When I'd opened my eyes the first thing I saw was a white room, scrubbed clean. It looked like a hospital room, but with a lot more flowers all around the place. The floral decoration not only enveloped the walls but some parts of the floor as well.
It took me a couple of seconds, but I remembered everything: the Eternal Fear, the cut to my neck, the skeleton warrior on my bedside. I looked down at my right arm, it was connected to what seemed to be an IV drip, through which a green liquid was flowing into my forearm. My left arm didn't have such worries, though, so I lifted it to feel my neck, and it had been covered. I could feel stitches near the injury, poking out beyond the cotton gauze, stuck to my neck as a makeshift bandage. I hissed; touching the injury made me feel a burn.
I looked left, and there was another bed with a man lying there. It seemed that he was asleep. He had lean eyes and a muscular body and scars around the same that pocked his face as if they would atone for his sins. He had been held up from the bed by some sort of a weird contraption, and neither his back nor his front touched anything.
He looked closer at him and saw that his entire back had been bandaged, and his rib cages had surgery marks. It looked like two green vials were placed next to my bed on a tray. They said, "Mini Heal Charge".
The door opened, and a man wearing a khaki jacket on top of a turtleneck shirt walked in. He had the gait of a warrior, I don't know how I knew that, but I just did.
"Hello mystery man, you've finally woken up", his eyes had both slight apprehension and childlike wonder within them.
"My name..." I found my throat extremely sore. "My name is Altair. Am I in the Northern Guild base? How long have I been here?"
"Well, Altair, it's a tragic story indeed. It's been over two years since we found you outside our gates, and you've been in a harsh coma."
I didn't know what to say. My mouth was closed shut. He continued, seemingly holding back laughter,
"Yeah, and this isn't any base... This is the Demon King's Lair, You're the next sacrifice."
His face had turned into a full-on smile by now, and I could tell he was holding himself back from laughing.
"Very funny. Could you tell me the truth now?" His face turned into a neutral expression again.
"Alright, this is the Runesca Guild Northern Main Base. You have been in that bed for 6 days. You'll have to be there for at least another 10."
My face flushed red when I heard that.
"Hey, what, why do I have to... for another 10 days..?"
"That's because, sir, wounds penetrating your neck don't heal in a week. It takes time; anyway, I have to get going. I'll come visit you later."
I just nodded. I'd used up too much of my energy having this conversation.
As soon as he shut the door, i started thinking about my first scenario. I needed to finish all the main scenarios to go back home, I assumed. The more time I wasted, the harder it would be for me to leave. I needed to go and starting fighting that monster. But could I even stand up to it, with that rusty knife nonetheless. I was here to train, so that's what I would do.
____
Elena looked at the mage sitting in front of her. His shoulders were arched, and he had a cut around his left cheek. It wasn't too deep, she thought it could heal in a week or so. His spiky dark hair was only accentuated by his elf-like ears. She spoke first.
"How's the healing process going, Zekros? It's been a long time since I've seen you face to face."
"It's been great madam, i can walk with no difficulty and most of my mana reserves have been refilled."
She smiled, "That's good to hear, Zekros. Now tell me, what do you think happened to Scilia? Both you and I know her only attribute was that of an arrow conjurer. And everyone here knows that she would never go against the guild, no matter how much money was put in front of her."
"I know that better than everyone. She wouldn't betray us, not for the loot in a C-rank dungeon. I told the ones from the Eastern guild so they didn't accuse us of incompetency."
Ahh yes, the Eastern Guild. The baron there had already called her up and chewed her out. One of her explorers betrays the joint party, and that leads to one of the East's men dying and another being unable to move. It wasn't exactly the ideal look she wanted. The kid from there, the one with the longsword, luckily went on record to say that we did everything in our power to help them since.
Elena would have to cut corners on a lot of trade deals to win the Baron's favour back.
"That's fine... But what do you think was the actual reason?" she added.
The one who answered her, however, wasn't the one with black hair that spiked up. It was the man with the curly brown hair that came down to his shoulders who said,
"There's only three options. One, a specter from the Specteres' Abode, possessed her body during their journey there. Two, a deity fucked her over with a sponsor contract and took over her body. And the last option, I'm sure you all know."
Zekros looked visibly shaken, he didn't expect Alexis being in the room. That man moved like a shadow anyway.
"We can rule out the Specter theory, considering they can't transfer any of their powers to their host." Therefore, the illusionary powers wouldn't have been available to Scilia.
The spiky-haired man added, "I've been in contact with a deity myself,
The grim look on Elena's face only seemed to get darker.
"I haven't heard of a demon king taking someone's body to gain profit. And it's nonsensical for a lower-grade demon king to have a powerful ability like
"That's just the thing, she didn't use mind possession. I was put into a dream world while she used my body as a puppet. She made my body and soul act by showing me visions and things that weren't there. That wasn't possession, it was high-level illusion."
He was right, a low-level demon king could possess magic at that level.
"Well, this conversation won't be going anywhere with speculation. It's best you go and train your mind, to make sure your never led astray like this." Alexis interjected.
Silence covered the room for some time.
"Then I'll take my leave, madam." Zekros promptly left. Alexis moved out of the shadows, the ripples from his ability sent out around the room. She knew whatever they spoke of would never reach another person's ears, neither human nor deity. This room was covered in shadows, which was something that the scenario couldn't use its communication system through.
Alexis took the seat that Zekros had gotten up from. "We also have to talk about that boy."
Elena knew who he was referring to. But she chose to plead ignorance.
"Which one?"
"Not the time to be joking around, Elena. The one with the Famine's Mark on his neck."
___
I ruffled my hair as I thought to myself. What the hell had happened in there? No matter how many times I'd thought about the events in the dungeon, I couldn't seem to fathom it. Scilia and I weren't on the best of terms. But for the past year, we had been an amazing team, crushing low-ranked dungeons, while supporting Elena, Alexis and Xernean at the higher level ones.
I needed to find out who took over Scilia, and I would never let them live, after taking my comrade away from me.
I turned left, and jogged down the stairs, I looked through the large window that was placed at the center point of the spiraling staircase. I could see beyond the wall, and at the housing project. Almost all the houses close to base were collapsed. That was because Zenith were drawn to the base, but couldn't get through the runic wall. So they destroyed those houses, hoping to find any humans left behind.
He had to go see Arafat. It had almost been a week, hopefully, he had gotten better by now. And that weird, suicidal kid, his vibe was all wrong. And his mana, it seemed to be tainted, somehow. Zekros had the kid's compass. It was an interesting piece. It had the Frost Monarch's rune engraved on it. But he wasn't sure of its authenticity. Most of these runes were being mass-produced in the empire.
He reached the door and opened it. He saw Arafat still knocked out cold. The suicidal kid was still in bed, but he was awake.
"Hey, kid. Im Zekros. Antares told me he'd met you earlier. How's the neck?"
___
I saw the lean man with spiky hair, wearing an all black one piece robe. No way people were trying to aurafarm in literal hell.
"By Antares, you mean the man who was trying an awful lot to be funny? He was here a day ago. And about the neck, it hurts every once in a while, but not much." I tried my hardest not to sound like a simple town boy.
"Interesting. The elixers truly are magical, huh? So, what's your story? When did you end up here, and what cut your neck like that?"
I hesitated for a couple of seconds. Could I trust this random dude? Well, not like I had anything to lose. I told him all about my story. How I had randomly appeared here after the blonde muttered to herself. My first scenario, meeting the Tripaphobian. The mysterious cigarette smoking child. I had omitted the part about the skeleton knight, considering I didn't know for sure if it was a dream or not.
By the time I had started talking about the Eternal Fear, i could see his face darken. I could feel the bottom of my stomach churn as well. But, honestly I couldn't remember much. The only thing I remember was the scenario screen, me running from something, and then the knife in my hand, followed by me practically crawling to this base.
"So you're telling me surviving the Eternal Fear was a C-grade scenario, huh? It seems like an eldritch monster." The spiky-haired man's eyes were gloomy. "I guess it was only a C grade because it was to survive. If it was a mission to kill it, I'm guessing even A rank would be too low." He added.
I just looked at him, he seemed strong.
"So you gotta kill the Tripaphobian, right? On the other side of the hill, huh. That's interesting. Well, you can train in the ways of the magic if you want to. I can help you once you can walk properly. Or you could choose to train using a blade from Antares. Either way, take your time and rest up. Main scenarios don't have time limits." He didn't wait for me to respond, winked at me, and walked off.
A choice between magic and sword fighting. That seemed interesting, I wondered if I could try both. And I don't know why, but his robe looked cool as shit as he left.
"Pretentious." I said out loud. Right after that, I felt something move next to me, I instinctively looked left. The wounded man next to me was moving.
I turned around and I saw his snake-like eyes staring at me. "Hey, what's your name?" I asked. He kept staring at me.
His arms moved in a sleek fashion, as he grabbed the quilt at the bottom and covered himself up.
"Not much of a talker, huh." I smiled to myself. This was my new world, I guess. I needed to finish the scenarios and get back home.
I saw the ornate compass next to me, on the plate with the two bottles. I guess the spiky-haired dude kept it for me. I grabbed it and held it up to my face. I was facing east. In my reflection on the glass, I could see the layers of bandages covering my neck. I saw my face and realised I had smaller cuts all over it, probably from the multiple times I had fainted on the gravel road. It didn't look too bad, though. I kept looking at the Scenario Screen.
Main Scenario #1: A New World
Difficulty:
[F grade]
Win criteria:
[Defeat the Tripaphobian Zenith]
Rewards:
• 1 D grade skill (Dash)
• 500 Geld
Time limit:
[None]
Failure condition:
1. Your physical body's death
2. Leaving the scenario area {Runesca}
[1deity is watching this scenario.]