Chương 122: (119) 2.72. Down the Corridor

Vin stared at the empty corridor that looked out of place against the natural stone, his hand unconsciously going to his chest as he remembered that horrible pulling sensation he experienced when he'd tried to run down the identical corridor back in the insect dungeon. Even with his life on the line, he hadn't managed to bring himself to enter the mysterious passage. That unnerving sensation of something important to him preparing to snap if he took so much as a single step inside had kept him from doing so.

Making sure there weren't any lava elementals nearby, Vin slowly approached the corridor, taking the time to examine it carefully. Just like the last one he'd discovered, the corridor looked as though someone had magically inserted it in the side of the tunnel wall. The natural stone all of a sudden just transformed into worked hewn stone, in a strange way that just looked off to Vin somehow.

"What are you?" Vin muttered, running his hand along the corridor entrance. It certainly felt like regular stone. Taking a step back, he cast Sense Magic, nodding as he got back what he'd been expecting. Like the dungeon itself, the corridor gave off an extremely subtle sensation of magic. Slightly more concentrated, but still not enough to actually pick up with just his magic senses.

Despite knowing that his bond with Alka had been well and truly severed after the loss of her sword and Madam Trebella's ritual, Vin was still a bit nervous about experiencing that horrible pulling sensation again. Scrunching up his eyes, he gingerly stepped up to the corridor entrance. With a deep breath he mentally prepared himself for that tightening around his core and the unpleasant sensation of something deep within him about to snap as he ever so carefully tried to step forward.

And blinked as he entered the corridor with absolutely zero issue.

"Thank God," he chuckled. Wiping his brow with a grin, he began jogging down the long tunnel that seemed to go on forever. It took him a solid few minutes of traveling in a straight line before he got to the end of the tunnel. And seeing as he could jog rather fast these days, that meant the tunnel was long. But eventually he did come to its end, and he gasped as he exited the tunnel and found himself standing inside a room that was impossibly large. The room the tunnel let out into was utterly enormous.

Without so much as a single supporting pillar, it seemed to reach up a good five stories, and stretch out what looked like nearly half a mile in all directions. Vin took a few tentative steps into the monstrous room, feeling smaller than he ever had in his entire life. Somehow it was even worse than that strange black void back when he first arrived at Edregon. Why is this here? He wondered, turning around and looking back at the corridor he'd come from.

To his shock, he realized the corridor had actually deposited him in the direct center of the massive room somehow. A large, stone frame erected in the dead center of the giant room contained the entrance to the corridor. But there was nothing behind the stone frame. Vin stepped to the side and walked a full circle around the stone frame, confirming that it appeared to be just a solid stone wall from the back.

But the moment he walked back around to the front, the long, seemingly endless corridor came back into view, stretching off into the distance. This is too weird… Double checking to confirm his Mental Map still worked wherever the hell he was, Vin put the creepy corridor behind him for the moment and began jogging further into the empty room. The sensation of being entirely alone in such a vast, open space was eerie, but he tried to ignore the crawling sensation along his neck that he was being watched somehow.

As he got closer to the edge of the room, he realized that the room he was in wasn't actually a square at all. It was a giant hexagon. Vin's heart pounded as he realized he may have stumbled upon something he shouldn't have, and he tried to calm himself down as he ran. You're fine Vin, if the Gods didn't want anyone running around… wherever the hell this is, they would have put actual safeguards in place. A handful of slow-moving monsters isn't exactly the best security system.

You're not about to get smited or anything. But that just leads to the main question… Why is it here at all? Approaching the edge of the room, a slight change in the flat wall caught his eye. There was another tunnel leading off into the distance. Blinking at the sudden tunnel, Vin turned and squinted at the far walls making up the other sides of the giant hexagonal room he was in.

Sure enough, thanks to his high focus, he was able to just barely make out five other tunnels, each one placed smack dab in the center of their respective wall and leading who knows where.

"Six walls… Six tunnels leading off into the distance…" He muttered, his eyes widening as he realized what that must mean.

"No way…" Staring at the tunnel before him, he cautiously stepped inside, as if worried it would shock him or something. He once again felt that strange sensation of passing through a paper-thin soap bubble, but other than that there was nothing. Jogging along this new tunnel, it wasn't long before he found himself stepping out into another massive empty room seemingly identical to the one he'd just been in.

Curious as to what he would find, he sprinted over to the middle of the hexagon, stopping before an identical stone frame placed in the dead center of the room. Just like the last one, it looked like a simple stone rectangle from behind, but the moment he walked around it he found himself peering into a corridor stretching off into the distance.

"No way!" He repeated, grinning at the insane discovery he'd just made. If these tunnels are what I think they are… Just as he was about to sprint down the tunnel and check what was on the other end, he realized he could potentially save himself a little time. Placing a hand on the corridor entrance, he focused on his Dungeoneering skill once more. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Dungeon Type: Cave Primary Monster Type: Insect Hazards: Acid Grouping: Swarm Movement: Very Fast He yanked his hand away like he'd touched a hot stove, staring in both awe and fear of what he'd just stumbled upon. That tunnel leads to the insect dungeon that nearly killed me, he realized, looking around him in wonder. That means…

"I'm back in the infernals' fragment right now." Vin stood there for a moment, simply staring at the giant hexagonal room around him as he tried to figure out what this meant. Based on what he'd seen, it looked like each fragment had some strange, massive, empty extradimensional space attached to it. And for whatever reason, these spaces were connected to each world fragment via monster-filled dungeons. But if you could survive the dungeon…

You could travel from fragment to fragment down here in a fraction of the time you could up above. And not just from one fragment to another adjacent fragment… Vin's Mental Map treated this strange place as a separate entity from the fragments outside, meaning he hadn't actually known what direction he'd been facing when he first arrived.

But since he'd been lucky enough to stumble upon the infernals' fragment first, combined with knowing which of these rooms was connected to the dwarves' fragment, Vin now knew exactly how he was oriented. Still not believing what he'd discovered, Vin took off toward what he thought of as west. He'd traveled three entire fragment lengths away from the Earthers' camp to get to where he was now.

It was a journey that, even if he ignored everything on all the different fragments and was able to run in a completely straight line, would still take him a couple of hours to make. He found himself standing in the hexagonal room paired to the Earthers' fragment less than ten minutes later. Vin could only laugh as he marveled at how quickly he'd traveled across Edregon. Placing a hand on the corridor, he activated Dungeoneering.

Dungeon Type: Forest Primary Monster Type: Beast Hazards: N/A Grouping: Solitary, Small Packs Movement: Medium, Fast"Forest type?" Vin muttered, thinking back to their fragment. He had no idea what that would look like, but obviously it existed seeing as he was staring into the corridor that connected to it. But he'd run around the entirety of his fragment back in his first few days here on Edregon. Where… Vin smacked himself, putting the pieces together.

He thought back to that first map he'd drawn for Spur, back before he'd ever even purchased the Dungeoneering skill. He'd warned Scule that one particular area had had a rather high concentration of monsters coming out of it…

"That means the dungeon is in that forest near the camp!" He realized, grinning with excitement. This revelation meant two things. One, it seemed to confirm Vin's suspicions that the notification for discovering a dungeon wouldn't pop up unless you actually had the Dungeoneering skill. And two, Spur had inadvertently set up their camp within spitting distance of their fragment's very own dungeon entrance. Vin hesitated, nearly entering the corridor and running in to check his theory.

They'd been gone for nearly a week and a half at this point, and the Gods only knew how the camp was faring. As nice as it would be to check in on Spur and Alice and make sure everyone was still in one piece, he was kind of in the middle of something right now. Not to mention now that he knew the secret of the dungeons, he could potentially make this trip whenever he wanted. It was a strange feeling, knowing that camp was all of a sudden only a quick trip away.

Granted that quick trip involved surviving two different monster-infested dungeons, but still, it was something. Grinning from ear to ear, Vin took out his journal and jotted down a handful of ideas. He had a lot of different things he wanted to test out, but first he needed to retrieve his friends. Number one on his list was checking to see if he could bring other people down here with him.

If these weird corridors ended up only being accessible by those with the Dungeoneering skill, then his discovery was going to be far less useful than he'd hoped. His list done, Vin stowed his journal and started to head back to the dwarven fragment, when a distant sound caught his ear. Other than his own footsteps and breathing, the long corridors and vast, open rooms were all completely silent, which made the unexpected noise stand out all the more.

Off in the distance, echoing in the empty space, was the distinct sound of someone crying. Vin paused, tilting his head and listening for a moment. Sure enough, with his high focus attribute, he had no problem picking up what definitely sounded like someone crying from an entire room away. Do I dare check out the source of the mysterious crying while I'm down here in the creepy corridor place? Hesitating for only a moment, he sighed, turning and heading toward the crying instead of returning to the Crater.

Even if they were having a bad day, finding someone else who knew more about this strange place than he did could only help him. They might be able to save him hours of experimentation after all. Vin only hoped he wasn't about to become the first murder victim down wherever here was. It only took him a minute to narrow down which of the six corridors extruding from the Earthers' fragment the crying was coming from, and he stood in front of it, looking curiously down the tunnel.

The crying was definitely coming from the ocean fragment. Shrugging, Vin stepped through that strange bubble sensation and jogged down the corridor, quickly walking out into the new room. Sure enough, he was just able to make out the silhouette of a cloaked figure kneeling over by the dungeon entrance leading into the ocean fragment proper. And based on how loudly they were bawling, something rather bad must have happened.

Hoping he wasn't making a terrible decision, Vin put a smile on his face and jogged over to the sobbing figure. As soon as he got close enough he cleared his throat, calling out to them.

"Hi there! Are you doing okay?" Immediately the cloaked figure stopped crying, scrambling to their feet and spinning around to face him, their hood falling completely open. The moment he saw their face, Vin paused, looking at the stranger in shock. He'd only met a single person with a face like that before, and he'd recognize that nightmare inducing transparent skin anywhere.

"Lumel?!"