12. Pioneer of the Rift

The melody of the sea harmonized with her alluring hum—a voice so familiar it filled my heart with a sense of nostalgia. She turned around and looked at me with a bewitching smile when she finished. Despite my hazy sight, I immediately recognized her as my older sister, Elincia.

"What are you doing here, sis?" I mumbled with a dazed look.

"What do you mean? We're just home." Elincia said, tilting her head slightly. Her silky hair danced along the flowing water, revealing a prismatic earring—the same earring I now wear.

"Sis, something is off. That earring you're wearing, wasn't that your final gift to me before you..." I bit on my bottom lip as ominous thoughts raced in my mind.

After a short pause in silence, she finally spoke up. "So you've realized, eh? I was hoping to spend a bit more time with you. I truly wanted to."

The world around me began dissolving, leaving empty fields in my vision. Elincia also started to disappear, but she still kept her gentle smile strong. Then, two fatigued voices calling my name echoed in the distance.

"Hear that? They're calling you back, sis. Your dream is coming to an end."

I reached my hand toward her, but it only slipped through her as if she was a ghost. "No, wait! Ple-please don't go," I pleaded. Gut-wrenching sobs tore through my chest. "I just want to go back to how it was."

With a final attempt to embrace Elincia, she faded into darkness along with the rest of the world created by my imagination. Suddenly her voice resonated in my head one last time. "They're waiting for you outside. Wake up, Saria."

The grinding of stone against stone sounded before astral lights blazed through a crevice. Rough fingers gripped between the gap and widened it until I could see the two figures standing above.

"Found ya!" A voice shouted. "You sure are good at hiding."

“Shuddup Kai,” I murmured. My body was too tired to produce a louder sound. "Get me out, won't you?"

He jumped down, landing next to me with a thud. Sharp red lines ran through his eyes, and he had a few bruises on his chest, but otherwise, he was uninjured.

"Why the hell do you look so sad? Did the fall mess up your mind?" Kai asked with a genuinely confused tone while lifting me out effortlessly as if I was a bag of feathers. "Aww, I wanted to joke about your weight, but you honestly weigh nothing."

Zeke got down on one knee and inspected my body with furrowed eyebrows and puzzlement across his face. "I thought I had to spend my remaining mana to heal you, but you're hardly hurt. There isn't even a single drop of your own blood on you."

"So, I'm okay?"

He paused and thought for a moment. "I'm not sure. The fall split us up, so I couldn't conjure a landing platform for you. Was there anything that broke your fall?"

"Not at all. I might have been knocked half unconscious, but I'm sure it was a totally free fall. I even remember the loud crash when I landed."

"Maybe you landed on something soft?"

"Stop talking about these stupid things! What has happened has happened," Kai interrupted. "Instead, why don't you explain that infinite energy or whatever that you stressed you so much back then? If we all attacked the worm without worrying about some hogwash, Ashen wouldn't have lost his arm."

"The worm was some sort of gatekeeper. It was bound to this place, and when it died, so did its tunnel."

"Huh? That doesn't make any sense. You're just looking for excuses now. Ashen is probably depressed now or something."

"This doesn't bother me. I can still fight," said Ashen clenching the remainder of his ripped-off shoulder. This was the second time I was honored to hear Ashen's deep voice today.

"You literally wield two katanas; how are you not bothered?" Kai babbled, still confused over what Zeke meant. "What are you gonna fight with your feet? Maybe your mouth? Heck, even your buttcrack might work."

"Haha, good to know that Kai is back to his senses," I chimed in with a soft giggle. Maybe he wasn't as bad as I thought. "Anyway, how do we escape this place?"

Zeke looked at the others, sighed, and then at me. "Saria, I hate to tell you this, but I can't imagine leaving this place. We fell into an undocumented part of our world—a place no one has explored. Either that or they haven't survived to tell the tale."

For some reason, those words made me feel truly alive. I leaned back and looked up at the ceiling with searing excitement. "So what if we're stuck in the netherworld? We could be the very first—the pioneers of the Rift.

3 Years Later - Kyrious POV

The insect flapped its translucent wings and charged at me with a screech. Despite being fast, its movements were as easy to read as a kindergarten book. The instant before the insect would have beheaded me, I struck my arm through its claws from below, clutched its head, and flung it to the floor. Then, I stepped on it, crushing its head as a finishing blow.

"Seems like dinner is served," I mumbled, searing its two legs off with my hand coated in acid. Before digging in, I tore off its skin and examined the meat for the inedible parts. After three years of fighting the same few creatures, I gained incredible knowledge of their anatomy. This particular bug's meat was flavorless, but its fat had a yucky taste. To eat, I simply slid off the fat of the muscle fibers and ate it raw.

- [Notice] -

Arcane Skill [Revitalizing Claws] Levelled Up!

[Revitalizing Claws] - Lvl. 7 -> Lvl. 8

- [Notice] -

You have leveled up! Lvl. 9 -> Lvl. 10

[Spendable Points] +10

Still no new skills, huh? Well, at least I leveled up in two fields. I raised my forearm and triggered my claws to check if anything had changed. They had grown a speck larger and started to resemble metal texture-wise. With a satisfied chuckle, I withdrew my claws and skipped toward the entry of the Caretaker's domain.

"Mornin' Izta!" I exclaimed, waving my arm feverishly.

The gargantuan kraken unveiled her camouflage, appearing out of thin air. "I see you've lost all sense of formality?"

Using [Voice Mimicry]—an ability I obtained from the remains of the bizarre creature—I parodied her voice with a sarcastic tone. "I see you've lost all sense of formality."

She closed her eye and sighed, slightly annoyed. "After all the effort I spent to disgorge that abomination's meat for you to consume and evolve, only to be made fun of... You really are a comedian, eh?"

"Well, your full name is tough to pronounce, and I feel weird calling you the Caretaker. That's a title, you know."

She looked up and thought for a second. "Hmpf, call me whatever you like. It won't matter since this will likely be our last conversation."

Glancing over the burrow she had dug, my face grew blue. Throughout these years, we've grown fond of each other, even though we've only spoken about survival strategies. I would have otherwise been completely alone, after all. "So this is farewell?"

"I suppose, indeed. But I'd like to know something first."

"What is it? Is it if I'll miss you?" I joked in an attempt to cheer myself up.

"You've been reborn, havne't you?" she asked, ignoring my unamusing tease. Even though her entire face consisted of an eye, I could still sense the serious expression in her tone.

Her sudden confrontation paused my heartbeat for a moment, but I retook control immediately. There shouldn't be any reason to hide my reincarnation, and she already seemed to have found out. Might as well spill it out instead of worsening the situation.

"Yeah, fine, you got me. But when did you figure that out?" I sighed in relief, yet still with a sense of defeat. "Was my behaviour strange?"

"I realized it from the second I met you. I merely haven't mentioned anything since I wanted to observe your actions."

"Oh? Well, what did you observe then?"

"You might disagree, but even if you have the experience of a fully grown adult, you still act and have the mental capacity of a child," she explained while wrapping her tentacles around my body and carrying me to the other side. "I want you to be careful out there and don't let your still naive nature dictate you."

"What exactly do you mean?" I asked, taken aback.

"Kyrios, you act recklessly, and your emotions manipulate you. During your fight with the monster that could copy voices, you approached safely and logically. But, for some reason, you decided to take revenge after hearing your mother's voice, which could have ended far worse."

"I guess you're right. My goal isn't to fight; it's to escape. It would suck if you spent these years digging an exit just for me to die, wouldn't it?."

"It would," she nodded. "At the end of this tunnel, there will be an area serving as an antechamber for the true Rift. The antechamber itself is already far larger than the current Rift you've gotten to know so well, so don't underestimate the creatures there; there won't just be mutated insects. Also, whatever you do, never fight a monster with a similar aura as mine. If you do, the gates of hell will open from below, and once you fall into the depths, everything changes."

"I think I got it." Standing on the newly excavated tunnel, I glanced down at Izta'zhish, who I had always been below. "If I survive, is there anything you'd want me to do?"

"Live your life to the fullest, Kyrios. But one day, you might need to save the world from this echoing void."