Chapter 10- Purgatory

Zach entered the yellow portal to exit the dungeon. However, as soon as he entered the portal, it turned black, and Zach ended up somewhere else.

"... where am I?" Zach wondered as he glanced around the green land. There were trees, grass, flowers, and plants everywhere. Butterflies were flying around, and Zach could hear a waterfall in the distance. The sweet scent was filling Zach's lungs and he couldn't help but keep taking deep breaths.

Upon walking further, Zach realized that he didn't exit the dungeon, but he was taken somewhere else.

"It is not a bonus floor or something, is it?" Zach muttered as he walked forward.

He followed the sound of the water, and after walking for a while, he eventually saw a beautiful waterfall with a rainbow passing in between. The water was so clean and transparent that Zach could clearly see the fishes swimming in the river.

Zach's gaze followed the river, and it stopped on something. Someone was standing at the bank of a river with their back facing Zach. Zach squinted his eyes to take a clear look and confirmed that it was a man.

'Is that another player? But that's impossible!' Zach thought to himself. 'I am in a solo dungeon, so no one should be with me.'

"Hey, you!" Zach had no other choice but to call out the man. He didn't want to go down and meet him face to face because who knew if the man tried to do something funny to Zach.

However, the man didn't react upon being called out by Zach.

"What should I do now?" Zach glanced around and muttered, "I don't see a way out either." Zach wondered with a puzzled and confused look on his face. He was exhausted, and he simply wanted to take a rest.

He also needed to refill his HP by whatever means this game worked.

Zach glanced around to find something to throw at the man, and his gaze fell on the broken branch of the tree. He picked it up and threw it at the man, but he made sure not to aim at the man and land it near the man. However, Zach miscalculated the judgment. He forgot that his strength had increased, so instead of landing near the man, the branch passed through the man's body.

"..!" Zach was surprised to see the man wasn't bleeding, nor was there any wound on his body.

After a few seconds, the man finally reacted and tilted his face back to look at Zach from the corner of his eyes.

"...no…way…" Zach's eyes widened after seeing the man. "Fa…ther…?"

Zach shook his head and uttered to himself: "No! Father is not here. He is… dead. This is an illusion!"

The man's figure disappeared… no, everything around Zach disappeared. The scenery changed, and Zach found himself in a rather unusual place.

There were no sun, moon, or stars in the sky. The floor was hard, and the cracks were filled with red lava.

Zach was standing at the center of something he couldn't describe. It was a strange circle on the floor with weird symbols carved on it. There were five big and long stones surrounding the circle.

Zach glanced at his left and saw there were several other dozens of pointy stones like that at a distance. When he looked to the right, he saw the same thing.

"I would have preferred the previous scenery, to be honest," Zach muttered as he looked up and saw another big, long, and pointy stone. However, it was different from the rest of them. It was dripping lava at the center of the circle, spreading it to the symbols on the ground and lighting it up.

(Here is the pic for reference)~~

"This place is like a purgatory, except there is no one here."

Zach was already confused about what was happening, but now, he couldn't comprehend the situation anymore.

Of course, Zach was calm and thinking of various plans on what to do, but first, he needed to understand his situation.

"Well, well, how did a mortal enter this place?" an ethereal female voice rang in the air.

Zach looked back to see a woman with pale skin, red eyes, and white hair sitting on a giant floating throne with a colossal slat on the back. Even though the expression on her face looked rather arrogant, she looked dead from inside, as though she was bored and fed up from everything.

She was sitting in a haughty manner with her legs crossed and her one hand on the hand rest of the throne, and the other hand was twirling her hairs. She was wearing black attire with purple and red colored edges and embroidery on it with a bit of pink shade on them.

"...!" Zach jumped back and moved his hand to the sword. 'She wasn't here before.'

Zach frowned his face and asked, "Who are you?"

"I should be the one asking that question," the woman uttered. "What are you doing in my sacred space, mortal?"

"I am not here by choice," Zach replied with a shrug and continued, "I was trying to exit the dungeon, and I ended up here,"

Zach tried to look at the woman's HUD, but there was no name or HP bar. He sighed in relief and uttered inwardly: 'At least she is not a monster.'

Zach had no stamina left to fight anyone. And even if he had, there was no way he would have fought with 1 HP.

"Ahaha!" The woman laughed loudly and started giggling. She looked at Zach with her crimson red eyes and uttered, "So it was true."

Zach didn't care why the woman was laughing, nor he wanted to know what she meant by that. He just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

"Can you send me back to the entry of the dungeon?" Zach asked sincerely. "I am kind of in a hurry."

The woman jumped from her throne and landed in front of Zach. Her clothes were dragging on the ground, and she was walking barefoot.

"...!" Zach wanted to tell the woman that she was going to step her foot on the lava, but it was too late.

The woman passed through the lava; however, nothing happened to her. But, her clothes caught fire.

Zach pointed his gaze at the fire and uttered, "You might want to look at that."

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