Lapsa (1)

Because she couldn't have any guards around her, she decided to hire a mercenary as a guard.

Revelations of lux were always very confusing and had many loopholes in them that required her to understand it on her own.

While she couldn't have a guard, a mercenary wasn't exactly a guard, which meant that it was okay for her to hire someone to protect her.

After all, her self-defense skills were mediocre at best.

At least she hoped that she was right, because if she wasn't she would've caused the elimination of all lives on the second layer.

However, after all that time as a saint, Aria grew pretty confident about her revelation solving skills, so she wasn't that worried about it at all.

Arriving at the capital, she went straight to the capital to go to the mercenary guild.

Unfortunately, she soon realized that all those mercenaries were already busy with the crisis of the blood moon.

She sighed, raising her head as she looked at her traveling companion.

Her new companion, Lapsa, as he called himself, luckily arrived in time to help her out of the predicament.

Although it seemed like he was just a newbie, his timing was just too convenient to not see it as a sign that she interpreted that revelation right.

Now it was just time to find the key.

Raising her head, she looked into the sky as she closed her eyes.

"May the light be with you." pausing walking, she took a moment to pray to her goddess,

"...what are you doing..?"

Lapsa, who was in front of her, asked, as he turned his head around.

Aria didn't see his face, but it was evident from his voice that he genuinely seemed to be confused about her actions.

"Praying, of course." She couldn't understand his confusion, but wasn't mad at him for being ignorant and not understanding her actions. After all, she knew that not everyone was a believer of lux.

"No, I mean." The man shook his head. "Why are you praying right now? We are on a time limit."

"There is still enough time left and we have to find the 'key' first, anyway."

"You don't even know what the 'key' is in the first place." Lapsa sighed in disbelief as he put his hand on his forehead. "Seriously, I can't believe I actually accepted this mission."

"It's not like I wanted to do this mission myself."

Aria cracked a strained smile.

This man was seriously staring to piss her off.

As she was always praised for being collected and kind at all times, she never expected to be in a situation where she wanted to punch a person that much.

Until that moment, she told herself, that she wasn't angry, but she lied.

She really wanted to punch that mask off his face.

Since their journey had begun, the only thing Lapsa did was complain and insulting her faith, saying such things like 'what's so great about belonging to such a disgusting church?' or 'you don't know anything about reality'.

Seriously, who did he think he was?

He was just like one of those Diablo church members who kept mocking her for being a 'naive woman'.

For a second, she even considered if she ran into the 'Voidwalker' guy, but she heard that he had already retired, which ruled out that option.

They had only been walking around for a little more than twenty minutes, and she already felt like just canceling the mission and going back to the Overworld.

However, she really didn't want innocent lives to be lost, and as such, she force herself through this situation, even if it felt like hell to her.

No, she would even dare say that hell was a more comfortable place than this annoying mans presence.

"Stop."

He suddenly stopped walking, causing Aria to bump into him by accident.

Fortunately, that wasn't enough to make him falter, as she suddenly saw why he stopped.

The path in front of their eyes disappeared.

"What do we do now?"

"Going back."

"Huh?"

They had already gone so far, and now they're going back?

She couldn't accept their course of action, refusing his orders.

"Why would we go back? Don't we have to proceed to arrive at our destination?"

Lapsa let out a heavy breath, turning around while watching her.

Even though Aria couldn't see his eyes, she could feel his gaze staring holes into her.

"You really aren't experienced with the second layer, aren't you? How did you even manage to arrive at the capital?"

"Uhm.." Aria released an awkward laugh, scratching her cheek.

It was true that she didn't know much about the Depths and just managed to get to the capital with pure luck, thus not being able to refute his claim.

She heard that the second layer was dangerous due to its traps, but she was lucky enough to not encounter any on her way to the capital.

However, of course she did know the basics, such as the Depths reacting to wishes.

But that was honestly also everything she knew.

"I just went forward and arrived."

Lapsa crossed his arms. "Really? That explains your ignorance. Listen here."

The man raised his arms, pointing in the direction where they came from.

"As long as you don't want to arrive in the capital, going back won't bring us to the capital. You just have to know your desti-"

Suddenly, he paused.

"...you know where our destination is, don't you?"

"...I thought just going forward again would do the trick.."

Silence.

For a moment, the both of them didn't say anything.

The only sound that existed between these two individuals was the sound of the raging sandstorm in the far distance.

"You've got to be kidding me, right?" He asked, his voice containing strong indications of disbelief.

"...why?" Aria tilted her head, asking innocently.

It worked the first time, so why wouldn't it work the second time?

"...because the labyrinth can't bring you to your destination if you don't have one." Lapsa burred his face into his hands, grumbling. "So that was the reason why I didn't feel the ether react in any way...I should have asked from the beginning."

"...I'm sorry.."

Feeling embarrassed by her lack of knowledge, Aria apologized.

She could slowly understand the reason why the pope was so against letting her leave alone. If it wasn't for the revelation of the goddess, he would have probably straight up refused.

It had only been a little more than a few hours since she was roaming around alone, but that time was enough to realize that she was inexperienced.

No, rather than inexperienced, she couldn't understand anything.

The society in the Depths, how to navigate around or even how to buy things.

She had never done such a thing before, and as such wasn't capable of doing basic things that everyone else could do.

"Let's go back then." seemingly calming down, Lapsa spoke in a calm voice again.

Aria nodded, realizing that it was probably the best if she just followed his orders for now.

After all, it seemed like he was way more experienced than she was, even if he was only a newbie.

With a heavy sigh, she turned around and went back to the way they came from.

However, only a few seconds after she began walking, the ground around her began to crumble.

Instinctively, Aria knew that something was wrong.

Quickly, Aria turned around to Lapsa, wanting to scream for help, but it was too late.

"Hel-"

The ground beneath her feet crumbled away, leaving nothing but a black void behind as she fell into the darkness.

For a split second, she could see Lapsa dashing forward, trying to grab her, but he couldn't arrive in time.

He missed her by a few inches.

As Aria fell to the ground, a momentary fear spread around her body, telling her that she was going to die.

But before she could even react to that feeling-

CRASH!

She crashed into solid ground, creating a large crater inside of it.

However, she survived.

It was dark.

In fact, so dark that one could barely see anything.

Realizing that she had survived, Aria quickly used some mana to create a sphere of light, using it as a light source.

Although she wished that she hadn't done that…

What greeted her, as she illuminated the area, were the corpses and skeletons of former living people, lying around everywhere.

Even though she hadn't realized that yet, she entered a dungeon.

A dungeon in the Depths.