"Uh? What's wrong, Ryuji?"

Ryuji's heart is filled with a feeling of dread and horror, wondering if this was done by Taijin on purpose, or this was just a weird turn of events caused by fate.

As soon as Ryuji finds the words, "Mo-"

A loud thunder rings in his ears and a sudden glitch appears in front of his eyes, As if a corrupted video has been played on an old TV Screen, Zen and Ice both suddenly stagger back and then stand straight up. Ryuji's perplexed expression confuses both Ice and Zen.

"Uh? What's wrong, Ryuji?"

Ryuji falls down to the ground, Ice and Zen both are startled by the sudden change in his condition and grab him to help him get up.

"What's wrong, Ryuji?!" Zen and Ice's concern is sincere. The wariness and anger they had towards him when he offended them was all gone. They were actual nice people, they didn't deserve to be in hell at all. Even the old man and that woman, both were not soothing like Zen and Ice were.

Ryuji wasn't an idiot. He realised that Taijin's curse of never getting to know who the boy they saved was, wasn't something which could be broken easily. He felt it when the glitch happened and he fell to the ground. It seeped life force out of whoever tried to tell them about the knowledge which was forbidden for them and reverted their mental and physical states to a few seconds ago.

"You don't seem okay, Ryuji.... Rest up, I insisit."

Ice says with a hint of concern. Ryuji thought that Despite the name she chose for herself, she was not like ice at all. If anything, she was warm.

Only if he could call her mom for once. Ryuji's grandmother was extremely caring, so he didn't always feel the need of parents while he was alive. But now that he was with them, he realised just how much he missed them.

"It's okay... I'll rest for today. Wake me up tomorrow, please."

"Alright..."

Saying that, Ryuji headed for a nap, But he wanted to say one last thing.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know."

Ice and Zen look at him. They are surprised for a second to find such warmth coming out of a mouth that angered them, but then they both smiled, Knowing that Ryuji isn't someone who has malice in his heart.

__

As Ryuji sleeps, a cold feeling engulfs his body.

He opens his eyes weakly, it's all dark around him.

He looks around himself, confused about his place in this black world.

A small, dim, black and white light starts glowing in a distance. He gets up, feeling hot and sweaty. His toned muscles are sweating all over.

'i feel hot.'

He starts walking slowly, approaching the source of the black and white light. It was weird to be able to discern the colour of the light in this dark domain.

'Where am I?'

Nevertheless, Ryuji didn't feel any fear in this place. He wasn't sure why. If anything, it was a little comforting.

As he got closer to the source, he discerned it was actually a kind of flame. A kind of black flame that burned with white edges the further you went away from it. He had never seen a flame like that. Slowly, The flame materialised, changing its shape. And then it disappeared. Completely.

Ryuji tried to approach where the flame had been, but then, as if out of nothing, a hand reached out to him, materialising out of pure darkness.

Ryuji instinctively moved back, but the hand seemed persistent.

'Why am i here!'

Whenever Ryuji would step back, he'd find the hand at the same distance from him again. It'd extend itself again, as if getting more and more desperate.

Soon, another hand appeared. Then another. And before he knew, Tens of thousands of hands were crying to hold him.

Ryuji fell back after stepping back a few times, then suddenly, he heard a loud roar and a tearing sound. The world rumbled uncontrollably.

'w -- what the fuck?!"

Suddenly, The hands twisted in Pain and the floor between them and Ryuji broke... Or no. Ryuji fell. Deep, deep down. Down in so much depth that he just couldn't understand when he would stop, until he did. He stopped dreaming and woke up.

'what a weird dream that was ....'

Ryuji has had a few weird dreams ever since he came to hell. This was one of them.

Today marked his 20th day in hell and he had decided to go and explore. Maybe even hunt a few small creatures along with Zen.

Both Zen and Ryuji get up. Ice gives them food with a smile on her face. She's in a good mood for some reason.

Zen looks at Ryuji eating his fill hurriedly and says grinning:

"Ready to face the unknown, Young man?"

Ryuji grins back at him: 

"Hell yeah!"

Both Ryuji and Zen wear clothes made out of fur of some creature of hell. Ryuji expected it to be hot, but it's surprisingly really cool. Air is flowing through it out of all the right places. It's actually a really comfortable piece. Ice has become an expert tailor ever since she came here. She can make anything if given the right materials.

Ryuji gets out of the cave, And hugs the wall, Slowly crawling along it behind zen.

He looks down at the deep pit filled with lava. It's surprising to imagine that these people live here and traverse this place everyday. But Ryuji's guess is that there must be a reason for them to not live above this crater or pit.

"Stop."

Zen makes them stop a few hundred metres from their cave.

"I'm gonna climb using these gaps in the rocks. Follow me. And only keep your hands and feet where I keep them. Keep close unless you wanna become a toast."

Ryuji looks up only to realise just how deep in the volcano they were. The magma is still deep down in the pit, but if he were to fall, he definitely wouldn't survive. Since there's nothing to hold in case it fell and it goes straight down.

Ryuji gulps and starts following Zen going up, trying to reach the mouth of the volcanic pit.

Some gaps in here are natural, some gaps seem to have been made by Zen to make it easier to reach up. Ryuji thought it'd be harder, but after a few minutes of climbing, he reached up.

He climbs out of the mouth of the pit and sees himself standing on the edge of a large volcanic crater. The fall looks even more terrifying from up here.

"Climbing was easy, wasn't it? Because it is. Getting down is the harder part."

Ryuji turns his head to zen who is stretching his arms and legs.

"Listen, Ryuji. No matter what happens, Don't stray away from me. There are a lot of carnages here who'd want a piece of your flesh."

Ryuji's expression becomes serious. He remembered his time living in the forest, how he had to be careful every night that nothing comes to eat him.

He looked around, staring at the vast expanse of red sand around him. The sky was blood red too. But when he looked hig- what? What was that thing?

Ryuji's eyes open wide in horror when he looks to his front. A huge- Huge cube with a size beyond human comprehension is standing proudly so far away from them. The cube is definitely hundreds of kilometres away. It's top reaches so incomprehensively high in the sky, cutting through the red mist, the thing he thought to be the color of the sky. The mist being cut by the cube is glowing in a strange orange color, visibly swirling around the cube. He was sure the cube was at least as big as a country....or at least a state.

But the cube wasn't the scary part. The scary part were the horrifying beings stuck to the surface of the cube. Strange corpse-like creatures, their frame stretching for kilometres were trying to chew through the cube. And there were not one, not two, but at least 9 of these abominations that he could see. There must be some of them behind the cube too. What are those things?

Ryuji's jaw fell down in horror...

"We call them The Miners."

Zen's voice brings him back to his senses and he picks himself up again, "The Miners?"

Zen glances at the cube back:

"Yeah. They have been chewing on that thing long before we were even here. Infact, we assume they've been doing it for centuries."

Ryuji's jaw drops to the floor once again:

"What?! Those things are unlike anything I've ever seen!"

"We were horrified when we first saw it too. But it seems they will keep doing it until they reach the center of the cube. The surface of the cube is so sturdy that it takes these abominations years to chew through just one layer. And we assume there must be thousands of them to chew"

Ryuji takes a deep breath, his eyes glued to them. Maybe out of curiosity when his focus is again interrupted by Zen:

"Don't worry about them. They will always be there. We must do what we are here to do before night."

Ryuji looks down once again, not wanting to look back at the eldritch-like beings:

"You're right."

__

They traverse the rough terrain which makes it even more difficult for them to move through the heavy red sand. Zen looks used to it, while Ryuji finds it hard to pick his feet up instantly everytime he puts his foot down to walk but doesn't complain.

Soon, the terrain changes, smothering dirt takes it's place, Ryuji can walk better than before, but he needs to be careful about not making the dirt fly to his body. Or feet.

Since it burns like crazy.

"Ugh-"

"Shush! Come here!"

Zen orders Ryuji to follow, the first instruction he's given to him in a while.

Ryuji slowly sneaks close to him and hides behind a tree made of white ash.

"Look... We need to hunt that thing. It's called an infernal raghod. Seems you've been lucky for us, since this is a rare find in here. This thing is fat as hell. we're gonna feast for a few days if we catch that."

Ryuji looks at that fat hog-like thing. It's at least 6 feet tall. VERTICALLY. ON 4 LEGS. it's almost as tall as Ryuji. Just a few inches short.

"But.... Isn't that thing burning?!"

The Hog-like thing, called an infernal raghod is literally on fire in certain places. He has fire in his eyes instead of eyeballs. His tail is on fire, his flesh is burning from the inside at certain places.

The thing looks like something two normal humans cannot even hope to take on.

"Don't worry. Just follow whatever i say."

Saying that, Zen immediately rushes towards the Raghod. He loudly whistles in front of it, Attracting his attention.

Immediately, the Raghod becomes aggressive and rushes towards Zen.

Before the Raghod's large head could flatten Zen, he jumps back on the tree and launches himself high up in the air, Landing right behind the Raghod.

It's head crashes into the tree so badly, Making the creature tremble. Before Ryuji realises, a Machette appears in Zen's hand and he cuts the creature's tail off.

'it wasn't there before, right?!"

Ryuji is a bit surprised to suddenly see that Machette appear in Zen's hand and that useless cut to the creature's tail, but the smoothness of the cut surprises him more.

The creature shrieks loudly in pain, and his eyes start burning even more furiously.

It immediately tries to turn around.

"Ryuji! Get on top of him!"

Ryuji is startled by the sudden call. He certainly didn't expect he'd be called to fight something he didn't even know about. But Ryuji didn't give it too much thought. Instead, as soon as he heard that, he instinctively rushed towards the Raghod. The Raghod was to his right, facing away from him while turning around.

Suddenly, Ryuji jumps high and grabs the creature's fur, trying to climb that furious beast.

But the Raghod notices it and throws himself at a tree to flatten Ryuji's body. But our hero is faster. He is already on top of him, holding onto the creature's fur for dear life.

"Here! Take this!"

Zen throws another Weapon that suddenly appeared in his hand. It's another Machette, but it's slightly more worn out than the one Zen is using. 

Grabbing onto that Machette, Ryuji plows it deep in the Creatur- oh... The Machette slides off, Not even leaving a scratch on that damned creature.