Descending Floors, III

Time ticked by as the night had fallen, its darkness swallowed the sky by the wonderful black veil set upon the world.

"The cicadas are quite loud, aren't they?" Soobin sighed as she sat across the campfire.

"They sure are, Soobin," I agreed to her and continued my gaze on the ever-stretching floor.

I had my doubts about this dungeon, but aren't we warping through space to get to these specific places?

"Hey, Soobin… What do you think of all this?" I raised a question to her, asking for input.

"Hmm, it is bizarre. Fighting monsters left and right, gates appearing and disappearing when we go through them, getting swallowed in the sand, going through a savanna that seemed to be as wide as the whole world." She kept mentioning the stuff we had gone through.

"I just don't even know what is right or not anymore… I don't even know if all these occurrences are true either. I don't know what to believe. Being able to use magic– four of us have already awakened, constantly worrying if we will survive the next day. it is quite a struggle, isn't it?"

"Haha, it sure is. At least, you won't have the time of the world to overthink, right? It is better that we are kept busy like this rather than fall into a pit of depression and a neverending cycle of thoughts."

"Hmm, you're at that age so I don't blame you. Well, that age seems to be till the end of our lives it seems… considering nothing has changed since my teenage years."

That's when my curiosity got the better of me, "Ah, may I ask how old you are?"

"Pfft, how rude of you to ask a lady's age!" She chastised me.

"Ah, sorry–" My sentence was interrupted.

"I am twenty-six years old, young man." She answered, her eyes had this expression of being reminded of something.

"Hmm, you're nine years older, huh…"

"Oof, saying it like that makes me feel so old. You really are insensitive towards women, aren't you?"

"Ahaha, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Well, don't worry about your age, you're still in your prime!" I tried to ease her worries.

"Thank you… I think the time to ask this has come," Soobin stared into my eyes intently.

"May I ask the reason why you have dived into this hell? Your reason is Sean's and Luke's too."

"Oh, about that… We just appeared here. The dungeon swallowed us."

"Swallowed you?" Her brows raised in confusion.

"Yes, it did just moments before my girlfriend lost her life… Oof, saying that embarrasses me so much. Well, although we didn't get to become a couple she seemed to feel the same way for me…" I trailed off, feeling a lump in my stomach from the mixing of my feelings already.

"Lost her life…?" She repeated the part I wanted her most to not do so.

"Yes. She lost her life in an attack. I can still see her bloodied face clearly in front of my eyes. I can still feel the warmth of her blood clearly on my skin… I can still… feel the gurgling emotions I have when I think of her smile." I voiced my thoughts, tears streaming down my face as my chest shivered.

"..." Soobin didn't say anything after.

She just stood up from her seat around the crackling fire and made her way towards me, pulling me into a hug.

"It must be rough."

"It is. It's so rough and tough. I just want to hole somewhere for the rest of my life like I did before." I blabbered whatever came to mind, lost from the surge of emotions making their way to the surface.

"You must've loved her a lot."

"I truly did, and I still do. If only God would bestow me the power to bring her back, I would do it this instant, even if it meant giving my life in return."

"Don't say that, Helis. You're still young, you still got time. And time heals every wound, isn't that how the saying goes?"

"Though you say that… it still hurts, knowing she won't be by my side. My heart aches every moment I think of her." I voiced as Selica's sapphire eyes flashed across my mind.

"..." I cried for a little while and tried to distract myself with other things.

"Enough about me though…" I trailed off, wiping my tears and sniffing once to clear my voice, "What about you, why did you enter the dungeon? I heard you got in through applications and tests and whatnot." I questioned, changing the subject as I decided to take a good look at her.

I couldn't help but think how pretty she is. Her skin is so clear and she seems so young… if I didn't know about her age, I would've kept mistaking her for a fellow teenager.

"For me…" She trailed surveying the fire and spoke, "Fulfillment… and change I guess."

"Fulfillment and change?" What peculiar reasons they are.

"Yes, I was tired. I was tired of going to that workplace every day. Spending eight hours of doing nothing but the specific tasks I was given for years on end. And so, I wanted to change, I wanted freedom and breakthrough from this repetitive cycle called life."

"I see, that makes sense. I understand–! I hear something!" Alerted, I notified my companion, "Activate your mana cloak!" I ordered her.

"Yes, sir!" She nodded and after six seconds, I could feel mana wearing itself around her. Also, why did she call me "sir"?

Wait, that's not the time to worry about small details like this!

By the time I noticed, I was already holding a stick atop the fire, trying to make a torch out of it… which was stupid since it would only burn and not lighten any of the vicinity.

"I'm so dumb…" I chastised myself as I grabbed a hold of the flashlight that I took from Michael's equipment.

"Soobin, you stay here and put out the fire. It was just about time a Grendel appeared."

I made my way through the dark trees slowly, manipulating the wind around my feet so I didn't make any stepping noises.

Ah, I can hear more of those steps… Something's walking slowly.

Why is this so creepy…?

No, not creepy. This is straight out of a horror movie!?

I kept striding toward the noise…

Slowly, slowly, slowly… my patience was running thin as I turned the flashlight off.

Ah!

I almost let out a yelp… Thank god I managed to maintain it.

I see a silhouette.

I can see its rear.

I turned my flashlight on and pointed it towards the being which was walking casually around this jungle.

"Huh…"

The light reached its body, becoming visible to me too.

I moved it up to his scalp.

"Kirrha?" It literally turned its neck one-hundred-eighty-degrees to face me.

The monster, or should I call it the Grendel, looked like a skinny human-gorilla, and turning its head so unnaturally in the middle of the night like this was such a sight that left me breathless and stunned in place.

"Grrah!" It growled and in the next instant, it was in front of my face.

A fist was approaching me from point-blank range.

I tried moving my body, screaming at it from the inside, which still didn't obey me.