Faceless

"Hellooooooooo!" Paul howled loudly. He was standing alone in a hallway. The old walls and creepy, faceless paintings flanked his vision.

"Where did everyone disappear to?" He wondered aloud and grabbed his axe with both hands. With hesitant and slow steps, he began to walk down the long hallway. He pondered whether they had all entered a spatial tunnel. It would make sense that they would be sent to different locations. However, they should be at least in the same realm. Maybe even in the same place.

He also remembered the flash of light he saw. It was often seen when walking through a spatial tunnel in Realm Station. Therefore, he was confident in his theory. He couldn't explain why there was a spatial tunnel in some random mountain dungeon in the Horror Realm. But the universe had many unexplainable things.

Paul didn't notice that the creepy faceless paintings had started smiling. They even cocked their heads in the direction he was walking. He didn't happen to see anything abnormal, as his focus was on the path he was walking on.

Shortly later, he finally saw something that made the corner of his lips lift. He saw a door as tall as an adult male!

'Finally. I wonder if Perseus and the rest are there.' Paul didn't loosen his grip on the axe. He might be overly optimistic, but he wasn't careless. He walked to the door and found out that it wasn't locked. With a sigh of relief, he twisted the doorknob and opened it.

The light coming from the hallway lit up the room. The room didn't have any light source, not even a lightbulb. However, the room wasn't empty. At the end of the room, there was a tree with branches as thick as an arm's span. There was also a brick-sized hole in the trunk, which showed the interior of the tree. Inside the tree, there was a heart made of thin branches and leaves. It was even beating!

"Argh Tree!" Paul exclaimed with surprise and excitement. It was actually what he was searching for. The heart made of branches and leaves was the Argh Tree's Heart, which was a valuable ingredient in the Superstrength Percentage Potion!

He stepped through the doorway and entered the room. The door suddenly slammed shut, scaring him slightly. He quickly managed to gather his bearings and focused on the Argh Tree. It wasn't an ordinary tree, as the heart suggested. It was a monster tree and was able to think like a human being. It wasn't far-fetched to say that Argh Tree was far more intelligent than an ordinary human.

Its strength wasn't bad either.

The monsters and creatures were ranked using a basic ranking system. The weakest was part of F-Rank, and the strongest was SSS-Rank. There were rumors of creatures stronger than that, which were called as Disaster Ranked creatures. However, their existence couldn't be confirmed.

The Argh Tree was a D-ranked monster. However, their evolved version could even reach B-Rank.

'D-rank monster. It will be close, but I think I can defeat it. Argh Tree's weakness is the heart. I don't have to defeat it. As long I can get my hands on the heart, the Argh Tree will die.' Paul looked at the strange wooden heart with a strong desire. The Argh Tree was still a dangerous entity. He was only System Apprentice and D-Rank was too strong for them.

But Paul was confident in his abilities. He had solely focused on strength and believed that his physical strength was equal to System Veterans, maybe even reaching the peak of Veterans. He believed that he didn't need class to acquire the Argh Tree's heart!

'Watch out for the branches. They are sharp and could impale me as if I were skewered barbecue.'

Paul's muscles swelled as he slowly leaned forward. His palms turned red as his grip on the axe tightened. Then he kicked off the ground and lunged forward with above-average human speed. His large body didn't slow him down even the slightest. However, that was only because of his initial acceleration.

His leg muscles allowed him to lunge forward at a speed far superior to his actual speed. Therefore, when he continued running after the acceleration, his speed decreased drastically. That still didn't bother him since he was already only five meters away from the Argh Tree!

"Muscle Rush!" Paul growled and swung his two-handed axe. The metal blade slashed through the air and approached the Argh Tree's trunk. It was as if he was a lumberjack. The axe sliced through the tree as if it were a hot knife cutting through butter.

Paul immediately frowned. He saw how the Argh Tree was cut cleanly in half. The top half of the tree fell to the ground, while the Argh Tree's heart rolled down the ground before coming to a stop next to his boot. It was a ridiculously easy task. The Argh Tree didn't even fight back, as if it had already resigned to death!

"What..." Paul watched as the heart slowly stopped beating. The Argh Tree died. He picked up the wooden heart made of branches and leaves. It was as heavy as a brick and was also as rough.

"Am I actually stronger than I anticipated?" He wondered aloud. Since he had only visited safer realms, he never had to fight with his life on the line. Therefore, he expected his strength to be at the peak of System Apprentice.

His smile grew as he began imagining his glorious future. He imagined him becoming System Lord and then creating his own Guild named Silver Axe. First, he would recruit his crush into his guild. She was his childhood friend and had grown into being quite a beauty. Then, he would expand his guild's influence before becoming a powerhouse in Human City.

He even imagined his future marriage with his childhood crush. His shy smile broadened, and he didn't notice that the heart of the Argh Tree had suddenly vanished. The monster tree was nowhere to be found. The paint was slowly peeling off the walls, and images of faceless men and women appeared.

At last, Paul noticed the lack of weight on his palm. When he turned toward the Argh Tree's heart, he noticed that it was gone. His eyes showed clear signs of panic, and he looked around in anxiousness. The mental image of his marriage crumbled inside his mind.

Spurt!

Then, a sharp blade stabbed through the back of his neck and traversed across his oral cavity before exiting through his mouth. He immediately couldn't breath. He tasted cold steel and his own blood.

Behind Paul, a faceless creature smiled creepily. It pulled back its knife and watched as Paul choked on his own blood. After a few clock ticks, the light escaped from Paul's eyes as he died without even knowing where.

The faceless creature then smeared the blood found on the knife across its noseless, eyeless, and mouthless face. As the blood stained its featureless face, something strange began to happen. At first, eyebrows appeared underneath the skin. Then a nose appeared, followed by pupilless eyes before brown pupils also appeared. Then, mouth and teeth. Lastly, the creature's body bulged with muscles and increased in height.

A mirror suddenly appeared in the wall, replacing one of the paintings where the faceless man had suddenly disappeared. In the mirror, a face identical to Paul's suddenly appeared. The faceless man had transformed into Paul!

"Hellooo..." It spoke, and the voice was identical to Paul's. A deep and profound voice. The creature then showed an innocent smile.

...

"Strange... whoo... still nothing." Jason dropped the bags to the floor and slumped down. He had walked the hallway for an hour. Still, he hadn't found the end. He even wondered whether he was walking in circles, but he tested the theory, and nothing came of it.

He took a water bottle from Perseus' bag and downed it. He didn't want to waste his own water since he had free stuff right next to him. Sure, Perseus might get angry, but Jason wasn't even sure whether he would meet any of the party members ever again.

'I need to find the exit. There are plenty of ingredients outside which I can use to become Systemer. However, my father suggested that I shouldn't use ingredients from weak creatures. It would instantly weaken my core.'

The level and rank of the Systemer weren't the only things that mattered. Also, one's core mattered plenty. With strong ingredients, one could strengthen their core and be vastly stronger than others of the same rank. That was a suggestion his father gave him. Even though it was basically an open secret, only guilds would share that knowledge with their fellow members.

Those who worked solo usually started with very weak cores. It was near-impossible to fix it since it was very expensive to do so and dangerous to acquire the required ingredients to strengthen their weak core.

Whoosh!

Jason's body tensed, and he immediately pulled his revolver, pushed the hammer down, and pointed it in the direction of the sound. The light had suddenly dimmed down. He could barely see more than ten meters. Then, footsteps echoed from the darkness before revealing a familiar figure.

"Y-you, I finally found someone!" The chestnut-haired woman cried in surprise. Her body was shuddering for some reason, and she looked very happy. She was the navigator of the party, Tina!

However, Jason hadn't lowered the revolver.

"Tuna, right?" Jason said this while intentionally saying her name wrong.

The chestnut-haired woman wiped her tears and smiled. "It's Tina, silly. Are you alright? Have you seen others?"

She looked identical with the navigator, also sounded perfectly identical. However, Jason felt that something was unusual. When they talked around the campfire, she was the only one who didn't say a word. She didn't seem to be a social person and liked to keep to herself.

'Would she really call me silly or ask if I am alright? When that one guy dipped his feet in the river, she didn't even blink or care. He could have slipped, hit his head on the rock, and die. Yet now she cares? Strange.'

Jason remembered his father's words. If something seemed strange and suspicious, he should confirm its truthfulness severalfold!

He lowered his revolver and slipped it into the holster. Tina's smile stayed the same while she innocently kept her arms behind her back. She was slightly leaning forward, and for some reason, a few buttons on her jacket were unbuttoned, showing slightly of her cleavage.

Jason rose to his feet and smiled in return. "Not yet. Sigh. This place gives me the creeps, and I really thought I was the only one here for the moment, hehe."

"Should we go look for others? I am sure they are here somewhere." Tina suggested while her cheeks pinkened slightly.

"S-Sure." Jason stammered over his words while showing a shy smile. "I am sure Parzival is here somewhere. He is, after all, a member of the Golden Cats, so he must know how to get out of here!"

"Sounds good." Tina giggled and reached out to Jason with her left hand. It looked like an invitation to hold hands with her.

Jason patted the dust off his pants, his hand grazing his revolver. Then, his hand quickly pulled out the revolver. His thumb pushed down the hammer and his arm straightened, the iron-black revolver aiming at Tina's wide forehead.

Tina's cute eyes widened before a loud bang echoed across the hallway. A bullet-sized wound appeared on her forehead. She stumbled backward before falling on her back. A blood flowed down the floor.

Jason walked next to her and pulled the trigger. Another bullet penetrated her heart. She had stopped moving a long time ago.

He lowered his revolver and drew a symbol of a mountain on his chest. It was God of Mountain and Fire's church symbol. It was god that lived in Human Realm and was its lone god. Therefore, the main religion was Mountain and Fire, but there were other religions as well.

"Rest in peace, Tina." Jason didn't say that to the corpse before him. But to the corpse that was lying somewhere. Just as he expected, the corpse before him changed. The facial features melted away till it was faceless with only ears left.

'Ghoul... They can transform into the person whose blood and meat they consume. However, this one was weak. Stronger ghouls also get their victims' memories. She... or is this he? Whatever.'

Jason used the name Parzival to address Perseus. There were several reasons. First, he used a complex name so the faceless woman heard it clearly. It would be possible to mishear if he used a similar name, such as Percy or Peter.

Even still, it was possible to mishear it. So, he called Perseus' guild the Golden Cats. Once, it was possible to mishear. Twice? Unlikely. He also hinted clearly at his identity so that it was near-impossible for Tina to misunderstand except if she was deaf or stupid, which she was neither since she was a navigator, and that occupation needed good brains.

Therefore, Jason prayed for the real Tina to have good rest in the afterlife. There was a very small chance that she had survived the ghoul's attack. The ghouls often didn't leave their victim alive, and if Tina managed to escape, she would have surely been hunted down by that faceless creature so that it had a better chance at tricking someone without having to worry about the real Tina showing up.

Jason sighed, but then, at the next moment, the walls started to shake. The faceless men and women in the paintings stood up and walked out of paintings as if it were translucent television. They had instantly flanked Jason from all sides.