Chapter 5

But at that moment, I heard a lot of screams with a loud bang behind my back.

“Aaaah! Stop!”

“Aah! Aah!”

“Aahh! God help!”

Boom! Boom! Boom! Thud! A loud sound echoed down the hall.

I looked back in an awkward position. Surprisingly, the fanatics were all tangled up together, seemingly ready to be squashed.

Almost as if they were trapped by a transparent wall, they were outraged and smooshed together.

I felt like I was inside the barrier.

There was a transparent barrier between me and the fanatics, and all the fanatics who followed me had been filtered out. It seemed it was a complex barrier that could not be passed through.

Oh, crazy. God. Thank you. It seemed to me that I’ve been unlucky for 25 years, just for today.

“Haha! Ha ha, ha ha ha! Take that, you assholes!”

I laughed like a madman at the fanatics who were pointing at me.

Ha-ha-ha-ha! You little punks! You guys can’t get past this, huh? Ha-ha-ha!

While walking ahead tense and fearful, I stumbled several times.

I took off my shoes and threw them, which I wanted to throw in the faces of those idiots, but the shoes bounced off the transparent barrier.

There’s no reason why I can’t kill them when they’re fighting for their lives.

I tried to be as mean as I could be, but my body was trembling. The fanatics did not get tired and poured out all kinds of abusive language, jeering, verbal abuse, and curse words toward me.

I ignored them all and started running again, my legs limping. However, I couldn’t stop here.

I don’t know why I’m the only one who could pass through the barrier, but these things usually are hard to find out. And I had to go outside, not stay inside Tantaros.

For a moment, I thought I was on the wrong side of the road, but I couldn’t turn around again, because there were a bunch of fanatics who were angry with me.

I grit my teeth and keep moving forward.

* * *

“How big is this place? How can there be something like this in the basement…“

I looked around with anxious eyes and murmured. I didn’t break anything because I decided that I had to hide my location as much as possible.

After the barrier, the hallway ended. The jagged dirt road continued without end. Feeling lost in the rock cave, I walked endlessly.

I walked the uncomfortable road barefoot for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, an open space came out.

“… Wow.”

Without realizing it, a stupid exclamation came out reflexively. This is because an unrealistic space filled with the wonders of nature unfolded in front of me.

The ceiling supported by the long pillars was very high. The dense pillars looked like a huge pipe organ.

The phenomenal size of the pillars gave a somewhat sacred feeling. It felt like a huge temple built by God. It looked more holy than the Great Hall in the Imperial Capital, and it inspired a greater reverence.

My gaze naturally followed the rays of light extending from somewhere on the ceiling. The beams of light falling diagonally continued to the floor, pointing to the center of the space, where there was something that resembled a small pond.

The surroundings have been too quiet ever since. All I could hear was the sound of dripping water and my rough breathing.

I stepped into the space as if possessed, but I couldn’t let my guard down and kept turning my head back and forth.

The surprise from discovering the space was short-lived, and soon I started to feel despair again.

There was no way this space was a dead end. The only path leading to this place was the one I had walked.

“Oh, no.”

Somehow I thought it was going well, until now. I was still unlucky.

“There must be an exit, there has to be. It’s the castle of the Nyx. There must be some sort of secret passage…!”

I started pounding on the walls of the area like a madman.

After hitting the wall for a while and looking here and there, I finally had to admit it. That the road continued no further.

“Are you really kidding me?

When I shouted out loud, I felt dizzy, my anger returning only an echo.

I knelt down for a moment and took a deep breath, getting blood pressure under control, and as I looked up, I saw again what looked like a central pond, the pool where the beams of light from the ceiling were pointing.

Where did that light come from? Is it from outside? If it’s Ophelia’s power, there’s nothing that can’t be pierced.

With that in mind, I dragged my limping legs to the pond, and when I looked closer, I could not see that it was a puddle of groundwater.

In fact, I didn’t have to go directly under the beam of light, because I could have smashed the ceiling from where I was kneeling.

But I was very tired, and I had no energy to properly think things through, so my brain went through a simple thought process and moved in the direction of overworking my body.

I made my way to the middle of the puddle with a bang.

“I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you.I won’t leave you alone..”

“I’ll kill you Nyx if I get back alive. I will really kill you!”

I was moving my legs mechanically, spitting nonsense.

Squish-

I felt a lump on the soles of my bare feet.

What?

Today is really quite a day. I looked down with a hardened face.

“…”

When people are so startled, they can’t even scream for a moment.

“Ah, oh…”

Oh My God!

In the water-

“Aaah! Aaah!”

There’s a person.

Splash!

Confused, I lost my focus and fell backwards. I fell into the water like it was natural.

‘I’m drowning? That can’t be right.’

At first glance, the water level in the puddle was barely above my knees. However, there was no such thing as depth. And I fell.

“…!”

I opened my eyes wide. Like a lie, an infinite amount of water unfolded before my eyes. I frowned and covered my nose and mouth reflexively.

I blinked urgently in defiance of the water, and only then did I see a vague view of the water. The man I’d supposedly stepped on was floating in front of me, in the water.

My surprise was so great that I was about to faint again because I hadn’t learned from the first time. I opened my mouth like a fool and drank water. After struggling for a bit, I was able to gather a little bit of composure.

‘Damn, at least it doesn’t look like a water ghost or a corpse.’

The man, who had a straight face, was in such a perfect state that my confusion was disregarded. They were obviously in the same water, but unlike me, he did not look wet at all.

Strangely enough, it was as if he had been waterproofed. On the contrary, my side, with my well braided hair loose, untied, and I’m more like a water ghost.

“Is it sealed?”

It was a very white adult male with silver hair. He was in the water, so I couldn’t see him in detail, but I could barely understand it.

A silver-haired adult male, sealed underground deep in Tantaros. There can’t be many of them

“…”

You must be Norma.

It’s Norma Diazi.

I’d scrapped my plan to find Norma Diazi, but I didn’t expect him to just show up.

I touched his cheek slightly. As expected, it was soft, as if it existed on a different level. It seemed that Norma could not reach this water or time. His time seems to have stopped since he was sealed.

So, did you stay in that moment when you were cursed?’

At that thought, my eyes frowned. I felt the need to get him out quickly. Pity, compassion, sympathy, or something like that.

I grabbed Norma without hesitation and climbed to the surface at once

“Pu-ha!”

As soon as I got out of the water, the surface was knee-high again, and I had no idea what the hell was going on..

The plan to smash through the ceiling had flown away, and now that I’d unexpectedly found Norma, I was thinking about waking him up.

I tucked my arms under Norma’s armpits and began to pull.

“What, he’s heavier than he looks?”

When I pulled him out, I noticed that Norma was much taller than I was and was as heavy as a stone. He was also stiff.

In a way, it was natural. Norma was an active knight, so this rocky body was at a level stronger than most adult men.

By comparison, I was a woman in her mid-20s who was a little shorter than average and lacked exercise. There was no way that I could move his Norma-like size lightly in such terrible physical condition.

“Ah! I should’ve just thrown him away!”

I was so angry, but I didn’t really want to leave him. The idea of ‘getting him out and waking him up’ had overwhelmed any other thoughts.

I managed to get out of the middle of the puddle, but I wasn’t out completely just yet. When I got to the water’s edge, the surface of the water skimmed around my ankles.

Next to Norma, who’d been sprawled out, I lay on my back and breathed hard for a while.

My wrists and ankles dug into my restraints, and I really wanted to rip off the heavy cotton dress.

Instead, I nervously pulled the strands of hair from my face, which were soaked in water to the extent that they looked more like seaweed.

I thought I would pass out if I closed my eyes like this, so I forced myself to wake up.

“This… Big, big, um, ah, ah. Hey Mr.Diazi. Mr. Diazi?”

I gathered my cracked voice and called Norma once, but there was no answer.

“Yeah, getting out of the water doesn’t mean the curse will be lifted. Ha…”

I got up halfway through my tiredness and crawled on my knees to Norma’s side. It was then that I saw Norma Diazi properly…

“… Cough, ooh.”

It was so beautiful that it made me cough. I couldn’t take my eyes off Norma with a serious face.

“What did you get?”

Norma had a look that would make everyone’s taste useless. It was only a sleeping face, but the destructive power of it was enormous.

‘Is this my taste? No, I don’t think it’s necessarily that.’

I grew up watching Ophelia, who boasts devastating beauty. I thought I was immune to beauty.

But a white face and rosy cheeks.

It’s a long stretch of eyelids and dense eyelashes.

Neat and arranged, arched eyebrows..

Why is your nose like that again? There’s transparent silver hair?

Are you a princess? Is he really a sleeping beauty?

I stared down at Norma’s ridiculous face in shock, even frowning.