Before leaving he took the two rusty swords and parts of the leather armor that were somehow wearable. He was no longer naked, he had short pants, a vest, and a shoulder pad.

“There is no time to waste.” Asval whispered as he moved forward. 

The tunnel was long and had many doors. Some of them were closed and some were open. The ones that were open were empty inside. Not used or not prepared yet for tormenting the souls.

Behind the closed doors, he could hear cries, scratching of the doors and walls, mumbling. He stopped to listen closely to the sound he could quite understand. Was it a man trying to speak but he had a missing tongue? It ended with a loud thud as the person in the cell fell to the ground.

“Choking to sleep? How I didn’t come up with that idea?” Asval whispered to himself while placing a hand on his throat. 

It took him an hour of walking but he reached what seemed to be the exit. The problem was how huge the gates were. Five times the size of the man. They were made of stone with many cracks showing how old they were. He tried to push them but the gates wouldn’t budge. He was too weak to open them.

“Do I wait for someone to come? But how long will I have to wait? I’m not sure how often they came to ‘visit’ me…” He thought out loud. 

“Can’t wait forever.” Asval got down on the ground and began his training with push-ups. He was barely able to do them but even if they were sloppy he continued until he fainted out of exhaustion. He repeated his training for hours. After a day he was able to do a full push-up. 

Each day he tried pushing the gates. First day nothing, second day nothing, third day nothing… A week passed but his muscles barely grew. He was missing nutrients for them to grow. 

Seeing that the progress was slow he decided to walk through the tunnel again. He listened to what was behind each door. Most of the sounds remained the same except for one door. It seemed like many creatures were walking inside. He knocked on the door trying to measure how thic they are. To his surprise, a small head peaked out of the gap under the door. A bug’s head.

With his sword, he quickly cut off the bug’s head and swallowed it. He didn’t gag this time. Compared to the rotten flesh, the bug’s head was a delicacy. One head wasn’t enough, he had to eat more.

He decided to sacrifice one of the swords to make the gap bigger so the whole bug could walk out. After an hour of work, he was rewarded with a whole portion of food. 

Once he ate he continued training. This time it was to kill time before another bug came out. He took another week to train but this time he had nutrients to help with the muscle growth. He looked very skinny but his muscles were sturdier, stronger.

He approached the gates and tried to open them once more. Using all his strength, using all the muscles he trained the gate budged. He moved them by a bit. Now he didn’t waste time on training since he was strong enough to push them, even if it was just by an inch. 

After a day he was able to make a gap between gates big enough to peak through. He saw a vast forest made of dark trees with white leaves. The whole area was in a huge cavern with crystals that gave some light to the place. 

He finally was able to see something different than stone and flames. A nature, forest that could bear fruits or hide animals. His mind was only imagining what he could hunt in there and how good it would taste.

With that hope, he gathered all his strength for one last push that would grant him entrance to the white forest. He was eager to see it. The gap widened with time and he didn’t want to wait any longer. It was tight but he decided to force his way out. He pushed his body through the gap, rubbing his skin against the stone gates, peeling off parts of his skin. It was painful but this time he would be rewarded for enduring it.

He finally got through and saw a white grass, he jumped on it, expecting a pleasant touch of soft grass. It wasn’t pleasant as the grass pierced his skin. The grass was flexible and looked soft but once touched it seemed like a sharp blade. 

His whole body was bleeding as he had many small cuts on his body. All the joy that he had vanished. Now he missed a touch of cold stone on his feet. At least that wasn’t painful compared to constant stinging from the “iron grass”.