It felt like it was way too long that he’s actually stuck in that darkness. How long has he been stuck there. All he remembered was not even 10 minutes out of the damn dorm, he was dragged into somewhere that felt really jelly-like and disgusting and he was definitely unconscious as he was sucked into that whole experience. He’s so tired, but something in him pushed him to open his eyes.

So Eden did,the moment he heard something snapping. And almost immediately, he let out a scream. One of sheer terror and shock at where he found himself in. The view laid in front of him was rather grotesque after all - with the wall of flesh oozing pinkish clear fluid and just a bunch of people in the age range of his own, 16 to approximately in the 30’s. Realization struck Eden hard when he found out what sort of situation he’s in.

He looked around with a frantic gaze while trying to wiggle himself out of the fleshy wall - at that moment, he somewhat cursed himself for not having as much strength. Though, he was drained of it since he was stuffed into one of those tube tanks before that drained him of his mana, It made sense for him to not be able to do much to free himself. Eden almost shouts again when hearing something stomping to the room he’s in so he closed his eyes, peeking just a bit with one eye and to his horror, he found one of Rachel’s lanky golems walking into the room and scanned around.

Eden closed his eyes, praying that the damn golem didn’t realize he was awake when it came towards him. Eden’s sleep pretense would’ve worked if only he was not ripped off the wall roughly and thrown to the wet floor.

“Agh!!!” Eden screamed when the golem literally almost stabbed him with it’s bladed fist. It would have been the end for that boy if it was not for the loud noise of an explosion and the quake that came right after - forcing the near humanoid golem to stumble to the ground. Eden scoots away to stand on his feet but unfortunately stumbled back again when feeling the ground shake one more time with the corresponding sound of explosion.

His heart panicked when suddenly his vision was only black and the sound of rocks and metal being crushed didn’t help him calm down either. Just as sudden, his vision returned to normal and again, to his surprise, he saw a familiar black-furred cat standing on its hind leg. Those round eyes were so close to his face. Eden felt Cath’s slapping him with his soft padded paws.

“Oi! Eden! Snap out of it!” Cath’s voice brought Eden back to his senses, although the confusion still set in rather deep.

“C-Cath?! What the hell just happened?!” Eden asked.

“Who cares. That golem is dead. Huh… I’m so tired… I’ve been running around all over the place and thanks to your scream, I found you. Now let’s find Arthur! We can’t stay any longer in here or we’ll all end up dead!” Cath said, prodding Eden to stand up. After a while gathering himself, Eden stood on his two feet, looking around at the people still fused in the walls of flesh. He gulped.

“Stop gazing into nothing and let’s go!” Cath called out for him at the gaping entrance and Eden forced his body to turn his back from the unfortunate people and followed Cath.

“Do you even know where Arthur is?” Eden asked as they ran.

“How would I know. Use your damn magic to figure out!” Cath replied.

“You idiot! You can’t just use magic without a magic conduit. I’m already half-dead here! If I use magic just like that, I’d be killing myself from the malus contaminant!” Eden said as they came to a stop as they looked around.

“Tch. Humans and and their rigid fixation” Cath said under his breath as Eden turned to look at the monster.

“It keeps us alive from being turned into a damn Malus--” Eden was about to explain out of anger to Cath’s statement but he was rudely interrupted by another quake from the explosion. Eden knelt to the floor to brace himself, gritting his teeth.

“Dammit. What the fuck’s going on outside?!” Eden exclaimed angrily. Cath only remained silent as he stared at the wall as if he was looking beyond the obviously opaque obstruction.

“We need to hurry up and find Arthur!” Cath said, as soon as he snapped out of it and ran all fours down the hallways that gradually turned into a place where it’s a lot more familiar-looking to Eden.

“This is… Wait, we’re still in Efren Dorm?!” Eden said, looking at the black and red motifs around the hallway and he turned alarmed when hearing something just around the corner of the hallway. Imagine Cath and Eden’s shock when what they found instead was not the human-sized golems with blades as an arm but Arthur himself.

The blond was hugging the wall, limping in his walk and the moment he raised his head to see who was in front of him, his emerald green eyes shined as relief washed over him that his legs gave out on him. Eden and Cath ran towards the blond, sighing in relief that Arthur was simply tired is all.

“You guys… You’re okay… Thank the gods…” Arthur sighed in relief, only to have his breath hitched from hearing the sound of the explosion outside yet again. The group braced themselves, kneeling on the floor. At the same time, the two boys wondered to themselves, while giving each other odd looks, what’s happening outside for the whole place to act like it was in the middle of an earthquake?

When the whole structure stopped shaking, the two boys just stood there until Eden let out a sigh.

“... We need to get out of here” the raven said as the blond nodded, although in his eyes there is still hesitance especially when he thinks of those they had to leave behind.

“Arthur” Eden called, gaining his friend’s attention as they looked at the end of the hallway from where Arthur came from. Cath hissed, his fur standing up straight on his back.

“Go! Go!” Eden said, running away ahead of Arthur and Cath who quickly joined him.

“DAMMIT! OUT OF MY WAY!” Aediva shouted, slashing away at the slime - turning desperate and more lethargic the more the time she spent fighting. Even after bombards of the icy crystals jammed into the main body, it still had enough to push her back away. She kept slashing at the slime tendrils - using the frozen fallen ones of the ground as a leverage to jump away and boost herself around.

Then one wrong turn, she found herself pushed away yet again. The moment she snapped out of it, she found herself driven as far as the main portal to the dormitory grounds and this time that adventurer whose name she heard before as Carla was ready to catch her.

“That thing. You look like you know a bit about it. You wouldn’t have any sort of idea on its weakness, right?” Carla asked, holding Aediva down when she tried to stand back up again. This time another two strangers rushed to the young student’s sides to heal her visible wounds. All while at least four slime protrusions are banging at the barrier put up by five adventurers around them.

“... Where’s the others?” Aediva asked as Carla looked at the thing slamming all its might to their one defense.

“I think you know that this place is basically a really big mana trap by now. I don’t know how you do it but all of us here have some sort of protection to negate that for the time being” Carla said. Aediva remained silent.

“So? Think of anything to actually help with that thing?” Carla asked Aediva who let out a sigh - feeling a little bit of the weight on her shoulders lifted off after the bleeding wound on her body healed.

“There is something… Although I don’t know if it’ll stop the slime. After all… That thing is just a defense system for something much bigger…” Aediva said.

“That phylactery that Hanzel mentioned once…” she said, grasping the hilt of her sword, standing up on her two feet when she noticed someone nearby carrying something familiar.

“That thing!” Aediva exclaimed, attracting the attention of the one bearing the sword and immediately she reached out her hand towards him.

“Found it stuck in a puddle in the forest. Do you know who it belongs to?” the adventurer asked, unstrapping the belt holding the sword’s guard before reaching it out to Aediva. The weight of the sword settled on her one hand, the warmth from the sword battles with her own cold as she grasped at the sheathed sword.

“I’m bringing this sword to its owner” she said and everyone looked at her like she was out of her mind.

“Wait! You’ve already tried to--” Carla tried to protest her decision but Aediva only turned her back to the group of adults.

“It simply means I’ve not tried hard enough” Aediva said, her determined gaze looked straight at the slime’s main body - noting the receding thickness of its wall with a subtle smile.

“I’m going to bust in!” she said, running out of the barrier while the adults stood there dumbfounded before snapping out of it.

“Back her up, boys!” Carla barked.

Having run blindly to a direction opposite of their golem pursuers, they eventually reached a dead end. Panic and fear settled in their chest as they turned around seeing at least a dozen of those golems menacingly stopped at the only way out of the cul-de-sac. With not a wand for any of them to fight back without fear and no sword for Arthur, Cath could only hissed at the golems as he stood in front of them as their little meat shield.

For a second everything seemed bleak as they remembered the patches of blood they saw as they ran, fearing for their lives. Eden gritted his teeth as he laid out his palm, swirling winds gradually turning visible right in front of his palm. Arthur’s eyes went wide as he held Eden’s wrist.

“Are you out of your mind!?” the blond asked, panicked.

“WELL YOU GOT ANY OTHER BETTER IDEAS?!” Eden replied just as panicked and desperate.

“YOU’RE ALMOST OUT OF MANA! WHAT IF YOU--” Arthur argued.

“NOW’S NOT THE TIME FOR THIS!” Eden shouted.

The moment he was about to shoot the one concentrated ball of air towards the incoming golems, a deafening sound of fast approaching loud bangs coming from the left of their side stopped him - rather, the dust of the grounded bricks that poured into their surroundings distracted him enough to cancel the magic attack.

As the dust settled, a familiar yet odd sense of cold sets in around them - making Eden who is lightly dressed shiver from the chilliness. Arthur himself was slightly shivering when a silhouette of a sword flew towards him from inside the wall of dusts.

He catches it out of reflex, his eyes turning wide when seeing his sword back in his possession. The two boys looked when the dust was blown away by the wind coming from the hole in the walls and they were stunned.

Not for Cath though.

“Aediva!!!” the cat monster shouted happily as he jumped towards the girl who quickly caught him with a one-handed hug. A smile crept on Aediva’s face as she looked at the two boys.

“Hello, boys. Glad to see you’re both still alive and well” Aediva said with a huge grin.