Chapter 159 - 154 : Speculations

"How much longer~?" Fudo cried out while walking.

"Can't you be quiet just for a sec?" Yato said.

"Don't blame me. The map said we were close but we've been walking for a long time already now." Fudo replied.

Hearing his words, Yato couldn't retort them as he knew that what Fudo spoke off was true. It had been at least one hour since they had defeated that squad of kobolds. According to the map, they were supposed to be close to the exit but they had been walking for an hour and had yet to spot it. Even though with the descent of each floor, the space increases a lot, they should have already reached the exit point already. Hence it would be a lie to say that Yato wasn't a bit worried.

"This place is weird." Xue Yan suddenly said as she stared at the walls.

"Why do you say so?" Fudo glanced at her.

"With each progression, the floor's area increases. However, Black Grill's cave is located within a mountain. No matter how big the mountain is, it should have a limit. I have a feeling that further down, the floors even become far wider than the mountain's belt."

"!!!" Everybody was surprised at her claims but when they contemplated on it, they felt it had an inkling of truth within. 

The early floors were already big, big enough to fit 2 standard soccer stadiums within, and with each descent, the floors increase even more in area. If one were to consider the fact that the Outer region housed 10 floors while the middle region housed 22 floors, they would realise that at the point players reach the 22nd floor of the Middle region or even the 15th floor, it was possible that these floors would have already exceeded the width of the mountain! The only way the mountain would be able to contain such places would be if the floors were compressed to fit into the mountains or the interior of the mountain was an entirely different place!

"But that sounds impossible right? I mean this is a level 5 map. Why would such a map be this amazing?" Yato spoke out his concerns. In many different games, it wasn't a new thing to find and enter pocket spaces and dimensions. However, such places were only accessible to players when they reached higher levels and even at that, they weren't easily. Another important factor was that such places normally needed an extremely powerful entity to make them; usually at a god level or close. Infinite Realm players were still low levelled so it sounded weird that they would suddenly encounter pocket dimensions this early into the game much less the fact that such a dimension was easily accessible to the public. Hence Yato's disbelief.

"I've also considered that fact too." Sato suddenly spoke up. "Think about it. First are the Rock Golem species and then the [Teleportation runes]. You could say that the Rock Golems were all created by a heaven defying object or something but that doesn't explain the [Teleportation runes] and the formation that powers it. If you ask me, I would say that they are pretty much man-made."

"What?!" everyone exclaimed before blatantly sucking in a large amount of air. If what Xue Yan had said was just a speculation, Sato's statement would be a theory closest to being a law[1]. Most players would just enter an environment and begin slaying monsters without asking questions so Sato's statements were quite shocking. But when they began reviewing it while recalling their past experiences, they came to the conclusion that what he said might be true. 

"It doesn't matter." Seiichi shook his head. "The secrets of this place is beyond our reach. Even the NPCs couldn't fully explore here much less us low levelled players."

With Seiichi's remark everyone came to their sense and sighed bitterly. Indeed. A powerhouse like the Town Head, Arman Lagus, should have known about Black Grill's Cave and possibly tried to explore it yet there was no news about the Inner region or what laid there. Ignoring the Town head, there should have been a few powerful NPC adventurers who also came here yet they didn't discover anything and eventually this area was forgotten by them; serving only as a training spot for low levelled players. If such powerhouses and heavy hitters didn't discover anything, who are they to think that they would.

"You might be right but also wrong." Sato suddenly said.

"Huh?"

"According to the System, Black Grill's Cave is a level 5 map. Ignoring whether there's a restriction that prevents high levelled individuals from entering here, it's possible that the secret could only be found by someone weaker. But this is a just a guess." 

"True…" Fudo nodded. What Sato had said did make a bit of sense. If the secret of Black Grill's Cave was made for only low levelled players to use, I would be understandable as to why the high levelled NPCs couldn't find it. Hence, they still stood a chance of finding it but that wouldn't be easy and it would be time-consuming and time wasn't something they had on their hands.

Some time ago during their break, a friend Seiichi happened to have made while in Black Mountain's Town, had sent him a message informing him of the current trending news. He had wanted to team up with Seiichi to head to Black Grill's Cave and try their luck but Seiichi rejected. He was already with one of the best teams in Infinite Realm so why would he settle for less? From that message that friend sent him, Seiichi knew that most of the guilds and players close to Black Grill's Cave, at least 80% of them, were heading over here with the Middle Region's 10th floor world class boss as their target. Without wasting time, he had informed everyone else and so they had to cancel their break and move. With top gaming teams from different top guilds round the world as their opponents, every second and step counted.

"We won't go wandering around like headless flies. We already have a goal in mind now so we can't move elsewhere. Nonetheless, it would be better to keep our eyes out for something good but that's just all." Sato said. Rather than them looking for trails of a possibly non-existent object, it would be better for them to complete Xue Yan's mission first. By then it won't be too late to look for it.

"Alright." Fudo sighed. Just this few seconds were enough to make him change how he viewed the entire place.

'If there's indeed a secret, I wonder what it is and who made such a fascinating place.'

The team slowly proceeded on but their journey couldn't be described as one without suspense as they constantly fought monsters that either spotted them or blocked their path without departing. Unless it was as such, the team would usually avoid most of the monsters since they were in a race against time. Every second and step counted hence they didn't want to be delayed for a silly reason.

"In a while, we should be there." Sato said. He had interfaced the map Xue Yan gave him with his location. As such, their location was constantly being updated and displayed in the map. The reason that it took them a lot of time to approach the exit point was because the 9th floor was indeed very large; almost twice that of the 8th floor! To make things worse was that when they were teleported to the 9th floor from the 8th floor, the distance from their location to the 9th floor's exit gate would take at least 2 hours in a vertical path. However, the 9th floor was filled with a lot of corners and bends together with a wide variety of monsters, hence the idea of covering the distance in a mere 2 hours was nothing more than an imagination. 

"We are here. Just past that boulder and we should see it." Sato said as he stored the map away.

"Really?!" Fudo exclaimed. Trekking was never his forte and now that he had to do so while also battling monsters, it would be a lie to say that he wasn't exhausted. Even as a game avatar, exhaustion would still affect him just like players could still feel pain in-game. This wasn't limited to him though as the others were also tired.

"Hah. Do we take a break here or what?" Lu Zhen glanced at Sato.

"No. Let's reach the gate and rest there." Sato said. 

"Okay." Everyone agreed. Experience had proven that the exit gates were the safest place here. For an unknown reason, monsters didn't reside within a 100 metres range of the gate hence it was the best possible rest point for players in Black Grill's Cave.

Within 5 minutes, the players had closed up the distance, passing through boulder Sato had pointed out earlier before spotting an azure coloured wormhole. Finally, the team had reached the exit gate. With relief in their eyes, they smiled and were about to go closer but what they saw next left them staring wide agape.

"How come…?!"

(Special AN in author's section)