Chapter 9: 7 – Chaos and Abyss [2]

Putting on a brownish coat and a felt hat that had a slightly darker color, Glenn exited his apartment. When he got to the ground floor, he saw Mason sitting in a chair and smoking cigarettes like before.

"Good day, Mr. Mason."

"Good day to you too. Going somewhere?"

"Yes. I'm looking for a police station. Do you happen to know any nearby?"

"Nearby?" Mason laughed as if Glenn had just told him the funniest joke ever. "Pffft! You'd hardly find any policemen alive in these parts, let alone a station." Calming down his laughter, he continued, "Well, if you really want to find one, perhaps you'd want to go to 35th Avenue. Just ask the residents there and they'll be more than happy to tell you. It's only 5km away so you can get there in 30 minutes. 10 if you catch a horse carriage."

"I got it, thanks for the help."

"You're welcome."

As Glenn walked out of the old apartment building, he scoffed, "Horse carriage, huh? As if! Those things are overpriced." Patting the rolled-up Arthen notes that were resting inside his pocket, he made his way down the streets.

'Huh...' Glenn thought as his eyes shifted around. '...Why is everyone staring at me like that?'

He'd have had to be an idiot to not notice tattooed men wielding daggers and guns glaring at him from inside the dark alleyways, beggars either looking at him with hopeful eyes or scared shitless, and mothers covering their children's mouths, fearing that they might say the wrong words.

Then, everything clicked inside Glenn's head. 'Ah of course, it's the clothes I'm wearing.'

Compared to the rags almost everyone was wearing, his clothes must've looked like that of a king. 'Heh, so this is why no thugs dared to rob me.' After all, he was fairly certain that everyone on the streets thought that he was a wealthy merchant, a noble, or a famous gangster at the very least.

Basking himself in the conflicting gazes of respect, vigilance, and disdain, Glenn continued walking with a confident smile. 

...

Glenn's lips curved up into a smile upon hearing the shouts of the street vendors. 'I must be out of the impoverished areas.' 

-"Fresh shrimps! Imported from Seawark kingdom right this morning!"

-"Come on mister Elf! Buy these vegetables grown in farms right outside Asward!"

-"Kuhaha! Dwarf brother, interested in some ores? Fresh from Dulven kingdom."

"Hey, want to have some fun~?" A rabbit beastkin suddenly latched herself onto Glenn's arm.

Glenn very politely refused her. "No. Get off me before I beat the living daylight out of you."

Hearing this, the beastkin pouted before going back to the entrance of the brothel she worked at.

Glenn shook his head with a wry smile. Even if he wanted to go to a brothel, he couldn't. Setting aside his dire financial situation, Ava would definitely find out that he went to a brothel. How would she find out, you might ask? Well, although she wasn't greedy like Glenn, she was very strict with money. That meant she'd trace the missing money in their savings back to the brothel.

Casting such thoughts aside, Glenn focused on his goal again. After turning 5 more corners, he arrived at 35th Avenue. However...

"Strange, why is there no one?" Glenn muttered as he paced around the desolate streets. He looked everywhere. In the alleyways, shops, houses, and even in the police station that he was supposed to go to. There wasn't anyone present here.

'Did old man Mason trick me? No... that can't be. He'd have to be someone very politically powerful to empty out a whole Avenue like this.' As such, Glenn could only come to the conclusion that something bad definitely happened here, and it happened so fast that people that lived right around the corner didn't even notice it.

'Well, it's not my problem anyways.' Glenn shrugged. 'Being kind', to him, didn't mean rushing head-first into unknown dangers. Thus, he turned around and promptly left the area. Or... at least he tried to.

"Wh-What? I can't get out?" Glenn was stopped by some sort of invisible barrier. He banged his hands on it frantically, trying to break out but to no avail. Just as when he was about to use magic on it, something happened.

The barrier wobbled as if it was an illusion. And soon, a man with black hair, black eyes wearing a similarly colored coat with a gray sweatshirt underneath walked in from the other side of the barrier.

As soon as Glenn and the man made eye contact, they assumed fighting stances. With his right fist close to his chin and his left pointing toward the man, Glenn shouted, "Who are you? Are you the one that made this barrier?"

The man shook his head. "No. I came here to investigate this weird space." After giving his short answer, the man continued to glare at Glenn. 

Glenn stared straight into the man's eyes for a few more seconds. Those dull-black eyes of his only stared at him with vigilance. Seeing that he couldn't discern the man's emotions or power, Glenn reached into his pocket and took out a business card. Then, he threw it at the man.

The man inspected the card before speaking up again, "Glenn Claidart?"

"That's correct. I'm Glenn Claidart, a 2nd-tier awakened that wants to attend Kevlas. Now, introduce yourself."

The man smirked before similarly reaching into his pocket and taking out a business card. Throwing it at Glenn, he said, "The name's Ander Stelwall."

Glenn looked through the business card. As he finished reading it, he couldn't help but widen his eyes in surprise. "Kevlas instructor? N-No, Stelwall?!"

'Wait no, it might be fake!'

But upon seeing the genuine watermark of Kevlas academy at the bottom, Glenn had to admit that he was really an instructor... and someone from the famed Stelwall family - one of the four great families of the Kilvilaine alliance.

Seeing the changes in Glenn's expression, Ander's smirk widened. "That's right, I'm first in line to inherit the position of patriarch. However, I'm here as a Kevlas academy's instructor to investigate the distress signal a student sent out to the academy an hour prior."

'He's here as Kevlas' instructor, right?'

That meant it would be okay to treat him as an instructor, and not a noble, right?

And with that thought, Glenn dropped his fighting stance and got closer to Ander. However, that didn't mean he let his guard down. "So do you know what happened here?"

"No, I don't. But... we're about to find out." Then, Ander took out a strange device with a clockface on it. His hands glowed blue as he infused his Mana into the device, and the hands of the clock began to turn.

"What's that?" Glenn asked.

But Ander ignored his question and instead stared intensely at the clockface. After a while, he muttered, "This is bad..."

"What is bad?"

Finally acknowledging Glenn's question, Ander turned toward him and answered, "Everything. It seems like someone broke a medium-grade Abyssal crystal in this Avenue."

"Wh-What!?" 

"But I don't think that it's a mere accident. The barrier trapping us in proves that it was intentional."

"Th-Then—" Glenn stuttered. "—The Chasm is involved?"

"Most likely. They're the only bastards that have the guts to do something like this right in Joseph Cetial's city after all."

"W-Well then, can you help me get out of here?"

In response, Ander walked toward the barrier and clenched his fist.

"I'm an 8th-tier knight—" He punched the barrier with all his might. The barrier shook violently, and that was it. It didn't seem like it would break even after a barrage of similar punches. "—And yet I can't break this barrier. They must be using a high-grade Curtain artifact." 

Seeing this, Glenn broke down in cold sweat. The Chasm spending one of the few high-grade artifacts they had could only mean one thing: they were determined to accomplish whatever mission they had here. That also meant they sent a 7th-tier awakened and several 5-tier ones at the very least.

As Glenn was about to fall into complete panic, he suddenly remembered his dad's teachings. 'That's right, calm down, it's no use panicking in a place like this.'

Then, he asked Ander, "So what do we do?"

"Well, as a Kevlas instructor, ensuring your safety is the least I can do. That is if you stick close to me, and you don't get in my way."

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Glenn nodded. "Got it. So, how long is it until the next Abyssal interval?"

"Oh, you know about it?" Ander raised an eyebrow in intrigue.

"Yes. My dad's a hunter that works in Abyss-infested areas. He'd teach me all the knowledge he knew so that I don't accidentally play in the forest for too long and get swallowed up by the Abyss."

"I see, he seems like an interesting person. I'd like to meet him someday." Then, Ander looked at the clockface on his device again. "2 minutes, and it seems like we're going to the 7th layer. Get close to me and mentally prepare yourself."

'7th layer?' Glenn smiled as he stood beside Ander. 'Heh, good. At least it's not the oceans of the 3rd layer.'

As 2 minutes had almost passed, Glenn buttoned his coat up to make sure that he was warm. He then put on a pair of white gloves. Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he turned around, only to see Ander extending his hand out with a heating pack full of warm water in it.

"Thanks," said Glenn as he received the pack and put it in his pocket.

With the preparations now completed, Glenn calmly watched as pure black tentacles protruded from the ground and wrapped both his and Ander's body. Slowing sinking into the ground, Glenn let out a small mutter, "Bastards Chasm, I just wanted to get the reward money. Why'd you involve me in this?"

Then, his world turned black.

...

After an unidentified amount of time had passed, Glenn regained consciousness. Getting up and looking around with blurry eyes, Glenn could see the warm orange hue of a campfire, and the blurry figure of Ander sitting right next to it. It took a while, but his eyes finally unblurred. 

"So this is the 7th layer," muttered Glenn as he looked around his surroundings.

Currently, he was under a rock shaped like the character '⌈'. When he gazed outside, he could see a wasteland of white sand expanding to as far as the eyes could see. Above the sandy ground was the starry night sky, with a few green, pink, and blue auroras here and there. Then, a harsh gust of wind stirred the sand up, blinding him momentarily. However, that wasn't what he was most concerned about.

"C-Cold!"

Extremely cold. Even with his coat all buttoned up and the heat pack in his pocket, it was still cold beyond his imagination. According to the books Ava had read him, the frozen tundras of the 15th layer were even colder than this. Now, the dream of Conquering the Abyss seemed further from him than ever. 

Ander stood up from his spot, walked toward Glenn, and threw him a pair of sunglasses. "Here, it'll keep the sand from your eyes."

Wiping his teary eyes, Glenn nodded and put on the sunglasses. Although looking through tinted black lenses in a sand wasteland only faintly illuminated by stars and auroras was annoying, getting sand in his eyes was even worse. Thus, Glenn had to reluctantly put up with it.

Ander sat down beside Glenn and patted his shoulder. "Is this your first time in the Abyss?"

"Yes. I only ever read about it in books."

"Are you sure?"

"...Yes. Why did you ask?"

"Nothing." Ander laughed. "It's just that you're doing better than I thought. You were only knocked out for a day after all."

"A day?!" Glenn widened his eyes in shock. "No! Ava's going to kill m—"

"Calm down there, time in layer 7 flows faster than the normal realm, remember? The rate is 7:1 I think."

Hearing this, Glenn calmed down. "That's right, I almost forgot."

"Anyway, it's a surprise that you only slept for a day. Normally, first-timers would sleep for 5 days at the very least."

"I see..." Glenn then asked, "Did you make any progress while I was gone?"

"Judging by the fact that we're still here, no. I haven't caught the artifact holder yet. But that didn't mean I didn't accomplish anything." Ander said as he shifted his body to the side to give Glenn a view of the black robes that were lying on the ground. "12 Chasm members—well, let's call them Cultists for simplicity's sake—dead. 6 were of the 3rd-tier, 5 were of the 4th-tier, and the final Cultist was a 6th-tier knight. Their corpses disappeared as soon as they died but I don't think I need to tell you that."

Glenn nodded. "Of course, that's one of the first things they taught in Abyss study class."

After all, that characteristic of the Abyss was why people also called it the 'perfect place to commit a crime.' When someone died here, their corpse would get pulled into the ground by pure black tentacles, never to be seen again. Luckily though, their belongings, or what Glenn preferred to call them, loots, still remained. That was why when someone didn't return from the Abyss, they'd be considered dead rather than missing.

But... there was something strange. Besides the dark robes, there were also traveler's attires mixed in the pile of clothes. "Mr. Stelwall, what's with the traveler's clothes?"

"Ander is fine. But to answer your question, those clothes belonged to an old man who was chased down by the 6th-tier knight." Ander answered as he recalled the fight. "It was a tough fight. Unfortunately for the old man, he got caught in one of the knight-cultist's attacks and died."

"I see..." Glenn nodded. Then, he moved toward the clothes and rummaged through them.

"What are you doing?"

"Searching for loots."

"Practical, I like it." Ander laughed. "Anyway, I'll save you the trouble. The only loot is an old-looking Skill book that the old man was clutching tightly in his hands even when the Abyssal tendrils pulled his corpse to the ground. I have no use for it so it's all yours."

"Thanks, instructor Ander."

Ander chuckled. "Why are you talking as if you're a Kevlas student? Anyway, I won't be giving you the Skill book for free."

Glenn's body stiffened.

"Instead, you have to promise me to bring the old man's clothes to the normal realm and give him—or rather, his clothes—a proper burial."

"Just that?" Glenn sighed in relief. "Okay then, I accept."

Then, he continued digging through the clothes. It took a while, but he finally found the Skill book; and just like Ander had told him, the book looked old.

'No, I think the word 'old' does this Skill book a disservice.'

Rather than old, it looked... ancient. Not in the good kind. Practically half of the book was rotten away! 

'Now I get why he's willing to just give this to me.'

But a Skill was a Skill. Thus, Glenn infused the little Mana he had into it and watched as a translucent screen appeared right in front of his eyes.

"What the fuck is this?!" Glenn cursed. 

Hearing this, Ander chuckled. "That's why I didn't want to take it. Taking care of my wife is already annoying, even more so when she always gets involved in incidents like the train incident a few days ago. I don't want to learn a suspicious Skill that might annoy me even more. Now, do you still want to learn it?"

Glenn thought for a while before sighing. "I still do. My sister's antics already made me want to kill myself every day. This skill is nothing compared to that."

"You do you." Ander shrugged.

Nodding, Glenn infused even more Mana into the book.

***

Ander watched as the Skill book melted into Glenn's hand. "Oh, you managed to learn it already?"

But Glenn didn't answer him. Instead, he stared into thin air with his mouth agape. Then suddenly, he screamed and pointed straight into thin air with violently trembling eyes. "WHO ARE YOU?!"

Ander sighed as he saw this. "Poor kid, he really went insane as soon as he learned the Skill. I guess the description Status gave wasn't false after all."

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