[Continuation Quest Activated]
Difficulty: N/A
Reward: Emblance Shard
Objective: Who they worship!
Location: N/A
Description: You’ve infiltrated the cult, but your presence hasn’t gone unnoticed. Their whispers follow you through candlelit halls and smoke-filled chambers. Uncover the secrets buried within this branch, its hidden rites, forbidden texts, and veiled motives, and learn the true identity of the entity they worship.
Time Limit: N/A
Staring at the quest, my heart grew heavy.
Especially when I saw the ’N/A’ in the difficulty section.
’What does this mean? Why is there no difficulty description?’
A quiet sense of dread crept up my spine as I thought about it, but that feeling faded a moment after as I caught sight of the Reward.
’Emblance Shard?’
What the hell was that?
I pressed on it, but there was no description.
I even went as far as checking the shop, but there was also no description about it. My phone...?
There was no signal.
’What the hell is this Emblance Shard?’
My thoughts wandered to my condition. I wanted to believe this could be the cure I’d been waiting for, but with no description, that hope was all I had.
Clanka! Clanka!
".....!"
Strange noises echoed from the elevator as it descended, a mix of grinding metal and distant creaks. My expression tightened, and I pressed my back against the cold metal frame, listening carefully as the sounds grew louder.
’How far down am I going?’
I didn’t know how long I had been going down, but I knew it was a while.
When I turned to see my reflection, I took a look at my face.
It was tense.
"Hoo. Hoo."
I had to take several deep breaths in order to calm myself down as I focused my attention on the quest description.
’Undercover the secrets of the cult? Find who they worship?’
Reading the description, I knew that I was in for a massive pain. To make it worse, the drone was no longer recording, and the chat had long died. This only meant one thing. The stream had ended.
’...Maybe this is good.’
I swallowed silently, focusing my attention on the door of the elevator.
’I don’t know why there is no difficulty set, but it doesn’t matter. I have a feeling that I need to complete this mission for my own sake. Not just for the reward, but for all the information that I’ll learn alongside it.’
Clanka! Clanka!
The elevator shuddered and came to a stop with a metallic groan that echoed for what felt like minutes. The single light above me flickered twice, then steadied before flickering again as I stared at the doors where a small gap started to form.
The doors were opening.
Without a second thought, I activated my second node.
[Trait Transfer].
A shift occurred around me as I was pulled into the darkness beneath my feet.
The doors slid open with a hollow groan, revealing nothing but a long, narrow corridor stretching into darkness.
’Thankfully, I have a skill like this.’
If not for this skill, I would’ve been afraid of suddenly getting attacked by cultists from all sides. Even so, as I stepped toward the corridor, a faint tension lingered in my chest, like the air itself was holding its breath.
It was dark, and within the darkness, I felt a sudden shift in the surroundings.
It felt suffocating, and just standing still felt as though thousands of different eyes were staring at me.
Despite the feeling, I knew that I had to keep going forward.
This was the only path for me.
Step—
The echo of my step reverberated loudly across the surroundings. Thin pipes snaked along the ceiling, dripping occasionally, while the soot-stained walls bore symbols carved deep into the concrete. For a fleeting moment, each mark seemed to shift, but the moment I looked at them, they returned to normal.
’Am I imagining things...?’
I wasn’t sure, but I kept going forward.
The deeper I went, the heavier the air became.
Every breath felt heavy, the scent of iron growing stronger and stronger. The faint hum that had haunted the upper levels was gone now, replaced by a slower, deeper rhythm, almost like the heartbeat of something buried beneath the factory itself.
The narrow passage eventually split in two. Both directions were identical, same rusted piping, same soot-caked walls, same smell of burnt oil, but the right corridor carried a faint light at the end.
I hesitated.
Eventually, I moved towards the light.
With each step I took, I felt increasingly tense. I didn’t know what was ahead of me, nor did I know if there was anyone waiting for me. I knew that I wasn’t exactly in the real world, but in an opposite realm, and I also understood that the cult had many anomalies under its control.
Still, I knew that I had no other choice but to keep going forward.
And eventually, I drew close enough to the light to see what was waiting for me.
It was a small room, dimly lit by flickering candles placed unevenly along the walls. Their wavering light cast long, shifting shadows across the floor. In the center stood a narrow podium, and resting atop it was an old, weathered book, its cover cracked, while its pages were yellowed from age.
I grew breathless.
Something about the book threw me off, and yet, before I knew it, I found myself walking towards it.
It was almost as if my body moved in its own.
Flip!
The moment I opened the book, a faint hiss escaped from within. The pages were brittle, clinging together beneath a thin layer of soot.
As I carefully brushed it away, my hand stopped mid-motion.
A familiar symbol stared back at me from the very first page, etched in thick black ink. Beneath it, a large [71] was scrawled in uneven handwriting, the numbers slightly smeared.
As I leaned closer, studying the lines of the mark, a faint whisper brushed past my ear.
".....!"
I immediately grew alarmed, turning my head to look around.
But—
Silence.
Nothing.
There was nothing around me.
I frowned, feeling a gentle throb in my mind.
Eventually, I returned my attention to the book as I flipped to the next page.
Flip!
This time, there were words, written in flowing cursive that had nearly faded with age. I had to narrow my eyes and lean closer, tracing each letter carefully just to make out what they said.
[He was but a mere librarian. A keeper of sorts.]
[The world turned against him, and he fell from grace.]
[When god rejected his wisdom, heaven lost its wisdom alongside him.]
[He’s but a vault of borrowed faces, his real face hidden beneath the lies.]
Reading the pages, I felt my breathing come to a complete pause. I didn’t understand what the words meant, but with each line that I read, the headache became greater. It soon reached a point where I had to stop, a groan escaping my lips as I held onto my head with both hands.
’Save me from this torture!’
’...Give me a path of guidance!’
’The mist is like a—’
Swooosh!
It happened abruptly.
The world changed, and the second node ceased to function.
Immediately, I was brought out of the other realm, and I suddenly found myself standing inside a different room. No, it was the same room, but the place was different. There were tables and weird equipment around.
The air also felt colder.
I blinked, looking around in confusion.
"Wha... Where is this?"
My mind was blank.
All thoughts appeared to have stopped.
"...Where am I?"
Bits and pieces of images flashed across my mind.
Cult? Quest?
None of it made sense.
Tilting my head, I rubbed my head.
The headache intensified, pulsing behind my eyes until it felt like my skull might split. My gaze drifted to the bag slung over my shoulder. Without thinking, I pulled it off and started rummaging through it.
The instant my fingers brushed against what was inside, a flood of distorted images crashed through my mind, fragments of memories, voices, and some other things. By the time I came to my senses, I realized I was gripping something tightly in my hand.
A phone.
A flip phone.
"W... what?"
I opened it, a single number appearing.
After a moment’s thought, for whatever reason, I dialed the number.
Du! Du!
It rang in the silence.
The tone echoed through the silence, each ring stretching longer than the last. Just as I began to think no one would answer—
Click!
The line connected.
I exhaled slowly, the sound shaky in the quiet.
And then—
"...Hello?"
I spoke.