Chapter 156 Stranger In The Dark

“Err, you want me to teach you now…? We’re sorta in–”

“If not now, then when else?!” Melisande interrupted him, “Besides, I can tell you’re tired! You’ve been pushing yourself too hard for my sake. And don’t try to lie to act tough! I can see your bruises and those bags under your eyes–so…let me help you!”

Part of him wanted to argue with those words, but it was clearly the truth: he was exhausted. It was an uphill battle he was fighting alone, and he knew it.

Even more so, Melisande had pride of her own and was her own person; it wasn’t as if he was protecting some child, either–they were the same age.

Though they already discussed him guiding her in magecraft, he assumed this would be something saved for a time when they weren’t engulfed in alternate realities of horrific consequence.

Still, he could see by the pouty look on her face and the adamant gleam in her eyes that Melisande wasn’t looking to accept ‘no’ for an answer.

He slowly sighed out, scratching his head, “Alright, just something simple, okay?”

“Yay! I mean–alright,” Melisande adjusted herself with a cough.

Though it was a less than ideal environment for learning magic, he did understand the significance of giving the girl something to protect herself with, though he didn’t want it to come to that.

I can’t ignore reality though, he thought.

Holding his hand in front of her with his palm facing upward, he looked at her, “This should be something even a newbie like you should be able to accomplish, alright?”

p?(??)? ?o??l “N-newbie? I know a little bit about mana, you know? Brother taught me that much. He never got around to teaching me spells though because–he…” Melisande’s excitement gloomed over as she looked down.

It seemed easy for the girl to dampen her mood, so he tried his best to sway the conversation back into magecraft.

“Ah…well, that saves us some time, then. If you know the basics of feeling out your own internal mana, then just follow these steps,” he guided her.

Melisande nodded, holding her hand out as well to follow his instruction.

“Focus on the sensation of mana in your stomach and guide it up your chest and through your arms, gathering it to your hand,” he taught her, “imagine the sensation of wind, spinning above your hand. From there, use this invocation: ‘Born of wind and lord of the skies, Sylph, howl and tear through: Wind Blast!”

The full invocation of the spell caused a burst of wind to go upward, causing Melisande to stumble from the residual release itself.

“Ah…” Melisande looked up at the aftermath of the incantation, “Woah!”

“Your turn,” he said.

Melisande nodded before trying it for herself, pointing her palm towards the wall, “Born of wind and lord of the skies, Sylph, howl and tear through: Wind Blast!”

In a powerful release, a cone of wind slammed against the wall, causing the room to rumble violently.

“–I did it!” Melisande smiled brightly in surprise.

“Good job…” He said with a worried smile.

She’s got dangerous talent! He thought.

Adjusting the laces on her stained, beige boots, Melisande seemed to have regained herself through acquiring something to fight with as she stood up, spunky and ready to go as the light-brown laces on the neat, fluffed collar of her shirt bounced.

Moving out of the room, Melisande followed close by him with a bubbly confidence as if looking for a fight, though he remained cautious as ever.

“Stay alert,” he told her.

Melisande settled down, “…I am. I’m just relieved now–I can finally do something.”

“Well, don’t go looking for a fight, okay? Our only goal is just to get out of here,” Emilio reminded her.

“I know that…” Melisande replied.

Entering the depths of the unknown space, he looked around to find the slightly-moist, moldy-smelling carpet stretching on through what seemed like far too many pathways through corridors lined with the faded, yellow wallpaper.

What a weird place…He thought.

The hum of the fluorescent lights quickly grew to be headache-inducing as he wandered through the expansive space. While nothing malicious had yet to reveal itself, the unnerving nature of the office-like labyrinth made him want to find a doorway as soon as possible.

“Ah!”

The jarring sound that left Melisande’s lips caused him to jump as he spun around, ready to engage in battle, only to see the silver-haired girl looking towards something else.

“…What was that? Please don’t make random noises like that…” He sighed out.

Melisande pointed towards a table in the middle of one of the rooms to the left, which led to further bland carpet and tired wallpaper.

“Look, it’s cake,” Melisande pointed out.

He squinted, seeing that there was indeed a perfectly round, frosted dessert sitting on the plain, wooden furniture, “Cake?…”

It was so perplexing; the dessert sat on the table, alone in the middle of the next room with no other furniture or decorations to be seen–just simply, cake.

“Why’s there cake here?” He questioned with a hand to his chin.

Melisande approached the table, “I don’t know, but doesn’t it look good?”

“Sure, but…I’m not exactly hungry. I don’t think hunger even exists in this realm. What about you?” He asked.

“Hmm…I haven’t felt hungry, but this looks good,” Melisande said.

There was something suspicious about the cake, beyond the simple fact that it sat there without any trace of a baker or other lifeforms in the labyrinth. It was the allure it brought; for some reason, when looking at its soft, fluffy form and the sweet aroma it gave off, it did entice one’s stomach.

“…It does sound delicious,” he said.

It was as though the thought itself of consuming the cake was enough to drag his feet towards it as he and Melisande approached it.

Just as Melisande started to reach out towards the cake, Emilio snapped himself into focus, drawing his sword and unleashing a swift slash, bringing it down to completely bisect the perfect circle of a cake.

“Ahh–! Emilio, what’d you do that for?!” Melisande whined, almost in horror at the loss of the desert.

“It’s a trap!” He told her.

It was almost too much to believe that mere cake could have such malicious intent, but that much was proven to them both as once split in half, the cake shriveled up, relinquishing its form to a small, insectoid creature with wriggling limbs.

The true shape of it had a gray exoskeleton, oozing verdant blood in place of what would’ve been sweet filling.

“…The cake…” Melisande sulked quietly.

“We need to be more vigilant,” he said, exhaling slowly.

There was genuine disappointment from Melisande with the fact that the cake was, indeed, a lie. Though it was an understandable feeling for him; one of the largest factors of the Unending Nightmare’s danger sat in its ability to continuously gnaw away at one’s psyche.

Bleakness, despair, fear, exhaustion–all of these worked in tandem to drive them into a corner, so the concept of a sweet dessert, a reprieve from the horrors, was enticing but if only for a moment.

Nonetheless, they moved on with him holding true to his resolve of utter caution; he kept his eyes and ears peeled, trusting nothing within the dull labyrinth of faded wallpaper.

“This place is huge…” Melisande remarked.

“Yeah, but at least it doesn’t seem all too aggressive,” he replied.

It wasn’t just a singular format that the rooms took; the perplexing, incomplete world didn’t adhere to normal architecture as some rooms were slightly slanted, and some were vast, filled with far too many pillars for no apparent reason.

If it wasn’t malicious entities that were the pressing danger of the liminal space, it was the sanity-gnawing atmosphere it had.

What felt like a few hours was spent with the two wandering aimlessly, passing into room after room without finding a single doorway to speak of.

Eventually, they found themselves turning into another corridor from an empty room that held a giant pool without any water. Besides the fluorescent lights’ unending hum, their footsteps scraping against the carpet was the only source of sound.

“…Are you sure there’s a doorway? We haven’t found one yet,” Melisande asked worriedly.

“I’m sure of it. We just need to keep loo–”

He came to a complete still as he sensed a mana signature unlike anything else; it was cold, chilling to the marrow of his bone as the air itself seemed to burn the back of his throat.

What…is this? It’s so dark, he thought.

“Emilio? What is it?…” Melisande asked.

Of course, the girl who was untaught in the ways of magic couldn’t sense it like he did, but it was something terrifying.

He stood there, reflexively guarding the girl from whatever the malignant aura belonged to, holding his sword tightly between his fingertips that trembled and exuded sweat already.

Then, he finally saw ‘it’–the source of the aura of such boundless darkness.

Most surprising of all, it was a man; standing there in the hall with his hands slid into the pockets of his exuberant, all-black pants. He was lanky; noticeably tall with flowing, gray hair but a patchwork face as if he was held together by stitches.