"I can't believe it... I can't... I can't..." *cough*cough* - Enatsu coughed strongly, expelling from his throat the sludge he had been forced to inhale. The merchant threw himself to the ground, wiping his face with his hands and turning his gaze to the vaults of the cave.

The three demon pets were all safe and sound and, due to their small size, they had only partially got dirty with mud. The body of their tamers had blocked the advance of the moving walls, allowing them to breathe despite being forced into such a cramped space. ??

"Kenji... Kenji, where are you?" Yoichi called, rubbing the dry side of his arm against his eyes. The slimy, stinking mud was removed from his face, allowing him to see.

"The answer is correct, travellers from the capital. Please come closer," Ysai's wise voice spoke, rumbling in the room. It had now returned to its original size and, although it was only a couple of meters wide, it looked like a vast hall compared to its previous dimension.

Yoichi got off the ground and checked Kenji's condition. Both it and the demons of his companions were fine. From that detail, it was possible to understand that his colleagues were also safe and sound apart from the strong fright.

The young Nightblades tamer approached Shioko. The red-haired girl had her knees and hands resting on the ground. From her mouth came the sound of her crying.

Fearing she would not make it, she had let the most hidden emotions in her soul come to the surface: vulnerability and insecurities emerged as wrecks abandoned at the bottom of the ocean, forcing her into a state of despair.

Without overthinking about it, aware that Shioko's reaction could have been violent, Yoichi grabbed both of her arms.

His hands tightened the lower part of Shioko's biceps, and, with a minimal amount of strength, he lifted her light and feminine body. The archer, weirdly, did not oppose that movement, finally letting herself be helped.

Shioko returned to her feet while her gaze was still turned downwards. The bitter tears generated by the fear of dying had dug furrows in the mud on her face, causing it to drip down. historical

Her beautiful red hair was only partially dirty, amalgamated with that disgusting substance, capable of making look horrible anything that came in contact with it.

Shaking his right hand and wiping it over his trousers, Yoichi cleaned her off the mud. Gently, the young tamer stroked Shioko's face, doing the same thing and allowing her skin to start breathing again.

Enatsu, after standing up, could not believe his eyes. That severe, grumpy tamer was allowing Yoichi to touch her face. From her expression, it seemed that she had momentarily dissociated herself from reality, letting the hand of the young blonde-haired man touch her skin.

When the girl's face was cleared of all the mud, Yoichi moved his hand away, leaving her time to regain consciousness. Shioko's big green eyes reflected the white celestial light of the three headstones spirits as they reappeared at the bottom of the room.

Her gaze crossed with Yoichi's, sharing with him the happiness of being able to keep on living. Through their eyes, the two tamers whispered words without space and time, giving each other comfort.

"Krruuu!" – Nobu, for the first time, uttered its cry, fluttering happily near its tamer and flapping its butterfly face over her hair. "Have you seen, Nobu? We did it... we are safe and sound," she smiled, continuing to look at Yoichi out of the corner of her eye.

He knew that wasn't the best time to waste any more time. He turned to the three spirits, sensing the girl's gaze on him. In less than two days, the girl's stone heart was beginning to warm up, revealing her true friendly nature.

One step at a time, as he expected during his introspective talks with Enatsu, Shioko would become a good friend, as well as a valiant travel companion.

"Get a little closer, travellers!" Ysai's spirit repeated. His head had reopened its eyes, and his body was standing still on his feet.

The two side tombstones had been swept away, and there were only a few rubbles left of them. The central one, on the other hand, had shrunk, crushed along the edges. On it, Osai's legless spirit sat slyly, with the mysterious chest in his hands.

"By achieving this test, you have agreed to experience on your skin a small part of the fear that my brothers and I felt that sad day. However, your intellect has prevailed over it, and you have shown that you can solve a fairly simple conundrum even in extremely tense circumstances", Ysai continued. With a slow movement of his hands, his detached head nodded in a sign of approval.

"I was the cause of my brothers' death!" Asai admitted, standing in the place where his tombstone lay. "My greed and desire for wealth have wrecked our lives forever" he spoke, feeling sorry for himself.

"Despite this, Asai will forever be our younger brother. And what kind of older brother wouldn't forgive him?" Osai added. The wisdom of the two older brothers was considerably increasingly marked than that of the youngest.

"Not even death has been able to break the fraternal bond that binds us, and our spirits have remained forever in this cave. Our only goal is to help travellers who, like you, deserve to live. So we hope that you will give importance to the true values of life", Ysai stated.

"Love for one's family and friends. It is far superior to that of money and any other material goods. This is the lesson that each of you has learned today. We learned it hundreds of years ago, at the cost of our own lives," Asai commented. The voice of the youngest of the spirits, perhaps in his early twenties, was full of regrets.

The only thing that seemed to matter to him was sharing his message of hope.