How to Get Girls, Get Rich, and Rule the World (Even If You're Ugly)
Chapter 62: How to Rescue Someone Who’d Never Admit Needed Saving (2)

Chapter 62: How to Rescue Someone Who’d Never Admit Needed Saving (2)

The cell felt smaller now. As if the information had swollen the space, pushed the air out, and left only the weight behind. My thoughts stumbled over each other, each one shoving the next as if it were the most urgent — and all of them wore the same face.

Thalia.

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to mentally reconstruct every street we had passed through, every place we had stopped, every face that watched us a second longer than it should have. It wasn’t paranoia. It was calculation. And every second lost in here was a move handed freely to the enemy — whatever that enemy might be.

I needed to get out.

The problem was... how.

I lifted my head and stared at the cracked ceiling, as if some answer might be hidden between the veins in the stone.

"Thinking about how to escape?" came the voice of the most useful idiot in the city.

"Thinking about not killing you before that."

Mordrek feigned a wounded smile, but he was far too used to that kind of response to be fazed.

"You don’t have to thank me just yet, but... I might have an idea."

I turned my face, just enough to glance at him sideways.

"Really? Which one of your brilliant ideas is it this time? Faking a seizure until the guard opens the cell?"

"Still a solid idea, but no," he replied, with that air of misunderstood genius he always put on whenever he was about to suggest something utterly stupid. "But... there’s an old drainage system behind the north block. The cells in this wing were built over what used to be an emergency reservoir from the old citadel. They forgot to seal off one of the passages properly. I... made friends with one of the rats down here. He told me."

I raised an eyebrow.

"You’re telling me your escape plan involves tunnels, sewage, and a talking rat?"

"Look, don’t judge the method. Judge the result. I got out through there once, years ago. Nearly died, of course. But I made it to the other side alive and with my liver intact."

I sighed. Long. Bitter. It was either that or wait for legal release the next morning, when some more sensible superior would review the records and realize it made no sense to imprison a half-orc covered in blood and mud with the look of a defeated hero next to an unconscious noble journalist. I mean, thinking like that, maybe it did make sense...

Either way, the only problem with waiting until morning was that, at this pace, Thalia didn’t have that luxury.

"Okay. Assuming the tunnel is still open. That the passage hasn’t collapsed or been sealed off. What do you get out of helping me?"

He smiled. That little smile of someone who had already built the entire argument before the question was even asked.

"My part of the deal is simple: we get out... together."

"Knew there’d be a catch."

"You need me. I know the paths. I know which guards doze off, I know where the magical surveillance has blind spots. I’ll get you out of here before the rooster crows. And in return, you let me come along. Fair enough, right?"

Fair. Except trusting Mordrek was like walking across a bridge made of pretty words over a river of lava.

"Do you have any idea how deep in shit we are?" I asked, not because I needed to, but to see if he still understood the weight of a choice. "If what you said is true, if Thalia’s been marked, and they’re in a hurry... this goes beyond smuggling. This is silent execution. Trail burning. People disappearing without any paperwork."

"And you think I’m stupid?" he replied, with rare sincerity. "I’ve been scared shitless since yesterday. But... I’m also stuck in here."

We stayed silent for a few seconds.

I stood up slowly. Walked over to the wall beside the door, where the stone had just enough moisture to suggest nearby plumbing.

I measured the time between the guards’ footsteps — I couldn’t hear clearly, but the vibrations on the floor gave away the rhythm. There was a window of, maybe, twenty seconds between each round. Not much. But it might be enough.

"If the tunnel’s still there," I said, "we’re going to need rope. Or something like it. And tools."

"I’ve thought of that. The straw piles in the cell below have metal buckles holding them down. They shock you if you pull too hard, but with the right knot you can break the magic lock."

"Sure. Have you tested it?"

"No. But I dreamed about it once. Almost worked."

I rolled my eyes. But the truth is, I was already drawing the route in my head. The only part still dangling was the reason.

Mordrek noticed. Maybe because of the restlessness in my pacing. Maybe because, even in the dark, it was clear I wasn’t breathing with the same calm as before.

He looked at me for a moment, then asked:

"Why are you so agitated, huh?"

It took me a second to answer. But when the words came out, they weren’t laced with sarcasm.

"Because I know the girl."

And then he knew.

He didn’t know her name. But the face... the face described in the darkness of Antoril’s illegal corridors... it was hers.

The stone on the left wall was colder than the one on the right. A ridiculous detail, but the kind of thing my mind noticed when trying to read the environment like a map of possibilities. The cell was small, sure, but not every small cell is the same.

Some hide promises beneath cracks; others bury routes in misaligned bars. This one, unfortunately, seemed more inclined to entomb than to liberate.

The ceiling was slightly domed — not enough to echo loudly, but just enough that each step in the corridor sounded like a lazy sigh stretched between faint reverberations.

There were two thin trickles of moisture running down the sides, one of them pooling in a corner with such insistence that the stone there looked darker than the rest. I stared at that spot for a few seconds. Maybe it was just moisture. Maybe more.

"Are you going to stare that wall into confessing?" Mordrek asked, his voice already dragging with boredom.

"I’m waiting for it to blink. Then I’ll decide whether to kiss it or punch it."

"You don’t know how to do both?"

I sighed. The idiot still thought he was in some kind of clever remark contest.

I stepped away from the wall and crouched down, running my fingers through the gaps between the stones. Nothing significant. No unevenness. No groove suggesting a hidden passage. Just the cold texture of institutional resignation.

"What if we pretended you had a breakdown?" he suggested, leaning lazily in the opposite corner. "You start shaking, fake some foam at the mouth, and I call the guard saying you accidentally swallowed an inverted rune."

"That would work if I looked like someone who swallows things without knowing."

"You look like someone who bites without chewing. Same difference."

I stood up, slowly, and walked to the cell door. The metal was thick, old, with hinges forged in a spiral pattern. An aesthetic choice by someone who clearly didn’t believe in uprisings — or had an above-average artistic budget. The bars were firm. The locks weren’t visible, which indicated a side-locking system or some kind of enchantment. Nothing I could force without time, tools, or a miracle.

"What if we broke the bowl?" Mordrek went on, pointing to the container where prisoners received the mixture of water and humiliation called soup. "We could use the shards as an improvised weapon. I lure the guard, you slit his throat..."

"Why would I kill a guard? I’m not a criminal!"

"Oh, right, Mister ’I’m in a cell but not a criminal.’ Got a better plan?"

"I haven’t even put a proper plan together yet!"

"And when are you going to do that? When we’ve been transferred to the interrogation block and my face gets used as a drum?"

"Maybe. Actually, your face would be great for that."

He scoffed. Crossed his arms, turned away, then looked back at me.

"Look, either we try something now, or we stay here trading insults and sweating together until someone remembers they locked us up for no reason."

"You realize your plan basically relies on luck and hopes that I improvise some stroke of genius?"

"Yup."

"You’re a criminal mastermind, Mordrek."

"I know."

Another silence. Denser, warmer.

I started pacing in small circles. Not out of nervousness. Out of necessity. I thought better in motion. Ideas bounced off the sides of my mind and came back stronger, more refined. But here... everything felt stuck. Until he had the brilliant idea to complain. Loudly.

"This is a waste of time! If it were just me, I’d have already shoved my head down that toilet hole and dug my way out with my teeth!"

"Then why don’t you?"

"Because I need your part of the deal, you half-baked half-man!"

"And I need a plan that involves more brain than spit, you walking disaster of poor decisions!"

"Then do something, damn it!"

He shouted.

Yes. He shouted.

And the sound echoed louder than it should have.

Outside, the footsteps changed.

A faster rhythm. Then a loud, metallic bang against the cell bars.

"What the hell’s going on in there?!"

The guard’s voice. Impatient, with that particular kind of anger born only in those who have low wages and too many night shifts.

Mordrek and I exchanged a glance.

And it was there.

That exact moment.

When something clicked.

Not in the bars.

In my head.

I stepped slowly toward the door.

Looked at the guard.

Smiled. Slow. Almost courteous.

And whispered:

"I have an idea."