[You have died]

…

[You have died]

… … …

*Yeon died instantly every time he was revived for approx. 10 minutes*

After dying a lot of times, I finally saw the 4th level and remembered what I saw before dying again. I was amid giant spiders. As soon as I revived, I died again from fear, shock, and all sorts of similar emotions. Yeah! I have Arachnophobia. During my childhood, I had a dream of large spiders and after that I developed an irrational fear of spiders. It seems like I am living that dream again but on a whole new level.

One might think that it’s weird to die of shock/fear, but it’s not that easy to control your sense of fear. As soon as I see a large spider which is the size of 25 to 30 metres, my heart beat increases, my body freezes, and before I know it, I kick the bucket. This truly is a nightmare for me. I don’t think any other situation can describe a nightmare better than this. After dying so many times, I finally saw the clearing conditions of this level. I just need to stay alive for a single day and the moment I die, the time resets. But I think this is as far as I will go. I have no hope anymore. I mean, I die in seconds after seeing the spiders.

After dying hundreds of times continuously, I think I developed some sort of resistance to fear, as I didn’t die even after seeing the spiders. During my life on Earth, although I didn’t encounter any spiders apart from house spiders, I am pretty sure I would have fainted if I ever saw one of those wild spiders from forests, or maybe I could have died of shock too. Anyway, now that I didn't die of shock, I tried to look around my surroundings.

I realised that I was in a forest again, but it was rather a creepy forest with large trees, large spiders and their webs all over the place. Although I was still feeling fear, it was manageable enough to stay alive… barely. Though there were some things which I found rather weird, for some reason the spiders weren’t attacking me. I am sure they have noticed me, but they are still not doing anything about it.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

The other one was that no human/mortal was there on this level for as far as I could see. But I thought of a reason for this on my own. I noticed that this level was known as Nightmare and that name literally defined this level. This level could be different for different people depending on their definition of Nightmare. Since I have Arachnophobia, this level is a perfect match for me. But then again, why aren’t they attacking me?

They are just staring at me with too many eyes and I think they are conversing with each other, but I don’t understand spider language. Though, I am glad they aren’t attacking me. I stand no chance against them if they try to harm me.

Just when I was thinking about all this, one of the spiders suddenly tried to attack me while the other one blocked it. I got too scared and ran from there towards the largest tree without thinking much. And then it happened. I saw a very large spider there, the largest I had seen so far. To add to that, the spider even talked to me. He asked me, “Why are you here?” I froze already after seeing him, so I didn’t hear him at all.

He then touched me to wake me up from shock and asked me again, “Why are you here, when you don’t even have any negative karma to begin with?” This was rather a very absurd situation for me. Not only does the spider talk, he even has the ability to detect karma. I never thought I would encounter someone in the levels of hell with the ability to detect karma. But for some reason, now that he talked to me, I was no longer afraid of him. I am not sure why, but after listening to him my heart beat slowed down a little.

After gathering my thoughts, I asked him, “Are you able to see my karma?” He replied, “Well, to be precise, I can’t see your karma at all, whether negative or positive. It’s rather amusing since this has never happened before. Not only me but other spiders can see the karma of mortals as well. This is why we have no idea as to why you are here on this level and what are we supposed to do with you?”

“We are under contract to punish the sinners with negative karma, but since you don’t have any karma to begin with, we are also confused. But some of us thought that since you are on this level, you are to be punished, while others didn’t agree to it. This created a conflict between us. Personally, I don’t want to harm you either, since it’s strictly written that we are to punish sinners with negative karma. Therefore, you need to tell us the reason why you are here without having any karma. And there is no use lying to me. I can detect lies as well. The moment you lie to us, you will be marked as a sinner.”

That cleared up the confusion I was having earlier. Now the challenge was: how should I reply to him? If he can detect karma, then why not lie as well? I don’t think I can lie here. But if I tell the truth, there’s a high chance they might start attacking me. Just thinking about all this, my fear came back. After contemplating for some time, I decided to tell the truth about my situation.