Do it for Sophia, Lucia. Don’t you want to see Sophia again? She’ll be so sad if she never sees you again because you were executed in the immortal realm. And Softie’s poor heart will be broken too. Ilya might do her best to find my body after I’m dead, but rather than reviving me, I think she’ll turn my corpse into a weapon and give it to Sophia without telling her where it came from. How am I going to escape once I take these ropes off anyway? Hmm. Well, big tasks are accomplished by taking one small step at a time!

“She’s going to do it!”

Damn right, I am! I’ll raise mini-DalDal up and … whew. This is way scarier than I thought it’d be. I, I can’t do it. It has nothing to do with courage; the angle just isn’t right! How am I supposed to cleanly cut my head off while standing? It’s just not possible; I’ve never trained my slashing motions in that direction before. I mean, what kind of idiot would practice a technique that chops their own heads off? Right, I’m not scared, this just isn’t physically possible.

“Think of it like ripping a bandage off,” the bloody squirrel said. “All you need is one clean slice, and all the pain will go away as quickly as it appeared.”

…This really isn’t something that should be encouraged.

The gray squirrel looked at me. “Since you’ve been accused of meat smuggling, you really don’t have that much time to escape. Meat smugglers are the law enforcers first priority. Once that noose is off your neck, it won’t be hard to escape.”

Cutting off my own head is a lot easier said than done! Judging by the way this squirrel is speaking, he seems to have a plan to escape? Wasn’t he the one that said it was impossible in the first place? I should verify what his plan is first; after all, he’s a squirrel. What if his idea is dumb and doesn’t work? “How would I escape?”

“On paper, the cell is impossible to escape from,” the gray squirrel said. “However, the paper assumes the squirrels working in the prison are infallible. If you play dead, it won’t be hard to trick a squirrel into opening the cell to come checkup on you; the guards are fearless because they know we can’t do anything to them while these ropes are on us. All you have to do is pretend to be bound and unconscious, and when the guard comes in, you can knock him out and escape.”

That’s not a bad idea! I’m sure Ilya can come up with a better plan, but she’s not here right now. Hmm. I should get a second opinion though. Sir Pot came up with the plot to frame the law enforcers for starting the fire, and even though it didn’t work, it showed his intuitiveness! “What do you think of his plan, Sir Pot?”

It’s good, but it could be better! Instead of escaping, you can take the guard’s key and open all the cells. If you can figure out how the guards remove the binding ropes, you can start a prison break. Although it won’t be enough to defeat the supervisor, if everyone’s escaping at once, you’ll have a higher chance of eluding the supervisor when you run.

Ooh, that’s an even better plan! “Do you know how the guards take off these ropes? Once I knock him out, I’m planning on freeing everyone here; after all, we’re all innocent squirrels! Those law enforcers framed us because….” Hmm, why are they framing people?

“Because they want to make themselves look like they’re doing a good job,” the squirrel with blood covering her mouth said. “That’s right. I saw the guards release some squirrels before. They have special gloves that they put on. As long as you wear them, you can untie the ropes around us.”

When I first got here, I thought I was finished, but who knew a cell full of squirrels could come up with a way out? The only problem is … I still have to get rid of this rope around my neck. I can’t even use any qi to empower my attack, but luckily, mini-DalDal is really sharp. I cut through my legs pretty easily without much trouble, and if I could cut through two legs, one neck shouldn’t be a big deal! The issue is attaching my head back on after the rope comes off.

If your head separates from your body, it shouldn’t be a problem for me to come out since the rope’s influence won’t reach me anymore. Leave reattaching your head up to me.

Why can’t Durandal be as useful as Sir Pot? All Durandal does is get me into trouble, but Sir Pot helps me cook and escape from prison. Ah, forget it. How am I going to do this? If I hold the sword like this next to my neck, if I jerk my arms from right to left, would that be enough? What if I only cut halfway through?

“Here, let me help.”

Ah? What’s this bloody squirrel—! Gah! The floor’s coming closer to my face! Wait, no, my head is falling towards the floor! The stupid squirrel kicked my arm, and the sword cut off my head! I’m … not dead? Hmm, honestly, that didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. It happened so fast that I didn’t even have any time to register the pain! I can move my mouth, but I can’t speak. This is really weird. Ah, Sir Pot just came out of my tongue. Although he doesn’t have arms, apparently, he can move things anyway. What’s that word called? Telekinesis? Right, he can use my spiritual energy to move things. The rope slid off the remainder of my neck, and now I’m floating in the air! Well, my head is floating, and … it’s back on my body! Now I just need to circulate the Secret Phoenix Rebirth Technique, and … huh? I didn’t even use the technique, but my head’s already reattached to my body. I really think I would’ve grown a new body if Sir Pot didn’t piece me back together in time.

“How are you?” the bloody squirrel asked. “Still alive?”

The upper part of my robe is drenched in blood, but other than that, I’m perfectly fine! “Never do that again! I wasn’t ready!”