"Damn it, easy, easy, my body is very fatigued. If something happens to me, remember you will not escape your boss''s wrath as well," Myne complained to two guards who were locking him in a small, one-person prison cell. The cell was completely sealed except for a small metal door at the front. There was no window in the cell, making it more of a solitary confinement compartment.

    After the guards walked out and closed the door, the entire cell was plunged into darkness, without any source of light. This was quite scary, especially for someone like Myne who didn''t like being confined in small, enclosed spaces. For him, it was no different from a nightmare.

    "Thankfully, I prepared and bought the Ethereal Phase skill this time to deal with these kinds of unexpected surprises," Myne muttered with relief as he turned transparent and easily freed himself from the handcuffs. He then poked his head out of the iron door like a ghost and found that no one was guarding him. Surprisingly, most of the prisoners, only two others besides him in an entire prison with over 50 cells, were very well-behaved.

    Because he wanted to dig out information from the red-haired hottie, as he did with the old man Tharnak, Myne didn''t plan to escape immediately. Instead, he walked out of the cell, opened the small window on the metal door for some light, and under the astonished gaze of the two prisoners and three bat guards on the ceiling, he walked back into his cell as if it were his own house. After all, if he didn''t want to get caught with his own initiative, why didn''t he use Ethereal Phase at the beginning to explore the castle?

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    He was very well aware of the feeling of being watched the entire time, especially when an entire group of people were watching him with murderous gazes as if they couldn''t wait to eat him alive, although he couldn''t detect the whereabouts those people, this doesn''t mean he couldn''t even sense their friendly gazes?

    Now it''s much better. I wonder how long it will take that woman to come to me for interrogation. Should I check out my other clone''s situation? According to the time, he should be on the verge of finding the entrance, Myne thought while rubbing his chin. After a few minutes, when he confirmed that no one was coming to bother him, he instructed his clone not to mess up and quickly transferred his consciousness into Clone No. 4, who was blindly walking in a dark and desolate passage.

    "Huh? What the f*ck? Where am I this time? And why are there so many people? Where did all of them come from?" Myne opened his eyes to his clone''s body, only to find himself standing in the middle of a large, dark, basement-like place with dim orange light from fire torches on the walls illuminating the surroundings. Beside him stood 50 or so people of all ages, from child to old. They had frightened and disbelieving expressions, shouting nonsense like "What''s going on?", "How did I come here?", "Did someone kidnap me?", etc. Overall, none of them were clear about their situation.

    Myne listened to their conversation while looking around, and a frown appeared on his face. According to these people, all of them were sleeping in their homes before coming here, and it didn''t look like they had entered the canyon like him or experienced the painful feeling of walking through the space passage for seven hours. But no one woke up in the middle, which was very abnormal. It was as if something was forcing them to sleep continuously before walking out of a space passage.

    "Huh? Wait a minute, is that a magic array? Oye, Uncle, please move aside a bit," Myne, who was standing in the middle of the crowd and could barely see much, looked down because someone stepped hard on his poor feet. But suddenly, he found that the entire ground was covered with bloody marks. At first glance, they looked like random markings, but after observing them carefully, you could see the hidden array between those marks.

    Just as Myne pushed aside a random uncle to get a clear look at the array, the array suddenly shone with a dim light so faint that it was easily ignored if someone wasn''t paying attention. With a small white light, a confused middle-aged lady holding a crying child around one year old in her arms appeared in front of Myne.

    Nodding with satisfaction at everyone''s reaction, Myne threw the fireball at the iron door.

    BOOM!

    The entire basement shook violently, and dust started falling from the ceiling. For a moment, the crowd thought they were going to be buried alive. Although the effect and aftermath of the fireball were a bit scary, almost giving ordinary people heart attacks, the result was satisfactory: the iron door was blown away, revealing the staircase leading to freedom. Of course, two guards stood in front of the iron door, their lives and deaths were unknown.

    Since Myne was the only one who wasn''t cursing himself for such a reckless move, and free enough, he checked on the two unfortunate souls lying on the staircase, covered in blood. These two had pale skin as if they hadn''t seen the sun for years, and strange marks on their faces, making their already ugly face even uglier. They wore old clothes with many holes in them, looked no different than baggers, and clearly didn''t seem in good condition.

    After casually inspecting the two guards, who were still breathing, Myne started climbing the stairs, ignoring the shouts coming from behind him. He could easily guess what those people wanted: it is the same cliche? nonsense about helping them for humanity''s sake, the strong protecting the weak, etc. Myne fully believed that if he let those people speak, they would try to climb on his head within minutes, and he would end up becoming their nanny—of course, only if he compromised his limits.

    "F*ck, what an arrogant brat! Who does he think he is? We just wanted to cooperate to increase our chances of going home, but look at him!" A middle-aged man with a receding hairline spoke angrily, wiping his face with a handkerchief.

    "Forget him, Mr. Wanko. He helped us open the door, and that''s enough. We can''t expect a stranger to help us for no reason. We have nothing to offer him, nor the strength to provide any help, so obviously he doesn''t want to listen to weaklings like us," said an old man in his early fifties, who looked like a scholar. He wore loose robes, cheap glasses, and had a handful of white hair on his head. He clearly understood why Myne didn''t want to waste his time on them.

    "Then what should we do now?" Asked a young man around 25 with long brown hair, dressed like a fisherman, nervously.

    "Is there even a need to ask? Quickly follow him. We are all ordinary people without any special skills, and we won''t be able to get out of this creepy place on our own. But if we are careful enough and follow that young man, there''s at least a chance we can get out. He seems very strong. I''ve never seen someone create such a big fireball in my entire life."

    "He''s by no means an ordinary guy. Quickly call out to everyone. Don''t waste too much time. If that young man runs away while the master of this place is unaware, and we get surrounded afterwards, we won''t end well," The wise old man explained. Although his words were caring, his actions were honest. He didn''t care about the life and death of others, but after finishing speaking, he quickly rushed toward Myne.

    The others looked at each other, and a big guy hurriedly told others to follow them. They also chased after the old man. No one bothered to explain the real situation to the people at the back, who, like brainless goats, also didn''t care where everyone going and started trailing behind the rest.