyone here has been framed,” Chris Dorf chuckled, waving his hand at Li Yili. “This is Teresa’s Road, not a place for prisoners like you to get close. There are guards patrolling here often. If you don’t want to get beaten up and dragged back to your cell, you’d better leave quickly. They’re not afraid of you, the King in Yellow.”

“So, the title of King in Yellow is a frame-up. My name is Li Yili,” Li Yili raised her finger and bent it toward Chris Dorf, “and the jailers won’t beat me.”

Chris Dougher, who had originally planned to leave, became interested.

"Why? Could it be that you're an undercover agent sent by some important figure to Teresa Prison?"

Li Yili's face twitched.

He really wanted to answer that way, but damn it, the Valkyrie of Theresa's prison hadn't reacted at all. Now he was truly isolated and helpless, with no trump cards at all. If he acted arrogantly at this time, he would most likely get beaten up.

"Because I..."

"who are you?"

Before Li Yili could finish speaking, several prison guards quickly walked over. To avoid being beaten before she could finish speaking, Li Yili quickly raised her hands.

“Report—I am Levi-Ist Richard. No one told me where the excavation site is, so I am lost.”

Chapter Eleven: Reaching Deeper, Reaching Forward to Antiquity

Using clever tricks can make life less awkward, but clever tricks aren't always useful. If you use them too much, it will be seen as arrogance by some people.

The benefits that people who make a living by being cunning are limited. People in the upper class naturally don't care about the self-esteem and face of those who are cunning; they only do so because it is convenient.

If things get too high-profile or go too far, it will displease those in power, who value their own feelings far more than any fixed amount of profit.

Moreover... people who rely on petty tricks have no self-respect or pride; even if they get kicked away, they'll crawl back with their tongues sticking out.

Simply put... he got beaten up.

A merciless punch to the stomach sent Li Yili sprawling to the ground, her body arching like a shrimp. The unimaginable pain made her muscles tense, making it impossible for her to even breathe, but Li Yili was still thinking.

That punch allowed him to confirm a lot of information.

First of all, the King in Yellow's intimidation is completely useless against the jailers. All the jailers probably know his background and how incompetent he is, and they can't pretend to be new jailers in front of him.

"Tsk—old bastards," the square-faced jailer scoffed unwillingly, then turned and left. The other jailers, who seemed to be one rank lower, did not leave, but they also looked down at Li Yili, who was curled up on the ground, with disdain.

"Hey—stop playing dead."

"Get up quickly, no one here will pity you."

Secondly, Valkyrie's face is completely useless!

Judging from the situation, no one in this prison knows that he is an undercover agent from the Galar Horn who infiltrated the Black Goat's cubs, nor is he incarcerated in Theresa Prison on charges of receiving a salary without working.

In terms of intelligence, this punch was well worth it.

Before Li Yili could recover, a prison guard became impatient and bent down to pull her up.

"I'll only show you the way once. If this happens again, you're dead!"

Li Yili was dragged directly to a mine-like underground area of ​​Teresa Prison by the prison guards. There were no tools available, and the guards simply threw Li Yili inside.

"Damn it..."

The flimsy-looking supporting structure around the mine made Li Yili extremely reluctant to enter, but thanks to the irritable prison guards, he arrived at the mine much earlier than all the other prisoners who were going to mine.

Given his current disheveled state, it's unlikely he could possibly pretend to be a jailer in front of the prisoners.

Li Yili wiped his mouth and braced himself as he entered the mine. Holding onto the uneven support structure, he descended the mine. Soon, some broken murals and stone statues appeared before him. Li Yili knew he had reached a place where he could dig up the heritage, but he did not stop there. Instead, he continued forward. He could not dig for heritage with the other prisoners.

Li Yili, who hadn't been there in a long time, recalled the days she spent exploring the Temple of Gowwitton.

However, the road ahead is much more difficult than before. At least the Temple of Gowwitton, though dilapidated, has a portion above ground and its internal passages are straight. In contrast, the temples of Theresa's Prison are an incalculable number of temples stacked together and buried underground.

Because there was Theresa's prison above, it was impossible to excavate the temple itself. They could only dig a tunnel, like rats digging, down to the shallowest part of the burial site, and then follow the path...

The temple was dug up to find the entrance, and then the interior space of the temple was explored further downwards.

This is an extremely dangerous operation. The temple's solid structure does not mean it is immune to collapse. Based on the extent of damage to the murals and statues, the prisoners who came here to excavate were simply using mining methods to smash and dig indiscriminately. The more ancient divine heritage is dug away, the more the temple's mystery diminishes.

The Gowerton Temple, which couldn't even be unearthed as part of the legacy of an ancient god, had shown him just how dilapidated a temple could be.

Therefore, a direct collapse is not impossible.

Of course, the most dangerous thing that the Temple of Gowwitton showed him was not how dilapidated it would become after it was hollowed out.

But thinking about it carefully...

They're digging up prisoners, so what if it collapses? There are plenty of prisoners, we can just dig it up again.

Moreover, with so many prisoners who are practically indistinguishable from contaminated objects... it's impossible for a situation like the one at the Temple of Gowwitton to occur.

The narrow passage suddenly became incredibly wide, but it wasn't a spaciousness that made one feel relieved; on the contrary, what lay before Li Yili was the site of the shallowest part of the temple, with pillars that looked as if they had been gnawed by termites everywhere, and even a lot of soil that had been squeezed into the interior of the temple.

Clearly, the prisoners here also knew that the deeper they dug, the more intact and ancient the temple would become, but also the more dangerous it would be. Moreover... if a new gold mine were discovered, the capitalists would inevitably whip the cheap laborers to work day and night, and the performance requirements would rise sharply.

So the prisoners here would dig as deep as they could at the shallowest part of the temple, and only when they had no other choice would they tentatively dig into the deeper parts of the temple.

Li Yili did not linger in the sacrificial hall of the temple at the shallowest point, nor did she take another passage to the temple at the same depth; instead, she went straight down.

The temples at the shallowest part of Theresa Prison have probably been excavated to the point where they are comparable to the Temple of Gowwitton over the years. The temples two or three more in the future are probably in no better condition. Therefore, he must go deeper to explore the ancient parts of Theresa Prison that the prisoners have not yet encountered.

It might seem from the surface that he was trying to avoid taking away the living space of other prisoners at the bottom of the food chain, forcing those already pitiful guys to take risks. But Li Yili knew very well what he was thinking. As the weakest prisoner in Teresa Prison, how could he possibly have the right to sympathize with prisoners who were many times stronger than him in terms of life?

He couldn't even stand openly in front of other prisoners as a fellow inmate.

The guard's merciless punch, and the fact that she was completely alone and helpless, only strengthened Li Yili's resolve.

The social game of mutual exploitation and skillful maneuvering is over.

The brutal law of the jungle has begun.

In a situation where he could be exposed to prisoners whose lives were of a higher level than his at any time, there was only one way to protect himself as quickly as possible.

Li Yili paused, looking down at the ominous stone gate at her feet, half-covered by cold, damp earth.

"risk--"

Li Yili subconsciously raised her hand and brushed it across her left thumb.

"In this world, there are only zero times and infinite times. Since I've decided to do it..."

Li Yili exhaled and put her hands on her hips.

"Then we have to do it well."

"It's been three years since it was canceled."

Chapter Twelve: Chris Dorf's Tribute

When Li Yili reappeared in front of Chrisdorf at 11:50 p.m., she was no longer as calm and relaxed as when they first met. She was covered in dirt, as if she had been attacked by some wild beast. Her clothes were torn on her back and legs, and underneath were filthy bloodstains.

Chris Dorf knew what that was.

The monstrous hound, a desecrated pursuer baring its fangs at filthy thieves, suddenly began appearing frequently in the corners of the temple months ago, silently attacking those who were digging up ancient artifacts with their backs to the corners, and sometimes even chasing them out of the temple to attack those who were wantonly enjoying the ancient things.

Over the past few months, countless prisoners have been injured by the strange dog due to their carelessness.

Chris Dorf wanted to say to Li Yili, "Haven't you had enough of a beating? I told you not to go near Teresa's Path."

However, it must be said that Li Yili was very clever. At this time, the prisoners had all returned to their cells in advance, and the guards who were waiting for the prisoners to figure out the Iron Maiden's rules of action would not come out to patrol. This was the best time for the prisoners to approach Teresa's Path.

Of course, he was only getting close, not taking advantage of the best time to escape from prison via Theresa's Road. As the only porter, he only needed to call out that the end of Theresa's Road would be blocked, and after those few minutes of immobility, the prison guards would swarm out.

No prisoner would be foolish enough to try to escape via the Teresa Way.

But Chris Dorf swore that when Li Yili stepped into Teresa's Path without hesitation, Chris Dorf's heart was pounding with nervousness, because it was the first time a prisoner had entered Teresa's Path.