“Remember meee...”
“Gah!” Liz yelped, breaking into another run. At the end of the corridor was what looked to be a bedroom, with two beds next to each other. But she couldn’t be sure of that. She couldn’t be sure of anything anymore! Where was she, and what was happening?! What a terrifying place! She’d underestimated the overlord of the slums! “Ugh...”
She crouched down then and there, trying to suppress her shakes. The enemy was more formidable than she’d thought. Maybe she should flee and try again another day.
“No, that won’t do.” They’d seen her face now, so she couldn’t rely on the same trick anymore. She sat down for a bit, taking several long breaths. Then, she lifted her head, and said, “Fine. Bring it. Do not underestimate me!”
Gritting her teeth, she slowly stood up. She was an intrepid member of the Black Guild. She’d manipulated countless men. She would not let something like this stop her! Years spent in the underground depths of the Guild, home to all manner of demons, hadn’t been for nothing!
As she rose to her feet, slapping her cheeks, she stopped trembling. Liz quickly checked the possibly-a-bedroom-but-who-knew-really space, the corridor leading to it, and the corpse-washing area, but found no entrance to the underground.
“What in the blazes?”
Could it be that there was no path? As time went on, she grew more and more impatient. Liz hurried back to the room with the beds and noticed a set of stairs right by the door.
“A second floor?”
Wait. Hadn’t Gaion mentioned a captive woman beckoning from the second floor? Maybe there was a ladder leading directly to the underground level from there. And if the captive was there, maybe she’d know something.
If she was still alive, that is.
“All right,” Liz murmured before slowly heading up the stairs.
***
“Oh! Zenos!” Lily called out, running up to Zenos—on his way home from his rounds—on the side of the road.
“Lily? What’s up?”
“I came to get you. Lynga brought in an unconscious lady, and I couldn’t help her.”
“Is it serious?”
“I’m not sure, but she won’t wake up.”
Zenos stopped for a moment, gazing up at the fading sun. “I have a bad feeling about this. Let’s hurry.”
***
Back at the clinic, now enveloped in the colors of twilight, Liz cautiously climbed up the stairs.
“I’ll find a clue this time for sure.” There’d been no entrance to the underground on the first floor, so if there was anything to be found, it’d surely be on the second floor. The stairs seemed very old, creaking loudly with every step, as if no one had used them in years. “That doesn’t make any sense, though...”
If that were the case, how would the woman Gaion had seen on the second floor have gotten there?
One step. Two steps. Three steps. For some reason, with every step she took, the air grew chillier and chillier, a freezing cold pressure seeming to push back against her body. “I said. Do. Not. Underestimate. Me,” Liz muttered as she continued to forcefully lift her legs in defiance of the biting cold.
Finally, she reached the second floor.
“What the...?” Her words trailed off as she looked around at the pitch blackness in speechless confusion.
The second floor was a deep, pure black, and she couldn’t see so much as an inch ahead. An overwhelming chill pierced her skin, making her teeth chatter. There was no sign of anyone. She couldn’t sense a single living creature. There was only the freezing darkness and silence, so deep it felt like nothingness.
Liz whimpered and felt her breath quicken, feeling a primal revulsion. Overwhelming dread. The muggy stench of death, clinging to her body. A dark miasma swirling in the air, worse than even the depths of the Guild’s underground abyss.
“No, really, what...?” she groaned. Liz was scared, her every instinct screaming at her to turn back right now. Her knees nearly buckled.
But she frantically straightened them, standing firm despite herself. In the Black Guild, reputation was everything. If she turned tail now and fled, she would lose everything. She knew that.
Her vision was still shrouded in darkness, but from what she could tell, she was in a corridor-like space. She advanced slowly, her hand tracing along the ice-cold wall. There seemed to be several rooms along the corridor.
“Is anyone there?” she asked hesitantly.
No one answered her, of course.
Carefully, she pushed open the door to the room in front of her, the creaking of the old wood ringing like a shriek in her ears. The inside was even darker, and the smell of burnt incense permeated the air. Her hand still on the wall, she walked in, caught on something, and nearly fell.
“Ow! What’s this?” Liz felt the object, which seemed to be some sort of coarse staff.
Various other items seemed to be strewn haphazardly through the room. Maybe this was a storeroom? She proceeded with caution until she reached the back wall. Something was on it, like the frame of a picture. Upon further inspection, it felt like a painting, but it was far too dark to tell what it depicted.
Liz hesitated quietly for a moment before deciding to take the painting with her. It might’ve been a portrait of the mastermind; knowing her enemy’s face in advance could be advantageous. Since it was too dark to see anything, Liz left the room, heading toward the stairs with the painting in search of light.
“Wait, it’s not a portrait?” Her vision was blurry from the sudden brightness, but she could still tell that the painting didn’t seem to be of one person. Rather, there were multiple figures. It looked very old, with several parts faded, and it was unclear if one of them could be the mastermind. Her gaze drifted to the right edge of the painting, which showed a languid, beautiful woman in black.
“Hands off,” echoed a chilling, unsettling voice from behind her.
“Huh?” Liz turned around and a white silhouette brushed past the edge of her vision. “Who’s there?!” Was it the woman Gaion had spotted on the second floor?
