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Hector allowed himself to stop concentrating on his iron and relax somewhat.

‘Hector,’ came Garovel’s voice through the pitch darkness. The reaper sounded rather annoyed.

‘W-what?’

‘Oh, did you finally hear me? I’ve been trying to talk to you for a while, you know.’

He, in fact, did not know that, but Mr. Sheridan interrupted before Hector could answer.

“Thanks for saving my bacon there, son.” A rustling noise was also coming from his direction, as the man was perhaps trying to stand up. Then a small lamp flicked on in the palm of Mr. Sheridan’s glove.

At last, Hector could see again. He started annihilating some of his iron so that they could get a look outside. The meager lamplight didn’t extend very far, though.

‘Hector, I can sense Zeff and Axiolis down here, along with a few other people.’

That was a surprise. ‘You mean they fell down the hole after us?’

‘No, I think there were more holes than just ours. From what I was able to tell, things got pretty crazy up there.’

‘Where’s Zeff?’

The reaper detached himself from Hector’s arm and pointed in the direction opposite to the one that Hector had been looking. ‘About two hundred meters that way. Seems like they’re already headed toward us. I suggest we go meet them halfway.’

‘No argument here.’ Hector made a doorway in the box.

“H-hey, uh, son,” said Mr. Sheridan, causing Hector to pause and look back. “Would you mind helping me carry some of this?” He eyed the many, many gun parts strewn all over the box’s floor.

Oh right. Hector supposed all that stuff was pretty damn valuable. Not to mention, the big gun that they had been building was still there, too.

Hector stepped out of the box and motioned for the man to follow. When they were both clear, Hector annihilated all of the haphazard iron that he had created earlier while also remaking the box. Then he materialized an iron track for it and grew the box slowly along it.

“Hey, that’s pretty convenient,” said Mr. Sheridan as they started walking. “You interested in a job?”

Hector was hardly listening, however, as he had a more pressing question for Garovel. ‘Where are the worms?’

‘All over the place.’

Not what he wanted to hear. ‘Should we be running?’

‘Not as of yet. Fortunately for us, the worms seem to be going after the train.’

‘Oh, so the train got away?’

‘Yeah. It started moving a while ago, and now I can’t sense it anymore. All these worms must still be able to, though.’

At that news, Hector allowed himself to relax a little more.

“--chances are, huh?”

Hector realized that Mr. Sheridan had still been talking. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked what you thought our chances are,” the man said, less jovial than before. “Of getting out of this alive, I mean. You’ve got one of them reaper phantoms, right? And they can sense stuff, right?”

“Uh...”