Kairos couldn’t help but approach the giant blue crystal out of curiosity.
“…Woah.”
It was shaped like a pillar, with many jagged points along its sides as it continued up into the air. It was probably at least five hundred meters wide considering how large it was, while Kairos couldn’t determine the height.
Because he couldn’t make out where the top was from here.
It simply seemed to disappear into the clouds.
He had already felt a slight bit of pressure from quite far away, but now, he could tell that it wasn’t an illusion. Kairos really was feeling an air that was heavier than usual.
He couldn’t help but wonder how such a thing was created.
An educated guess, given what it looked like as well as what Ling saw, was that this thing was a mana crystal.
Kairos walked closer to it, wondering if he could possibly use it for something.
However, he couldn’t help but freeze in his steps as he walked over the crest of a small hill.
Because once he did, the sight of countless dead bodies greeted him.
Their deaths came in countless forms, such as being burnt, cut up, and some even seemed poisoned. However, the grand majority of them were nothing but bones.
From the corpses, Kairos could make out animals, humans, and monsters. It was a little hard to tell what some of the bones were, other than them being humanoid, but from how many there were, it was not hard to tell.
One thing to note was that the number of corpses was far greater the closer one got to the crystal. And on top of that, most of the bony corpses were the ones that were right next to it as well.
In fact, there wasn’t a single corpse that hadn’t become a skeleton within a hundred meters of the crystal.
The hairs on Kairos’ neck stood up.
It was pretty obvious to him that this thing was dangerous. All previous thoughts of exploring or trying to find out what this thing was had been cast out of his mind.
He turned around and began walking away. Yet, as he did so, he couldn’t help but wonder what caused so many things to be attracted and killed by the crystal.
Though Kairos could accept that many animals and monsters had been killed, there were far too many human corpses.
He couldn’t feel any force tempting him to get closer to the crystal other than curiosity.
And logically, all humans should’ve turned away once they saw so many corpses like him.
Yet, before Kairos could wonder any further, he found his answer.
Upon trying to escape back into the trees, he found that his foot was stopped like it hit some sort of wall. Kairos wasn’t just going to give up like that and reached out with his hand.
Just like his foot, it was blocked.
That was when the status panel opened on its own.
[Congratulations for finding one of the few dungeons on Earth!]
[Please enter the dungeon, indicated by the large mana crystal!]
Kairos sharply clicked his tongue.
It sounded just like one of those internet scams. The only thing that would’ve made it more complete is if it said that he had won a million dollars in some sort of obscure sounding raffle.
Kairos took a deep breath.
He didn’t even slightly believe that he was lucky, or that this should be congratulated. After all, there were far too many other ‘lucky’ people that died before him.
Not wanting to participate, Kairos wondered if he could brute force himself out of this situation.
After putting down the sack of green orbs, he took out the thin spear he had, holding it horizontally with both hands.
After sucking in a sharp breath, Kairos shot forth, scattering the dirt underneath him.
A loud bang resounded.
Kairos had hit the invisible barrier with the tip of his spear. Both of his hands clenched tightly onto it, and the force of the impact was quite impressive.
Unfortunately, nothing happened.
In fact, both of Kairos’ hands were trembling. He was pretty sure that this barrier was stronger than diamond. And far stronger than that as well.
Kairos expected this outcome. After all, he was sure that many others would’ve tried to do the same thing.
Nonetheless, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
Kairos picked the sack back up and looked towards the mana crystal in the center.
[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]
He did not move.
[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]
Kairos furrowed his brows, taking a few steps forward. The messages temporarily stopped appearing, though he was definitely moving at a slow pace.
Upon reaching the crest of the small hill, he stopped.
[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]
Kairos’ eyebrow twitched.
[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]
[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]
[Please approach the large mana crystal to begin the dungeon!]
With every system message that appeared, Kairos couldn’t help but feel more unsettled. However, it was when they abruptly stopped, that he felt far worse.
A minute passed, before a standalone message appeared.
[Toxic gas released. Please approach the large mana crystal to avoid death!]
Kairos cursed under his breath before running towards the mana crystal.
He saw in his future vision that the toxic gas had appeared, but not the system message.
As such, when he saw that it said to get to the mana crystal, he did not wait.
Kairos covered his nose and shut his mouth tightly while a light green mist appeared in the air. The color didn’t look foreboding, but the effects were definitely not light.
Unfortunately, while Kairos was not breathing, this seemed to be a poison that would seep in through the skin.
He quickly found that his eyes began burning up like they had been lit aflame, thus he closed them tightly. As for his skin, it began aching badly, but more than that was a strange itchy feeling.
To top everything off, his entire body was in pain.
Though his eyes were closed, Kairos quickly found out that his skin was peeling off, falling to the ground. He couldn’t help but go even faster despite already not holding back.
But it was then Kairos saw himself tripping in his future vision.
He had stepped on one of the dead bodies.
Kairos quickly changed his footing, stepping over it. Then, the realization that he would have to walk over the mountain of corpses came to his mind. Though he would have a second, it might not even be enough.
Without hesitation, Kairos forced his future vision to extend to two seconds.
He saw himself tripping over a body, thus he quickly corrected it. However, that correction made him trip over another body.
Naturally, he tried something else but suddenly found himself slipping in a puddle of something wet.
Once again, he tried somewhere else, and this time he landed on something fleshy. However, it worked, so he went with it.
Like this, Kairos rushed through using his future vision to just barely stay afloat.
It did not take long for him to feel the outer layer of his body become numb. And soon, he couldn’t feel it at all.
Because it had decayed off of his body.
Kairos could feel his muscles begin to weaken under the poison, decaying as well. His body began aching and begging for him to rest.
However, Kairos was not going to listen to it. Especially not right now.
Though that didn’t change the fact it was getting harder for him to move forwards.
Kairos thought about consuming one of the green orbs right now, but that it would take too much time. It would only be roughly a second to unwrap the satchel, open a hole, and start drinking it. However, the actual drinking process itself would be five seconds at the fastest.
He didn’t think that even if he could constantly drink from the green orb that it could outpace the damage he was taking from the poison.
And so, he decided to continue pushing on, focusing on his steps to walk over the corpses.
As Kairos’ body continued to weaken, doubts suddenly began appearing in his mind. The pain was numbing his senses greatly, to the point it was beginning to get really hard to navigate based on his sense of feeling. Yet, even with his eyes closed and covered, they were still burning in pain.
The sense of weakness in his muscles spread further.
Then, some thoughts appeared in his mind.
Thoughts of just… giving up.
What was the point in trying anyway?
Even if he did get over this, his chances of surviving were so low anyway. All of the dead bodies were a testament to this fact.
And even if by some miracle he was saved from here, then he would just be thrust back into the apocalypse. That wasn’t the kind of life that was enjoyable anyway. It would be better to just die now and prevent the suffering that would obviously happen.
Kairos couldn’t help but be reminded of some memories.
There was only one other time in his entire life that he had these same thoughts, so his thoughts naturally diverged to them.
“Why did you hurt Elliot, apologize now!”
Kairos saw himself facing the principal of the school.
“I already apologized, and I wasn’t even trying to hurt him, he just pushed me and I fell on him!”
Another kid standing next to him crossed his arms.
“Hmph! All of my friends saw it, you purposely tried to do that! Now look at the rash I have on my arm!”
That was Elliot, and he exaggeratedly waved his arm around that had a scratch mark on it.
The principal sighed.
“Kairos, you will be expelled right now, if you don’t apologize. He has the testimonies of the entire class, they saw everything! I will be notifying your parents.”
It was at this point Kairos began despairing.
Because he knew that his parents wouldn’t believe him and only scold him more. After all, they had never believed him before.
No, that wasn’t fair to say.
After all, nobody believed him.
Ever.
Kairos felt like the entire world around him was disappearing, that he was caught in a vortex of darkness. His being seemed to be slowly fading out of existence.
But that was when something in him had awoken.
It was not a sense of hope, that would let him push forth no matter what.
Nor was it a sense of courage that would let him endlessly charge into the battlefield.
No, it was something far uglier.
Something… cynical.
Perhaps the best way to describe it was schadenfreude. Deriving pleasure from the suffering of others.
Kairos became strangely silent, but bowed sincerely at the principal’s office.
“I’m gravely sorry, Elliot.”
Elliot seemed surprised, but smiled soon after.
“Glad you can at least recognize you’re an asshole.”
The principal sighed.
“Kairos, you are suspended for two weeks.”
He did not even rebuke Elliot for his words, but Kairos didn’t mind.
Two weeks had passed, and he was soon back in school.
Elliot had come to him on the very first day, at the first period.
“Hey, missed me? I need to make up for how long we’ve been apart.”
A strange smile formed on Kairos’ face.
“Yes, yes, I did miss you.”
Elliot laughed before walking up and reaching out to grab him.
But the moment he was touched, Kairos exaggeratedly fell backwards, and grabbed onto Elliot’s arm.
“Ah, help, I’m falling!”
There was one thing he learned as a kid when he broke the three kid’s arms from elementary school.
That arms were hard to break, but if one moved the bone covering the joint…
A nasty crack rang out, along with an ear-piercing scream.
…it became pretty easy.