“Excuse me, Guild Master?”

Alice raised her head. There were dark circles around her eyes, and her skin was unusually pale. “What is it?”

The messenger cleared his throat. “The skeleton leader was concerned about how much time you were spending inside this dungeon, so he sent someone here to solve your problem.” The messenger stepped to the side, revealing a dwarf’s figure. The dwarf waved his hand at Alice and grunted.

“Solve my problem?” Alice asked. She glanced to her side, where the researcher’s cell was located. The bald man was doodling on the walls with his food. There were too many numbers and symbols that Alice couldn’t make any sense of what he was doing, but she didn’t stop him because it was better than letting him pester her while she was working.

“That’s right,” the dwarf said and butted the messenger out of the way. “I heard you had a prisoner you wanted to keep locked up. Luckily for you, we recently developed something that you might find useful.” The dwarf bent down and pulled on a rope, dragging a box into the room. It wasn’t that big, only reaching up to the dwarf’s hips. He opened the box and pulled out a white garment.

“Pajamas?” Alice asked, her expression darkening. “Is Nate telling me to get some sleep?”

“No, no, you’re not the one who’s going to wear it,” the dwarf said and raised his hands, lifting the garment up. Despite his best efforts, the lower half of the garment remained on the ground. “This is a containment jacket. We developed it for the ongoing berserker issue.”

Alice raised an eyebrow. “How does it work?”

The dwarf glanced at the prisoner. “You stuff him inside this jacket, insert some of your mana into it, and that’s it. He won’t be able to move, and the only person that can free him is you.”

“What about food?” Alice asked. “Or what if he needs to use the bathroom?” From what she could tell by looking at the jacket, only the prisoner’s head would be exposed. “What’s to stop someone from taking him away?”

The dwarf raised an eyebrow. “He can eat just fine as long as someone feeds him,” he said. “As for using the bathroom…. There’s a hole in the cloth down here. It’ll be a bit messy, but he can do everything he needs to. Just leave him on top of a toilet.”

Alice’s brow furrowed. “And what stops someone from taking him away?”

The dwarf shrugged. “Isn’t that what the prison’s for? Why have a prison if you don’t think it’ll work?”

“I want to be prepared for extreme circumstances,” Alice said. “Nothing can happen to this prisoner. A friend entrusted him to me.”

The dwarf snorted. “How about this?” he asked. “I’ll forge some restraints for you and give you the key. Not even a dragon will be able to free him.”

Alice nodded. “Do it,” she said. “If it works, I’ll finally be able to leave this place.” She exhaled and leaned back in her seat, looking up at the moldy ceiling. What was Tafel doing? Why was she taking so long to retrieve her captive?

***

“And here, we have our first sealed evil,” Gren said, gesturing towards the left. There was a large chunk of translucent crystal embedded in the wall, and behind the crystal, there was a pocket of space. Inside the space, there was a stone statue that looked like a giant clam.

Ramon tilted his head. The sealed evil was even smaller than him. Seeing as it didn’t have any limbs or eyes or anything other than a shell and an unclear blob between its shells, Ramon felt like he could defeat it by himself. “What is it? Why is it sealed?”

“Right,” Kondra said and nodded. “It looks like a clam. Is this a joke?”

“Sealed evils are creatures that can break the balance of the world,” Gren said. “They’re also creatures that can’t be killed.” Gren gazed at the clam and shook her head. “This clam doesn’t belong to our world. It came down from the sky like a meteor. Although it isn’t belligerent, that doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.”

“Wait,” Leila said, raising a paw. “Sealed evils can’t be killed?” She glanced at Grimmy. “What happened to the ones we ate? I’m pretty sure they were dead.”

“Oh, they’re dead but not really dead,” Grimmy said and licked his lips. “I sealed their souls. If they’re unsealed, their physical forms will manifest again in a few hundred years.”

“All sealed evils are immortal?” Tafel asked.

“Not all of them,” Gren said. “For example, this clam isn’t immortal; in fact, it’s already dead. It was sealed in the first place because it emits an extremely toxic poison. Nothing will happen immediately if you touch the clam, but after several years pass, your body will inexplicably fall apart. Your skin will fall off your flesh; your flesh will fall off your bones; and your bones will dissolve into a puddle of goop.”

Ramon gulped and took his paw off the translucent crystal. “But it’s dead now, so it’s not poisonous anymore, right?”

“We’re not sure,” Gren said and shrugged. “It’s safer to keep it locked up and away from civilization. The poison it emitted filled the air, and even the plants that didn’t directly touch the clam had melted too.” Gren’s expression dimmed. “In fact, the clam was already dead by the time it was sealed, but the curse dragon that had sealed it also died in the same gruesome manner as all the other creatures several years later.”

Grimmy glanced at Vur before raising an eyebrow at Leila. “Do you think Vur could learn how to use that poison if we tossed him inside?”

Leila smacked Grimmy’s snout in response. “Sera will murder you.”

“Grimmy, if you another bad idea comes out of your mouth, I’m going to send you back to your room,” Gren said and narrowed her eyes at her son. “This is the evil-sealing tower. Save your shenanigans for somewhere else.”

Grimmy raised his front paws off the ground and put them in front of himself to show he meant no harm. “Fine, fine,” he said and rolled his eyes. “It was just a joke. Sheesh.”