A loud, piercing scream of pain echoed throughout the underground ruins, bouncing off the walls as it spreads terror in the people's minds by surrounding them. No one knows where the scream came from for the noise was bounced around the walls of this vast, open underground city, and it is this unknown factor that caused a wavering in the determination of the mind.

"What's going on?" Tetsuya shouted out loud, in hopes that others could inform him of the situation at hand.

However, no one responded. Instead, all that was audible was the sound of the clanking of metal and loud footsteps as people mobilized to regroup.

"We gotta get going," Tetsuya shouted to the others, a sense of urgency prevailed in his voice. "Something very bad is going on. We have to regroup with the others."

Everyone tensed up and entered a level of caution that they had never entered before. This was the unknown, and it is frightening them. A sense of heavy uncertainty was evident in everyone's face, and Tetsuya knows of this. He's scared too, but he must not be scared for if he shows fear, then it'll exacerbate everyone else's worries.

"Get back into formation," Tetsuya ordered. "Azura take the back. Loganel with me up front."

His voice no longer had that sense of friendliness and warmth, and it was all due to this sudden incident that had occurred and how far away it was and what it was, no one knew for sure. It could be not that bad, or it could be very bad, or it could be much more worse than that. However, Tetsuya knows that there's nothing else he could do other than lead and carry on.

As he walked at a brisk pace with the torch in his hand illuminating the road in front of him, he glanced back at everyone else. With the faint flickering light from the torch, he could see everyone's face albeit not very clearly. Everyone was on edge, with a sense of visible fear on their face, and even Loganel, who was so calm seconds earlier appeared to be agitated.

"Let's keep going guys," Tetsuya spoke up, trying to calm everyone down a bit with any reassuring talk. "We're almost at the stairway where we can regroup with everyone else."

Tetsuya gritted his teeth as he sped up his walking speed. A bead of sweat clung onto his forehead, but he didn't bother to wipe it. Instead, he was listening for any other noise that might warn of an incoming enemy. The problem with this approach is that the only noise he could hear is the sound of his beating heart. The thumping noise drowned out almost all other noises, making it so that the only ambient noise he could hear is the beating sound of his heart.

"There!" Tetsuya pointed at the large group of people gathered in front of the stairway leading down to the sixth floor, and he started running towards them.

"What's going on?" Tetsuya asked Sullivan after seeing him in the crowd.

"I don't know man," said Sullivan. He appeared to be quite nervous and just as clueless as the others. "But it looks kinda bad."

"Yeah..." Morgan added. "Look," he pointed at where the knights were gathered. "It doesn't look like things are good."

Tetsuya's eyes followed Morgan's finger over towards the knights who were huddled around Martha. A hint of urgency and worry prevailed them as they moved about. Marsha appeared to be deep in thought as she stared at the map laid out on a stone table that appears to belong to the ruins. Biting her nails, she seems to be quite on edge to.

"Kaz," Teryani said to the demihuman boy,"you smell anything?"

"Same way as it did smell earlier," Kaz shook his head, ears twitching as he did so. "Smells like a whole lot of death."

Meanwhile, Marilin, approached Loganel and his party members on the side. "Is everyone in your party alright?" she asked.

"We're good, thank you," Azura answered her.

"What do we do now?" Kaz asked Sullivan.

Sullivan sighed and shrugged. "Just gotta see what the Flora decides.

"Can't we leave by ourselves?" Teryani asked.

"Do you dare?" Morgan replied. "If it's something that's making the knights and the more experienced adventurers worry, then do you think people like us could handle it?"

"Morgan's right," Sullivan nodded. "Sticking with the group is our best option."

"Alright then," Tetsuya excused himself. "Good talking with you guys. I'm going to check on my party for now."

After stepping away from the conversation, Tetsuya found himself looking at his party members. He observed each one of them in search of someone he could talk to about the upcoming future. Azura doesn't seem to be the type that could give calm responses in this type of circumstances, and Sheriel and Juliana doesn't seem to be calm enough. Therefore, the only option left is Loganel.

"Hey," Tetsuya approached Loganel, who was standing by himself.

"Yeah?" Loganel asked.

"Just wanna say thanks for keeping everyone calm." Tetsuya's voice slowly recovered its usual friendly tone as things stabilized a bit at the moment.

"It doesn't help to panic," Loganel responded.

"What do you think is in store for us?" Tetsuya suddenly asked in a serious voice.

"Why me?" Loganel questioned. "Why ask me of all people here?"

"You're the only one that I can talk to about this," Tetsuya grasped his hands into fists. "Please help me out here," Tetsuya allowed his hands to relax, but as soon as it did, it started to tremble. "I'm scared too you know? I don't know how you do it. How can you still be so calm?"

"..." Loganel observed Tetsuya, and deciphered that Tetsuya was being honest. "Being almost dead a couple of times will do that to you," Loganel said. "After knowing that you were that close to leaving this world for numerous times, that feeling won't be as special anymore. To be honest, I usually feel calm whenever I'm facing death."

"Calm?" Tetsuya looked at Loganel with a surprised look. "How?"

"You said you were from another world right?" Loganel suddenly changed the subject.

"What about it?"

"Are there these...machines that glow with these buttons that you can press on them in your world?"

Tetsuya's facial expression suddenly changed as Loganel just so casually described something that no one in this world other than him would know about.

"Can it display different stuff when the little arrow thing moves to a picture and you press down on this little thing?" Loganel continued.

"H-how do you know about comp--" Tetsuya was about to interrogate Loganel about where he learned of all this information but was interrupted by the others in the party.

"You guys are getting along," Juliana said with a smile.

"So what do we do from now on?" Sheriel asked.

"I say we keep doing what we are doing," Loganel looked back at Tetsuya and answered his original question. "We don't have any other better options than what we have now."

"Right," Tetsuya nodded. "Plus this thing might not be as bad as people are making it to be."

****

"The expedition will continue on," Marsha announced to everyone that was gathered at the stairways.

Some sounds of doubt emerged from the crowd that has visibly declined in numbers.

"Are you serious?" someone asked.

"Fifty-three people already died."

"What did I sign up for?"

"God please bless me."

"Any of you seen Jason? He's about this tall with blonde hair..."

"Silence!" a knight standing next to Marsha called out in a loud voice. He was then successful in quieting down the chatters.

"We know and understand your concerns, but this is our job," Marsha said with a determined voice. "We have to keep going and proceed with caution."

With audible complaining, the expedition team proceeded down the ruins. On the sixth floor, it was more of the same as on the fifth floor. It was quiet. Too quiet. It was as if the Kobolds had never existed before, and that this ancient abandoned city of Ekeletas was untouched. And as everyone gathered at the stairway once again, to everyone's horror, thirty more were lost.

"I can't do this anymore!" a peasant volunteer fell onto his knees and cried.

"Let me go home!" a man struggled to break through the joined efforts of two adventurers as he tried to make a run for the stairways. "I have a family in Astalan! I can't die here!"

"If you run up there you're gonna die for sure," the adventurers said in to his ears, which resulted in tears of despair to flow from the man's eyes.

Tetsuya looked away from that scene, and proceeded towards his own party. He had just returned from a meeting organized by the other party leaders where the topic was about what was occurring at hand. Tetsuya was able to gather the opinion of numerous experienced adventurers and from what they were saying, the situation is bad, but survival isn't impossible.

"Hey," Tetsuya approached his party members who had set up a tent next to Sullivan's party.

"How'd it go," Azura asked, looking visibly worried.

"Bad, but not as bad as we thought," Tetsuya reassured her. "Don't worry. I'll get you out of here."

After hearing his comment, Azura let out a sigh of relief.

"Get some rest everyone," Tetsuya said to the others. "I'll take first watch--."

"I'll do it," Loganel interrupted Tetsuya. "Forgive me but I don't like being waken up in the middle of the night."

"Alright then," Tetsuya nodded. He then took out a pocket watch from his pocket and checked the time. "It's nine PM right now, and we have to set off at six tomorrow. Wake me up at one, and I'll take it from there."

"You're gonna do five hours?" Azura asked.

"It's fine," Tetsuya smiled. "I'll sneak in some sleep while on watch. There's gonna be other people on watch with me so I'll be able to get some sleep."

"I'm fine with that," Loganel interrupted.

"Loganel you got a watch?" Tetsuya asked. "If not," Tetsuya handed his watch towards Loganel, "use mine."

"I ha--"

"He has a watch," Juliana interrupted Loganel.

"If that's so then," Tetsuya placed his watch back into his pockets. "Alright everyone," Tetsuya said to the others. "Go get some sleep now."

***

Loganel sat there in front a flickering camp fire. He summoned his pocket watch from the storage ring his father had gifted him so many years ago and stared at the time. It was about nine thirty at the moment, and still a long way to go from he gets his time to sleep. Loganel yawned and stared into the dancing flames, allowing his mind to completely empty out.

"Umm..." a voice said behind Loganel.

Loganel glanced over his shoulders and discovered that it was Sheriel.

"It's you," Loganel whispered as he watch Sheriel sit down by the fire not far from him. "Can't sleep?"

Sheriel shook her head.

"Hungry?" Loganel asked again. "I still have some bread from dinner."

"No," Sheriel shook her head once again. "It's um...something else."

Loganel didn't say anything as he stared at the girl, awaiting for her to bring up what she was going to say.

"If we could return from this," Sheriel's face turned bright red as she realized what she had said. "Sorry. When we return home," she corrected herself, "can you return to the party?"

Sheriel looked over at Loganel, who didn't say anything. Instead, he looked as if he wanted Sheriel to continue.

"I used to be despised by my old party for being to weak," Sheriel said. "So that's why I would do whatever I can to get on everyone's good side. That is why I would often do research on what each person is like."

"So you're a stalker."

"I'm...not..." her voice trailed off at the end of her sentence. "Sorry for this but I did some research on you, and you don't seem to be a bad person. Also, that 'place' you went to, I asked around and it seems like you and that girl Iry only had a spiritual relationship going on. Like, nothing lewd or anything like that. It's all just a big misunderstanding so if you could just explain it then everything will be fine. I'll be on your side and help you explain and everything."

She looked at Loganel's face in search of a reaction. However, seeing that Loganel isn't the type to show what he thinks on his face, Sheriel decided to continue.

"I think we all work great as a team. Like earlier today, when you let that wall down for me to cast my spells. And when you and Tetsuya was working together fending off the Kobolds. That's good teamwork. Did you know that Tetsuya even switched to using a shield just so you could return? I asked him before and he said that it was for when you come back so that he'll be the one responsible for stalling the monsters while you take care of yours. So please," tears began forming in Sheriel's eyes. "Can you come back? It just makes me sad seeing everybody all split because of some stupid misunderstanding. I don't want it to be like how it used to be for me. I want this party to stick together."

"...I'll think about it," Loganel finally answered. "Don't worry about me now. Go back to bed and get some sleep," he said, seeing Sheriel off with a warm smile. "You can come out now," he then said.

Juliana emerged from the shadows of their tent and walked over to the fire and sat down right next to Loganel.

"What's with you?" Loganel asked. "You want someone you can vent to as well?"

"No," Juliana smiled. "Not sleepy, and somewhat hungry. May I have the bread you saved from dinner?"

"Here you go."

Loganel summoned the piece of long bread that was wrapped in white cloth from his storage ring and handed it to Juliana. Juliana then broke the piece of bread in half and gave one half to Loganel.

"Thanks," Loganel said.

"I just wanna be by your side," Juliana whispered in a voice that was only audible to her.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," she smiled as she bite into her piece of bread.

Author's Note:

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