Two days after the accident that occurred in their home that night, Fleur and Marisse felt as if nothing had happened. They couldn't recall any events connected to Zeal. For them, the passing day and night seemed normal. However, they still felt a void in their memories, as if something was missing from their entire day and night.
Fleur and Marisse had even begun to believe that Zelaive had run away or was in a dangerous situation, as they hadn't seen him since that morning and the entire previous day.
His parents were extremely worried. They even asked Jazel if she had noticed anything unusual about Zelaive at school, but Jazel couldn't answer truthfully because she couldn't reveal what she knew about Zelaive and his clone.
They also called Zelaive's school to gather information about his whereabouts, but they couldn't obtain any information to help them find him.
Jazel was puzzled by the disappearance of Zelaive's clone and was also worried about Fleur, who was deeply concerned about Zelaive.
She thought that something bad might have happened to the real Zelaive, causing his clone to disappear. Little did she know that she was the one responsible for the clone's disappearance, due to exposing it to the overwhelming Zeal emanating from her that night.
The scene shifted to Zelaive, who was inside a cave surrounded by countless lifeless orcs on the ground. The orcs were tied together one by one by Zelaive's companion, Mitsi, who was clad in armor and wielding a sword dripping with orc blood.
Mitsi pulled the orcs that he tied together, while Zelaive dragged them towards the cave exit. Once they reached the entrance, he hurled the tied-up orcs out of the cave. The connected orcs were thrown along with Zelaive outside the cave, which was filled with trees that reached up to the clouds.
As the orc corpses were thrown out of the cave, they were immediately incinerated by a light emanating from the sky, unlike the sun in the world known to humans. This light appeared spontaneously for unknown reasons.
After the orcs were completely burned to ashes, which then turned into fertilizer for the soil, Zelaive quickly took anything of value from the orcs' cave. He also took the orcs' armor, which he could sell for a high price.
After they stole everything, Mitsi noticed on his Lucian that the daylight hours only had one hour left, so they decided to spend the night in the cave.
Before the light completely disappeared, they hunted and gathered edible fruits from trees that were taller than the clouds for their meal after the light faded.
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Lucian
The Lucian is an extremely valuable tool for surviving in the 2nd layer because the Lucian is what gives them a warning when the light in the sky is about to disappear. The Lucian only works in the morning, and it automatically turns off at night. It only works again in the morning and will have a countdown again when the light disappears.
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In the bright light of day, it suddenly turned dark, and the Lucian stopped working. The voices of creatures that only appear in the darkness could be heard everywhere.
Zelaive and Mitsi decided to take turns guarding every two hours. Zelaive rested first, sitting down and using Mitsi's sword as a support. Mitsi stood guard.
Mitsi cast an incomplete zone and closed his eyes. His incomplete zone extended to the entrance of the cave, so he would immediately know if anyone entered.
Zelaive, whom Mitsi thought was asleep, spoke, "I'll be going back to the 1st layer, Mitsi."
"What do you want me to do? Why are you telling me that?" Their conversation was casual, as if they had known each other for a long time.
"I didn't say I wanted you to do anything. I'm just letting you know that I'm going back to the 1st layer."
The surroundings quieted down a bit, and they seemed to ignore the noises outside, listening intently to each other.
"Aren't you going to ask me why I'm going back to the 1st layer?"
"Do I need to ask, even though I know there's a possibility you won't be able to return if you go back to the 1st layer because of Apolaki, the guardian of the 1st layer? I still believe in you that you'll be able to return and we'll travel together again like before."
Mitsi spoke again"So that means what you're going back to in the 1st layer is important enough for you to go back there, even though you've been looking forward to this journey so much?" Mitsi guessed, "Is it about your family, Zelaive? Is that why you're going back?"
They listened intently to every word that came from each other, even though they sometimes seemed to disagree. They still couldn't bear to abandon each other, as they had become friends before even starting their journey in the 2nd layer.
"I thought you didn't want to know. Why are you asking me if it's about my family?" Zelaive, who had been sitting and resting, now lay down.
"I didn't say I didn't want to know. I just said, do I need to ask you to find out?"
Zelaive smiled as he lay on his side. "Is that really what you said? I don't remember."
Mitsi smiled with his eyes still closed and suddenly felt someone enter the cave. While Mitsi was alert, Zelaive remained lying down, even though he felt it too, because he trusted Mitsi.
As the person approached the cave, holding a lamp, it turned out to be a beautiful woman covered in wounds, as if she had been attacked by the monsters outside. "Help me, please," she said weakly before collapsing.
As Mitsi approached her, she lay face down and seemed unconscious. The woman smiled to herself, thinking, "People are so stupid."
As Mitsi sat down and the woman thought Mitsi was going to touch her to help, a knife suddenly pierced her head. She struggled to look up at Mitsi and slowly said, "What do you think you're doing?"
When she finally saw Mitsi's eyes, she realized she had targeted the wrong traveler. The knife in her head moved and split her in half. Her body changed, revealing a long tail and sharp claws wings like bat, and wrinkled skin.
Mitsi spoke in a cold voice, "I should be asking you that. What do you think you're doing?"
After Mitsi killed that creature, confirming it was an Aswang, it slowly disappeared, turning into ash.
Outside the cave, an extremely loud sound of Aswangs could be heard, then it suddenly stopped.
Zelaive woke up from her short nap and said, "Looks like there are many of them."
Mitsi replied, "Why did you get up? You should have continued resting. I was going to relieve you in two hours."
In the middle of their conversation, they suddenly spotted lights approaching them, intending to turn towards where they were spending the night in the cave.
Zelaive calmly said, "How many are they, Mitsi?"
"Twenty-one exactly entered the cave, but I haven't determined if they have companions outside."
"Ah, so they know the Orcs are dead, giving them the courage to come to their territory." Zelaive smiled as she thought about who had entered the cave. "Hmm, I think I know who these are."
As they saw them from afar, it turned out to be the town leader who had offered to pay them for killing the Orcs, along with his people.
Zelaive said with a smile, as if she expected it, "So my suspicion was correct, it's you, Mr. Deanque."
Their leader, the very old Deanque, spoke, "Well done, you have finished your job. Thank you, we will no longer be bothered by the Orcs because you have done well. We are here to give you your reward."
Mitsi spoke rudely, "Reward, you say? Can this be our reward instead?" as she twirled the necklace from the Aswang she killed on her finger, as if teasing him.
Their leader understood what Mitsi meant because her saying she wanted the necklace meant she wanted to finish them all off since each of them wore a ritually blessed necklace to strengthen them in times of darkness.
While the leader's companions could no longer contain themselves with Mitsi because they also knew what Mitsi wanted to say and were annoyed by it, wanting to kill her immediately, their leader calmed them down from their anger. Their leader spoke in a tone that Zelaive and Mitsi could not hear, "Just calm down. We shouldn't just fight these two travelers. Have you forgotten that they slaughtered countless Orcs and raided 43 Orc settlements in just three days? Fighting them without using our brains is foolish."
While the Aswang leader continued to speak, Zelaive suddenly emerged from the rock and appeared beside them, beheading Deanque with just her hand.
Zelaive spoke while holding Deanque's head, "Are you going to talk for much longer? I'm getting bored," with an annoying tone.
As Zelaive looked at the Aswangs, they were still smiling as if they didn't care about what Zelaive had done. She said to herself, "Isn't my teasing that effective? unlike Mitsi,it's effective anywhere" Suddenly, someone stabbed her in the back, causing her to vomit. It turned out to be their leader, who regenerated from a small part of his hair on the body that was removed when she beheaded him earlier. He said, "You're being too careless, kid," while laughing.