For some reason, the residential area of the second circle was even smaller than the one of the first circle. Not only that, but the buildings themselves were even more ramshackle.

Not that it mattered to Solomon, he wasn't planning to stay in a building anyway. Recently the idea of walls... repulsed him.

He had never been more glad that the demons from lower levels of hell couldn't enter ones they had already surpassed than now.

As he walked through the streets that flowed with a river of demons with Hyde and Fike, he smiled. Remembering how mad he had made the captain he almost burst out laughing.

This, in turn, made him frown, he isn't like that. Or at least he wasn't. Since when had he become a thrill seeker?

Hyde yanked him from his thoughts with a question, "Why do you think everything here looks so makeshift? it's even worse than the last living area."

Fike thought it through, "Hmm, could this not be the real town? Perhaps it's further inland."

Disagreeing, Solomon spoke up, "No, there are too many demons here for this to be some sort of outpost. I think this is the real deal."

They looked around for clues that could explain the circumstances. The streets were packed with demons that looked much fiercer than previously. In particular, they noticed that everyone seemed to be in a hurry.

None of the resident demons were walking about leisurely and there wasn't any restaurants or places to relax. Not only that, they all looked suspiciously well-armed, as if they were about to go into battle.

The whole town seemed to be on edge. The tension was practically palpable.

Fike, having the best social skills of the trio, ended up stopping a demon with the head of a bull and broad muscled shoulders carrying a giant stone hammer over his shoulder to ask him what was happening.

"Is everyone going off to battle?" He asked

The demon paused in his stride and looked at the bright-eyed trio, "Yikes, are you new here?"

"Yeah, we just arrived, would you be able to point us to an information centre?" Fike asked personably.

The fierce bull demon with the stone hammer shook his head, "No can do. There is no information centre on this floor. Shit, you really have rotten luck for showing up now." He looked at them pityingly.

"What bad luck?"

"Look, because I feel bad for you guys I'll try to explain what's happening. But, I'm in a rush so we'll have to walk and talk." Explained the minotaur.

"Sure." Fike nodded in agreement and the four of them set off.

They walked through the bustling demons at a brisk pace, The minotaur demon was clearly in a rush and it could be felt through his hurried steps.

"Right, So I'll explain where I'm going first." Said the minotaur in between his wide strides.

"I'm heading to the armoury to get my Hammer repaired. Why am do I need my hammer repaired desperately? you might ask."

The other three nodded.

"Because we are going to war."

"Huh?" said the trio in unison. They wanted to stop him and ask him to talk seriously, But the Minotaurs strides didn't slow down in the slightest.

Without pausing for breath, he continued. "Look, I feel the same way as you guys, but that's just the way it is on the second circle. Man, you are really unlucky, I had 3 months to prepare but you only have 3 days." Sighed the minotaur.

"Wait wait wait, why are we going to war." Asked Solomon.

"3 days," Fike murmured.

"War," Hyde echoed with a strange gaze.

"Right, war. That's our 'Penance'. That's the problem with this floor. When you arrive, you don't know how long you have until you have to take the 'Penance'. It's completely unknown until we get the commandment."

"Did you say commandment?" Asked Solomon.

"Yeah, exactly. So you know those bastards in heaven." Said the minotaur while looking up in annoyance. "When they decide to smite someone, who do you think does the dirty work?"

"Us..."

"Exactly, and we got the commandment 4 days ago so... yeah. We are off to war." Said the Minotaur leaving no room for complaints. He walked over to Fike and patted him on the shoulder before stopping.

"Well, this is my stop so good luck." He said before walking into one of the few permanent buildings in the whole place. Made out of rough stone, with an enormous chimney coming out of the top that belched out smoke and fire.

"Well, shit."

...

After the trio had regrouped their thoughts, they needed to come up with a plan of action. Unfortunately, they were all in different frames of mind. All three had different levels of excitement towards the prospect. In order, it looked like this:

Fike was apprehensive, he had looked forward to relaxing for a while to fish and improve his understanding of the path of a fisherman, which he walked.

Hyde was looking forward to the war, somehow, he felt that it would be a good thing for him and he liked fighting anyway.

Solomon was ecstatic. Not because of the war itself, no. But, they would surely be leaving hell to fight he thought. Meaning that he would get to leave this stuffy cavern. Just the idea of him getting out from underground had him foaming at the mouth.

So, Naturally, Solomon was the most proactive when it came to coming up with a plan.

"I think we just need to prepare as quickly as possible, something is better than nothing right?"

Hyde was on board with this, "I think I am going to go fishing again. If I can eat a couple of monsters I should get stronger that way."

"Good thinking, I'm going to go mining and try to find some metals to improve my tail, that's pretty much my only strength," Solomon added enthusiastically.

Fike ended up getting caught in the flow of the other two and before he knew it, he was back at the docks with Hyde

After much begging, Scorn, who was less than happy to have the two of them show up right after they had just gotten rid of the troublesome trio and calmed down the captain.

Strangely enough, after the captain heard about how screwed they were it cheered her up. With a patronising smile, she lent them both fishing rods made of sturdy black metal.

She waved at them as they walked away with a kind smile, "Don't come back,"

Hyde pretended he couldn't hear her and lent in towards Fike and whispered while gesturing at the rods they had been lent, "We aren't giving them back,"

The problem was that his 'whisper', was much louder than any whisper ought to be. In fact, The captain heard it clearly and spat on the ground in disgust.

While Hyde and Fike were Running along the shore with their fishing rods, Solomon was running in the other direction towards the inner wall of the cavern. Before they separated he told the other two he would see them on the battlefield. He had a plan.

...

Solomon had come up with a plan. In Hell, on the higher floors anyway, there weren't any demons with the ability of flight. This might change later on when you went deeper down into the abyss, but not now.

His plan had arisen from this knowledge. One day, while he was walking back from the mine while exhausted, He had looked up at the ceiling of the cavern.

He was sick of having to scour through different tunnels just to find a small amount of the minerals they were looking for. Most of what was precious had already been found and nothing could change that. Who knows how long hell had existed before now. Countless demons had already tried their luck in the mines, hoping to strike it rich.

And, As the light from the glowing fungus in the room glittered and shone down on him he had a thought. 'If only I could get at the ceiling, Nobody could have mined up there yet'.

Of course, at the time he still had a fear of heights and disregarded such a thought. Until now, Now it was different. The stakes were higher and he wasn't really afraid of heights anymore. He theorised this was due to his constant exposure to them.

Now, he was planning to set his daring plan in motion. He walked through the outskirts of the makeshift town. The houses here were so ramshackle that he reckoned the big bad wolf would have a field day here. One Huff and puff would be all it would take to blow these houses down.

He still had his backpack full of supplies that he never used during his 'Penance' so he didn't stop along the way.

In terms of size, the second circle is twice as big as the first. In both height and diameter. Solomon learned this the hard way after he finally arrived at the Cavern wall that stretched up into the distance.

Thankfully, his stamina had improved after eating the fruit of the underworld so he wasn't exhausted. Still, he heeded a second to catch his breath.

While he rested a bit, he surveyed the wall that was in front of him. The black granite was peppered with so many tunnels it looked like a honeycomb. Clearly Metal was a much-needed commodity on this floor.

Each tunnel was spaced around 5 metres apart and the higher you got on the cavern wall, the bigger that distance got. At the very highest point of the wall, there were much fewer tunnels than at the bottom.

Steeling himself, Solomon planned out a path and walked up to the first tunnel. Standing beneath it he looked up at the nearest tunnel.

He looked up at where he wanted to go and, Like a bolt of lightning, his tail whipped out and extended from its original length of 200cm to 400cm. Still, this wasn't enough to reach the next tunnel.

The wicked hook at the end of his tail dug into the rock wall between the two tunnels and held fast. After testing it was secure and wouldn't budge when he did what he was going to next, Solomon gritted his teeth and shouted, "Fuck it!"

Like a bungee cord that was released, his tail shortened and Solomon was catapulted up into the air. He shot past the tunnel he was aiming for and kept flying. After reaching a height of 20 meters he came to a stop in mid-air and was about to fall.

Desperately, Solomon whipped out the knives he had bought at the market a week ago and drove them into the cave wall like climbing pegs.

He stayed there panting while hugging the cave wall for a few minutes before doing anything else. His heart jackhammered in his chest and his mouth couldn't form words.

Licking his dry lips, Solomon looked up again. He was hanging onto the wall with only the two knives in his hands and would die if he fell off. Still, wasn't that kind of exciting. He thought so anyway.

Carefully he stretched his tail up to the mouth of a tunnel a few metres to his right and dragged his body into it. In the tunnel, he lay on his back panting. Although it may have seemed like he had climbed very high just then. He wasn't even a tenth of the way up the wall yet.

Working it out he realised that if he did that again. He would need to repeat the process 16 more times to reach the top. At the thought of this, his heart raced, for different reasons this time though. It was excitement, not fear.

After he repeated the process a few times he was halfway up the wall and had much better control of his tail. He knew how much strength was too much and his reactions were quicker with his knives. If he got the angle right he could even jump sideways with this method. which ended up being necessary a few times when there weren't any tunnels nearby.

In reality, though, this was all practice. Once he reached the ceiling it would be much harder.