Advent of the Three Calamities

The red veil continued to flicker beneath my feet.

For several seconds, I remained completely still, staring down at the cracked stone as mana gathered around my hand. I could break through.

With enough force, it wouldn’t be difficult to create an opening large enough for me to pass through, but the problem was that I had absolutely no idea what waited beneath me, nor how thick the ground actually was.

’...I can just phase through it if I want to as well. It’s not like I necessarily need to break it. In fact, that’d probably be the most logical option.’

But then again, same problem.

I didn’t know what was down there. I couldn’t just carelessly go down like that.

More importantly—

’Dawn.’

I slowly let the mana disperse.

Making that much noise in the middle of the city would be stupid. Even if I managed to hide the sound with [Severance], there was no telling what sort of protections had been placed beneath the city.

If Noel truly was here, then there was no chance that Dawn had simply thrown him underground and forgotten about him.

There had to be more.

"Haa."

Taking a small breath, I crouched once again as several threads slipped from my fingertips and entered the cracks beneath the floor. Rather than forcing them directly downward, I allowed them to spread naturally, following every opening they could find.

Some stopped almost immediately, while others traveled farther.

I closed my eyes and concentrated.

The sensation was faint, but after spending several months navigating the desert without most of my senses, I had grown accustomed to processing information through the threads.

Every tiny little vibration and change in resistance formed an incomplete picture inside my mind.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.

’Nothing here.’

I stood up and moved toward the nearest wall.

The building was in terrible condition. Large portions of the ceiling had already collapsed, while the remaining walls were covered in deep cracks that ran from the floor all the way toward the roof.

I placed my hand against one of them and sent more threads inside.

Again, nothing.

"..."

My lips pressed together as I moved toward another part of the building and repeated the process. Then I checked the opposite side, only to get the same result.

The empty space was definitely beneath me, but there seemed to be no direct path connecting to it.

’Maybe the entrance isn’t here.’

The thought made sense. In fact, hiding the entrance somewhere away from the actual chamber would be the obvious thing to do if someone wanted to prevent others from stumbling upon it.

My gaze shifted back toward the veil.

It had grown noticeably thinner.

"..."

I quickly moved out of the building.

The surrounding neighborhood was practically abandoned, broken sandstone buildings leaning against one another while piles of rubble spilled across the narrow streets and left only small paths between them.

I entered the building next door and searched through it.

Nothing.

Then another.

Still nothing...

My pace gradually quickened. Every few seconds, I looked back toward the red veil, using its direction as a reference point while spreading my threads through every crack that I could find.

The search continued like this for quite a while, until—

Swooosh...

My steps stopped.

"...!"

The veil flickered weakly, its edges becoming transparent as the red slowly lost its color and started to thin out before my very eyes.

I stared at it.

"No, no... wait."

Another flicker came.

It was incredibly weak as the strand thinned further.

"Not yet... I’m almost—"

I took a step toward it, trying my best to follow it to my best ability, but the moment I took the next step, the veil flickered again.

Then...

It disappeared completely.

"..."

Nothing remained.

All that stood before me was the empty air.

For a moment, my expression stiffened before a curse escaped my lips.

"Fuck."

I looked around rapidly, trying to see if there was even the faintest trace left behind, but there wasn’t.

The ability had ended.

"Haa..."

Lowering my head, I pressed my fingers against my forehead.

This was bad.

I knew that Noel was somewhere beneath this part of the city, but that was all I had. Without the veil, there was no way of knowing whether I was moving toward him or away from him.

The logical decision was obvious.

’Go back.’

Find Tharvek.

Get him to use the ability again.

His goal was very obvious to me. He needed this just as much as I needed it.

It made sense.

It was the obvious decision.

"..."

My eyes drifted toward the ruined building behind me.

’No.’

I couldn’t.

Not now.

What if Toren was already moving? I had no idea whether he had truly planned on interfering or if he had merely said those things to fuck with my head, but either way, I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that he would eventually come here.

And then there was Noel.

What if he was moved?

What if Dawn noticed what Tharvek had done and decided to relocate him?

What if Tharvek refused to let me use the ability a second time?

No, what if Toren had already warned Dawn?

’Yes, that’s probably already happened. I’m... sure he already knows of my presence.’

There were simply too many things that could go wrong.

"...I don’t have a choice."

The words quietly left my mouth as I looked toward the ground once more.

I had already come this far.

There was no point in turning around to look for Tharvek and waste more time. I already knew that Noel was down there somewhere.

All I needed was an entrance.

’Yes, an entrance.’

Once I found that, everything would become much easier.

I returned to the ruined building and crouched near the crack that had allowed one of my threads to descend several meters beneath the ground.

This time, rather than focusing on searching downward, I spread the thread both horizontally and vertically, allowing them to pass through the earth in all directions. I didn’t hold back, using as much mana as possible.

Every few seconds, I adjusted its direction while sending several more threads alongside it.

At first, the sensation remained exactly the same.

Through the vibrations and resistance, I could tell what sort of material the threads were passing through. Even the smallest changes gave me a clearer picture of what was happening below as I continued to dig down.

Then—

"...Hm?"

My eyes opened.

Something brushed against one of the threads.

It was so faint that I initially thought I thought it was nothing, but after concentrating more carefully, I felt it again.

Emptiness.

The thread moved carefully without any sort of resistance.

This was a first, and it only meant one thing.

’Air?’

My brows furrowed as I shifted the thread slightly.

There it was again.

I loosened the thread, and it shifted slightly.

’There’s an airflow.’

That meant the empty space beneath the city wasn’t completely sealed. It connected somewhere.

"Found you."

I stood up immediately.

Keeping the thread active, I followed the direction of the airflow. It led away from the building, not far, but enough to confirm what I had suspected.

I had finally found a gap beneath.

The issue was that I didn’t know if it was a simple cave or what I was looking for.

I moved through the neighborhood, stepping over collapsed walls and squeezing between narrow alleyways as I followed the route of the underground crack.

The farther I went, the older the buildings became. This seemed to be a pattern I had started to notice. Several looked as though they hadn’t been touched in decades, their walls nearly black from accumulated dirt while the windows had either shattered or been covered with rough wooden planks.

I slowed slightly as I entered a narrow passage between two structures, the threads beneath me still moving through the ’air’.

I was almost certain now.

’This is a tunnel.’

The ground beneath my feet changed, and I felt like sinking as I looked down.

For half a second, there was sand beneath me.

Dark red sand covered in blood.

"..."

I blinked, and the stone returned.

Almost as if it had never been there in the first place.

No, it never had...

It was all just my imagination.

My steps continued.

’Ignore it.’

But from time to time, I’d stop, my feet sinking deeper and deeper into the red-stained sand.

It happened again several moments later. Passing beside a broken window, I caught sight of my reflection and saw torn clothes, blood covering half my face, and Noel resting against my back with his eyes closed and his head against my shoulder.

My breath caught for the briefest of moments.

But it was all gone once I blinked.

"..."

I continued walking.

There was no point in stopping every single time this happened. I’d already seen what awaited me and already decided what I was going to do.

There was nothing else to think about.

’I’ve told him to stop. This is his decision. I’m not here to babysit him.’

Yeah, this was on him.

If he truly cared about his life, he’d stop.

This wasn’t on me...

Step. Step—!

The narrow path eventually opened into a small clearing between several ruined buildings, and that was when I noticed someone.

An old man sat beneath the remains of a collapsed awning, his body wrapped in several layers of dirty cloth. Chains hung loosely around one of his wrists, while a large sack filled with pieces of metal and broken tools rested beside him.

A Nomin.

His head lifted the moment he noticed me, and his expression immediately changed. He looked from me toward the direction I had come from before pulling the sack closer to his body.

"Leave."

His accent was thick, but after several months in Karah Togg, I understood him without much difficulty.

I looked around.

The thread continued past him, and as they moved a little further ahead, I felt a vibration again.

’Stone.’

There was something strange with the area above the Nomin.

"Do you know what’s beneath this area?"

The man’s expression remained the same as I asked the question. In fact, he even looked confused.

"There’s something beneath the city. Why are you asking me that?"

"I don’t know."

But he couldn’t deceive my eyes.

He couldn’t deceive the colors that my eyes could see.

In particular, the purple.

’Fear’.

My eyes narrowed.

"You do."

"I said I don’t know."

The old man stood up and grabbed his sack. He didn’t even bother looking at me as he started to leave.

’I don’t have time.’

My gaze focused on his back.

I stared at the purple within his body, followed by several thin strands of emotion surrounding it.

The purple was greater than anything else within his body. And it was only growing.

I merely needed to push.

"...Stop."

The old man’s body froze, his breathing changing almost immediately as his shoulders began to tremble.

"H-huh...?"

He slowly turned toward me.

I took another step, and I raised my hand slightly. The orb expanded almost immediately.

I didn’t plan on breaking him.

...Just enough to override his fear of what was beneath with me.

"What’s beneath this place?"

"I-I don’t know."

I increased it.

The man’s face lost color as his knees buckled beneath him. He stumbled backward, one hand desperately grabbing onto the broken wall beside him for support.

"Please..."

His eyes weren’t on me anymore.

They had shifted somewhere past my shoulder.

"...don’t let them hear you."

My brows drew together.

"Who?"

The old man’s lips trembled.

For a moment, he said nothing. Then his fingers tightened against the wall until his nails scraped across the stone.

"They know when someone asks. The Great Sun knows everything."

"..."

I glanced above me.

There was nothing.

Only the ruined clearing. When I looked back, the man had begun shaking his head over and over again.

"No, no, no..."

I grabbed him and pulled him closer to me, the boiling sensation within my chest starting to get hard to contain.

"Where is the entrance?"

"I-I don’t know."

I increased the pressure.

A strangled sound escaped his throat.

"P-lease. Please, I don’t want to go back there."

Back?

My gaze sharpened.

"You’ve been down there?"

His expression changed, but it wasn’t from the loss. It looked more like regret, as though he’d said something he hadn’t meant to.

"Where is the entrance?"

The pressure increased one final time, the purple within his body growing to the point where prolonged exposure would lead to brain damage.

His knees finally gave out.

Thump!

"Hick! Hick!"

Whimpers started to escape his lips, but none of that was my concern as I brought him back up.

"Answer me."

My voice layered further.

His eyes twitched, his face spasming as he began to break down, but I wasn’t going to give him that option.

And thankfully, I didn’t have to push things further.

"B-behind..."

His shaking finger rose toward the far end of the clearing.

"...old water house."

He swallowed.

Then, very quietly—

"They don’t always come back alone."

My gaze followed his finger.

An old circular structure stood partially hidden behind two collapsed buildings. From where I stood, it looked like nothing more than a ruined sandstone well. The place was quite an obvious one, and I could tell that things weren’t so simple.

There was no way someone like Tharvek wouldn’t know of a place like that.

Someone wasn’t telling me something.

My attention returned to the old man.

"How do I get down?"

He shook his head quickly.

"I-I... don’t know. I swear. I only saw... people. Sometimes. They go there at night. Then they’re gone."

People?

"Who?"

"I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!"

His voice cracked, the purple in his body completely taking over, his head flailing from left to right as he shouted each and every word.

"I don’t know! I don’t know!"

I released the spell, and the fear around him dispersed almost immediately.

The old man gasped and fell forward, both hands pressing against his head as he remained on the floor, small whimpers echoing out of his lips.

"I... don’t know! I don’t know!... I d-don’t know...! I..."

I stared at him for a moment.

Then, I snapped my fingers.

His body went limp.

Naturally, I didn’t kill him. I just knocked him out a little, the purple receding from his body.

"..."

For some reason, the old man’s ragged breathing remained unusually clear behind me.

I ignored it.

Step. Step—!

The dried well wasn’t particularly large. Its circular walls rose slightly above my waist, worn smooth from years of exposure to sand and heat. Most of the stones around the rim had cracked, while a thick layer of dust covered the opening.

I looked inside.

There was only darkness.

I tossed a small pebble down and waited.

Several seconds passed before—

Tak.

My brows rose.

It was deep.

Much deeper than I had expected.

Several threads immediately shot downward, brushing against the stone walls for the first few meters before the space around them suddenly widened.

’So this is it.’

My heart started to beat faster.

The airflow was the same as the one I’d felt beneath the earth.

There was no doubt anymore.

This was what I was looking for. As I leaned closer, trying to understand its structure, a voice whispered beside my ear.

You chose him again.

"..."

I didn’t move.

The voice sounded exactly like Toren.

So close that I could almost feel his breath.

But when I slowly turned my head, nobody stood beside me.

My expression remained unchanged.

"...Fuck off."

I looked back into the well.

The darkness below felt unusually deep, and for a moment, I imagined Leon’s body at the bottom.

Then Kiera.

Then countless hands stretching upward from within the darkness.

But they didn’t last for long.

They disappeared the moment I blinked.

Only the well remained.

"Haa."

Covering my face, I had the sudden urge to laugh.

"Annoying."

Everyone.

They were all being annoying.

I jumped down.

***

Strangely long Chapter for what it was. The words just flowed out of me~ Wasn’t even trying to make it this long.

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