The Cursed Extra-Chapter 141: [3.14] How to Make Your Team Take the Right Path

Chapter 141: [3.14] How to Make Your Team Take the Right Path

"The hardest part about manipulation is making people think it was their idea."

***

The fork in the tunnel appeared like a question mark carved from stone.

Two paths diverged into darkness ahead of us. Each one promising its own particular brand of death.

I stood there at the junction. Let my shoulders slump into that posture of defeat I’d spent weeks perfecting. While my mind ran through angles, timing, and the exact words needed to save four lives without revealing I was anything more than a pathetic coward who’d stumbled his way this far through dumb luck.

Marcus clutched his tactical manual against his chest like it was some kind of shield that could ward off the things lurking in these tunnels. His ink-stained fingers trembled as he consulted the worn pages. Flipped between sections with increasing desperation.

The poor bastard had been relying on theory since we’d first descended into this labyrinth.

Theory was about to get him killed if I didn’t intervene soon.

"The wider passage is clearly marked as the primary route," he said. His voice carried that particular strain of someone trying to sound confident while terrified out of his mind. His finger traced along a diagram that showed the tunnel system in neat, orderly lines.

"According to the structural analysis conducted during the pre-imperial mining era, it should connect directly to the Central Nexus. That puts us on the optimal path to the eastern extraction points." 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

He looked up from his manual. Sought validation that wouldn’t come. The torchlight caught the lenses of his spectacles. Made his eyes look like twin flames in the darkness.

"No."

The word came out sharper than I’d intended. Caused all three of my teammates to turn toward me.

Their expressions ranged from surprise to confusion to something that might have been suspicion.

I quickly adjusted my posture. Hunched my shoulders forward. Let my voice climb to that whining pitch I’d perfected over weeks of careful practice.

The transformation was instant. Gone was the momentary flash of authority. Replaced by the sniveling noble everyone expected to see.

"I mean... I don’t like it." I wrung my hands together. The gesture appropriately weak and indecisive. "It feels wrong. Something about that tunnel just... it doesn’t feel safe."

Thomlin shifted his weight from foot to foot. His sword hung loose in his grip. The blade was well-made, academy-issued steel that had probably never tasted blood before today.

His pale face glistened with sweat that had nothing to do with the tunnel’s temperature. We were deep enough underground that the air had dropped to a constant cool. Yet Thomlin looked like he’d run a marathon in summer sun.

Fear did that to people.

"What do you mean, wrong?" he asked. Though his eyes kept darting toward the wider tunnel as if expecting something to emerge from its depths at any moment. "Can you be more specific? Do you see something?"

I let my voice rise another octave. Channeled every pathetic noble stereotype these tunnels had ever seen.

"My father always said wide tunnels are where the biggest monsters live! They need the space to move around and... and eat people!" I gestured wildly at the broader passage. My movements deliberately uncontrolled and fearful. "Can’t you hear those noises? Something’s moving in there! I heard it. Just now. A scraping sound, like claws on stone."

I hadn’t heard anything of the sort.

But the power of suggestion was a weapon sharper than any sword in these tunnels. And I wielded it with the skill of someone whose survival depended on manipulation rather than might.

Marcus’s face contorted into the expression of someone caught between following protocol and acknowledging that his protocols might be written in blood. He flipped through his manual with increasing desperation.

"The manual doesn’t specifically address auditory threat assessment in confined spaces," he muttered. More to himself than to us. "But the structural advantages of the wider passage are clear from an engineering perspective. The ceiling height reduces the risk of collapse, and the width allows for formation-based defensive positioning."

He looked at me with something approaching contempt. The look of an intellectual forced to justify himself to someone he considered beneath him.

"Your father’s folk wisdom hardly constitutes valid tactical analysis."

Engineers built these tunnels for mining, not for keeping monsters out.

The wider passage leads straight to a dead end where something nasty has been waiting for decades. A nest of tunnel lurkers that the original novel’s protagonist stumbled into during his "heroic" moment.

The narrow path connects to the maintenance tunnel that leads to Rhys.

But I couldn’t say any of that. Couldn’t explain that I’d read about these tunnels in another life. In another world. Where they existed only as words on a screen.

Instead, I had to play the coward and hope someone else would make the logical choice based on instincts rather than information I shouldn’t possess.

"I vote for the narrow path," I said. My voice cracked at exactly the right moment. "I know I’m probably wrong. You’re the smart one, Marcus. You have the manual and the training and everything. I’m just... I’m scared. But please? I’ll feel safer if we don’t go that way."

I let my lower lip tremble. Just slightly. Just enough.

Seraphina had been silent throughout our debate. Stood slightly apart from the group with her arms crossed over her chest. Her grey eyes moved between the two passages with methodical assessment.

Her silver hair caught what little light our torches provided. Created a halo effect that made her seem almost ethereal in the tunnel’s oppressive darkness. She wore the charcoal-grey uniform of House Onyx like everyone else. But somehow she made it look like something more.

When she finally spoke, her voice carried quiet authority. Her words landed in the space between us like stones dropped into still water.

"He may be a coward," she said. Her gaze shifted to meet mine with uncomfortable directness. "But his cowardice has kept us safe so far."

The statement hung in the air.

I felt something cold settle in my stomach.

Seraphina’s grey eyes held something that made my carefully constructed facade feel transparent as glass.

She’d been watching me.

Not casually. Not incidentally. But with the focused attention of a researcher tracking data points.

She’d seen something that contradicted the performance I’d been giving. I could tell from the slight tilt of her head. The way her gaze lingered on my hands. My posture. The microexpressions I thought I’d been hiding.

How much does she know?