Area Clear: Zero — Meilin

I fell.

We were resting in the desert only a second ago, and now I’m stuck in a pit.

Strangely, I can’t seem to see the sky.

Perhaps the rubble has covered the exit. Shame, I could’ve used a spell to fly out. But with all the debris, I might just get buried alive.

“How annoying.” I got separated from the others as well. I only have one spellbook with me, and it doesn't contain any spells for locating lost people.

Suppose I can try following the ominous path.

The place was warm and cozy, compared to the cold desert. Candles lit up the path, which was convenient, but something tells me they shouldn’t be lit. This was an enclosed space, which meant there wouldn't be enough oxygen for the fire to burn, unless there were an exit for air to enter.

The walls had unique patterns on them, each telling a story. Words were engraved in, but in an ancient language. “Is this the language the Arcana civilization speaks?” I ran my hand over the walls, and eventually came to a dead end.

“Should I blast it apart?” I held my staff towards the dead end, where a rock was blocking the path. No, something tells me this place is going to collapse if I do.

There must be another way…

“Translate.” A golden light shone on the ancient texts, and in a moment they were translated, not in the language of Elysium, but in my mother tongue. Each word first formed as pictures; then, one by one, they transformed into proper words, and then were aligned into sentences.

“Five thousand years ago, in the lands of Arc—Arkanashar…A human was sent down to the lands; he was the son of the goddess of purity, named the Prince. That was the beginning of the human reign and the start of Elysian. Elysian? Shouldn’t it be Elysium? The Prince was a mighty ruler of Arkanashar, until the former inhabitants of Elysian corrupted–” 

Something flashed in the corner of my eye. I turned around, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. “Corrupted the pure Prince by exposing him to magic, which was forbidden, and murdered the Prince. The former inhabitants of Elysian did that out of envy of the powerful, yet powerless humans. The goddess was outraged. The Prince was her most glorious piece of creation, a work of art, and the inhabitants had killed him. The goddess cursed the inhabitants, making them suffer the effects of a phenomenon now known as corruption, by tempting them with powerful magical instruments, known as orbs. Humans became a higher being than the inhabitants, who became errants, and that was the goddess's will and vengeance.”

How is this supposed to help me…

I looked around the place, looking for clues.

Am I supposed to pray to the goddess of purity? Maybe I should try blasting the wall after all.

But wait, there’s something unusual about the engravings. Some of the words were in a different font than others…and put together, they’d create:

”Find the crown prince.”

I was stumped.

Crown Prince? What even is that? A prince who wears a crown?

Wait. The passage doesn’t have exits; this big piece of rock blocks it. The other side was where I came from, and I’m sure that’s the start of the passage, because the story starts from there.

This place is enclosed. But the fire wouldn’t be lit unless there was oxygen. I stared at one of the larger candles, which was flickering weirdly.

I took a deep breath. How am I still breathing then? Things didn’t add up.

But the weirdest of all was the fire. There was no way a fire could last this long in a place without oxygen.

Without second thought, I pulled the largest candle down.

It flicked like a switch.

Perfect.

The stone wall slid out of place, revealing a chamber filled with gold.

“If I can take this to Earth, I might even be able to buy an apartment to live in with mom!” Wait, focus on the task right now! But if I can take a bit of the gold…

Huh?

There was a monumental tomb made entirely out of gold. Must be the Crown Prince’s tomb. My body bent on its own, paying respect to the dead. The corrupted Prince...I touched the tomb lightly, and a silhouette flickered in my vision: a young man crowned in gold, his handsome features melting, his eyes burning with a hunger that seemed to consume him. A disfigured voice hissed in my ear:

Corrupt and perish.

A shiver crept up my spine. Great. Now I’m hearing voices in tombs.

I pushed the tomb away instinctively, revealing a golden door that led to the exit. At the sight of the door, thoughts of the creepy voice wandered out of my mind.

Hooh, hooh!

I stuffed some gold coins inside my pockets and left for the exit.

“Jianyun?”

“Ah, Meilin. You beat me to it.” In front of me was Jianyun, in an identical passage to the one I was in before, with patterns of another story on the wall. However, the path ahead split into three: one neutral, one auspicious, and one ominous.

“You were trying to solve the riddle, too?” I looked at the rows of lit candles.

“Yep. But guess it’s not needed. You’re really a genius.” Jianyun looked genuinely impressed.

If I were a genius, I wouldn’t have ended up in a school of delinquents…whatever. “It’s simple. The candles aren’t supposed to be lit without oxygen. And in an underground place like this, there won’t be air.” Just simple science. “But it makes me wonder, how are we still breathing?”

“The scarves Miss Yasmin gave us. She once said it could assist in breathing even in places where it’s hard to breathe. I assumed it’s useful when sand is blowing in our faces, but I never expected it to work like this.”

Guess I wasn’t paying attention then…Still, it’s like Yasmin had already anticipated this happening. “There’s a dead end back there; we should go to one of these three passages.” One of them is emitting light, the other a dark aura, and the last was a typical passage.

“I came from that path.” Jianyun pointed to the standard passage. “We should take the less creepy-looking path, right?”

“Dunno, it might be a trap.”

Suddenly, a distorted scream came from the dark, ominous pathway. The sound was carried from faraway, but I recognised it immediately.

“Himari. It’s Himari. We have to go.” I instinctively grabbed Jianyun’s hand and rushed into the dark path.

Both of us ran for what seemed like hours in the pitch dark cave until we reached another intersection.

The smell of blood wafted through the air.

Monster corpses lay all over the ground, piled on top of each other. It was like a warzone. The sheer number of dead monsters was absurd. Not even the most significant trope of soldiers would be able to kill this many beasts.

In the middle of the remains was Himari. She was clutching an unconscious woman, no, a dead woman in her arms.

Growls came from the other two passages. A giant monster crawled out, with a menacing glare. Behind it, a swarm of animal-like monsters swam out. Beetles, snakes, scorpions, spiders, and lizards all loomed over a distressed Himari.

“Jianyun, take her!” I aimed my staff at the army of corruptions.

A nimble Jianyun swiftly slashed through the various monsters and carried Himari on his back. Unfortunately, he was unable to rescue the dead woman as well.

"Don't leave her!" Himari's scream rang in my ears as she was carried away.

My grip on the staff faltered for just a second. The woman is just another corpse anyway, but some part of me hesitated. No. She's dead. She can’t be saved.

I closed my eyes and rummaged through my memory. The number of monsters was overwhelming. A simple execution spell wouldn't work.

Back at Kingdom de Fleuve, I spent a lot of time reading spellbooks. From one of them, I learned of a formidable spell that takes massive energy to generate and can only be achieved with highly rare orbs. The spell clears everything in the affected area: monsters, corpses, walls, anything.

I hesitated. But looking at doom in front of me, I had no choice. The words burned and clawed at my throat as I chanted:

“Let this area be returned to zero. Let all tainted be cleared!”

“Area Clear:”

“ZERO.”

A flash of light blinded my eyes.

The spell had no sound. Or maybe the sound was so high-pitched that human ears couldn’t perceive it.

It was only after a moment that my sight returned to my eyes.

“Yulan.”

Himari was breathing shakily. Her whole body was shivering.

“You killed her.”

“You killed Ms Yulan.” She let out another painful screech. The sound pierced like glass through my ears, and the words shot like daggers through my heart.

The dead woman. She was Yulan.

Yulan is dead.

And I had erased her remains.