The Silent Land

【Welcome to: Echoing Gallery-Tomb】

As the words floated across his status panel, the world spun around him. The dusty yellow, like an old canvas, was abruptly drained away, replaced by a boundless, deep blue.

Erich's mana was finally completely depleted. His translucent wings shattered, and he crashed heavily onto a stone corridor, rolling several times before finally coming to a stop against an overturned bookshelf.

Sharp pain flared from every corner of his body, but at least he was still alive.

Erich lay on the ground, panting for a long while before slowly pushing himself up to take in his surroundings.

He had seen this scene countless times in the game. It was a colossal library that had been torn apart vertically. As far as the eye could see, countless shattered stone corridors, ruined domed halls, and broken spiral staircases hovered in the vertical space. The walls were covered with text and star charts, though most had been weathered to the point of illegibility.

There was no clear light source, but a deep blue light seeped in from somewhere unknown, illuminating the dust motes drifting slowly through the air. It cast the entire tomb-like library in a chiaroscuro of shades somewhere between twilight and the deep sea.

Erich tried to stand, but the oppressive gravity made even straightening his back an ordeal. The gravity on the second floor of the Abyss was roughly twice that of the outside world. This was something written in the game's lore, but reading a description and experiencing it firsthand were entirely different matters; he felt as though he were encased in thick mud.

Also written in the game settings: any sound exceeding a certain decibel level would repeatedly ricochet and amplify within this space, eventually turning into a sonic shockwave capable of tearing flesh apart. In the game, this manifested as a damage-over-time effect that increased with duration, with a chance to trigger a stun. But what would it be like in reality?

Erich didn't know, and he had no desire to find out.

He leaned against the overturned bookshelf, slowly shifting his body until he was resting against the broken shelves behind him. The current environment was temporarily safe. There were no men in black, no magical beasts—only himself and these silent stones.

Erich took off his outer coat to check the wound in his abdomen. The puncture wound from the longsword had already healed, and on the newly formed flesh, a complex red pattern was faintly visible. That was the Battle Scar, 【Shell】.

Leaning against the bookshelf, Erich folded his coat to cushion his back and closed his eyes.

His mana was depleted, and his physical strength was exhausted. Though his surroundings might not be entirely safe, he desperately needed to rest.

At the very least, those men in black—who clearly rarely visited the Abyss—couldn't possibly grow wings and hunt him down to the second floor so quickly.

...

Erich was awoken by an itching sensation. When he opened his eyes, he saw a dense swarm of insects surrounding him.

There were about twenty to thirty insects around him, each roughly thirty centimeters long. They looked like a cross between a centipede and a silverfish, their backs covered in black scales and their underbellies bristling with countless tiny legs.

A few were crawling on him, chewing on his already tattered clothes. Even more insects had gathered around him, munching on the moss growing on the stone slabs and making a dense, rustling sound.

Stone-scale bugs—harmless trash mobs in the game. Their health pools were extremely low, and their attack power was negligible. In reality, they indeed didn't attack Erich, merely silently chewing away at his clothes.

Faced with such cute little bugs, Erich's choice was... to kill them all.

Imagine waking up to find yourself surrounded by a dense swarm of tiny insects, with your clothes on the verge of being completely devoured by them. How would you feel?

In any case, Erich's trypophobia was triggered. It was a testament to his self-control that he didn't scream.

Furthermore, in the game, these little bugs dropped "Silence Powder," which could be applied to equipment to temporarily eliminate the sound of movement. It was an indispensable countermeasure for navigating and fighting on this floor.

The little bugs indeed had no combat capability, and Erich slaughtered them as easily as chopping vegetables. However, when it came to gathering materials, he hit a snag. Heaven only knew how these insect corpses were supposed to turn into Silence Powder.

Erich found himself missing Isa again. Although she wasn't as good at fighting as he was, she was a natural at processing materials. Erich instinctively touched the small pouch at his waist containing Isa, silently thanking his lucky stars that these bugs didn't eat meat.

But Erich's shirt had been entirely eaten. What remained of his clothes could barely cover his vitals. He tore off the most intact pieces of fabric from his shirt to reinforce his pants, stuffed a few of the insect carcasses into his pouch, and prepared to leave.

In the game, the Return Platforms in the Echoing Gallery-Tomb could only teleport a player back to the first floor, and they were far fewer in number than those on the first floor—specifically, there were only three. But those were the game's rules; their distribution in reality might not correspond perfectly.

There was also another problem.

Academy term was about to start.

In the game, the start of the term was just a plot point. But in reality, if he missed the academy's enrollment, would an exiled noble like him ever get another chance to learn magic? Would he ever get the chance to drag out the mastermind behind those men in black?

So, if he didn't want to miss it, Erich had to hurry.