Rai was losing his mind.
Not from fear, not from danger—but from sheer boredom.
"Five hallways. Three fake doors. Two ghost whispers that nearly made me wet myself and still no way to exit this place. This is starting to feel less of a quest and more haunted house with no refund.'"
He kicked aside a dusty bone fragment that may or may not have been human.
It had been what? An hour? Two? Time felt like a vague concept here, he was still feeling energized by the mana that was flowing through every inch of the ruin.
He'd scoured most of the chambers now gathered sigils, found old journals, got emotionally guilt-tripped by the dead.
But there was still no obvious way out. No portal. No other way to exit. Just echoing silence and broken memories of ghosts.
"I swear if I have to fight a mini-boss just to find the bathroom"
That's when he felt it.
A pulse. Barely noticeable, like the heartbeat of the earth.
Rai stopped.
"Please be something useful. Please not another 'tragic ghost echo'."
He followed the faint mana pulse down a hallway he'd almost skipped earlier. It was half-collapsed, barely wide enough to squeeze through. He ducked beneath low-hanging roof, brushing cobwebs from his hood.
At the far end was a room so small it looked like a small closet.
But etched into the center of the stone floor was a rune circle. Old, cracked, and flickering but it was still intact.
A system prompt appeared into his view.
[Teleportation Sequence Discovered – Hollow Sigil Outpost]
Do you wish to activate this sequence and leave the zone?
"YES. Hell yes. Get me out of this cursed palace before the walls start speaaking."
He stepped into the circle.
Light flared around him and in a blink, the ruins vanished.
[Teleportation Successful]
He stumbled into sunlight.
Actual sunlight.
It nearly blinded him after hours of gloom. Rai fell onto his back in a patch of grass, groaning dramatically.
"I'm alive. I'm free. And I think my soul needs therapy."
Moments later, he heard a voice.
"There you are!"
Rai barely turned his head.
Alex stood there, arms crossed, looking like he was ready to chew Rai out.
"You vanished! Again! Eron was ready to send a search party. I told him that would be stupid but—"
"You were both stupid," Rai muttered, still lying on the grass. "I'm recovering from ghost trauma. Let me have a moment."
Eron walked into view behind Alex. "He looks fine to me."
Alex looked at Rai, "Yeah but his way of talking seems different."
"I'm emotionally scarred," Rai said, waving a hand.
Eron squinted his eyes. "Emotionally scarred?"
"Yeah, I found a tragic knight, his murder plot, and an ancient teleportation system. What did you guys do, play tag with boars?"
Alex blinked. "We leveled up. Like responsible party members."
Eron added, "We're close to fifteen. What about you?"
Rai checked his status and grinned.
[Level: 15]
"Already there. That place was excellent for XP and emotional damage. And I didn't even have to do anything just got scared the shit out of me and got some bonus exp for finding that place."
Alex huffed. "Tch, always showing off."
"Not showing off. Just casually proving I'm better than both of you."
"You're insufferable."
Eron just sighed. "Welcome back, Rai."
Some Time Later
They resumed hunting in one of the nearby elevated zones—forest cliffs populated by level 13 to 16 beasts. The terrain was rocky and dangerous, but the EXP rewards made it worthwhile.
"Target up ahead," Alex whispered.
Rai peeked from behind a boulder. A fangtooth wolf was gnawing on a deer carcass.
"Okay, standard plan. I go in, confuse it, Eron snipes, Alex supports with buffs. Got it?"
"Why do you always make yourself the main actor?" Alex asked.
"Because I'm the only one with an award-winning face," Rai replied, already vanishing into stealth.
The fight went smoothly. Rai struck from the shadows, Eron's attacks landed fast like lightning, and Alex finally landed a clean hit that boosted damage.
"Nice!" Rai grinned, picking through the drops. "Wolf pelt, minor healing salve… oh hey, a silver fang. That's decent loot."
After about an hour of hunting, Alex finally hit level 15.
[Party Member Alex has reached Level 15!]
"Yes!" he pumped a fist.
Eron wasn't far behind. A large stoneback bear gave them one of their toughest fights yet, but after Rai used his techniques and skills he was able to defeat and the beast went down hard.
[Party Member Eron has reached Level 15!]
"Alright," Eron said, wiping sweat off his brow. "Now we're all set."
Rai looked at both of them with a smirk.
"Welcome to the big leagues. Now we can finally move to Velondar."
Alex groaned. "City travel means new gear, tougher quest and earning money."
Eron nodded. "We'll need to start saving. Also, Rai, you said we'd talk about forming an official guild once we reach the cities, right?"
Rai smiled faintly. "Yeah. And I meant it but it will take some time to gain enough reputation points."
He looked up at the forest canopy above, remembering Malvik's words.
'You carry a curse…'
'Find the truth…'
So many questions, so many hidden threads pulling at him.
But for now, they had reached the first milestone.
And more importantly—
He wasn't alone.
Rai clapped both his teammates on the shoulders. "Let's go. Velondar awaits. And maybe, just maybe, we won't die in the first 10 minutes there."
Alex muttered, "That's… extremely unlikely."
Rai grinned. "Exactly. Let's roll."
The forest was quiet now. Not peaceful, just that eerie kind of silence that comes after a storm, when even the wind feels like it's catching its breath.
Rai sat alone on a rock near a burning campfire, sharpening his blade with a rhythm that only half-masked his thoughts.
Alex and Eron were snoring a few feet away, sprawled like corpses after the level grind that finally got them all to 15. Eron was hugging a burnt piece of meat like it owed him money. Alex had somehow rolled into a bush and mumbled arcane equations in his sleep.
They were all going to log out soon.
"Idiots," Rai muttered fondly, smirking.
The Hollow Sigil rested in his inventory. Cold and Dormant but somehow, it still felt heavy.
He'd escaped the replica-tomb of Emerald Hollow, sure. But the whispers hadn't left him. Not really.
Every once in a while—when things got too quiet—he could almost hear Malvik's voice again.
"Find the others."
"Bring me truth."
"Yeah, yeah. Working on it," Rai whispered toward the flickering fire.
There were too many unknowns. Too many names. And if this was really tied to one of the great noble families of Valoria. well.
He was going to be stepping on the toes of the people who ruled the damn kingdom.
And he hated nobles.
Still, something about Malvik's story, it scratched an itch Rai hadn't known he still had.
Not vengeance.
Not really.
But… justice?
Maybe.
He glanced up at the moon hanging overhead. It shimmered faintly—mocking him, as usual.
"Don't worry, lady. I haven't forgotten about you either," he muttered.
For now, he had a goal.
Velondar City awaited. A real city. Money. Trade. Guilds. .
And after that?
Rai grinned faintly, teeth glinting in the moonlight.
After that… he'd dig up the bones of the past, piece by piece.
One traitor at a time.