Elias walked. Each step carried him farther away from the direction of the roar that had shaken the frozen wasteland moments earlier, yet the echo of that sound continued to linger in his mind. The wind moved across the barren ice fields in slow, hollow breaths.
For several minutes, he said nothing.
Eventually, the silence became unbearable.
"System," he muttered under his breath.
[ Yes. ]
Elias exhaled slowly.
"Let's try something simple. Who put me here?"
No answer came.
He continued walking, his feet crunching against the brittle frost beneath.
"Fine. Different question. Why exactly am I here?"
[ Primary Directive: Ascend beyond the confines of this realm. ]
"That's not exactly what I meant. And I'm pretty sure you realize that."
Silence.
Elias waited.
But nothing came.
"See, that's the problem," he said. "You do this thing where you pretend a question was answered when it clearly wasn't."
[ The Primary Directive is the only information available regarding your purpose. ]
"But who gave this directive?"
[ … ]
He kicked a loose shard of frost.
"Of course." His jaw tightened. "Then where am I supposed to go next here?"
[ The path forward has not yet been determined. Exploration is recommended. ]
"Exploration is recommended," Elias repeated flatly. "Brilliant. Groundbreaking advice."
He walked in silence for a few steps.
"Let's try something you might actually answer. How do I leave this place?"
[ Only one known method exists: Pass the boundary by defeating the Gatekeeper and ascend. ]
"Defeat the Gatekeeper." Elias laughed bitterly. "That fucking thing killed me in like half a second."
[ Correct. It carries a high probability of death. ]
"And what happens after I go through it? Ascend?"
[ Yes. ]
"So do I have to go through him whether I like it or not? Is there no other way?"
[ The Gatekeeper guards the sole passage out of the Ninth Circle. All who seek ascension must pass through it. ]
He rubbed his temple.
"Wonderful. So my choices are: get killed by the giant with swords, or… get killed by the giant with swords, but with extra steps?"
[ A simplified but not inaccurate summary. ]
Elias stared at the empty air for a while.
"…You have a terrible sense of humor."
[ The System does not possess humor. ]
"Yeah. I noticed."
He continued walking ahead.
"What happens after I leave?"
[ Unknown. ]
"After I ascend?"
[ … ]
"After any of this?"
[ … ]
The System hesitated. Just long enough for Elias to notice.
[ Those questions… cannot be answered through information transfer alone. ]
Elias frowned.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
[ Understanding the nature of what lies beyond requires experience. The answer you seek are not facts to be delivered. They are truths to be discovered. Only by reaching them will you truly understand what they mean. ]
He stopped walking.
For a moment, he simply stood there, processing what the System had said.
"…'Ascend' you mean to say?"
He waited for a while, but no response came. The wind howled across the ice.
"Truths to be discovered," Elias muttered. He let out a harsh, humorless breath.
[ … ]
"Don't even." Elias dragged a hand down his freezing face. The irritation flared in his chest, temporarily overriding the exhaustion. "If you're just going to feed me riddles while I freeze to death in hell, then keep them to yourself. I'm done talking to a wall."
He dismissed the interface with a violent thought.
He started walking again, faster this time, driven by a spiteful energy. He didn't know where he was going. He just needed to move.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.
The silence of Prodosia was heavy, pressing against his chest. Without the System's texts to distract him, the landscape began to impose itself.
Only when the wind shifted did Elias finally notice that the ground beneath him had begun to slope upward.
He had climbed without realizing it.
The terrain gradually rose into a wide ridge of frozen rock. Elias stepped carefully over the final incline before reaching the edge.
A cliff.
He stopped at the brink and looked out.
Far below, the wasteland stretched in all directions.
And in the distance, something rose from the frozen plains.
It was a castle.
The structure stood massive and silent against the pale sky. Frost had covered nearly every surface of the ancient fortress, coating its wall and rooftops in thick layers of white that shimmered faintly below the light above.
The place looked abandoned, ancient and forgotten.
Elias studied it quietly.
Then something else caught his attention.
To the right, in a slightly different direction from the castle was a small cluster of buildings which sat half-buried in frost.
A village. Or what had once been one.
The houses were little more than skeletal remains of wood and stone now. Their roofs had collapsed and their windows had darkened with age. Yet among them, one structure stood out.
A small cottage.
Its door hung open.
Even from this distance Elias could see the fresh dark red streaks trailing across the snow near the entrance.
Something else glinted faintly above the chimney, a small reflection.
Elias stood there for several moments, weighing the options.
The castle.
Or the cottage.
Normally, he would have asked the system.
The thought surfaced instinctively.
Then his jaw tightened.
No.
He had asked enough questions already.
The system had given him nothing.
The cottage… "What if someone's there?" he thought, but quickly dismissed it and looked away.
His gaze drifted back towards the castle.
It loomed in the distance like some ancient sentinel watching the frozen wasteland.
If there were answers anywhere in this place, they were probably there.
Elias turned slightly, preparing to head in that direction.
As the thought of the castle fully formed in his mind, the system spoke at the exact same moment.
[ The castle. ]
Elias froze.
"…What?"
Silence followed.
The words hung there in his vision. He frowned slightly, but gave no response.
The phrase lingered in his thoughts, though something about the way the system had said it felt strange.
After all, it was a decision he would make again and again, no matter how many times he faced it.
Elias shook his head.
"…Whatever."
He stepped away from the cliff's edge and began searching for a way down.
The slope surrounding the ridge was steep, but not entirely vertical. Several narrow paths twisted between the frozen rock formations that lined the cliffside.
He followed one of them briefly.
But it curved away from the castle. Which meant it would eventually lead him back towards the direction he had come from.
Elias sighed.
"That's annoying," he thought to himself.
The alternative route was less appealing.
A narrow descent along the cliffside where the frozen rock jutted outward. Snow had gathered thickly across the slope, making it difficult to judge where solid ground ended and empty space began.
The system spoke up.
[ Unsafe path ahead. ]
Elias didn't answer.
[ Host injury probability. Return to prior route. ]
Still, he said nothing.
Staring down the slope, he stepped onto the descent.
The first few steps were manageable.
The snow shifted slightly beneath his boots. Elias moved slowly, gripping the cliffside whenever needed to steady himself.
For a moment, it almost felt like the risk had been exaggerated.
Then, the snow beneath his foot collapsed.
Elias slipped.
"-Ah!"
His feet lost traction instantly.
The slope gave way beneath him.
The world tilted violently as he tumbled forward, sliding down the frozen cliffside. His forward momentum violently wrenched his knee backward. A sickening pop echoed, followed by a flare of agonizing, blinding white pain.
"AGH – "
He pitched forward, slamming face-first into the unforgiving surface of the ice. His hands skidded across jagged microscopic shards that sliced his palms.
The impact knocked the breath out from his lungs.
Slowly, frantically, he clawed himself backward, dragging his trapped leg out of the fissure. He rolled onto his back, clutching his knee. He didn't yell. The pain was too deep, too nauseating to scream. He just lay there, gasping.
Blood began to seep through the torn fabric, staining the pristine, dead ice beneath him with a sickening crimson dye.
And then, as the initial spike of adrenaline began to recede, the mental dam broke.
It hit him all at once, a suffocating avalanche of reality.
He looked up at the vast, uncaring gray sky, and felt the absolute, crushing weight of Prodosia. It was a graveyard of hope. A place designed to make a man realize he was nothing.
He woke up in some frozen nightmare with no memories, no past. Nothing. No family. No friends. No life.
The image of the Gatekeeper flashed behind his eyes. The sheer, impossible scale of the giant effortlessly swinging its massive swords. He was supposed to fight that?
Then came the memory of her. The masked woman. A fractured image of her lips, a voice that carried a warmth that now felt like a mockery. Why was she in his head? Was she even real, or just a hallucination?
"…What the hell even is this… I'm going to die here again…"
His voice cracked and his hands trembled.
"I just… I just want to remember." His voice cracked as his vision blurred. "Why am I even here…?"
A familiar, glowing text appeared before his eyes.
[ You have sustained a severe injury. The Sigil of Vitality has been activated. ]
Elias' blood boiled.
"That's it?!" he roared, his voice filled with frustration and rage. "That's all you have to say?! You tell me to keep going, but you never tell me why! You never give me answers! What the hell even are you?!"
Elias slammed his fist against the ground. "You're supposed to help me! But all you've done is spout riddles and watch while I suffer. Do you even understand what it's like?" he whispered as he glanced at the emptiness around him. "To be utterly alone? To have nothing and no one… except a voice that doesn't care?"
The silence from the System was deafening, and Elias laughed bitterly. "Of course not. You don't care at all. Why would you?!" His voice broke into a ragged whisper, "Are you just here to watch me suffer…?"
Silence.
Elias gritted his teeth, his hands trembling as they clenched into fists. He had no way out. No one to save him. Maybe he was destined to rot here all alone. Forever.
For a long time, Elias remained there, kneeling in the snow as the quiet sobs slowly faded into exhausted silence.
Eventually the burning sensation in his leg began to fade.
The Sigil finished its work.
Elias let out a deep breath.
He lifted his head.
Above him the pale sky stretched endlessly across the horizon.
And within that endless gray, a faint light glimmered far in the distance.
The light was weak, fragile, almost as if it could be snuffed out at any moment. And yet, it remained persistent.
A strange sensation settled over him. In the presence of that distant glow, it no longer felt unbearable. Something about it calmed him.
He paused for a moment, and then asked, "That light… is that where I need to go?"
[ Beyond the light… lies the truth to this universe. ]
Elias stared at it quietly.
Elias' anger drained, leaving only exhaustion in its place. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I just… I don't really know what I'm doing."
[ Acknowledged. Please note: The System does not possess emotional subroutines. It is incapable of experiencing offense, spite, or hurt. ]
Elias let out a dry, exhausted chuckle.
"As robotic as ever, huh. Well at least you're consistent."
[ Your emotional outburst does not affect my operations. ]
"Well, it does seem that you've become a bit more talkative."
[ If I were capable of sarcasm, I might have said, "You finally stopped whining, so I decided to reward you with actual words." But alas, I am not designed to deliver insults. ]
Elias let out a dry chuckle, shaking his head. He ran a hand through his hair. "Fine… Let's just keep moving."
Then, he began walking again.
The castle grew larger with every step.
As he approached, something strange began to happen beneath his feet.
The ice changed color. At first, the shift was subtle. Faint streaks of crimson spread through the frozen ground like veins beneath translucent glass.
Then the shapes beneath the surface became clearer.
Faces. Hundreds of them.
Human faces trapped beneath the ice. Their expressions were twisted in silent agony as they stared upward through the frozen surface.
The ground beneath Elias slowly turned red.
He forced himself to keep walking.
Eventually the castle loomed directly before him.
Only then did Elias truly understand its scale.
The fortress towered above him like a mountain of black stone and frost. Its walls stretching upward until they disappeared into the pale sky. Ancient battlements crowned the structure, with their edges broken and jagged after centuries of decay.
The enormous gate stood half-open.
Darkness waited beyond it.
Elias hesitated. "This feels like a bad idea."
He took a step forward, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Something felt wrong, as if the castle itself was watching him. A low growling sound echoed from the direction of the castle's entrance.
It was deep and heavy. Completely different from the roar of the gatekeeper.
Elias slowly stopped moving.
The growl echoed again.
Something inside the castle was awake.