Purgatory (1)

"I have a piece of very bad news, Hela. I fear we are in another world."

Hela was stunned.

"… Sure?"

"Pretty much. I have entered dungeons before, and this place doesn't look like one."

Hela nodded.

To my surprise, she did not seem that scared or nervous.

"Are you not afraid?" I asked.

She tilted her head as though wondering why I asked that question.

"… You are here." She said while holding my hand tightly.

I was taken aback before smiling wryly.

"You trust me too much. Well, it doesn't feel bad." I sighed. "I have a plan that could take us back to our world, but before that, I need to find Ley."

"I'll help."

"Thank you."

The problem is that I don't know how to find her.

The only technique I know that could help me is Understanding, but it can only show me stuff two or three hundred meters around me at most.

I asked Hela, but she did not know any method either.

My only option was to rely on the demon.

'Do you know any technique like that?'

[I do.] He nodded. [But none you can use with the little mana in your body. Why don't you try using Confidence in a different way?]

I was taken aback by the demon's words and nodded.

Up to now, Confidence has proven to be a very versatile technique. I have discovered several ways to use it.

Perhaps, I could discover another way now.

Activating Confidence, I tried to use it in a way that could help me to locate Ley.

But even after ten minutes, nothing happened.

The only thing I managed to do was to replicate the effects of Understanding.

[It looks like it did not work this time.] The demon clicked his tongue.

I sighed in disappointment.

After several more tries, I reached the conclusion it was not going to work.

It looks like the only way is to choose a direction and walk toward it with Understanding activated.

With a bit of luck, we should meet someone before long.

It's a very ignorant method, but we don't have any other way.

"Follow me," I told Hela and activated Understanding.

Quickly, a vague image of our surroundings appeared in my mind.

I chose a random direction and started walking.

Our walk was smooth at the start. Although we did not find other students, we failed to meet hostile creatures either.

But after five minutes of walking, I furrowed my brows.

"Something is wrong," I muttered.

"Huh?"

"Have you not noticed? We have not met any living being since we fell into this world besides plants and trees."

Hela was startled.

"No birds, not animals, not even insects." I continued. "It's like this place is death, with only trees remaining."

Hela's body tensed up.

At the same time, my expression became dark.

As we continued walking without finding any signs of life, my expression became darker and darker.

A terrifying guess started to form in my mind.

All of a sudden, the hairs on my body stood up.

An ominous sense of danger assaulted me. My body became cold, and my pupils dilated.

Something dangerous was coming.

Strangely, I could not detect anything using Understanding, but my instincts were warning me that something was approaching us.

And we must not let it find us.

Without hesitation, I pulled Hela into my arms and entered a tree hollow nearby.

"Huh?"

"Shh! Don't move any muscle," I whispered while activating confidence and using it to mask our auras with the aura of the trees.

This was a method I learned when facing the spiders during my second dungeon.

I was worried about using it on Hela, but it worked better than I expected.

"Don't breathe," I muttered when I felt the threat reach the highest level.

At that moment, that appeared.

It was a translucid creature, without eyes, ears, or limbs. Its body resembled mist, hovering in the air carefreely as it moved through the trees.

It seemed to be searching for something, as the countless mouth-like organs on the surface of its body opened and closed as though trying to taste a certain scent.

Hela's eyes widened, and her heart started to beat fast.

My heart was beating just as fast. The ominous and creepy creature emitted a powerful sense of terror and dread, warning us that we should not allow ourselves to be discovered.

Instinctively, we knew that we were not its match.

And at the moment we were discovered, it was going to be our end.

The creature hovered around us for a while. Its movements were slow and erratic as its mouths continued opening and closing repeatedly, trying to find us.

Fortunately, the method I used to hide us seemed to work.

Even though the creature approached our location several times, it never found us.

We did our best to suppress our breathing the entire time, without making the slightest noise.

Finally, after almost five minutes, the creature slowly left.

Once it was gone, Hela and I let out sighs of relief.

Our bodies were drenched in sweat due to fear, and our faces were completely pale.

"… What was that?"

"A specter," I muttered, my face ashen white. "I think I know where we are."

When dungeons appeared, they connected our planet to five different worlds.

Lyea, the birthplace of the eblors.

Tyre 165, under the rule of the celers.

Aria, inhabited by orcs.

The wasteland, filled with all kinds of monsters and dangerous creatures.

And finally, the most dangerous place of all.

A desolated world, filled with nothing but starving spirits, hungry for blood, flesh, and souls.

Humanity named it the ghostland.

At the same time, they gave it another name.

Purgatory