Remains of buildings scattered on barren ground. Boulders, pillars and debris were everywhere. Only a few buildings were still intact. Among the debris, there was a wide broken paved road which was still passable. It seemed it was once the main road.

The ruin was really quiet. It gave such an eerie atmosphere. Mirage was gazing to certain places while I was looking around and searching for anything to loot. Unfortunately, only stones were found.

"Do you see anything?" I asked.

"No..." She answered and shook her head.

I sighed and took a glance at her. Her face seemed anxious. I also felt something strange about this place. This was supposed to be hunting ground, but monster was nowhere to be found.

After we were wandering around, suddenly I felt something beneath my feet. The ground shook in a small scale. It was slowly becoming stronger to the extent like the ground under my feet could fall at any moment.

"W-what!?"

My stomach was stirred. Mirage grabbed my arm and closed her eyes. I gritted my teeth and tried to pull her to a place where the ground looked sturdy... but I couldn't move.

It was like my feet were glued to the ground. Not only my feet, but every part of my body couldn't move at all. A few minutes passed until it suddenly stopped.

We both fell on our knees. We were breathing deeply. I stood and gave my hand to her.

"A-are you okay?" I asked her while helping her stood. "Careful..."

"Y...yeah." she answered. "I'm fine."

I observed my surrounding. I didn't need a good memory to know that the debris around us weren't moved an inch. Also, one building not so far from where we stood didn't even fall or crumble.

'Strange.' I thought. 'The building could be really sturdy though.'

After our body felt a bit relaxed, we continued walking. However, drumming sounds could be heard and the ground shook once again.

This time I was calm and I could tell where the source was. I saw a Sleethar running in a distance. She mobbed monsters and lured them to her party.

'Well, that explain about the monsters disappearance...'

Were they also the one making the ground tremble before?

I hid myself behind crumbled wall and watched them. After a while, the Sleethar came closer to her party and the Human Tank immediately pulled the mobs aggression to him. When all the monsters attacked him, everyone began to attack and use their spells and skills. I could feel the ground was shaken, but it wasn't as near as the tremor before. I thought I might overthinking about it, so I moved on.

'Time to move... I don't want to bump into them.'

We continued searching the secret lab while hunting monsters that didn't get pulled. Mostly, we encountered Ruin Skeletons and Ruin Zombies. But when we were at the northern part, Arachnids and Ruin Wolves were dominant.

"Keep the pace like before..."

I said to Mirage while avoiding three wolves attack. I used my sword to parry their claws and fangs. I thought they were attacking me recklessly and moving at random position. In fact, they were clever. Their attack actually had patterns and planned perfectly. It was like they were humans that had been hunting together for years. I didn't know animal could be this smart.

'Okay... one from the right.'

I raised my sword and stepped backwards. I matched the timing to parry, then its claws clashed against my sword. The wolf passed through.

'Next one from behind...'

I took a glance behind me and immediately spun my body 360 degree to the right once. I saw the second wolf was passing through. I successfully evaded two wolves.

'Last attack will be that one!'

The third wolf jumped and bare its fangs. I held my sword with both of my hands. When the wolf was right in front of me, I moved sideways and slashed my sword down. I separated the wolf's head from its body. Blood gushed when the body fell to the ground.

'One down.'

I gritted my teeth. I began to feel pain in my arm. The one from behind actually got my left arm cut by its claws. Blood dripping down painted my left arm crimson.

[Bleeding's effect can be felt]

Bleeding state. It was one of annoying debuffs which decrease your health every second. It was also known as Damage Over Time or DOT in short. Mirage also had one. The one she used while I was fighting Uruzak. It wasn't really a pleasant memory though. But, it was also a good thing that I met her.

[Mirage used Healing Serenade]

[484 HP has been healed by Mirage]

The blood evaporated revealing my skin color and the cut was patched. Unfortunately, the wound still wasn't closed. The blood gushed from the wound.

[Mirage used Song of Purity]

[Bleeding has been lifted]

I smiled.

'I really don't deserve her.'

She became an amazing support within short amount of time. If she wasn't here, then I would be troubled dealing with these wolves. So, it was easy to take down the other two within minutes.

【Ruin Wolf】

They were always hunting in a pack. They were set as a three-wolf team and wandering around the northern part of ruins. Not only they were fast, their bleeding debuff was what was scary about them. When you were in a bleeding state, they would occasionally land critical hits. Thankfully, Mirage prevented that from happening, and because of that I also gained bleeding resistance skill.

【Bleeding Resistance】
Level 2
Passive: Decrease a certain amount of damage caused by bleed. It also has a chance to prevent bleed.

Damage reduction: 20%
Resist chance: 6%

I was satisfied. I took wolf hides on the ground and put them in my bag.

"Good job." I praised Mirage.

"Thank you..."

Mirage thanked me and smiled. Then she furrowed her eyebrows while staring somewhere behind me, so I followed her gaze.

I saw a skeleton lying in front of small building. I told her to stay behind me and we took a closer look.

【Prisoner's Skeleton】

Looking at the name itself made me had a goosebump. I remembered what Halton said. He could be one of the artisans or spies. So I was thinking that there might be some clues inside this building.

There were three rooms inside the building. One big room and two restrooms. It looked like it was an office, because there were a lot of tables and papers in the big room. Despite some furniture were a mess, the place wasn't really in a bad condition.

I found some loots, but they were all common materials. I didn't find any clue of the secret lab yet though. Only undecipherable texts were found everywhere. I could actually read them if I focused, but most of them just scribbles. It seemed they were reports and stuff. Well, I didn't have a slightest interest about it. So I just skimmed or read the titles and threw them back if it wasn't important.

Tired that I found nothing, I sat down on a sofa at the corner of the room. Then I heard a growling sound. I looked at Mirage... Her face becoming red.

"Shall we eat?"

She nodded.

I took out wrapped sandwiches from the bag and gave one to Mirage. I chomped the sandwich while I was thinking and day dreaming, unconsciously tapping my right foot on the floor. When I came back to my senses, I noticed Mirage seemed a bit worried about my behavior. It was then I realized my right foot was making bang sounds. I curiously looked down. There was metal floor under my feet.

'Wait a minute... I thought the floor was concrete?'

I got a feeling something was hid under the sofa, so I moved the sofa away. A steel trap door was revealed. I opened it right away. Steep spiral stairs were what underneath the trap door.

'Bingo!'

After we finished our meals, we began to descent the stairs. And then digital texts popped out...

<Underground Passage>

Long narrow hallway was in front of us. I unsheathed my sword and moved my feet while Mirage was following behind me. Around ten meters walking, the path turned into a 2-fork.

'A maze, huh?'

Then, it would be different from Norwall Cave which was a one-way dungeon. We would respectively encounter multiple forks ahead. In these forks, the wrong paths might lead to a dead end or something worse. Nonetheless, my gamer instinct told me that treasure chests or items would be waiting for me at every dead end. Excited, I led Mirage to turn left.

Perhaps it was a bad luck. We encountered something unexpected. It wasn't a treasure chest, but it was something that would make someone shocked and terrified.

Two big red oval eyes and a long beak-like mouth, slender black and crimson body with two pairs of long white wings on its back, three pairs of long thin legs and two hands with claws. Its upper body, somehow, was humanoid.

【Mutated Mecoptera】

It was also known as flying scorpion. It was literally a flying scorpion. People of the internet would call it a flying nope. And they weren't small as you thought. Inside this game, they were human-sized insect. We ended up in a big room which was filled with them, and dozens of big eggs were among them. One wouldn't even care even if legendary treasure was there.

When I saw Mirage, it seemed we were in a same thought. We slowly moved backwards and went straight back to the fork. We chose another path.

Alas, fortune goddess wasn't granting us any luck today. Not long after we stepped our feet on the other path, we could see falling stones were blocking the way. It was a dead end.

Our expressions were grim.