[You have lost 697 ener- [Normal system funct will cease ]
“Fuck.”
I fell to one knee; my leg was shacking and I had no control over it. I barely managed to send one punch straight to the floor, managing to stop my body from falling over.
“Status!”
Nothing happened.
“Status!”
I tried louder. A hinge of desperation tinting my voice. Something wet traveled thought my cheeks, and I realized. I was crying.
I spent too much time self loathing. Lying down on the cold floor, I cried, sobbed, and shouted to the immensity of the room. No one cared. My shouts were unheard and I was still alone with no System whatsoever.
Only when I calmed, when I let out all the rage I had been accumulating on the past day, did I stop and think.
“Why would a simple [Area Divination] waste almost 700 energy in a single one?”
Even if the room was packed to the point that I wouldn’t fit, that number seemed excessive.
Yet it was a fact that it had been exhausted.
“Where have you gone?”
Blind, and with no energy to guide me, answering the question would be impossible.
That's the wrong question. When the system message came I focused on that, but my pulse was still ongoing… what did it show?
Perhaps I hadn't completed it, but if the energy had gone anywhere… then I would have noticed.
The moment my strength failed…
I concentrated, trying to re-live the same traumatic event once more. I sent the energy out, as I normally do, in an sphere around me. I event measure the exact amount I needed to only cover the room.
I was breathing heavily. My body was sending me a shutdown signal. Me eyes wanted to close for good. But I didn't let them.
I though of my energy. Ignoring every single obstacle it found on its way, I retraces how it had expanded from me and how it met-
“The souce of corruption!”
The source was hiding in plane sight, not more than three meters away from me. I didn't know what it was, but clearly it was the culprit of my missing energy. It sucked it in.
Before just blindly looking for the source, I took the precaution of leaving a trace of clothes back to the center of the room. Eventually, after using the trail three times, I found what I was looking for.
A bubble of something floating at around my waist height. It was mushy to the touch, soft and fluffy yet completely dry.
I poked it a few times; nothing came out of it. Next, I tried putting my hand in an-
“Fuck!”
The word was on the tip of my tongue today. And not without reason.
The bubble embraced me. It surrounded my hand, wrapped it with its own fluffiness, and pulled. And pulled again.
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Barely gaining by the thinnest of the threads, I failed to resist the third pull and I went head first into the source.
I mentally braced for when my teeth made contact with the floor, but that never happened.
I was floating in a small sea of warmth. A warmth that felt too familiar. That felt mine.
[You have restored 586 energy]
Because it was mine.
The system messages were pilling up. I quickly read the one that told me I was being reconnected to the System, and opened the next one.
[Summon Corrupted Class Book] -> [Portal to Corrupted dimension]
You've corrupted the pocket dimension the System provided for your [Class Book].
Now, the [Class Book] serves as an anchor to a corrupted dimension. You might consult the [Class Book] when you are in the corrupted dimension, or you can summon the book.
Your pocket in the corrupted dimension requires resources to maintain its corrupted stability.
+ Energy: 100/100
A deluge of emotions had made camp on my head. I was glad to have found back my energy. Ecstatic over the pocket dimension. Devastated that my energy problem was still there. Worried about the additional maintenance cost. And a million other details.
All of it, however, was quickly overwhelmed an impending and imposing fear. By a wave of magic that washed over me, swallowing me like a tsunami running over a tiny ant.
“My, what do we have here?” The voice of a man, and a woman, and other things that I count not put a name to, spoke clearly.
“Bob?”
“I will have to disappoint you, I'm afraid. But please! It's been a while since the last time someone came. And I must say, you are and interesting subject.”
I kept quiet even when I didn’t want to. I had many question. Who are you? What do you mean interesting? Did someone else come to this pocket dimension?
My mouth moved. I invited it to voice my doubts. But nothing came out. I looked down to my feet; I was shaking. The sheer pressure of that wave of energy had broken me.
“It would seem I’ve met a timid one, but there’s no need to fret. Right now I’m too far away to have any meaningful impact on you. In due time, however, we will meet. And when we do, my when we do…”
I was incapable of making anything out of their words. It could be a threat or a playful way to say we’d have a good time. The chill on my body said it was probably the former.
The storm of energy misappropriated the same way it came, leaving behind a sea of calmness and stillness that wasn’t there when I entered the corrupted dimension.
I had more System messages to read. A pile of them according to the flashing notifications. However, I decided this was not the place or the moment to go over them.
I had my energy already, and even an encounter with a being beyond my comprehension. More importantly, I was still alive; that was more than I could ask for.
I used my new skill and promptly exited the pocket dimension. I appeared back on the spherical room, right were I had gone inside the fluffy bubble. Just that the bubble was no longer there.
I needed time to recompose and analyze what just happened, but the System thought otherwise.
[Dungeon's corruption source has been cleared]
“Ah, this might be a problem.”
[You have 65 unread messages from Claudia]
‘Darian? The System just said contact with you was lost. Are you okay?’
‘This is not funny, Darian.’
‘I swear Darian if you do-’
“Stop!”
It was a kind of worry that overwhelmed me. She reminded me of my own mother and her inability to express love without berating me.
“Sai-” I caught myself before saying it again. I have to find a new word to swear. “The problem just became a huge problem.”
See, I had to explain that I had almost died to my own skill. However, almost dying had opened a door to a pocket dimension. The pocket dimension had stored my energy, so I came back to life. Ah, and there is an unknown entity lurking on my pocket dimension.
What? That wasn't what I was supposed to do on this assignment? Picture me surprised!
I started going over all possible explanations that omitted the small detail of me being corrupted. There weren't many good options, but at the end I settled on something plausible.
The corruption here on the center was beyond my expectations. I had overestimated my resistance, and the result wasn't pretty. The corruption had started eating at my System connection, and before I was completely gone I had to clear the corruption source.
Not bad, if I say so myself!
Hopefully no one would ask me to explain in depth what each of those things meant.
I was planning to finally settle down and rest for a bit, because I truly needed it, but again someone thought differently.
I ignored the nagging notifications from the System, telling me I still had much to read, and I focused on the incoming steps.
Some was running for their life towards my direction. Most likely, they were running to check of my life.
“Darian!” Finally, after some tense seconds, I hear Claudia's voice.
I was still keeping my pulses to the minimum, so I only checked after she was close enough.
She was panting. Her red face covered by sweat. And her eyes were glassy and swollen. She had been crying.
“Darian! Good!” She repeated. “Have you gotten my messages?”
“I, uh, yes. I just listened to the first two, before the System was malf-”
“That's not important now!” She interrupted me. “Something bad happened!”
Ah, yes? I almost died? I stopped myself from saying that out loud. I was not a jerk, even if my stress levels were above the roof.
“Yasmin… They've got her!”