Chapter 99

After resting some more in the safe area, I resume trying to find my way out of here. One hour went to several, as the cycle of me either retracing the path I came from, where there were no traps in it, triggering only one really unfair trap, or… triggering a goddamn chain of traps, followed by that boulder coming my way, forcing me to run into the two more safe areas I’ve managed to find.

That boulder is not normal; it definitely has a mind of its own. What else could explain it?

Bags under my eyes, I looked again at my phone to see what time it was. It was 2:12 am, meaning I had been trapped here for nearly a day now.

So far, what I have learned from this place is that this maze, for some reason, didn’t have any dead ends. Fortunately or not, I also learned that the goddamn boulder keeps on finding and chasing me; it only happens each time I set off a chain of traps, not just the one trap I’d set off.

Clare must be really worried right now. I need to get back as fast as possible. The problem is, I have to be extremely careful—this place is packed with deadly traps, I need to conserve my resources like potions and mana, and honestly, it doesn’t even feel like I’m getting any closer to where I started.

I’d complain in my mind about this, as it was the only thing that would stop me from blowing a gasket if I’d stopped myself from thinking about it, till I reached the third safe area I’ve found. There I sat in a corner and rested, taking out the rations I had bought the day before, which consisted of crackers, fruit, and dried meat, as it had been hours since I had eaten anything. I can deal with being tired and maybe having my patience run dry, but adding hunger to the mix dragged my already rock-bottom mood straight down to bedrock.

Snacking on them, and once I was no longer feeling my stomach was starving for food, I then focused on regaining my mana since the last couple of traps required me to spend a decent amount to get out of them or fight my way out of them.

I’d gotten lucky with the last few, where I’d found the passage I came from or entered into one with just a trap in it, instead of a trap chain, and then chose the correct one. The last one was a spike that came at me at both ends of the passage when I was at the midpoint, in which I had to use my mana nature to enhance my body for more strength, and my sword to be more sturdy and sharper to be able to cut apart the spikes.

Honestly, are the traps getting harder? Because that wasn’t the only one that got harder, like the pitfall trap, where it had the whole floor in the passageway collapsing onto itself, or those swing axe and saw traps coming at me way too fast, like a speeding car.

Feeling not too tired, I continued my way through this godforsaken maze till it was the afternoon already. My eyelids, already feeling heavy, felt even more so, but I endured it because if I could go without sleep for days at a time whenever I played my games in my past life, I could do so here as well; this is nowhere near my limit. However, what was actually reaching my limit was my patience, long overdue for an outlet.

Gahh!!! Why the heck is it taking so long? I should be out by now, right? I am really going to lose it right about now.

If this were a game from my world, honestly, people would review bomb it because of how annoying and unfair this was. The whole gimmick of this place was really annoying.

I’d want to punch the guy who thought that was a good idea. No, I'm going to punch Athrun instead. No, scratch that, I’m going to castrate him when we freaking meet up for sending me to a place like this. Never done that before, but I’d attempted it several times for some of the male names of pilots that got way, and I mean way, too annoying to deal with, in which Norn and I were only stopped by either Scott running to stop us most of the time or by the other soldier around us, who had to dogpile on us to keep us from moving while covering their own family jewels in the process.

Thinking that, as I walked through the passageway, which managed to keep me somewhat sane, I reached the end of the next set of passageways.

That’s when I saw it, something different from the endless cave passages. To my right in a forking passage, there I saw… The cave passageway gradually turned into a familiar, almost metallic white one.

Huh… That looks like a hallway from my world… It is… … … “No, you've got to be kidding me. It can’t be.”

The realization hit me like a truck. Am I going in the completely wrong direction?

It can’t be… right? No—I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but the more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes. The traps I’ve been running into have been getting harder to dodge… and a whole lot deadlier.

Getting to that realization, I realized the assumption I had made that the passageways without any traps in them, being the ones I had already set off as I was running from the boulder, was wrong.

No freaking way…

Unconsciously, I step forward, but I stop myself because there might be a trap there. So, carefully, I walked toward it and luckily didn’t encounter any traps.

All too familiar feelings swell in me, the feelings you get when you thought you had made progress on something, but you then found out you just wasted a ton of time, be it gathering the wrong type of material for that one certain sword you want, or even grinding for hours only to realize the specific quest item didn’t even drop in that area. I… I…

“Heh… heh… heh… ah ah ah!”

I laughed unconsciously, though I did not find there was anything funny about it—at least not from where I stood internally in my mind, no matter how it might have looked to an outside observer.

I really, really, really wanted to beat the hell out of something right about now.

No sooner had I wished for that than I consciously felt a smile tug at my lips as the very thing I wanted appeared.

A strange creature of some kind that looks like it was a mix of fantasy and sci-fi. It was a leathery 6-legged lizard that spanned half the width of the hallway, with one part of its body looking cybernetic, and the other had glowing marks similar to that drake I’d fought in the Dradevow dungeon or kaijus in my past life.

My smile grew bigger as I continued to laugh because, yes, that oversized lizard would have to do. I step forward, letting my bloodlust out, something I rarely do. Maybe a little indulgence, for just a bit, would calm me down.

Thinking that, like, it could sense my thought, it, for some reason, caused it to move back.

“GAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!”

For who knows how long, I’d made a path covered with the blood and corpses of whatever creatures I’d come across, all of them having similar cybernetic parts and markings across their bodies.

Blood covered the walls and floor, some more than others, as I was running through this part of the dungeon, with the sole intent of fighting whatever monsters showed up, and I was loving it—cutting… each… and… every… single… one… of… them.

These monsters were strong in this freaking dungeon, but that only made it better. I wanted more, more, more. Be my playthings, dear monsters, for all the pain this dungeon has put me through; it’s the least this place can do.

Eventually, I was at a dead end, filled with the corpses of various monster-like creatures that had tried to corner me there, standing on a floor slick with a massive puddle of their blue blood.

Aside from that enormous lizard, there had been lightning-fast birds with razor-sharp metallic feathers, swarms of six-winged bats capable of generating powerful gusts of wind, fire-breathing salamanders that could engulf the hallway in flames, snakes that could camouflage themselves and were covered in retractable metal spikes, and more.

“KEKEKEKEKE! Ah ahahahah!”

There walked out, and I saw a werewolf monster that could use electricity, and coincidentally enough, it offered a great source of mana for me to refill my own.

It was crawling using its arms since its lower half had already been cut off by me, of course. Such tenacity is quite lovely. I get to play with it much, much more than any normal monsters.

“Teh hehehehehehe.”

“Grr-huh!”

Huh… for a monster, why does it look scared? Silly monster, you can’t be scared. Now stop running away so I can kill you.

I don’t know why, as I was cackling to myself, but it felt like it was reading my mind and was crawling away even faster than before.

Seeing that, I slowly walked toward it, slowly catching up to it before stabbing my sword into its monster core.

A bit of my black electricity sparked down my sword as I felt a rush of mana flowing through me, replenishing a quarter of my total mana capacity, which includes my mana channels and choker.

I continued cackling to myself, looking for the next monster to fight through the blood-soaked hallways that would have looked like a horror show if it were not for the blue blood.

Unfortunately, no monsters appeared, and it felt like a ghost town, save for their corpses lying dead on the floor. It was almost as if I had exterminated every single one here.

Eventually, after aimlessly walking around for 15 minutes, my good mood was about to crumble till I spotted a hallway, something new that I had never gone through before.

At the end, there was a push-bar double door, and through its windows, I glimpsed what appeared to be a gymnasium.

Going in that direction, I went in there, giggled, and wondered what was in it because something fun was definitely in it.

Let's hope it's a boss or something that can actually have the chance to kill me.

“Heh heh heh hehehehehehe.”

As I entered, I saw the usual bleachers, basketball court, wooden floor, running track, and other typical gymnasium things it has, except that gym equipment was scattered haphazardly across the floor.

Right as I heard the doors closing and then locking on their own, which they weren’t supposed to do, I had a big and happy smile, knowing now this was a boss room.

Following the doors locking, I heard a really familiar rumbling, and it made me even more giddy with excitement.

I knew it; that fucking boulder really does have a mind of its own. I’m going to fucking kill it, I’m going to fucking kill it, I’m going to fucking kill it.

Unleashing all of my mana, something I’d never actually done before, black electricity sparks around me, and I feel my back burning as if there were two red-hot metal rods pressed against my back, but…

“AH AH AHAHAAHHAH!!!”

I ignored all that because I was clutching my stomach from laughing so much, watching a boulder coming from a separate pair of double doors, opposite to where I came from, to see what that thing was.

It immediately stopped as it entered and unrolled itself into what looked like a pillbug.

Like the other monsters in this dungeon, it had what seemed to be cybernetic parts and glowing markings on its underside. In addition, on its sides, in the middle of its body, there were what seemed to be a pair of cybernetic disk-like extensions, folded upward.

So this is the thing that was being a complete pain in the ass; it looks strong.

“Gah hahahahaha, DIE!!!”

I charged straight toward it, black electricity crackling throughout my body, aiming for the gaps in its exoskeleton; however, the disks on its sides glowed. My slash met some kind of barrier—no, a repelling force that kicked my sword back.

“Heheh, oh, interesting."

The disks glowed even brighter, and that repelling force surged forward, slamming into me. I used my cloak and arms to guard against it, but I was launched a couple of meters into the air.

Trying to get a bearing on my surroundings, I realized I was about to fall onto one of the scattered pieces of gym equipment, one for pull-ups, I believe—something that would surely impale me, so I adjusted my body midair to prevent that from happening.

However, I also saw the pillbug curled up into a ball, back to looking like a boulder, rolling toward where I was going to land.

Controlling my perception of time, the world seemed to slow around me as I landed on it after it rolled in an attempt to run me over.

I then pulled out a throwing knife, black electricity crackling as its edges blackened. There I saw a seam line across its side, which I guessed was its side discs, closed shut, protecting its sides that were left exposed when it rolled into a ball.

It was snapped completely shut, but I shoved my throwing knife anyway, followed by stomping my foot on it as I jumped away.

In doing so, I let out a laugh as I landed, because it did the trick, seeing that pillbug let out an unworldly screech as it crashed into the bleachers and unrolled itself to get my throwing knife out of it after being shocked.

That's right, you goddamn deserve that, you goddamn bug.

Watching its disc glow once again, the broken pieces of the debris from the destroyed bleachers floated up in the air, and it immediately threw them at me.

I moved, dodging and weaving through the debris, seeing the neat trick it did, not letting it hit me at all, as it rolled up into a ball and came rolling toward me.

It runs over the gym equipment, sending them flying as I didn’t try to move out of the way because, at the absolute last moment, I leap to the side, out of the way, letting it hit the sturdy, reinforced wall.

I watched it make a small crater in the wall, with cracks spreading out, which I capitalized on because that idiot stunned itself doing that.

Turning the edges of my sword black with crackling black electricity. I stabbed into its disc, in the seam line, where I previously stabbed a throwing knife, with all of the strength I had, enhanced by my mana nature.

Mana started flowing in me as I absorbed its abundant mana, replenishing mine, which I used to send more of my black electricity into it, absorbing even more mana in a feedback loop.

Feeling the surge of mana, power, and strength swelling within me, I laughed even more wildly, all the while ignoring the absolutely searing pain on my back.

“Ah—ha! Ha! Hahaha! More!! Give me more of your mana! That's only one of the two things you're good at! Give me more!”

Continuing to do that, I forced it to uncurl itself, leaving me open to pierce through its much weaker underside, specifically the gap in the underside of its exoskeleton where it connected the disc to the body.

“Come on, you bastard!”

With all my strength, I drove my sword upward into the air and then brought it back down in a single, sweeping downward strike, completely severing its left disk from its body.

However, with whatever strength it had left, as I stabbed it some more, continuing to electrify it and draining it dry, it made the other remaining disc glow, repelling me back.

Though not as powerful, I was still sent flying back; however, as I righted myself midair, I saw its right disc’s glowing markings start to glow even brighter than before, probably to compensate for only having one disc.

Ooh, that did something.

Still having sparks of my black electricity around its body, its left side was struggling to stand upright.

Dumbbells, barbells, medicine balls, weight plates, treadmills, elliptical machines, exercise bikes, and even equipment that was bolted to the floor got ripped free and hurled at me. It was way more than and way more dangerous than the last time it tried this, given the thing it was throwing.

Like before, I dodge and weave through the barrage, and a fun idea comes to mind. If it is throwing stuff at me, why can’t I?

Testing whether I could bypass its repelling barrier or something, I’d catch a weighted plate thrown at me and charge it with my mana, letting sparks of electricity around the rim, and throw it with all my strength.

I smiled, a massive, toothy grin spreading across my face, seeing that I smashed its ugly face.

Everything it had been holding in the air and everything it was about to throw suddenly stopped and came crashing to the ground.

Seeing that it worked, I’d picked up more stuff off the ground and thrown it at it. Causing it to move back with each thing I throw at it in a steady but annoying stream of stuff.

I caused it to make that otherworldly scream, and it rolled up into a ball. It made a mess of the stuff around it and rolled at me once again.

I, of course, dodge; however, when I try to do the same trick to give myself an opening, it is surprisingly smart enough to learn from it and not make the same mistake as before. It wasn’t as fast as it had originally been, though; it had slowed just enough to maintain precise control over itself.

“Oh, that is new, hehehehehe.”

Looking like I was fighting a bull, or something like that, like I was a matador, I skillfully dodged each of its attempts to run me over.

Doing it a couple of times, I tried to stab it once again each time I dodged, at its left side, where it didn’t have that disk anymore protecting it. But failing every time to stab it, as it would immediately turn in a different direction, I sheathed my swords and took out two of my throwing knives.

Holding them in my hands, I made a gamble as I poured nearly all of my mana into both of them. Basically, supercharging them, turning them almost entirely black in color, but just enough so they wouldn’t explode on me, I think, from how hot they were, caused by the magical circles overheating themselves on the knives.

Remembering when I fought that drake and how one of my throwing knives exploded, I wanted to see if it would work.

“Take this! Ghaahahahaha!!!”

I threw them at the same time, aimed at its exposed left side, specifically at the underside of its exoskeleton.

As the tips of each knife made contact, a sudden bright light appeared, followed by a loud explosion.

Covering myself with my cloak to protect me from the shrapnel, I then moved, not even looking at the damage I had done, to take advantage of the opening.

There, I saw the pillbug having parts of its underside and most of its front and left side legs gone, followed by its exoskeleton showing massive cracks around it. So, taking the opening to kill it, I thrust through its mouth and head, absorb its mana, and send out my black electricity.

It stood there motionless, and I wore a wide, beaming smile for a good while till I stopped and drew a long, deep breath to—

“SKRIII-RAAAAHHHH—!”

The pillbug, which I thought I had killed, suddenly moved and let out that god-awful screech; it was still alive.

What seemed to be its blood coming out of its mouth turned—no, came out a different color, purple in color, and it spewed it at me.

I quickly pulled out my sword and tried to dodge; however, I felt a force hitting me like a truck. For some reason, I felt my grip on my sword weaken, and it forced me to let go of my sword as the repelling blast also dragged in a purplish liquid it was spitting out, making it splatter across my left arm and a bit on my thigh.

Time slowed down once again as I used my left arm, which seemed to have acid burns on it, to use my cloak to shield me from the rest.

Crashing into the bleachers, I reinforced my back to brace for the landing. A sharp, heavy thud rang out the moment I hit the bleacher, followed by laughter, seeing what was in front of me at a distance.

“Ah ha ha—Ahahahaha. Man, I wasn’t expecting that.”

I watched as the pillbug suddenly started changing. Its blue markings suddenly burned into its body from the sizzling sounds I heard and smelled.

Didn’t think it could spit acid on me like that. Oh well, it’s nothing too serious that prevents me from using my left arm, I guess. So, while it is doing whatever it’s doing, I guess I should heal for now.

But as I tried to get up, I felt my left ankle twist the moment I put weight on it, with my right ankle giving out in the same way. I tumbled down into the seats below, using my right arm to shield my head from the impact.

However, in doing so, as I crashed and landed onto the following seats below me, I felt and saw my right arm twisting in a way that it was not supposed to.

This time, trying to get up, I took out the high-grade health potion Maria had gifted me and drank it first before carefully getting up as I muttered to myself.

“Huh… so this is me nearing my limit. How wonderful, that bug over there is also at its limits as well; it’s no longer a one-sided beatdown now, is it?”

I watched it, as I felt my body start to heal, curl up into a misshapen ball, with its glowing blue blood leaking out, and it began rolling straight toward me.

Accelerating much more than before, I smiled at its becoming much more reckless in its attempt to kill me.

Using my left arm, which still had some patches of acid burns left after I’d drunk the health potion Maria gave me, I forced my right arm back into place, and I leaped to the side, out of the way, enduring the pain and conserving what mana I had left, with my black hair glowing extremely faintly, showing how much I had left.

Unfortunately, I had to land and roll down the bleachers, stopping once I was on the floor to keep my distance. And while I was doing that, I saw something surprising that made me a bit peevish.

It hit the walls and was rolling up it, as I sensed a surprisingly massive amount of mana it was using. I guessed it normally wouldn’t do, but I wished it had done it from the start; that would have made the fight far more interesting.”

I continued to watch it roll up the wall and jump off it, arching into the air, looking like it was going to flatten me. In response to seeing what it was about to do, I quickly chose not to get flattened, and I pushed off with all my strength and leapt out of its landing spot just in time as I was lying on the ground.

The ground shook violently as a crater formed, and I was hit against the floor, rolling slightly from the shockwave after I jumped out of the way.

Getting up, I had to force my body to move; it was nearing its limits after that leap to dodge. My limbs felt heavy and unresponsive, and the fact that I could feel blood rushing down from my nose was a telltale sign of that. Even with the health potion I’d drunk, which should have healed all of my injuries, for some reason, it didn’t.

Forced to turn off using my magic, I took out my throwing knives, all those that had a limiter on them, and threw all three of them at it.

One at the mouth, two at its open left side. However, as the electricity started to spark and flow through its body, it barely fazed it.

Uncurling itself, it uses its remaining legs to climb out. It spews out acid, but I already know what to expect. I dashed out of the way as I got up, enduring each step because of my sprained ankles.

However, what I didn’t expect, no, should have expected, is that it was using its repelling ability to splash the acid in a wide, spread-out arc.

I covered myself with my cloak to protect myself from it, but some droplets did fall onto me and burned my skin.

Looking for my sword, which fell out of my hands, I desperately searched for it; however, when I spotted it, it was on the opposite side of the gymnasium, with that pill bug in the way.

“Heh heh heh… Well, this is a rather peculiar situation. Didn’t think I would be this cornered.”

Smiling as I said that and enjoying every bit of this, I guess that is what I’d get for letting my guard down.

I took out my throwing knives, which were the only weapons I had left since I left my short sword back in my room because I didn't think I needed it.

In my current state, I doubted I’d last much longer. All or nothing, I guess. How fun.

With how much mana I have left and nearing my body’s limits, there was only one way I could see to win this. Use that thing as a power source to finish it off.

My hair glowed black, and my eyes turned blue once more. I moved despite my body creaking, every motion feeling like it was on the verge of breaking.

In response to charging straight toward it, the markings on its body glowed brightly and burned it even more, spewing out more acid, followed by hurling a mess of debris and scattered gym equipment, all of it coated in acid.

I parry, block, and deflect whatever I can, and I even let myself get hit, but I rarely dodge because if I try to dodge with any sudden, sharp movements, it would, in all likelihood, break my legs. Then, covering myself with my cloak that was covered with holes, I ran through the shower of acid.

However, I went past it and was repelled back. I landed in a way that minimized the strain on my body, yet I could tell I only had about ten seconds left before I wouldn’t be able to move at all, no matter how hard I forced myself.

Throwing all of my throwing knives, save for one, I sprinted toward it again, racing against the clock.

I’d pass through the debris and gym equipment, then the rain of acid it was spitting out, and I held my very last throwing knife, in which I sensed and knew it was going to use its repelling ability.

In response, I made a quick decision that required me to sacrifice something just to get past it. Sending mana to my right leg, with all my strength in that leg, I slammed it on the ground to jump away toward the right, dodging its attack. But in doing so, I felt something breaking in there; maybe it’s a bone, but I didn’t care because victory was in my sights.

“GAH HA HA HA!!! Die!!!”

Then, sending mana toward my left leg, I used all my strength in that leg and propelled myself forward, toward it, all the while feeling something break in it as well.

Now on it, I held on, not letting go as I stabbed it between the gaps in its exoskeleton, using my left arm that still hasn’t healed from the acid burns, because I’m going to have to sacrifice my left arm to take the load, given that it was already injured, in which I still need to have one usable arm left.

Turning just the tip black to make sure it pierces through, I sent my black electricity into it and felt mana coursing into me.

The feeling of power fills my mind and body. This time, however, the searing hot burning pain from my back wasn’t the only pain I felt. Every fiber of my being felt like it was being ripped apart, causing me to cough up blood and have blood come from my nose even more from the strain. However, it was not just my body, but what I felt was my soul as well, a completely foreign pain I am not used to.

Not just that, as a massive amount of mana was constantly coursing through my left arm, absorbing and shocking that pillbug, I felt the searing hot pain on the left side of my back start to move like a vine or snake coiling around my left arm, but I laughed all that off because seeing the pillbug screech more than made up for that.

I endure everything, sending a constant feed of my mana at all of the throwing knives on it that I had thrown and shocking it with my black electricity to absorb its mana. The worst pain was in my left arm; however, after halfway through charging my throwing knives on it, I stopped feeling anything from there for some reason, which I was too busy to notice.

When I was just on the precipice, just before all of the throwing knives I’ve thrown on it and the one I was holding were seconds from blowing up, I used my right arm to push myself off the pillbug and wrapped myself with my completely tattered and ruined cloak to shield me from the blast.

I felt the force of the explosion hit me hard and send me flying in the air, and I crashed into a wall with my back, causing more blood to come out of my mouth. As I fell to the floor, with a thud, I giggled with what little strength I had and looked at the remains of that godforsaken pillbug to see all of the pretty massive holes and blown-up parts on it, fallen to the side, finally dead.

I continued to giggle for a good while now, from the rush of a good battle to the death, which was nice to have once in a while, till I recovered enough to use my only usable limb to get me up and leaning against the wall.

There, I took out my high-grade health potion and a regeneration potion, at which my smiling and giggling stopped, and I went back to an expressionless face once I realized I had to drink them.

Realizing that, I finally calmed down and soon experienced the full recoil of using my nature mana on my body to its limits that I was all but ignoring.

“Gah, everything hurts.”

Groaning in pain and starting to regret pushing my body too far during the fight, I look at the health potion, debating whether to drink it or not despite the pain, but the pain won out. So, downing it, I complain about the pain and complain even more when I drink the regeneration potion.

I waited for the potions to take effect, and when they did, they didn’t really help with the pain, but I pushed on and took out more of what's left of my stock of potions, in which I had only one medium-grade health potion and one and a half antidote potions left.

Seeing my desperately low stock of potions, I was reminded once again that I really underprepared for this place.

With a sigh, I took out my canteen of water, which was half empty, and unrolled the sleeves of my left arm, which I couldn’t seem to move at all, to see the patches of acid burns and scars like the ones from my back wrapping around my arm. I poured most of the water over it to wash away the acid, then used the rest on the spots where I got hit by it.

Then I poured half of the potion out and rubbed it into the fresh skin forming beneath the burned layers, making do with what little I had, saving the rest if I really need it later, since I’m… even more lost than I was originally.

Maybe… my fun time where I was letting myself completely loose from seeing those monsters might have been a bad idea.

After that thought, I took out my phone, hoping it hadn’t broken, which it hadn’t, to see that it was already seven in the morning.

Damn, I really spent the last few hours running through the hallways of this base in my world. Remembering it clearly in my head, I was running around killing whatever was moving. I all but ignored all the doors I had been passing by that could have been useful to me if I had checked them out.

Hmm… I wonder if I hadn’t remembered it or not, but… It’s strange that I hadn’t seen a number or an insignia of what base this was. Even stranger, there were no signs in the hallways that told you where you were, as if they had all been removed.

Feeling like a headache was coming on from overthinking it, I tried to remember if I’d seen any medical supply rooms while going around killing everything. I did recall the type of door they use—an automatic sliding door made of a clear metal that looked like glass—but the symbols on the doors were gone as well.

I guess that just proves this place had already been explored. But why would Athrun’s organization remove every identifiable marker for this base? Maybe it’s about keeping some kind of balance in this world by making it harder to identify this place if they've gotten this far?

Thinking about that and many other theories on the nature of the organization Athrun belonged to, which all seem like a stretch and dubious, I wonder if I could have somebody pick me up from whatever the name of that organization Athrun belongs to is. However, looking at the signal bars, I saw there were no bars at all, probably because I’m this deep into the dungeon, meaning that I can’t call Athrun or the Phil guy to pick me up.

Does that mean they are not tracking me or anything, because I didn’t really see any security cameras or the like here to monitor me? Then, should I find a main access terminal to see if it would work?

I remember passing by several of them, and I’d hope that they are still active because those things are built to be nearly indestructible, designed to keep working when every other system fails.

With that in mind, I sat, leaning my back against the wall for a good while, till it was around noon, or till I was finally feeling confident enough that I could still walk properly despite wobbling from a pair of fractured legs.

I grunted as I pushed myself up, gasping for breath with each step I took, given how exhausted and weakened I was, all the while using my right arm since my left was basically useless right now. Well… at least the pain is keeping me awake and sharp, I guess.

Practically dragging myself to pick up my sword and the throwing knives that didn’t explode since they had a limiter on them from the dead pillbug that still remained after I'd killed it. Despite all my unhealed injuries, I made my way back to the door I’d come from—knowing that if I didn’t, I’d run out of food and water before I could move somewhat normally again, which would take a couple of days at least.

Going through the door, I try to be as stealthy as possible for any monster, because just one would probably be the end of me, given my state, since I would be too injured to continue any further.

Fortunately and strangely enough, no monsters appeared. I stumbled through the hallways, passing door after door that I wished I could open but couldn’t because the electric locks were dead, and the emergency manual releases were sealed, requiring a specific key I didn’t have. Eventually, though, I found what I was looking for.

Finding a raised screen embedded in the wall, I unsteadily walked toward it, hoping that it would still work. However, when I’d touch the screen, nothing happened. Not trying to lose hope, I then felt around its edges, along the wall, searching for a power button.

There, I pressed on it, and then I held it down after it didn’t work the first time for a good 15 seconds or so for it to flicker into life.

Seeing that, a rush of hope filled inside me, and I felt like I could smile, though I knew I couldn’t.

I try pressing on its screen once again, but nothing happens.

No problem. If that doesn’t work, there are around a dozen redundancy systems in it. Who knew that demo meeting that I was forced to attend on this very device would come in so handy right about now?

I feel my hand on the corner of a panel under the access terminal and press on it, followed by pulling on it with my finger. It took some effort, probably because it hadn’t been used in ages, but it finally unfolded into a tray with a built-in mouse pad.

With that, I navigated through it, searching for directions to any medical area or room and hoping it could send a drone to pick me up—until a loading screen suddenly appeared, catching me completely off guard, since I hadn’t clicked on anything to cause it to appear.

Then, feeling my phone vibrate, I quickly pulled it out to see the notification because I shouldn’t get any, given I was this deep into a dungeon.

However, what I saw made me pause because my phone was showing the exact same loading screen as the access terminal in front of me.

Warily, I waited for it to finish, and I read the next thing it said, “Checkpoint unlock.”

Suddenly and without warning, the wall next to the access terminal slid back and upward, revealing a nearly pitch-dark stone corridor that led into another, much larger corridor. In the middle, a water channel ran along its length.

I looked back at my phone to check if there was any information to explain what was going on, when the next surprise came.

I saw the faint bits of an orange light in the corridor, and not just that, but I heard two pairs of footsteps, both of them talking to one another. One was a man's, and the other… someone I recognized but wasn’t expecting to see.

“So, what exactly happened to the sword of Damocles?”

The man spoke in an emotionless tone that reminded me of myself—only far colder, giving me goose bumps. Answering his question was… Queen Amalee, who is speaking in a surprisingly respectful tone, as if he were her boss or something, despite her position as queen of the country.

“Unfortunately, someone else got it before it was, or I should say it has already chosen a host.”

“Hmm…” Sounding under his expressionless and flat tone, I’d sense that “hmm” was him believing that it was troublesome, like, very.

“That is not good. How about the reclamation of the sword of Seraphim? How is that going?”

“We’re sending Alaric and his party as we speak, Director Mu.”

“Good, see that we get our hands on that sword; I will deal with the other, so….”

Pausing as he spoke, noticing the light coming from the hallway I was in, he said.

“Hm? That's odd… What?”

A smile formed unconsciously on my face at this completely new sensation going around my body. So this is what it’s like to have your hair stand on end.

That guy’s strong, extremely strong, and dangerous, and I could instinctively sense the difference in strength immediately for some reason, where, for the first time, I didn’t think, no, definitely lose to.

I—I… want to fight that guy.

“He he he he he.”

Letting my eye turn blue once again, and my hair glow black, I felt my body creak as it was forcing me to stop, but I wholly ignored all that because of another fun and interesting fight.

I was about to let out a laugh, but… as I did, I immediately began coughing up blood and fell to my knees.

“What the?”

Collapsing, as all strength left me, I crumpled onto my side, my body refusing to move.

More blood was coughed up from my mouth, and I saw a man with a hood covering his face, who came around the turn with a chilling aura, followed by Queen Amalee.

So… it was really her. Why the heck is she here, in a place like this?

Thinking that, my vision and consciousness were fading rapidly as I heard her somehow recognize and say my name.

“Rita?”