The Villain Who Invests in a Witch to Survive

Chapter 176: Another Pair Dead

The gemstones were a dark yellow, so dim they looked like candles on the verge of going out. And yet the light filling the entire hall seemed to come from those two stones. It was a hazy, ashen glow that spread through the whole space, making it impossible to tell where the source really was.

“See those two gemstones?” Allen said. “Those are the lives of the people inside. If the gems are lit, they’re alive. If the gems go dark, they’re dead.”

Ryan stared at the two dim yellow gemstones.

Their light was weak, flickering like dying candles in the wind.

“And those two...” he asked.

“That’s the pair currently inside,” Allen said. “They’re still alive for now, but they’re not going to last.”

The two of them were still talking when the gemstones suddenly went dark at the same time.

The light vanished.

In an instant.

A moment ago, the two fist-sized gems had still been pulsing with that faint yellow glow. Now they had gone completely dark, turning into two dull gray stones.

Ryan froze for a second.

Allen froze too.

Then he slapped his thigh.

“Damn it.”

Ryan looked at him.

“Did you see that?” Allen pointed at the extinguished gemstones, his voice trembling slightly. “If both go out at the same time, that means both people are dead.”

In the ashen light, his face looked a little pale.

“Another pair dead.”

Allen had spoken very softly, but in that vast, hollow hall, the words still carried.

Ryan saw Parker’s face darken for an instant. Hayden said something to him in a low voice, but Parker only shook his head and remained silent.

Among the ordinary explorers, someone sighed. Someone else lowered his head even farther. Someone cursed under his breath.

The atmosphere in the hall sank even lower than before.

Ryan stood where he was, his gaze moving across their faces before settling once more on those two extinguished gemstones.

Out on the marsh, they had killed no one knew how many monsters. Black things without intelligence, as if they had been mass-produced in endless batches, wave after wave, impossible to finish off. And when they had finally fought through them, this opening had risen in the center of the marsh.

No one had known what lay below. But in that situation, any path forward had been better than none.

Looking back now, everyone had made the same choice.

They had come out of the forest and moved toward the light.

The forest had been full of those silver-gray trees, each one identical to the next. After a few steps, north, south, east, and west all blurred together. There had been no sun, no stars, nothing by which to judge direction. At that point, everyone had only wanted one thing—to find a place where they could see the sky, a place where they could get their bearings.

So everyone had gone to the marsh.

And there, in the marsh, they had killed monsters in wave after wave. At long last, after the last one died, this opening had suddenly risen before them.

Who would not go in?

It was like a game. A door suddenly appeared in front of you. You had no idea what lay beyond it, but you knew that without it, you could only keep wandering in circles. So you would push it open.

They all had.

And then each of them had been sent down a different road.

On some roads, there had been skeletons in leather armor, impossible to kill.

On some roads, there had been fire serpents crawling out from cracks in the stone and breathing fire.

On some roads, there had been nothing but traps—fire-spewing floor tiles, hidden panels that flipped open, pools of corrosive liquid.

On some roads, there had been only monsters, endless monsters, with no choice but to kill their way through.

Every one of them had fought for their life on their own road.

Every one of them had thought they were advancing into the second layer.

Every one of them had thought they were almost through.

And then they had pushed open the last door and realized—

This was only the beginning.

They had all met here at the starting point, and the true maze lay beyond the even greater door ahead.

Ryan withdrew his gaze and looked at the door he himself had come through.

Wooden. Iron-plated. Identical to all the others.

But on his road, there had been nothing.

Why?

“What are you thinking about?” Allen asked, leaning closer and lowering his voice.

Ryan glanced at him but said nothing.

Allen followed his gaze and noticed the door Ryan had come from.

“What’s wrong with your door?” Allen asked.

Ryan did not answer. Instead, he asked, “What about the way back?”

Allen froze for a second, then gave a bitter laugh.

“There is no going back,” he said. “Forget going back. I don’t even dare think about it.”

He jerked his chin toward the doors behind him.

“How long did it take us to get through those routes? An hour? Two? If we go back now, all those monsters are still there. All those traps are still there. And besides...” He lowered his voice even further. “Do you know where those monsters come from?”

Ryan shook his head.

“I don’t know either,” Allen said. “But the snakes I killed on the way here vanished after I killed them. Their bodies disappeared. Nothing was left behind. It was like... like something had taken them back.”

He paused, then lowered his voice even more.

“I asked around. The same thing happened with the skeletons other people fought. Once they were smashed apart, the bones turned to ash. Nothing remained. Those things weren’t alive. They weren’t Magical Beasts. They weren’t anything we’ve ever seen outside. They felt like... like they were made.”

Ryan’s brows drew together.

Made.

He thought of the toad from earlier. The seven- or eight-meter-tall monster that had left behind a crystal after it died.

Those snakes, those skeletons, those things that had come from nowhere—once they died, they left behind nothing at all.

Only the toad, and the creature from the forest before it, had left anything behind.

“What about the monsters outside?” Ryan asked. “Are they still there?”

Allen shook his head.

“No idea. But nobody dares go back and check. What if they are? What if there are even more than before? Those things can’t be finished off. Kill one wave, and another comes. There’s no end to it. And...” He jerked his chin toward the explorers. “Look at these people.”

Ryan looked over.

Parker leaned against a Stone Pillar, eyes closed, his breathing slow and heavy. Hayden sat beside him, tending to his wounds with hands that shook slightly. Vincent was seated against the wall, with Gray standing in front of him, his injured leg stretched stiffly out, not daring to move it. Vera still had her hand pressed to the wound on her calf. The bleeding had stopped, but her face was deathly pale. Eleanor stood in place with her sword hanging at her side. The cuts across her knuckles had dried, but she was utterly motionless, as though she did not even have the strength to shift her weight.

The ordinary explorers were worse off. Some were curled into tight balls. Some lay flat on the ground. Some stared blankly at the wall, their eyes hollow, as if they had already died once.

No one had the strength to go back.

And no one wanted to.

This was the only place where they could rest.

At least there were no endless monsters here.

Ryan drew his gaze back and looked toward the great door.

The dark red light leaking through the crack pulsed like a heartbeat.

“So,” he said, “the only choice is to move forward?”

Allen gave him a bitter smile.

“What else are we supposed to do?” he said. “Sit here and wait to die?”

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