What if....

Actually, I consider this a silly question, because you cannot change the past no matter how powerful you are.

But sometimes this question can consume you if you keep asking it over and over again.

Everyone does things that they may regret at some point in their life.

A person may regret something that has a limited impact, such as an exam that will determine their future.

Then regret will consume them and they will ask... What if I studied more for that exam?

Other times, a person may regret something that has an impact that could affect others or even the entire world.

This is the level of regret I reached at a certain point in my life.

What if I somehow tried to stop the execution in which the saboteurs were offered as human sacrifices?

How strange

This simple question could have made me imagine countless scenarios

I could have imagined a whole world where these tragic events would not have happened

The soldiers would have returned home safely

Even Lambert would have definitely returned to his wife and daughter after years of separation

As for Oswald Mandus... I really don't know what would happen to that man

Maybe he would do something terrible like commit suicide in a crappy apartment in an obscure neighborhood.

And one day that war will end and our world will return to peace and tranquility

But all of these are just imaginary scenarios I've drawn in my mind

None of these good things happened except in my imagination

Because the soldiers were consumed by the monsters and entities that came out of the tunnels.

As for Lambert, he turned into a raging monster that destroys every living thing in front of him

And Mandus somehow survived., although I don't think he's happy about it

I think he would have preferred to die inside that bunker, instead of receiving the news about the massacre in which his family was killed

My world was completely destroyed and no longer fit for life.

Although I couldn't change the past, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about it.

Everything could have been changed with one decision, I could have saved everything.

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Ten soldiers stood in a row, their eyes covered with a blindfold while their hands were tied behind their backs.

Ten rifles were pointed at their heads, waiting for orders.

All I could do was watch as I stood among the crowd of soldiers standing on both sides, watching this scene unfold before us.

At that time, everyone was immersed in confusion and anxiety.

Fear was the master of the situation.

Fear of those unknown things roaming inside the tunnels.

And at the same time, fear of the consequences of disobeying the orders of our officers. This fear was embodied right in front of us in the scene of the execution of the saboteurs.

I was no exception.

But I preferred to look around me in an attempt to ease my anxiety.

The first face I saw was that of Lambert, who was closing his eyes and muttering some prayers in a low voice.

The officers had refused his request to recite some prayers before the execution.

But Lambert refused to send the souls of these soldiers before they were purified, so he was reciting the prayers from his place in the crowd.

When I turned my face, the person I saw was Mandus, who was looking straight at the bound soldiers who were silently awaiting death.

Unusually, Mandus looked calm, but there was something missing in his eyes.

His blue eyes were empty, as if they had lost all trace of life.

As I was contemplating Mandus’ expression, I heard a loud voice ordering the soldiers to prepare to shoot the saboteurs.

I quickly turned my gaze to the owner of the voice.

He was Salim.

Salim stood there with his dark, rough-featured face, expressionless, like a bronze statue, and he seemed to be the most composed person in this situation. He raised his hands like a reaper who was ready to bring his scythe down on his target without mercy.

He then lowered his hand, giving the signal to fire, and ten bullets were heard, which pierced the heads of the saboteurs. Skillfully.

After this whole thing was over, the soldiers quickly started to disperse away from this ominous site.

None of them could stand to stay in a place where ten people were mercilessly murdered, and of course they didn’t want to see the sight of these miserable corpses.

I was one of those who decided to leave as well, but I quickly glanced at Salim, who had been assigned for some reason to oversee this entire operation.

He stood in front of the ten corpses, his hands shaking in an unnoticeable way, his eyes following the blood coming out of the holes in the skulls of the dead soldiers..

He looked like he was waiting for something impatiently.

I can’t deny that I found it suspicious at the time.

But the good thing was that our confusion soon began to fade away as everything gradually began to unfold with every second we spent in that place.

The bad thing was that we were already in the eye of the storm and we couldn’t retreat or escape.

Some of the facts that were revealed were so hard to believe for any of us that some of us continued to deny the reality until the end.

It turns out that everything the saboteurs said was completely true.

There is something fishy about those tunnels, as if something was trying to get out of them

But it seems that it needs some kind of human sacrifice in order to be freed from its prison

However, that entity could not do this work itself for some reason, so it needed someone to do it on its behalf

And it seems that that entity has found the right person

Salim...

That entity was able to control Salim and brainwash him irreversibly

Salim turned into the tool that would perform the human sacrifices necessary to start the rituals that would break the prison that held those entities

However, Salim could not kill the soldiers recklessly or openly

After all, he is an ordinary human who can be killed with a single bullet

If he tried to kill others, there is a possibility that he would be the one who would be killed if the victim tried to resist him

In addition, the officers and soldiers would investigate the killings that would occur

He will likely be discovered and executed immediately.

So he needed a plan through which he could kill a large number of soldiers without anyone getting in his way

And he was able to do that in a way that can only be described as genius

He incited a group of soldiers to sabotage the tunnel entrances to stop the tunnel exploration operations

And he took advantage of their desperate state that they reached after nights of not being able to sleep due to nightmares, and their psychological state that reached the brink of madness

After Salim succeeded in inciting them, ten soldiers agreed to blow up the tunnels entrances and fill them while everyone was asleep

At the same time, Salim went to the officers and informed on those saboteur soldiers

These soldiers were caught red-handed while they were transporting explosives towards the tunnels

And thus we reached the execution scene at the end

Of course, it turned out that Salim himself was the one who incited the officers to execute the saboteurs, claiming that this was necessary so that no one else would dare to disobey orders

And those fools listened to him and carried out everything he said

When all the mystery was revealed, everything was already over

I am the only human who remained inside the bunker while the others either died or turned into monsters

Mandus also remained alive, but it is difficult to describe him as human anymore

As for Salim, he went crazy and turned into something like a zombie, wandering around carrying a gun, looking for a target to hunt down

And I was the one who played this role, of course, unwillingly

It went on like this until I was able to find a magical artifact that enabled me to escape from that hell.

Although I realized that I had left my entire world, not just the bunker,

It was hard to accept, but it was better than staying there with the madmen and monsters.

"You don't look well at all..."

These soft words pulled me out of those disturbing memories.

Charlotte stood a few steps in front of me, crossing her arms.

"I'm fine..." I pushed those negative thoughts out of my head.

Then I touched the wall that had engravings arranged in a specific path, "I think I figured out how to find the place that contains our goal...."

I felt Charlotte's breathing become faster as she tried not to speak out loud.

"Let's go..." This time, I took the lead of the team in search of the center of the dungeon.