Chapter 148 Volume III - Chapter 69: Heart of the Dungeon
As the whole atmosphere of the room within the dungeon changed, I smiled involuntarily.
"You did it, huh…"
"Of course, I did."
Alex responded to me without opening his eyes. Or rather, it seemed like he couldn't open them even if he wanted to. His skill had really put a strain on his eyes and his mind.
"When can you open your eyes?"
"Probably in a few minutes, but I'm pretty sure I won't be able to see properly. And I'll probably be in severe pain for a few days, but..."
"Worth it, you say?"
Alex smiled confidently.
"Yes, worth it."
Widening my smile, I approached him, lifted him off the ground, put my arm around his shoulders, and supported him.
"Come on, lean on me. We're leaving this damned dungeon."
Alex did not answer but nodded. Meanwhile, he was trying to open his eyes but he couldn't. He seemed to be focused on it.
"Don't force yourself. If you're sure you'll open them soon, you'll open them. I'm not going to rip you off. I'm not giving you a fake by calling it Lheal."
This time he grinned as if he was teasing me.
"I know."
I felt a small urge to laugh when I compared the way he acted and behaved when we first met. Now... he was much more approachable.
"I'm glad you know."
I turned to the door, which was now fully open, and beyond it a dark, dusty, broken staircase led down. There was no end in sight, as usual.
"There's a staircase ahead, it looks a bit troublesome. Be careful where you step, control your footing."
"Okay."
After Alex's confirmation, I prepared to move forward, but then I paused.
"Ah... Take off your armor and sweater, because we're going somewhere really hot. I forgot to tell you."
"Hot? In this dungeon?"
I left Alex for a moment and quickly took off the armor and sweater that I had been wearing for who knows how many days, leaving only my undershirt and sweatpants that allowed me to move freely.
"Yes, trust me."
Alex hesitated for a while. The idea that there was a 'hot' place in this cold dungeon with snow everywhere was so absurd that I too couldn't believe it myself if I were in his shoes.
It didn't take Alex long to shake off his hesitation, though. He let out a deep sigh and somehow did as I asked with eyes that he couldn't open from the pain. We put the armor inside the dimensional buttons to save space, and just like that... we were ready.
I moved to Alex's side to support him again and put my arm around his shoulder.
"We're really going this time."
I didn't wait for Alex to answer because I knew what I was going to hear. Together, we started to move toward the dark void.
I took the first step on the staircase and Alex followed me, supported by me, and so we made our way down. Even though the staircase looked broken, it didn't feel like it would cause much trouble. The main problem was the darkness, which I solved with a flashlight.
We went down and down, walking for minutes. We passed so many steps that after a while it was clear that we were even below the ground outside. Yet, just as I had said before we entered, a fact that shocked Alex slowly began to emerge: the heat.
The further down we went, the hotter it got, much, much hotter than it should have been. It was so hot that it was ridiculously oppressive, who knows how far underground one would have to go to go to mines in the world with temperatures like that...
We had only been going down for about twenty minutes when we paused. Because there were no more steps below us, just flat ground.
"Are we there?"
Alex said, hot, sweaty, and out of breath. I answered in almost the same state as him.
"We have to walk a little further, the end of the corridor is in sight."
I'm not lying, there is a closed door at the end of the corridor and as I remember from the game, it is not closed or locked.
We continued along the corridor and when we got to the door, I simply pushed it with my foot.
I didn't touch it with my hand. Because if I did, I would probably burn the skin of my hand.
As I pushed it open hard, the door suddenly opened wide, revealing the huge 'hell' behind it.
Behind the door was a cave. A huge one. Everything inside was on fire, small and large flames were everywhere. In some of the places that weren't burning, there were half-melted plate armors. Some of them had melted completely over time so that they lay in a layer on the floor.
If there used to be someone inside the armor, it must have been a long time since the bones, which were not very durable, melted away.
Apart from all this, there was a small open building, resembling a temple, supported by pillars, situated in the center of the cave. The inside of the building could be easily seen because it was not covered by walls.
In the center of the temple was a sphere. A sphere with red and yellow patterns intertwined with each other and a black sword hanging horizontally in front of it.
The surroundings were not plain either. A few plants, the only signs of life in this flaming cave beside us, grew around this orb. They were few in number, but they all looked ripe. They were red, tall, with a flower on them, with thorns and extensions as if they had a tail.
These were the Red-tailed Lheal Alex was looking for.
Alex, who had opened his eyes when he was coming down the stairs, squinted them and looked toward the temple.
"I can't see it, but there's something there."
"There are the plants you're looking for."
Alex froze in place as his eyes widened. His whole body trembled with excitement.
"Come on then! What are we waiting for?"
I gave a short laugh at his reaction.
"I want to say I wish you were always like this, but never mind. Let's go get our rewards."
We quickly made our way through the flames to the temple. The heat increased the further we went into the temple, or rather the closer we got to the red orb. It was really unbearable. If we stayed here just ten more minutes we would probably die, but we didn't need ten minutes for what we were going to do anyway.
Five minutes would have been more than enough.
"These..."
When we finally arrived in front of the temple, Alex stopped looking to me for support and walked quickly to the Lheals. He bent down, cut a plant with a small dagger from his pocket, and examined it without picking it up.
"This... is indeed the Red-tailed Lheal..."
His voice trembled again and again with his body toward the end of his sentence.
"It's really it... It- It's not a dream..."
A smile appeared on my face as I approached him and put my hand on his shoulder.
"I told you, didn't I?"
Alex didn't answer, but I didn't need him to.
"If you have anything you want to say, tell me when we get out of the dungeon. I have things I need to pick up too."
With that, I took my hand off Alex's shoulder, said nothing to let him compose himself, and turned back to where the black sword and the red orb were.
I moved closer to them so that I could study them even better.
This red orb... was the reason why this dungeon was extremely cold.
It was hot because it absorbed all the heat around it. Its range was so great that it cooled almost the entire dungeon. It took years... Many, many years for it to take effect, but in the end, it made this whole realm freezing cold.
The only reason we could get close to it, even though it had been absorbing the heat from this whole dungeon for years, was the transparent box that surrounded it like a barrier. Without this box... we would probably have turned to ashes as soon as we stepped into this cave.
There was also a barely visible, slightly faded writing on the transparent barrier. I couldn't read it because I had no idea what the language of this realm was, and the system wasn't going to be of any help. It was probably a myth about how this orb was obtained and how it led this whole realm into the ice age...
Other than that, there was not much splendor in the appearance of the sphere.
It was a perfectly shaped sphere floating in the air. The orange-colored patterns on it looked a bit strange, but there was nothing else interesting about it.
The sword hanging in front of the orb was much more interesting in my eyes.
The sword was dark purple on black. The hilt looked like it was covered in leather, but it wasn't, it too seemed to be made of some strange dark purple material. The blade of the sword was quite short compared to normal swords, but it was not absent at all.
One part of the hilt was curved downward and the other part was curved upward. The blade of the sword looked even more special. It had dark purple runes on it and only one side of the blade was sharp. The blade of the sword had an extremely slight curve toward the tip and resembled a katana blade. I wouldn't say it was exactly like that, but... it was like that. And the length of the sword with the hilt was maybe eighty centimeters, maybe ninety centimeters if I pushed it a little bit.
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