After walking for a while, the young man quickly realized something was off.
He truly couldn't tell where he was going.
Forward felt like backward. The corridor twisted subtly, disorienting him without any obvious curves. There were no markings on the blue stone walls, no scratches, no signs of passage. The only source of light came from faintly glowing moss clinging to the walls, bathing everything in an eerie blue hue.
This place is… strange.
More importantly, he hadn't encountered a single living creature. Nor any undead. That alone ruled out his earlier suspicion.
If this were a lich's crypt, it would be crawling with undead. At the very least, there'd be bones everywhere.
But there were none. The corridor was unnervingly clean.
Crack. Crack.
The sound came from behind him. His body reacted before his mind did. He turned sharply, dagger already half-raised, and saw two small green-skinned creatures crawling out from a fissure in the wall.
Goblins.
The name surfaced instantly.
"These bastards…"
They were the same creatures that had once infested the western forests of the BloodBone Empire. Back then, he had been sent to exterminate them as part of his assassin training.
Their beady yellow eyes gleamed with malice. Each goblin clutched a crude dagger, their bodies hunched and twitching.
But he didn't hesitate. An assassin never did. Strengthening his legs with body-enhancement magic, he launched himself forward.
Thwack!
A magic bullet tore through the air and blasted straight through the face of the first goblin, leaving a smoking hole where its head had been.
The second goblin screeched and lunged, but he raised his dagger calmly, deflecting the incoming weapon with practiced precision.
"Off you go."
Thump.
His dagger pierced cleanly through the goblin's skull. It fell without resistance.
The two goblins collapsed, and within seconds, their bodies turned to ash, scattering into the air. Left behind were two small, gleaming stones.
"Magic stones…" He picked them up, rolling one between his fingers before holding it up to his left eye. "And… such dense magic power."
His brows furrowed.
Am I still in my world… or was I thrown into some undiscovered plane?
The goblins had been ridiculously weak, yet the magic stones they left behind contained an absurd amount of mana. Something didn't add up.
His gaze shifted back to the wall. The crack the goblins had emerged from was gone. He knocked against the stone. Solid. No hollow sound.
Still clueless, he continued forward.
This time, however, his senses were sharpened, muscles coiled and ready. If monsters appeared again, he wouldn't complain.
After all, "I can absorb these stones… and grow stronger."
...
After another fifteen or twenty minutes, he finally encountered living beings again.
Not monsters. People. A group of three men were fighting five goblins. All three wielded swords, their movements coordinated but slightly sloppy.
["Shadow Magic: Veil."]
A thin layer of shadow wrapped around his body, blending him into the dim lighting of the corridor walls. He moved closer, silent as a ghost.
The fight ended quickly. The goblins were dispatched one by one, and soon, the men bent down to collect the magic stones scattered on the ground.
"Paul, we've had a pretty good haul today," one of them said cheerfully. "Let's head back now. If we return early, we can still enjoy the Monsterphilia."
"Stick's right," another added. "We've earned enough anyway. Let's call it a day and relax."
Paul laughed. "To be honest, I wanted to check out the shops near the Colosseum myself. Alright, it's decided. We'll exchange the crystals and enjoy the rest of the day."
...
He understood the words. But not their meaning.
Monster? philia? Some kind of monster-related event?
A Colosseum? Neither the Empire nor the Federation had one. He'd only heard rumors of a distant nation possessing such a structure.
Frowning slightly, he followed them, still hiding in the shadows with his veil magic.
...
By eavesdropping on their conversation, pieces began to fall into place.
He was inside a Dungeon. Beneath the city of Orario.
And here, Gods walked among mortals. The more he listened, the more uneasy he became.
This isn't a small planar world… Could a planar world even allow gods to manifest freely? And more than one at that?
No. This was starting to look less like a planar world, and more like the worst possible scenario.
Having been transported to an entirely unknown world.
.....
After following them for nearly an hour and climbing two sets of stairs, more people began appearing.
Groups upon groups. And races that should have been long extinct in his world.
Pointy-eared elves. Short, broad dwarves. Beast-humans with animal features.
At this point, there was no need to follow anyone. Everyone was heading in the same direction.
Joining the flow, he climbed a massive set of stairs.
At the top, a vast hall greeted him. Murals covered the ceiling, depicting scenes of gods, monsters, and heroes. At the far end stood a massive exit door.
Turning back and looking at the huge set of stairs, he realized it.
He had landed on one of the dungeon's floors, and climbed his way up.
...
The moment he stepped out of the huge tower and into the plaza, the world assaulted him.
"Damn."
Heat. Blinding, overwhelming heat.
The sun stood at its zenith, its brilliance stabbing into his eyes. Instinctively, he knew,
This is a real sun.
Not like the artificial ones from his world.
As he was still adjusting to the blinding glare and the wave of vertigo that followed, alarm bells rang violently in his mind. His instincts screaming danger.
"Bang."
He leapt backward just as a green blur exploded from the ground where he had been standing moments ago, stone and dirt scattering into the air.
The blur resolved into a snake, no, something far worse.
It was colossal, stretching close to ten meters in length, and that was with only a portion of its body exposed. The rest remained buried deep beneath the plaza. Its visible end tapered into a grotesque, bulbous tip.
Criss-cross patterned scales covered its body, each plate tightly layered over the next, radiating an unmistakable sense of density and hardness. Putting immediate distance between himself and the creature, he drew his gun and aimed straight at the bulbous tip.
The magic bullet struck true, but instead of piercing through, it rebounded harmlessly, failing to deal any damage. At the very least, this monster was comparable to a three- or four-star. Worse, he was forced to fight it out in the open.
"A terrible matchup."
A quick glance around confirmed another grim detail, the people who had filled the plaza earlier were gone. During his brief entanglement with the monster, they had evacuated completely.
"And looks like there were no reinforcements. Great."
Enraged by the attack, the monster let out a deafening roar. The bulbous tip split open, unfurling like a grotesque bloom.
His expression darkened.
"Damn. This thing isn't a snake at all, it's some kind of flower-type monster."
Then fire magic may work.
As he rolled to the left to evade its next strike, a vine lashed out from the side. He barely managed to twist his body, but not enough. A second vine slammed into him, sending him crashing into a nearby wall.
He forced himself upright, scattering rubble and dust, and his eyes widened slightly. The second vine was connected to the same monster, and now several more vines rose from its body, poised to strike like coiled whips.
Just as he braced himself for another relentless assault, the monster suddenly ignored him entirely and turned its head toward the rear of the plaza.
At some point during the skirmish, a dark elf had arrived. She stood at the other end of the plaza, calmly chanting a spell.
The monster roared and charged toward her, only never reached her.
A torrent of fire descended like divine punishment, engulfing the monster completely. In seconds, it burned to ash. The dark elf didn't even look back. She left as swiftly as she came.
He walked into a nearby alley and crouched down, breathing slowly.
"…What a welcome. First, I find myself in a cave, then somehow I reached the surface, only to face a three-star monster."
Physically, he was fine. Mentally? He rubbed his face, letting out a tired sigh.
...
A few minutes later, he returned to the scorched plaza.
A magic stone gleamed among the burnt ground. The dark elf hadn't taken it. This one was different, yellow, with a faint green.
He picked it up. Then turned back into the alley.
"Thank you who-ever you are dark elf-san. If I can, I'll help you in the future."
"But before that, I need to find a place to stay and then collect more information about this place. And definitely improve my strength."
Only after understanding this world could he decide, Was this just another planar world… or an entirely unknown world? And also decide how to process from there.