As we pushed past the illusion and entered the main room, I had to stop because of what I was seeing. Sereza smashed into me from behind, and I reached a hand back to catch her from falling. She glared at me, but then I stepped to the side, and her frown turned into a look of shock as her jaw dropped open.

"Would you like more pudding, Princess Basta?" Mayuma asked cheerfully as she held up a small plate of jiggling pudding.

Basta growled and then slumped his shoulders. "Yes, please, Princess Mayuma."

"Good, good." Mayuma deposited half the pudding onto Basta's plate and then turned to Tilly, who was sipping at a teacup. "And you, Princess Tilly?"

Tilly daintily set down her cup and held out both hands. "Why yes, Princess Mayuma, I would love some."

I wasn't sure, but seeing Basta — the six-foot-something, hulking beastkin sitting with his legs tucked underneath him and holding up a tiny saucer plate with some pudding on it — made me experience a moment of schadenfreude.

Poltor and Osilla were off to the side, having a normal conversation while they picked at pieces of jerky out of a bowl. They didn't notice Sereza or me standing at the doorway with our jaws to the floor.

I took one last look at Basta playing princess and decided to back out of the room. It was hard to contain the bubbling laughter building in my chest, but I managed and forced myself to sit on the edge of the bottom steps,

Sereza hesitated and glanced back at me before slowly turning away from the scene. She joined me on the steps, and I could see her processing what she saw.

I tried to speak, but a giggle kept fighting to escape. "Th-that's... not what I expected."

"Yeah, no kidding. What do you think happened? Mind control?" she responded.

"If it's mind control, then we should be sending them outside to fight the monsters. Imagine the army we could build."

We shared another laugh, and I felt something ache. The laughing face of a sickly but firey woman flashed through my mind. Even with blood covering her lips, she kept a bright smile.

The image transformed, showing the same face but healthier and fuller, now wearing an expression of fear and surprise – akin to the look one wears when cast into boundless emptiness.

And when I tried to banish the image from my mind, all I heard was the faint sound of a fading scream.

I grunted and turned away, pushing myself off the stairs. I hesitated, trying to decide if I wanted to head back out or deal with whatever weirdness was happening inside the room.

"Whoa, what the fuck?" Sereza asked as she watched me pace. "What happened?"

I flexed my fingers and let them sink into the wall. The stone was hard, but my nails were sharper and sunk in by a few millimeters.

"Hey, seriously, what the fuck? One moment, we're laughing; the next, you looked ready to murder something."

I removed my hand from the wall and leaned backwards, letting the cool stone hold me up. "How about we don't ask and leave it at that? Still dealing with some shit. Nothing to do with you."

Her expression softened, and she gave me a sympathetic smile. "Alright, do you want to wait out here or head inside?"

I sincerely contemplated my choice. I could go back in and settle in for the night. There were less than two hours left till the monsters would become active. Being outside during that mayhem would be a surefire way to get yourself killed.

I frowned and looked past the broken stairwell and up to the barred doors. So far, the cellar doors have stayed standing, even with abominations smashing up the local area.

But that didn't mean it'd last. If the enchantment on the doors failed, there was a good chance the monsters would enter the cellar, and a fight in such close quarters would put the others at risk.

"Hey, how about I go around and collect some stuff we can use to barricade the entrance? You can start rolling some of the larger rocks near the doors, and we'll roll them in place before we lock up."

She looked at the entrance being held together by a single metal bar. "Yeah, that's smart. I'm not too trusting of what we have now."

"Meet you back here in twenty?"

"Sure, let's go."

We spent the hour meticulously placing some of the larger debris around the sides of the house. There was no way to stop something if they jumped over, but it would hopefully be enough of a deterrent to prevent the smaller monsters from rolling through.

To further add to our security, I placed a large armoire on the top step. I finally found a use for the good ole adventurer's rope and helped tie it to the doors.

It wasn't much considering the horrors that awaited us on the outskirts, but it'd do.

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Now, we only needed to wait for day three to arrive. Come morning, if things went our way, I'd be in contact with Teddy and the others.

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Night came and went. It started like the previous nights, with monster roars and screeches sounding off from within the city and along its edge.

The destruction was in full bloom, and several shakes impacted the cellar. During the entire night, I watched the cracks along the walls, waiting for the moment the stone gave way and began burying the room's residents underneath a landslide of rubble.

Whether it was due to the stone's enchantments or the unusual lack of earth-shaking quakes, the walls held, and we remained safe for another night.

Tilly slept with Mayuma, and I kept to my chair, not wanting a repeat of the night before. When our defences held and the cellar doors remained unbreached, I let myself slip into a bout of meditation.

The rift's energy was like fuel to the fire as my soul accepted the energy and developed my skills. If I kept my progress steady, there was a good chance I'd be leaving the rift with a few maxed skills.

I deliberately avoided mentioning it when Sereza checked on me – my tier and rank were details she didn't need to know. Revealing them would inevitably lead to numerous uncomfortable questions that I preferred not to answer.

Finally, as morning came and the cries of the night ceased, I got up and took a shower. From there, I did my morning rituals, including rubbing with my returned bar of soap. I had Zharia sterilize it for good measure.

When I exited the bedroom, I was greeted again by Basta sitting awake in the corner of the room. This time, he kept his eyes away from my direction and grew as stiff as a statue when I began walking.

I sighed and tossed him a bag of spiced jerky before pushing past the barrier. Sereza greeted me with a wave, and I waved back before summoning Zharia.

She appeared in a small flash of light and flew to my shoulder. I gave her a quick head pat and started donning my armour.

Sereza was already dressed but was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Must we go so early? We could wait a bit. Sleep in, that sort of thing?"

"You're free to do that if you want, but I need to head to the outskirts. There could be someone waiting for me there."

"Uughhh, fine. Let's go. If you die, things would be boring around here."

"I feel like that's simply not possible. And if it is, I'm very concerned about what you normally do to think giant rampaging tentacle monsters could be considered 'boring'."

She stuck her tongue out, and I summoned my Trickster's Pouch. As we exited the cellar, I reached in and pulled out a tin of mints. Another two handfuls netted me a bag of candied peanuts and a single, fun-sized candy bar.

"What's that?"

I kept the mints and gave her the bag of peanuts and the candy bar. "Try it, but keep talking to a minimum. We can't be too careful."

Thankfully, with the sweet snack food in her hands, Sereza kept herself occupied throughout our jog. There was new damage done to the city, certain buildings had more wear and tear, and a few were entirely missing.

Those buildings could be seen if one looked down at the piles of rubble and scattered materials that once stood tall in the city. At one point, we had to take a detour because a spatial distortion stretched across the road and into a few buildings.

The distortion showed glimpses of tentacles and claws but nothing in full view. It made my head spin, trying to figure out how the outer shell we saw decided what to show. It was as if the moment the monsters and cultists created the pocket dimensions, the world would take a screenshot, and that was what we saw from the outside.

It made me happy I had Magnus. Other adventurers may have had a way to peek into the dimensional spaces without falling into them, but I doubted it.

Mana absorption couldn't be that common, not the way Magnus could. And something like mana disruption would still require a hefty amount of mana.

It was things I could hopefully ask whenever we finally found other people. So far, our section of the city has been a depressing wasteland. Not a single soul in sight.

As we approached the outskirts, I guided us to where Zharia was waiting. She found a building near the barrier's edge but had somehow remained untouched. There was a risk in going towards the anomaly, but it was my best chance and looking past the line of slumbering monsters.

The building was only two stories tall. The dark grey stone and nearly black wood caught the eye. The city's majority of buildings utilized a lighter grey-white stone for construction. Some houses were wooden, but apart from those, the materials generally favored the lighter shade.

Further contributing to the building's oddity, the second floor displayed windowless walls, with only two windows installed on the side we approached.

We slowed our jog and came to a stop near the building's side. Zharia had perched on the lip of a window, so when she hopped off and flew to my shoulder, I looked in her direction. The detail that sent a chill down my neck was that despite the window being made of clear glass with adequate sunlight shining down on its surface, there was nothing but utter darkness inside the building.

You'd expect to see a darkened room or something, but no, it was as if the light was anathema to the room's insides.

I tapped Sereza's shoulder and motioned to the window. "Stop, look inside."

She turned to the window, and I watched as she tried to process what she was seeing. "That's really weird."

Nodding once, we proceeded carefully. We circled the building, making a complete loop to where we started. Unfortunately, there wasn't a way to get easy access to the roof. The building was too tall, and there were no ladders around.

Sereza huffed and bit her lip. "Well, fuck. Are we entering?"

Zharia released a quiet chirp, and I reached a hand up to stroke her feathers. "Think you could incinerate whatever is in there?"

"Yes!" Zharia replied.

I smiled and summoned my spear. "It looks like it."

Magnus was summoned, and he instantly lowered himself into a crouch. Sereza and I waited as the tiger cub did his thing and tried to sense for mana. He did pick up on something, and he struggled to explain it.

"Hard to sense. Can't describe it, Master," Magnus mewed dejectedly.

I reached down and rubbed his head. "Don't worry about it. Just be prepared."

He let out a ferocious roar, or rather, an adorable kitten version of a roar. Still, my fearless little familiar was psyching himself up, and I wasn't about to destroy his confidence by letting my thoughts bleed through.

Still adorable, though.

Sereza was ready with her daggers out and her skill active. The green liquid haze that coated her blades was bright and visible in the morning rays.

I gave her a nod, and I reached to unlock the door. We positioned ourselves on either side, so when the door opened, we crouched low and waited for something to pop out.

Nothing did, so I gave her another nod and sent Magnus forward. His coat was now crystal, and he stalked into the room. There was a beat of silence followed by Magnus' roaring.

I launched myself into the door and brandished my spear. My eyes darted across the void space, trying to find my familiar, when I heard a voice reach my ears.

"Magnus, calm down, will you? Stop trying to eat me; my skill will come undone."

I lowered my spear and found the tiger cub pawing at a person's leg. In truth, calling it a person would be a stretch since their body was made of liquid shadow, barely visible amongst the black background.

It was only when Magnus' crystal-coated claws would touch the shadow that the person's form wavered into existence.

Tearing my eyes away from my familiar, I trailed upwards till I landed on their face. When I did, I had to lean forward, but eventually, the person's facial details flickered into existence for me to see.

The shadow person sighed and met my gaze. "So, you finally found the time to check on the building," the shadow man's face turned into a disappointed sneer. "Took you long enough."

Sereza called out from behind me, and I quickly turned around to give her the all-clear symbol. She carefully stepped into the room, squeezing past my shoulders.

When she saw Magnus pawing at the shadow person, she stopped. "What the hell? I thought you said it was all clear."

"Oh great, now there's two of you. You better not have been getting laid while we fight for our lives out here. If you were, I'll have Eodyne zap the shit out of you."

I groaned and dragged a hand down my face. "How the fuck did you get through the barrier, Isaac?"

He did something with his face, but it took an awkward five seconds before Magnus's pawing made his face appear in clear enough detail for me to see what it was.

Isaac's grin was wide, and if he were real, I'd see pearly white teeth glaring at my retinas. "That's an easy answer; I didn't."