The group had gotten down, refueled, and gathered their resources.
They spent three days at the stop point, and once they were done, they picked up and continued on their journey.
Elder Celine had previously mentioned three zones of danger they might encounter.
The first was the EiD Zone, which they had already survived.
The second was a zone that had gained a reputation for frequent and unexplained disappearances.
Unfortunately, they crossed paths with one such group, which succeeded in abducting them and taking them aboard their ship.
Isah, a rare beast—a Frost Wyvern—had eventually been taken and experimented on, while the rest of them were locked away in prison cells.
Void had managed to escape seven times from his cell, but couldn’t succeed in freeing the others, nor reach Ryuk before he was finally locked up in a light cage for good.
Ryuk himself had been asleep through it all. As a result, he posed no threat, and thus they locked him away, too.
As for the reason why he had been locked far away from them, Elder Celine admitted that while he was unconscious, he was also releasing a powerful wave of energy that made the group wary of him.
That was why he had been placed in a different area altogether, separate from the dungeon.
When he woke up, they were already under attack by another group.
That was how he had managed to rescue all of them—and how they were now here.
So, the experience could be described as them overcoming the second challenge of their journey, and thankfully, they had survived it.
Still, Ryuk felt a bit of reluctance in his heart.
A part of him wished he had stayed behind—to unleash vengeance on those who dared to reduce Isha to a mere specimen and keep them all locked away for months.
But he also knew that if they hadn’t escaped when they did, things might have gone wrong, leading to even greater regret.
Besides, the group that had captured them was already being torn apart and destroyed by the other forces Ryuk had seen. He doubted they would survive that onslaught.
"How far off course have we veered?" he asked Elder Celine, who pulled up a holographic map and showed it to Ryuk.
He studied it with a focused glance, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Actually," she began, "we’ve been brought even closer to our goal."
"The location of that group surpassed the third zone we were supposed to face."
"By abducting us, they also helped in navigating through the last danger, and now we’re just a week away from reaching the Planetary Port."
Ryuk hummed.
’Seems like we gained something from the chaos instead.’
They had crossed through the third danger thanks to their captors, and now they were even closer to their destination.
"Good," he muttered under his breath.
"So...what’s the deal with the girl?" Rakshasa asked, pointing to the girl still asleep by his side.
"It’s just like Void said. When we were about to dive into that portal, I heard a voice calling for help."
"It was also why I asked if any of you could hear it..." He explained, and realization slowly dawned on their faces.
"I went deeper into the prison and found a place with an entire wall coated in the same iron used to forge your prison bars."
"You mean... an entire wall of Oblite Ore?" Rakshasa asked, her eyes narrowing.
Ryuk nodded.
"Yes. She was locked within an entire wall of it, and there were suppressive runes everywhere."
"Even the chains used on her were covered in the same suppressive runes."
Their eyes widened in shock as they turned to look at the girl.
Rakshasa and Antares were both at the Apocrypha Stage, and they had simply been locked behind bars made of that ore.
This little girl, before them, had been locked inside an entire wall of that ore?
And even the wall itself had been layered with another formation of suppressive runes?
All of this... just to imprison a slumbering girl who looked too gentle to harm even a fly?
"I decided to save her in the end," Ryuk continued, as they hummed but thought,
’But why would you decide to save everyone else then?’
"But I thought it would be unfair to save only her and leave the rest."
"So, to act fairly, I decided to break the remaining cages as well. And since she was slumbering while everyone else was escaping, I couldn’t just leave her lying there, only for the building to eventually collapse on her and destroy the entire point of rescuing her."
"So I brought her along instead. I almost forgot she was even here, honestly..." Ryuk finished.
"Are you saying... she’s dangerous?" a voice echoed from behind.
Antares had come out of his room, now donning an iron-colored shirt and trousers. He came to stand behind Ryuk, his eyes fixed on the sleeping girl.
For her to have been trapped in that way... it was most likely because she was more of a horror than anything else.
NovelFire
Something that was even more terrifying than they were—despite being at the Apocrypha Stage—wasn’t something they should just let lie around, peacefully sleeping on a sofa.
Her cute expression might just be a mask—one that could spell doom for all of them.
"She is," Ryuk said plainly.
The system had gravely warned him, and he had refused its advice.
Something in his heart was telling him he would regret that decision, so he decided not to sugarcoat anything to the group about her.
"Well, you’ve already saved her. You don’t plan on just throwing her into the depths of space, do you?" Elder Celine said only to witness
Ryuk’s expression froze as he and Antares faintly brushed gazes with each other before quickly looking away.
"What the—?"
"You both were really planning on throwing her away!?" Elder Celine couldn’t help but react, picking up the clues from both of them.
To save a child from imprisonment, only to end up tossing her into the void of space!?
Even in her centuries of existence, she had never seen or heard of such a twisted idea before.
"Of course not... How—how could I do something so inhumane?" Ryuk said with a righteous expression, though all he got in return were suspicious gazes from the women in the room.
"Well then... what do we do with her?"