Divine Luck: SSS-Rank Battle Maid Harem

Nessa's foot and leg disappeared down into the emptiness beneath her. Instinctively, she reached out with her hands to catch herself. She managed to grab hold of Zach's sleeve, surprising him.

Fortunately, before she could drag him with her into the abyss that suddenly appeared right next to where they had walked, Alzara grabbed Zach. With him as the middle-man, she also pulled up Nessa.

Nessa's heart beat like a drum as she clutched Zach's shoulders hard and exhaled.

"That…" Nessa paused to take a deep breath. "...was fucking scary." She stood up straight and let go of Zach to turn around and check if she could see where she had almost disappeared to.

She almost thought it might have been a tiny hole in the ground from a monster or something. However, she couldn't see anything through the thick underworld energy that was up to the middle of her thigh.

Right as she was about to gently tap the ground with her toes until she found the ledge she almost fell off of, the underworld energy moved.

Like the ocean waves, it first swept backward and slightly downward, beginning with where Nessa almost fell. Over a wide area, the underworld energy was sucked downward into the ground.

A couple of moments later, it was pushed back up again. It felt like there was more underworld energy on the way up than down.

"...I think I found the source, guys." Nessa boldly took credit for the discovery.

Of course, with how close they were, it had only been a matter of time before the underworld energy moved as it had just done and alerted them of the source's presence. Or maybe someone else would have happened to stumble upon the hole in the ground leading straight to the Underworld.

But no one commented. They were too busy realizing that Nessa had almost died or mapping out approximately how large the source of underworld energy was.

If it had been an ordinary hole or monster burrow, Nessa would have at most broken a leg. If she had fallen into the hole that underworld energy spewed out of, they could have forgotten about ever seeing her again.

After realizing that, Zach hastily pulled out several ropes from his bag.

"Let's tie ourselves together in case someone else falls. Then, grab a bunch of sticks. We should make a fence to prevent anyone from falling in and to confirm how large this hole is."

Zach was the club president and his orders made sense, so the others quickly carried them out. Their familiar helped them chop down and break trees until they had enough sticks to mark the circumference of the hole by jabbing them into the ground right next to it. They tied a thin rope around the tops of the sticks, finalizing a makeshift fence.

All of them had grim faces as they looked at the hole that was worryingly large. It wasn't so big that they couldn't see the other side, even with the dimness of the underworld energy in the air.

But it was far too wide to even think of jumping across. They could probably chuck a stone to the other side. But they wouldn't have been able to do that before they became summoners and leveled up a bunch.

It was a big hole, and it seemed to periodically be spewing up amounts of underworld energy that seemed insignificant at first but added up over time.

However, the size of the hole wasn't necessarily the problem. It was the fact that it was a hole that was the source of underworld energy.

How were they supposed to break a hole? Attacking it would only make it bigger.

There was probably something at the bottom of it. Why else would it look like the underworld energy was being pumped up? But climbing or entering the hole in any way was a suicide mission, even for Julius and his Mannequin, who wouldn't be as affected by the underworld energy.

"Can we fill it up?" Violina suggested. Since everyone was silent, they were free to come with suggestions of what to do.

And filling it up was a reasonable suggestion. If they blocked the hole, the underworld energy wouldn't come to the surface.

"The underworld energy will seep into the ground or they will remove anything we throw down." Unfortunately, filling it up wasn't viable in the long-term, and Anerias discarded the idea.

"What about using lasers?" Dukiel looked at Zach, ready to use the same move they used in their first year to drill a hole into the swamp Locale and the tiger's chest.

"Setting aside the difficulty of getting the right angle without risking falling into the hole, I don't think it will be enough. The underworld energy will block the lasers and reduce their strength far too much for them to do any damage when they hit the bottom."

"Still worth a shot?"

"Mm. If we can't come up with anything better, sure." Zach didn't outright reject Dukiel. It could do something. But it was more likely that it wouldn't do any real, lasting damage and would only piss of the underworlders.

Besides, Zach knew something that might work. He wasn't sure about it since he had no way of knowing what kind of effects it might have on the forest or anything else, so he didn't mention it just yet. Maybe the others could come up with a solution.

"Does anyone have any good connections?" Nessa suddenly asked.

"...Why?" Zach narrowed his eyes, feeling Nessa had something potentially nefarious in mind.

Nessa shrugged. "Explosives."

"..."

The others were a little taken aback by the nonchalance of how she suggested it. But they had to admit that it was a valid idea.

Unfortunately, no one had any connections.

"...I might be able to get some from my family." Almost no one. Violina was the daughter of a duke.

"...Me too." And Zach was the son of a duke, the spoiled son of a duke, to be precise.

Only someone with influence on par with the royal family could freely use material as restricted as all kinds of explosives. It was a material that could let even the weakest commoner kill a mage or a squad of knights.

As practical as it could be for mining, construction, and, in small enough doses, farming, it was not easy to get a hold of.