Time slowly lost meaning as they floated through the endless, twisted tunnel.
Even though they were levitating, Elvira still clung to Ben's side.
At first, he found it annoying.
After a while, he just accepted it and ignored her grip.
Bored with the silence, Elvira finally spoke.
"Hey, my beloved, how's life in your old world?"
Ben raised an eyebrow.
"Nothing interesting.
Just a boring life."
"A boring life?" Elvira sounded genuinely curious. "That doesn't sound like the kind of place someone like you would come from."
In her past lives, the books she read had always described humans as if they lived in utopias.
In those stories, humans stood at the top and created all other species.
Humans were basically gods.
Ben let out a dry chuckle.
"Someone like me?
Believe me, Elvira, I'm nothing special.
A dime a dozen.
No, a dime of a billion.
Even if I died, no one would care.
Nothing would change.
The world would just keep spinning like I was never there."
Elvira's gaze softened.
"Well, that's… kind of diabolical.
I'm sure someone must have cared about you.
I don't know much about human culture outside of what I've read, but even my kind, Aetheris, who are known for calculating gain and loss, still value family bonds."
Ben snorted. "Family bonds? Is that what got you killed twice?"
"That's… different…" Elvira's voice grew weaker, and some of her usual confidence disappeared.
She did not argue with him.
She knew exactly what he meant.
It was her own blood relative who had betrayed her and pushed her into this cycle of regression.
The change in her mood made Ben feel a stab of guilt.
He did not want to apologize directly, so he let out a long sigh instead.
"Before I ended up here, I was just a construction worker."
"Construction worker?" Elvira tilted her head. "Isn't that a privileged position?"
The Aetheris civilization focused everything around magic.
Even toddlers could use magic to create a small building.
Turning sand into rock was simple as long as they had enough mana.
Because of that, anyone who was known specifically as a construction specialist in her world had to be extremely skilled.
It was not just simple architecture.
Each one had their own secret formulas for creating unique materials with special effects.
Their products were highly sought after.
Clients usually had to line up for their services, paying an exorbitant price and sometimes waiting years.
Ben blinked.
"Privileged?
Uh, no.
Where I come from, being a construction worker is bottom of the barrel.
We barely earn enough to survive, let alone pay off bills.
My life was nothing but waking up, working all day, buying some cheap beer, and scraping by.
Rinse and repeat.
It was a boring, dead-end life."
Elvira frowned, confused.
"That's… quite bleak."
She tried to fit his words into what she knew.
It sounded to her like the life of a serf, someone stuck as a servant forever with no hope for change.
"Hah, tell me about it," Ben muttered. "People talk about changing their lives, but so what?
If you're not born into a rich family, changing anything is like trying to push a camel through the eye of a needle."
"Camel?
Eye of a needle?" Elvira tilted her head again, curiosity burning in her eyes.
Ben waved his hand.
"It's just a saying.
Doesn't matter.
The point is, life back there sucked.
And stop comparing me to the humans from your world.
We're clearly not the same."
"Hmm… what about family?
Or friends?
Surely you had someone."
"Not really." Ben shrugged. "My parents passed when I was young.
Friends?
Sure, but they were just people I hung out with when I had time.
Life gets in the way of anything deeper.
Everyone's too busy trying to survive."
He smirked faintly.
"Besides, who wants to hang out with a guy covered in dirt and cement dust all the time?"
"Cement?" Elvira frowned. "What's that?"
"Building material.
Back in my world, we didn't have magic, so we invented stuff to make life easier.
Cement, concrete, steel, you name it.
But honestly, compared to what I've seen here, it's all junk."
He paused for a moment.
"Anyway, enough about me.
Why don't you tell me more about this world?
That's more useful than rehashing my boring past."
"Hmm… let's see… There are seven factions dominating this world…"
"No, no." Ben cut her off with a groan. "Spare me the politics.
I'll figure it out as we go.
For now, I just care about getting out of this worm."
Elvira pouted but gave in.
"Fine.
What do you want to know, then?"
"You.
Your world.
Magic, mana, weapons, anything we can use to escape.
Maybe I can come up with something using my creation system."
Hearing that made Elvira's heart flutter, but she avoided talking about herself.
"Magic?
You're asking the wrong person.
Every Aetheris is born with the innate ability to control magic."
"Wait, what?
So you're telling me everyone in your race is born with unique abilities and can use magic like it's nothing?"
"Exactly.
Our unique abilities come from the high concentration of mana we are born with.
Of course, not everyone has the same talent.
Some are more gifted than others.
For example…" She straightened her back and lifted her chin. "I was born with an SSS-tier magic talent."
Ben raised an eyebrow.
"Of course you were.
You wouldn't be royalty otherwise."
Her proud smile faded into a small pout, but she did not argue.
Ben was not wrong.
In Aetheris society, strength and talent were everything.
Without them, her family would have been dethroned long ago.
"So, what can you do?
Anything useful?
Like, I don't know, imbuing items with magic?" Ben asked.
He still hoped she might have a way to help them escape.
"No, at least not now," Elvira said.
Guilt pricked at her chest.
"There it is, another secret.
You say you want to be my partner and go around calling me your beloved, but in the end you still keep many secrets.
Elvira… if you are really serious you should tell me everything."
"That…" Elvira opened her mouth, then hesitated.
"See? Don't blame me for not believing you.
It's not like we had a good first impression," Ben said in a rough tone.
He turned away from her and shifted his attention back to the grotesque tunnel around them, studying their surroundings instead of pushing her further.