Chapter 174: Do you want to take revenge?

There was no moon or sun, only the shade of a red sky stretching endlessly above Magna.

The air was so dry and hot that every breath made his throat and lungs hurt. It also smelled like burned wood.

Everywhere he looked, he could only see endless shades of black and gray on the surface. There was not even a single patch of greenery.

Magna was sure that he had either come to another region through a portal or something similar or traveled directly to another realm.

He knew other dimensions existed in this universe. However, he had never found any books describing these dimensions in detail, so he couldn’t be sure if the one he was in now was one of them.

The only thing he knew, from what Titus had told him before, was that one of the realms had an entrance inside a volcanic mountain.

Thinking about this, he could only make a guess. ’Could this place possibly be the Underworld?’

If the volcanic mountain he had been in a while ago was one of the entrances from that story, his guess seemed quite possible.

Too bad there was no signboard indicating where he was, so he would have to discover it himself.

The problem was that he didn’t know where to start exploring, since the place looked even emptier than the Sahara Desert.

So he started to approach the problem from another perspective, that of a game developer. He began to think about where he would put interesting things if he had created a place like this himself.

First of all, he decided he would definitely put a town or settlement somewhere people or monsters could gather and socialize, since this was always a feature that made maps interesting.

As for where he would put this settlement, his eyes were drawn to 3 mountains quite far away, positioned in a triangle with a fairly wide area between them.

If there was a town around here, he was sure it had to be there.

He looked one last time at the sky where he had fallen. There was still no portal or anything similar he could use to return, so he made up his mind and started to walk.

The place was quite far away. By his estimate, it would probably take him half a day to reach it at his current walking speed.

Fortunately, he wasn’t feeling tired. There were no burn wounds left on his body, only small burns on his skin. They were still healing quickly thanks to his last mutation, which had increased his regeneration 5 times.

The main issue was that the air was too dry and hot, so he might need water soon. However, thanks to his high Stamina stat, he could endure this for not just half a day but even a few days.

Aside from that, he was also carrying the excitement of adventure, since he was exploring completely new lands he had never seen before.

’If this is really the Underworld, then there have to be good resources here, especially mana-rich foods I can find.’ His eyes never stopped scanning the surroundings while he walked, not wanting to miss even a small patch of vegetation that might be hidden beneath the dark soil.

According to what Titus had told him, the Tower continued to send exploration teams to these realms from time to time to gather resources. So there was a very high chance he could even run into one of those Shadows or Witches somewhere.

After a few hours nonstop walking without finding anything interesting, he finally saw something on the dark soil a little ahead.

When he walked closer, he saw that they were some kind of footprints.

They were only some kind of footprints because they did not look exactly like human ones. They had 3 toes. Judging by their depth, the owner seemed to have a very heavy body.

Magna compared them to his own footprints in the soil. Based on the difference, he quickly concluded that if he weighed 50 kilograms (110 pounds), whoever had left these footprints must have weighed close to 300 or even 400 kilograms (660 to 880 pounds).

The footprints belonged to only 1 person. They came from his right side and went directly toward the place he was trying to reach.

So at least he was sure now that he would find someone living there, though he could not tell whether it was a monster or a sentient being.

’I need to stay hidden in case of any danger.’ His eyes fell on his white T-shirt.

He had not gotten any black training uniform from the Shadow training camp, so he was still wearing his black pants and white long-sleeved T-shirt.

The black pants were fine, but the white shirt would definitely make him stand out in this endless black ash desert.

He immediately took it off. Then he started rubbing it against the black soil.

Soon the T-shirt turned dirty and black, completely losing its noticeable white color. He put it back on.

He thought about rubbing some of it on his face too, but decided not to since he didn’t want to look dirty.

His face was slightly tanned anyway from the long training sessions he had done under the sun, so it wasn’t noticeably pale.

Using his experience as an assassin, he continued walking stealthily, staying alert and hoping to find something exciting along the way.

—

At the back of the Shadow training camp, the place started to become lively again while the sun began to rise.

The campfire that had been burning all night started to fade with the first rays of the sun, slowly dying down until it went out completely at dawn.

The door of one hut opened. The Drakon girl slowly stepped outside, wearing her full training uniform with a black cloth covering her entire face.

She looked around, but there was no one else. Once again, she was the first one to wake up after fainting from the mana pressure that had arrived in the middle of the night.

Her eyes stopped on the hut where the Master was staying, while the events of last night passed through her mind.

After the old man told them to return to their rooms and never leave the fireplaces they had, she followed his instructions.

It wasn’t as though she would have done otherwise anyway. She could still feel that lingering fear from last night.

That unbelievable presence pressing down on her and the feeling of being watched still sent a chill through her.

She was curious about what it was, but she had enough patience to learn later.

She walked to the extinguished campfire as usual, sat down cross-legged, then waited for the others to wake up and come outside.

The next hut door to open was not Magna’s but the redhead boy’s. He quickly stepped outside.

He had a terrified look on his face. The anxious expression was still there.

After his eyes scanned the surroundings for a while, they landed on the Drakon girl beside the campfire. He quickly rushed over to her.

"Hey, do you know what happened last night?"

He did not get any reply, not even a response, but he didn’t seem to care. He simply kept talking to himself.

"Man, I was so terrified. I wonder if that was part of our trial?"

While he kept chatting by himself, the other doors started to open one after another. Matrim was the next one out.

As soon as he left his hut, his expectant eyes immediately fell on the 2 figures outside.

But when he saw that Magna wasn’t one of them, his expression fell.

He quickly walked toward them.

Seeing him, the redhead boy immediately turned toward him with a curious look. "Yo, do you know what happened yesterday? I was..." Before he could finish, Matrim pushed him aside with one hand and walked directly in front of the Drakon girl.

His usual friendly smile was gone. His eyes looked furious, and his words came out heavily when he opened his mouth. "When you said he died... Were you lying?"

He hoped the girl would say yes, but once again she simply ignored him and kept sitting there.

"Answer me!" This time Matrim shouted, no longer holding back his anger.

He even bent down and reached for the girl’s collar to lift her, but the redhead boy stopped him before he could. "Hey, hey, brother, calm down. What’s wrong with you?"

Matrim had been so consumed by his anger that when the redhead boy suddenly grabbed him, the anger that had been keeping him going seemed to leave his body along with all his strength. Even his legs started trembling, unable to support his weight, and he was about to fall to his knees.

At the last moment, he pushed the boy away to stop him from touching him.

The redhead boy was thrown back a few steps. He quickly regained his balance and apologized. "Sorry, my bad. I shouldn’t have touched you."

Matrim gave him a side glance before turning his gaze back to the Drakon girl. This time, his voice had become colder and heavier, apparently filled with killing intent. "Tell me... did you kill him?"

Meanwhile, the other hut doors had also started opening. The other boys woke up one by one, stepping outside just in time to hear Matrim’s question.

They already looked quite shocked and frightened because of what had happened yesterday. Now, seeing the scene with 2 boys in conflict and someone having apparently died yesterday, their interest and curiosity grew, and they began to watch the two.

Under all those stares, the Drakon girl finally couldn’t stay silent any longer. She gave a sigh and slowly stood up from where she was sitting.

She turned to Matrim and raised her head to look at his face, since their height difference was large. Her voice was cold when she spoke. "Yes. Do you want to take revenge?"