The giant disappeared in front of our eyes when the system chimed.

It didn’t decompose, rather became something less than complete until it was no more. The phenomenon happened at an incredible rate; one moment it was there and in the next, it wasn’t. I went near my companions after its disappearance, shocked and worried, for the dungeon’s mystery was surprisingly strong and unpredictable. If the transportation method was just the cherry on top, then everything which had come to pass on the floor, not excluding the tunnels make, was a layer of mystery that had unfolded with time and our success. Who knew how many such layers the dungeon held, and how many more times we would need to win to understand this place and its reason of existence? And that worried me; for the fate of our colony —our home— was directly intertwined with the dungeon.

David had Pyro lying on the floor. I hadn’t gotten a complete look at him before rushing off to fight the giant, but Pyro was more hurt than I had initially thought. He was missing two legs and half of his abdomen was crushed. He was alive but unconscious.

“Can you save him?” David politely asked; his voice was calmer than I could have anticipated. I nodded in response. The others watched me work in silence; Mink more so. He sat close to Pyro, rubbing his face with his antennas. Mink didn’t stress me to save him. He didn’t even squeak. Rather closely watched Pyro’s languid face for any signs of movements. I had never questioned their relation, had never tried to understand. Hence, it came as a shock to me when I saw Mink caring for Pyro.

Their interest peaked when heals golden glow covered Pyro’s body. Mink visibly tensed first, his antennas standing straight up, and then he relaxed seeing the skill doing its job. At last, he enthusiastically watched as Pyro’s legs slowly recovered. 35 points of mana were all it took to bring him back to perfect health and regenerate all of his missing limbs. Minutes later, the glow slowly faded and Pyro shivered; his complexion was improving. Light returned to his eyes. He looked at us one by one, nodded to Mink, stared at me for a second longer, and then looked past us at the place where the giant had disappeared. “Look,” he said pointing with his antennas, “an exit!” sporting amused expressions from all of us; for we considered it a bluff, another one of his jokes. At least that proved he wasn’t mentally scarred. Yet he had spoken the truth. Mink saw it first and then did David and Dark. I was the last one to turn, and there it was in all its glory, another sphere, slowly rotating about a horizontal axis in the clockwise direction with ripples moving on its surface. Even the tunnels darkness couldn’t hide it.

I wearily watched the sphere. It was that thing which had transported us to this unreasonable hell of a place, and no one had any idea where it would take us again. Although the system had asked our opinion about whether we wanted to proceed to the next stage: the boss room, but what that said place was or what waited for us in there it hadn’t told. Now only concern remained.

“What now?” someone asked.

“We don’t really have a choice” David worded his thoughts, breaking the silence.

“Any ideas,” David said and expanded on his thoughts when no one answered him. “—as to where it might lead?”

“To the bugs — for sure,” David said.

“And if it doesn’t?” Pyro questioned, flexing his regenerated limbs and standing up. He got on his feet wobbling, but Mink helped him, earning himself a pat on the head.

“Then we consider ourselves lucky,” I replied, gaining their attention for a second, before losing them to the eerie silence which the spheres surrounding echoed.

“Is that the plan?” David asked.

I scoffed. “We have a plan?”Calling muffled coughs from the others. At least our collected mood wasn’t as terrible as it had been the first time we had crossed through the sphere. It still hurt to think that none of the thousands of soldiers present had tried to stop us or join us.

“Shall we?” David asked taking a step toward the sphere and we followed him in mutual agreement. We cautiously approached the sphere and then disappeared inside it.

So what if the others had abandoned us. So what if none had joined us! At least we had each other! We were together; A team. The danger and the irregularity only strengthened our bond. Nothing can separate us. I thought, disappearing into the darkness which the sphere induced.

*****

Lights dimmed and the familiar faces of my companions faded away. A strong wind blew and gravity loosened its hold on my body. Electricity passed through my shell and filled me with energy. A shiver ran through me before my whole body shook, and I was off toward another distant place, traveling at a mind-numbing speed, which I couldn’t even detect.

Then, the energy coursing through me faded, and I was dumped out of the loop. My senses returned quicker than the last time and I found myself falling through endless darkness. I called for the others, but no one replied. I continued falling with no signs of an end coming closer.

Was it possible that I was the only one present? I simply didn’t know. This place, this dungeon was too mysterious for me to understand how its magic worked. The spheres and the limits, the bugs of different species working together, the kidnapping, and now our separation; all these things combined smelled of a scheme, something terrible.

Then a sudden thought flashed past my mind. “Why is this dungeon called a graveyard and of feelings at that?” I had a foreboding that these words were important, much more important than all the other distractions combined, and held the key to solve the riddle behind this place and its nature.

I tried calling David, but the connection couldn’t be made. Never before had any of my skills failed! This was the first time. I couldn’t help but grow worried. To find out whether it really was the skill which was misbehaving or something on David’s end, I tried calling Tiny, which ended with the same result, breathing some life back into me. Maybe the dungeon had something to do with it, or maybe it didn’t. I had no way of finding out. And sometimes it’s better to stay in the grey than to know the truth. So I decided to let it go, hoping that eventually the truth will come out and I’d know.

The darkness didn’t disperse, but I sensed the ground quickly rising toward me. I first thought of applying feather fall, but remembering the damage it had done to me on the farm made me hesitate. I had been falling for far too long, with too great a speed. I knew the shock produced from removing all that energy with feather fall would greatly damage my body, and this wasn’t the place to fall vulnerable.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

What I did instead was, I used battery —one of my newest skills— in conjecture with feather fall and hoped for the best, wishing I could fly because then I wouldn’t have to worry about my body being broken into pieces from a fall. Having seen the giant use excavate as an attack skill, I couldn’t help but wonder if I wasn’t using my skills to their full potential. The giant had simply mined and thrown the pieces of rock excavated, but those two skills had shown such great synergy that it had led to a unique attack of its own kind. The giant might not have been intelligent, but he was a genius in my eyes. Not everyone can use what they have and create results. A pseudo-third-tier skill from two-second tier utility skills; It won’t be wrong of me to say that my enemy had accidentally taught me a priceless lesson.

Feather fall stopped my fall just a few ant heights from the dark ground; Battery stored the resulting force and leveled up three times to cope with the pressure. And I touched down safely. Needless to say, it worked! Perhaps, I should have given more thought to the skill levels, but it worked! That’s the most important thing. However, I hadn’t forgotten that I was alone.

So the moment my feet touched the ground, I activated all the skills which would help me distinguish any surprises before they could surprise me — that’s the important thing. My sight kept me updated, but night vision didn’t help; there was not an iota of any wavelength of light for it to draw upon. I activated sensitive hearing and mana vision to find the enemy; Concentration and fast processing to help me fend off an attack. Then I sat down to actively meditate in order to calm my mind.

With this, I thought I was ready, that nothing would be able to surprise me; but when the attack really happened, I couldn’t help voluntarily get caught in it. The skills I had activated in order to find, fend and kill didn’t fail . . . I simply ignored their warnings upon hearing the call of a hauntingly familiar voice.

“Junior, is that you?” It was a simple question, but the emotions it brought out of me were endless tender and furiously raw. It’s a trap. My inner voice said. She’s dead! But I hurried anyways to find the source of the voice.

“W­-Where are you?!” I demanded from the darkness and the silence around which had once again engulfed the voice. The familiar voice, I had not even started to forget it yet; how could I have not given in to the greed of being able to see her once again?

I was sure it was an illusion, a trick of the dungeon, but I didn’t care; my mind wanted to confirm before letting go of the small hope which had formed. Hence, I chased after the phantom.

The voice was so piercing, unlike any I had ever heard before. “Help me!” It screamed in the most urgent of tones, almost bringing the happenings of our past to my eyes. But no matter how much I chased the voice always remained a step further, some distance away, drifting and elusive, never presenting me a hint of its source.

“Help me! Ah!” the more she screamed the faster I ran: Ignoring my stamina which fell faster than a feather being pulled by gravity, or my mana which blindly burned to provide the strength I demanded from my body. I was unquestionably being reckless; but to succeed where I had failed once, I would have given all of me if needed be.

My perception warned me of danger. My senses cried me to stop. Foresight was blaring red and even my auto defense thought I was trying to commit suicide, but I didn’t stop, until the voice which had remained elusive for so long became clear and the being that I wanted to confirm as fake, a shapeless ghost, a mimicking ghoul, appeared in front of me. She was safe yet not. Her head was still attached to her body which was still complete and healthy, but she was bound.

‘Captain…’ I tried to say, but only a shrieking sound, a wail came out of me. It resonated with the emotions, the feeling I had left behind in the war with the black enemy ants, flourishing them once again inside me.

“Captain,” This time the yell echoed in the emptiness as I surged to save her from the web in which she was tangled and caught.

“Save me!” She yelled, her body twisting and turning, becoming more and more entangled in the web of lies she had created. Yet, I ignored them. It was her. It wasn’t her. She was asking for my help when she had never done so in the past. Minnie wanted my help. It was impossible for me to not think about the last time I had seen her face, her dimmed eyes and her frightening lifelessness. And I knew that whatever happens next I couldn’t let her die again; even if it was just an illusion of her.

“Come here, untangle me junior!” No one else had called me junior other than her; No one else but her. “It’s you.” It pained me to say it. “It’s you.” My legs trembled as I cut through the web tangling her in its stickiness.

The web tangled around me the more I pulled it off her. Every strand, even threads I tore off her body caught and tightened around me, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about myself. I wanted to save her this time; even if it was just an illusion. Not that it would lessen the pain which had surfaced once again. No. There was no shedding that. To forget her was forgetting my past, the time I had spent with her and the others. To forget the time however hurtful it was would be like hating the deities for bringing her into my life. And I didn’t want that.

By the time I had freed her from the mess of web my whole body was tightly wrapped in layers and layers of the silk. But I was happy. I was extremely happy.

“Thank you. Thank you! You saved me!” I could hear the happiness in her voice. Pure bliss, unlike anything I had ever heard. There was not an ounce of menace in her tone. She neared me, rubbed her face against mine and stabbed her stinger into my chest and told me again and again how thankful she was.

“Don’t mention it,” I replied and waited for her. I kept watching her face, her lines, and her height. I was starting to forget her face; I had almost forgotten how small she looked from up close. She was only half my size now.

“You have gotten so big . . . fool.” She said and I nodded my head in response.

{You have been poisoned.}

{You have resisted the poison.}

I ignored the rest of the notifications and only watched her walking around me. My photogenic memory recorded her every motion, her every word, the tone of her voice until she finished wrapping me in a ball of silk and then her voice warped into something more gritty and more rustic as she talked to herself.

“That was almost too easy.

“The poison should be working by now. He looked so strong; I wonder how he tastes.

“Should I eat? No. But . . . Okay, how about one suck? Umm . . . One suck it is; yes, that will be alright.”

‘Now I won’t forget you again. I promise, captain.’ I told that little voice roaming inside my head and activated the Fire body.

“Wha-what's this” I heard the thing stammering outside the burning ball of silk, scampering about in confusion. I burned through the web holding me captive and met eyes with the thing which had shown the audacity to mock my memory of Minnie.

Fire body was not an exclusive skill, but an ability of Fury. Fury was a skill that had recently become free of its negative effects. The resulting fire which burned on my body was not blood red like it used to be, but white: Pure white.

The sticky tight web burned into ash and its burning embers flew away with the heat, leaving a scared spider in front of my eyes.

It looked at me in a daze at first, and then stammered out, “How- how are you still conscious?” It wasn’t polite, so neither was I.

“You don’t need to know,” I said and slashed its head off. Its small hairy body indicated its gender, but it didn’t deserve the honor to be called with the pronoun. But I didn’t torture it. It had allowed me to take another look at my captain. I was thankful for that.