I died… That thought flashed through my mind as I found myself laying on a vast expanse of green grass. I could still vaguely feel the pain from the Gatekeeper’s ice spear as it pierced my chest. Reaching my hand up, I even found that there was still a hole in the rags I had been wearing, revealing the toned skin where there should have been a gaping wound.

All around me, I heard the joyous laughs from the prisoners that had successfully made it to the Gatekeeper, only to be killed and sent here. Among them was only one voice I recognized, my former cellmate and the Overlord of Hell from the story I knew. “Finally! We’re out of there!” She stood near me, stretching her arms out and basking in the light shining down from above.

Still, I only knew one thing. I had failed to get back to the gate. Failed to return to my life. If my experiences in the cell had not convinced me that this was real, the act of dying and being reborn certainly had. I was well and truly stuck here.

After a few long moments, I found Lilith standing over me, showing a happy smile on her face while her tail whipped back and forth elegantly behind her. “Come on, sleepyhead. You act like you never died before. We better get moving before they send out some guards to round us up.”

It seemed like she had entirely forgotten about dying, about the pain. Even about what I had done to her in the cell. Though, she may have only been putting that last matter off now that I helped her get out. Either way, she helped me to my feet, and we began slowly walking away. Rather, she walked while pulling along my almost-unresponsive body. I would not resist her, but at the same time, I felt like I had lost all motivation to actually do anything myself.

What’s the point? Would I really be able to get strong enough to come back and challenge the Gatekeeper if I followed the path of the original story? There’s a difference between playing a game and the real thing, you know? Being good at a first person shooter doesn’t make you an expert marksman. It’s not like some of those virtual reality games where real skill can affect the outcome.

After walking for over an hour through thick bushes and sparse trees, Lilith seemed to have decided that we had moved far enough. So, she steered me towards a tree and let me lean on it. Gradually, I slid down the tree until I was sitting on the ground with my back to it. “Alright, mister, fess up. You’re in no shape to go off on your own, and I want to know why.” I looked up to see her staring at me, her arms crossed over her chest. Since she had also taken a giant ice spear to her chest, the rags had torn to reveal a dangerous amount of cleavage.

“I…” How can I even begin to explain it? Do I tell her that her world is a lie, a game created for the amusement of others? “I’m… new here. You could, you could say that I just died before we met.” That was the only explanation that I could come up with that wasn’t a total lie, and didn’t make me sound like a madman.

Lilith’s stern face softened slightly when I said that. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize… How did you even end up in that prison in the first place?”

I couldn’t stop the bitter laugh that emerged from my through. “Would you believe me if I told you that it is where I arrived at?” There was no lore from Layers of Hell regarding the crime that the player did to earn their spot in the jail for the tutorial, so the only answer I could give was the truth.

This time, she gave a pained wince, kneeling down in front of me. “Ouch… Still, you helped me get out of there. I was born here, so I can’t understand the pain of someone who fell, like you did. But I know that it’s not easy to help a stranger, and the first death is never a pleasant one.” She tried to offer me a comforting smile, but given who I knew her as, it just felt wrong.

In Layers of Hell, Lilith was merciless. If you appeared before her, that in itself was a crime that would cost your head. She is the one who was organizing tens of millions of powerful demons to prepare an assault on the surface world, to plunge everything into chaos. But now, that same woman, that same face was trying to comfort me.

“Lilith… can I ask you a question?” I needed to know, was she the same Lilith? Or, had the setting changed when I came here? Seeing her look at me curiously, not rejecting my question, I went ahead and asked. “How many layers have you been through?”

This didn’t seem to be too strange of a question, since I had personally experienced a transition from the first to second layer of Hell. Lilith nodded slightly, tilting her head to the side as she thought about it. “Well, I was born on the tenth layer. I think the lowest I ever went was the fifteenth, before I found a way to smuggle myself back home.” She sighed, shaking her head. “When they found out about that, I earned an express trip to the first floor’s prison.”

I nodded my head lightly. There were really two methods of moving through floors, either up or down. To move down, you had to die, and to move up you had to find the gate. However, there was the alternative of being smuggled. However, any player caught being smuggled would be sent to the prison of that floor.

Still, if she had never been lower than the fifteenth floor, and she is telling the truth, it’s not really possible for her to be the same Lilith. Is it just the name and the body that is identical? As I was thinking that, I found her watching me closely. “Anything else?”

“Uhm… well, about before, what happened in the cell.” I took a deep breath. “I wanted to apologize. I was still half-asleep, and thinking that this was all a dream.”

For a moment, she sent me a cold glare as her arms moved to cover her chest more protectively. “Don’t talk about that!” She hissed out at me. “I’ll let you off the hook this time, since you have your own circumstances, but don’t let it happen again.”

I raised an eyebrow questioningly. “You make it sound like we’ll be sticking together.”

Lilith grinned mischievously at me. “Well, you have never been around here before. You helped me escape the prison, so it’s only right that I do what I can to help you for a while. Besides, if I left you on your own, you’d fall down the abyss so fast you’d lose track of what layer you were on.” She then looked at me, her smile becoming a bit more stiff. “Why, do you not want me to travel with you?”

“Ah, no, it’s fine. Just thought you’d want to get as far away from me as you could, is all.”

She chuckled, shaking her head. “No, you seem to have some interesting secrets. Since I can’t go back home anymore, it’s either go with you, or try to travel by myself. With that being the case, isn’t it better for the two of us to form a party?”

There was no system prompt at her words, or a change in any way, so I assumed that the party she mentioned was a superficial one, rather than the party system that had been used in the game. “Sure…” I didn’t honestly need a guide, as I remembered most of the important locations from the game. Then again, the final hidden boss was my party member now, other things might have changed.

“So… where should we go first?” She asked, standing up and stretching her legs. After a moment, she became aware that she was covered in loose rags, and hastily jumped back to cover herself. “Store. We need clothes.”

Somewhat amused by her antics, I felt my lips curl into the first real smile I had since I came to this world. “And where do you suppose we’ll get the money for clothes?” Really, I would love to get some clothes and armor. I still didn’t really feel motivated, but I felt like being around Lilith was helping. Even if she didn’t know the full story, I had told her what I could for now. Maybe later… maybe later I’ll be able to tell her the rest.

She furrowed her dark eyebrows in thought. “We’re going to have to get jobs? But… what could we even do? I mean, you are pretty handy with a weapon, but do you have any other skills?”

I was just about to say something, when a thought struck me. Equipment Mastery… I hadn’t considered it… but does it consider crafting tools as equipment as well? “I’m not sure. My memory is a little fuzzy. Let’s just focus on getting to a town first, and we’ll see what happens from there.”

Seeing me pulling myself to my feet, a gentle smile appeared on Lilith’s lips for a brief moment. “Good grief, I thought that you were just going to sit there and mope all day. Alright, wise guy, which way do we go?”

From Lilith’s story before, I had no doubt that she was unfamiliar with the second layer. In all honesty, I wasn’t an expert on it myself. Even though I remembered some key landmarks… They were too dangerous for us right now. “You said it’s possible to journey up through the layers, right?” I tried to start a conversation, so that I could ‘solve’ an issue that hadn’t been mentioned to me yet.

“Yeah, that’s right. Most people just go on a smuggling route, because the alternative requires you to beat a gate guardian. Why, wanting to head back to the first layer already?”

I shook my head definitively at that. “No, but… what happens if you do beat the guardian of the first layer? They call him the Gatekeeper, so he should be guarding one too, right?”

Lilith nodded her head briefly. “Yeah, that’s right. There’s a legend that defeating the Gatekeeper, and passing through the gate on the first level, will allow you to enter the surface world, the place from which mortals fall.” Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. “Wait, how did you even know about the Gatekeeper, or that he was coming back in the prison?”

Oh crap… “I… heard the guards talking about it. Some called him the Warden, though?” The Gatekeeper was the prison warden for the first layer, so hopefully that should be a believable excuse.

Thankfully, Lilith seemed to buy it. “Alright, I guess that makes sense.”

“Anyways, if people think that they can leave Hell by defeating the Gatekeeper… we should hurry and leave, as soon as possible.”

This time, it was confusion that spread across her face. “Why? What’s wrong?”

I smiled bitterly as I explained. “Only the strong would want to challenge the Gatekeeper. And… when those strong people are killed by him, where do you suppose they end up?” Lilith’s eyes widened as she realized what I meant. In truth, the second layer was the most dangerous layer of the first hundred. The easiest way to progress was typically to go down to the eighth layer, and then work their way up slowly.

Lilith nodded her head rapidly. “We need to leave.” Immediately, she pulled out her dagger, and I flinched, backing up against the tree. Lilith glanced up at me apologetically. “Grim, I’m sorry, but we have to do this. I can make it as painless as possible, but it’s either this or waiting for some monster to rip us to shreds. We aren’t strong enough to fight here, and we don’t have anything to barter for a smuggling route.”

My breath was coming in short, quick pants as I watched that dagger. I still didn’t know what had happened to put me here, but I assumed that I died. If I let this happen now, that would be my third death in a single day.

“Sorry, Grim… I hope you can forgive me later.” She said, closing her eyes as she walked towards me. My hands weakly grabbed at the hilts of my swords, but I couldn’t muster the power to lift them. I could only watch as she approached me, and then slid her dagger between my ribs in one swift motion. The cold feel of the metal, and the stabbing pain lasted for only a moment.

I died again…